KG Tips & Tricks
A FAQ/advice column by wikimonster, keep of the Kittens Game wiki and general fount of knowledge on the IRC Channel
- Don't just randomly buy stuff. Set yourself some goals and focus everything on completing those.
- Do more science to unlock new things.
- Apply the BRR. When you have researched Engineering/Writing, you are ready to use the Basic Resource Rotation (the BRR):
- The Basic Resource Rotation is my routine to make sure i have a strong economic foundation to build my mighty kitten empire on.
- What I do is to first take ALL my kittens and make them farmers, and then i cap (or close to) everything that ONLY costs catnip (catnip fields).
- Then i go all in on wood and wood only buildings (barns, huts, libraries, mines)... and finally the same with minerals (aqueducts, smelters).
- That way i make sure i have plenty of all the basic buildings that grant me bonuses on gathering the basic resources, making it much easier to build all the multi-resource stuff and to craft materials for more advanced stuff.
- Yes, the grinding can get a bit boring, but since i focus so hard on one resource at a time it doesn't take that long until i can buy something new so i have a constant feeling of progression.
- Apply The Four Rules. When you have Theology as a research option, you are ready to start adhering to The Four Rules:
- Rule 1: Always cap workshops.
- Rule 2: Always cap huts and log houses.
- Rule 3: Keep your kittens happy and well-fed.
- Rule 4: Don't neglect your storage buildings and upgrades.
- Don't neglect hunting, it's a useful thing if you have some upgrades and the spare kittens for it. You'll need those resources for crafting, trade and happiness.
- Archery vs Mining - Mining. Hunting starts out really weak, and early on you will not have enough spare kittens to compensate for furs and ivory being constantly used up. Even a single miner will get you a useful amount of minerals given enough time. That said, if you continue to hunt until you've get a unicorn you'll have a permanent +10% morale, but those are rare to get (5% chance).
- Philosophy vs Steel vs Machinery - You start with Steel to get some useful upgrades to make you economy stronger, then you grab Machinery for the hunting upgrade and a way to automatically make manuscripts, and finally you get Philosophy because now you have ways to make all the manuscripts you need in order to build temples.
- Chemistry vs Acoustics vs Geology vs Electricity - Chemistry gets you some useful upgrade, unlocks the ability to produce tiny amount of titanium. Acoustics improves faith and culture production. Geology improves coal and gold production. Electricity takes you one step closer to something useful.
- Drama and Poetry - unlocks festivals, which are waaaay too expensive to be useful on your first couple of runs. Feel free to skip it.
- Biology - unlocks bio labs that are really expensive on your first couple runs. Feel free to skip it first time around.
Policies comes in pairs or trios, and you can only get one per grouping. What you pick now will influence which options you'll get later.
Below are a few suggestions for your first handful runs to help you get started:
- Clear Cutting vs Strip Mining vs Environmentalism - CC is a huge help with getting all the wood you'll need at Navigation for all the observatories, harbours and ships, so go with that one. Strip Mining isn't needed since it's pretty easy to get all the minerals you need. Environmentalism is pretty weak and doesn't do much for you (even with the new pollution mechanic).
- Tradition vs Liberty - Tradition all the way! You want lots of manuscripts, so crafting them for cheaper is good. Liberty is a noob trap that promises to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
- Monarchy vs Republic vs Autocracy - MONARCHY! Knowing when to use which leader is important, it's a very flexible tool to use, and doubling the effect is AMAZING! Republic and Autocracy grant tiny bonuses that are dwarfed by pretty much everything else.
- Diplomacy vs Isolation - I prefer Diplomacy because it lets me get Cultural Exchange later. Getting the gold discount from Isolationism might feel good, but the following policies aren't any good.
- Epicureanism vs Stoicism - I prefer Epi because I want the extra happy%. By the time you get this you shouldn't have any trouble getting lots of luxuries from hunting and you'll have plenty of tradeposts to slow down the consumption, so there's no real need for Stoicism.
- Mysticism vs Rationality - MYST! Faith and culture are slow, so they need the bonus. Science is easy to get so you don't need Rationality.
- Extravagance vs Carnivale - I prefer Extravagance because I want the extra happy%, and getting the luxuries shouldn't be that hard. On your first few runs you probably can't afford festivals so grabbing Carnivale is pointless.
- Rationing vs Frugality - If you keep running out of luxury things despite having a fully upgraded permanent hunting team and lots of tradeposts to slow down consumption, and if Stoicism didn't do enough to help, then maybe Rationing will.... or maybe the increased output from mints with Frugality... but probably not...
- Cultural Exchange vs Knowledge Sharing - Culture is slow so I want Cultural Exchange. Science is easy so there's no point in getting Knowledge Sharing.
- Big Stick Policy vs City On A Hill - Both kinda suck, but at least Big Stick Policy can have some usefulness.
- Zebra Appeasement vs Zebra Bellicosity - This isn't even a question. You're desperate for titanium, yeah? And you're only getting that from trade with zebras, right? So you REALLY wanna make them like you more, meaning Appeasement will be the only option until you have enough hostility mitigation from other sources to make them non-hostile without using this policy.
- Full Industrialization vs Sustainability - On the first run you'll get like maybe a single factory to unlock a policy but that's it, so go with Sus. From the second run and onwards you'll be building plenty of factories meaning FI is the obvious pick.
- Open Woodlands vs Conservation - Open Woodlands gives you the production bonuses you need. Conservation is pretty weak and doesn't do much for you.
- Liberalism vs Fascism vs Communism - First run you might pick Fascism for a couple extra log houses to help you reach 130+ kittens before first reset. If you're struggling with zebra hostility so then you want Liberalism. If zebra hostility has been negated already then pick Communism to boost your industry.
- Outer Space Treaty vs Militarize Space - Outer Space Treaty makes trade better, and that's useful most of the time. Pick Militarize Space if all your space structures keep getting capped on science storage.
- Cosmological Libertarianism vs Technocracy vs Order of the Stars - CL gets you more unob, and you REALLY need more unob! You've got lots of options to help sci storage, so you shouldn't need Tech. OotS might feel useful if you're doing a run with the only goal of working on your religion bonuses, but...
- Necrocracy vs Transkittenism vs Radical Xenophobia - If you can get this then you probably don't need my help. N lets you use all your BLS for more production, that's useful. TK gets you some more gigaflops, that's pretty meh. RX is worthless until HG becomes a thing.
¶ Pollution is scary! What is it about and what do I do about it?
Pollution will reduce your catnip, then your happiness, then your kitten arrival speed, then your Solar Revolution bonus to certain resources. Lots of things produce it: mine, smelter, steamwork, calciner, quarry, magneto, oil well, biolab, factory, and some policies make things worse...
There are very few things you can do about it. There are policies you can take to slow it down very slightly, use clean energy sources, sequester carbon with your factories, and you can turn off the polluting buildings, but you just kinda have to accept that some pollution WILL happen
If you want more details then type game.detailedPollutionInfo=true in the browser console and more pollutions numbers will be displayed on the Science tab.
I recommend the following:
Do your first reset after getting Concrete Huts and 130+ kittens (getting a few extra will be very helpful). That way you'll get at least 60 paragon, which you can use on your second run to buy some really nice permanent Metaphysics bonuses (Diplomacy, Enlightenment, Golden Ratio).
On the second I'd recommend to get to 170+ kittens, so start your third run with 100 paragon in the bank which enough to buy Divine Proportion. Remember to go to the moon and mine for unobtainium so that you can get yourself some Metaphysics before you reset. You want to get Diplomacy and Enlightenment ASAP, and save Golden Ratio until you have like 155-160 kittens so you can enjoy the paragon bonuses for as long as possible. Remember that you can sell off some stuff like mines and smelters to get the resources needed to cap your housing on the final population push after you get GR.
Third run you're doing most the same all over again, in order to grab Divine Proportion at ~200 kittens and then pushing on to 220+ kittens. This will get you 150 paragon for the next run.
The fourth run you'll really feel the effect of the price ratio reduction metas on most things, except for the starcharts. This is the reason you'll want to grab Chronomancy (kinda crap) and Astromancy (pure magic) on this run, to more than double your chances for astro events so you can produce lots of starcharts early on, so you can craft lots of trade ships for titanium and to easier get enough for Geodesy and the space stuff. The rest of your paragon will be burned, since you'll pretty much always get 150+ paragon from here on, so you'll feel some diminishing returns from that, so to be effective you'll want to burn 75-100 now so you can enjoy some stacking paragon bonuses. You probably wanna aim for Vitruvian Feline for your next run, so you'll need 320 kittens to get that in one run.
After this you wanna go for Renaissance in two or three runs, and probably also Anachronmancy and Megalomania so you can enjoy experimenting with time crystals to build chronospheres.
After that's it's kinda up to you to figure out things for yourself. Some go for maxing their craft bonuses with the Codexes, others grab the QoL upgrades for faster kittens and passive praising. Some like quick short runs, others like to slowly grind for months. Play the game your way.
¶ Ok, so I'm resetting now. What exactly should I do, and in what order?
I have a useful little mnemonic thing to help you remember what to do: BMF! That's Backup, Metas, and Faith.
- Backup
- Make a backup just in case something happens or you forget something. Keeping multiple backups can be very useful.
- Metas
- if you have a paragon goal you're aiming for for your next run (like buying a certain meta) then make sure you'll be getting enough paragon for that.
- If you plan to buy metaphysics upgrades then do that now.
- If you plan to burn paragon then you might want to do it when you have a small spare amount.
- Faith
- First you Transcend a few times if you can. Feel free to skip this on the first run.
- The second thing is to do the faith reset. This will help you grow your praising bonus, which will help you on your next run.
- Refine spare tears into BLS if you haven't capped that yet.
- if you have Anachronomancy you'll want to refine alicorns into TCs.
Get Diplomacy and all the price ratio reduction ones first (Enlightenment, Golden Ratio, Divine Proportion, Vitruvian Feline, Renaissance). They'll make everything in your village cheaper, which mean you can build lots more stuff. Always build more stuff! It can also be useful to grab Chronomancy + Astromancy early on since your starchart production will lag behind a bit, it'll help you build up a larger fleet of trade ships.
There are a few traps that might look good, but that are actually kinda bad for a newer player:
- Codex Vox, Codex Logos, Codex Agrum - they cost a lot and give almost nothing back, not worth the paragon at the start.
- Megalomania - unlocks some end of phase 2 unicorn ziggurats, only get this after you've gotten all the price ratio reductions first.
- Black Codex - unlocks a useless phase 2 unicorn thing
- Zebra Diplomacy & Zebra Covenant - being able to keep a few zebras from IW will not do much for you, and they'll just keep going away on future runs.
- Adjustment Bureau - you are not ready for challenges until you get to phase 2
- ASCOH - does literally nothing
This is a game built around resetting and building up prestige. You can get to see everything in a single long run, but it's not efficient. Doing a reset every now and then to get more paragon and karma helps a lot.
- If you don't have all price ratio reduction metaphysics yet, you're still in the 'early' game.
- If you have all metaphysics up to ~Malkuth, you're 'mid' game.
- If you can look at the cryptotheology and don't feel like the cost of buying stuff is insane, then you're probably 'late' game.
- If you keep resetting in order to gain more resources, then you're 'end' game.
I divide the game into three phases, based on what will be the part you'll focus on the most in a run:
- Phase 1: Village, Order of the Sun, paragon, price ratio Metaphysics,
- Phase 2: Space, unicorn religion, unobtainium, time crystals,
- Phase 3: cryptotheology, Time, relics, void,
If you have to ask, then my answer is "you probably don't need more than one".
What they do is set up a new resource production line (unicorns -> tears -> BLS & alicorns -> time crystals -> relics), but each step is REALLY expensive, and thus I feel like it's not worth it on your first handful of runs.
When you have most of the price ratio reduction metaphysics you should be able to build lots and lots of ziggurats and unicorn pastures, so that's when I feel it starts to get worth the investment.
Sure, it is nice to just have some of the mentioned new resources since they're all luxury items and thus give you a bonus to happiness, but it'll cost you a lot to get it and you shouldn't be desperate to really need it.
Make sure to get Anachromancy BEFORE getting serious about time crystals. You will want to keep them with you when you reset.
Go to the Time tab and combust a time crystal in your chronofurnace to jump to the next year and cash in some new AM.
¶ How do these Apocrypha and Transcendence things work?
Ok, so...
- Praising turns your Faith into Worship, and you get a global production bonus based on your Worship thanks to Solar Revolution. The bonus will be shown together with the "Worship" figure in the religion tab.
- Adore the Galaxy is unlocked by Apocrypha. Adoring sacrifices ALL of your worship, and converts that into a hidden Ephiphany resource, which drives a bonus to make future Praising stronger. That bonus will be shown on the "Praise" button.
- Transcend lets you spend some of your Ephiphany to buy Transcendence tiers that make future Adoration stronger - this will be shown as a bonus on the "Adore" button.
For historic reasons, you will sometimes see Epiphany called Adoration/Apocrypha. "Adore the Galaxy" used to be called a faith reset, and Worship was sometimes called "Praised faith" or similar since it had no visible name.
¶ When do I use Apocrypha and Transcendence?
Ok, some simple rules (others might disagree, but I find these simple to remember and they work well enough)
- Always get Apocrypha on all your runs.
- Get Transcendence on your second run onwards (it's optional on the first run).
- Always try to Transcend a couple of times just before you are about to reset your game.
- Always Adore the Galaxy just before you are about to reset your game.
- Always Transcend BEFORE Apocrypha to maximize your gain, NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND.
- It takes time to build your faith bonuses, but they'll grow really big eventually. Be patient and keep praising the sun.
- There's no real need to go past a dozen Transcendence tiers until you've gotten Cryptotheology
Fine, I'll give you a simple rule of thumb. Look at the target number on the Transcend table. You'll want to have at least 1.5 times the listed threshold number, since that way you don't destroy your praising bonus too much.
The procedure for this is simple, you just TAP:
- First you Transcend once to get to your new tier.
- Then you Adore to help rebuild your praising bonus some more.
- Lastly you Praise a full store of faith, so you get your production bonus from Solar Revolution back.
The bonus from SR can be pretty huge, so you don't wanna miss out on that, and having a big praising bonus is vital for you to get that.
Ok, we usually call those the sefirot metas, since they're named for the sefirots in kabbalah. You'll kinda want to find a sweet spot where the 5% scaling bonus will balance out the lost production or storage from using up the paragon to buy the meta. Below is a table with all those breakpoints.
| Sefirot |
Cost |
Production |
Storage |
| Malkuth |
500 |
618 |
10.5k |
| Yesod |
750 |
880 |
16.5k |
| Hod |
1250 |
1394 |
28.75k |
| Netzach |
1750 |
1906 |
42k |
| Tiferet |
2500 |
2669 |
62.5k |
| Gevurah |
5000 |
5182 |
130k |
| Chesed |
7500 |
7695 |
202.5k |
| Binah |
15000 |
15209 |
420k |
| Chokhmah |
30000 |
30221 |
870k |
| Keter |
60000 |
60233 |
1.8M |
The break-even points are at what amount of paragon, pre-buying, the effects lost from decreasing paragon amount will be balanced out by the increase in effectiveness.
The production column list the minimum values you need in order to not lose any production bonus when buy a sefirot upgrade, the storage column lists the amounts needed to not lose any storage space.