I procrastinated hard on getting all the achievements of this game because of the RNG and how that makes it tedious to finish the game on the hardest difficulty. As one of the other guide points out, the patterns are different everyday and there are multiple patterns for each day. This is why even though there are many walkthoughs posted, you'll probably not be able to follow it step by step because of this mechanic. So to supplement those guides, I'm going to share some techniques.

So each day has multiple patterns (different sets of dungeons can spawn when scouting) which also changes daily and some days the pattern is soooo bad, eq. 4 soldiers and 1 archer attack you on year 10 which you can maybe beat by rushing a knight and sending militia but this will hurt your economy and you'll probably gonna have a hard time. This is what makes the game tedious to complete as you end up restarting multiple times for doing trial and error. But when you get tired and try again tomorrow, the pattern will become different making your notes useless.

However I discovered that you can always have the same pattern if you change your computer's date. (Others probably knew about this but never bothered to share it hmpf!) Anyways the gist is that if you find a day with a good or easy pattern, take note of the date so you can always come back to it whenever you want.

This also means that if you were to watch a walkthough, try to find the date so you can match the video step by step. Don't forget that each day also has multiple patterns so just restart (in-game not the game itself) until you get the exact pattern correctly.

Now I'm gonna be real with you, this is still just a theory as I'm not 100% sure if this can be replicated by everyone or maybe I just got lucky. So I'll show you a demo/preview of what I mean.

1. I'll show you a side to side comparison of my run (June 10, 2024) vs Valadorn's run on his walkthrough guide on Greeks - very hard difficulty. I'll only show the early years so if you want to watch the full walkthrough, go watch his channel/guide. https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2391835307

Here is the comparison and as you will see, the patterns are different.

https://youtu.be/nQgNkLU3aKE

2. So I'll change my date to February 16, 2021 & restart once to get the 2nd pattern to try and match his run (according to steam, he got the achievement on Feb. 17, 2021 but I figured he might have finished it earlier or timezone difference idk) and compare once again. Let's check if the run will indeed be exactly the same this time.

https://youtu.be/-eCbXfieoNQ

And there you go, I may not have checked the pattern up until the final battle but at least with this info, you can secure your early game economy and the game will feel easier to play.

Another application of this theory is that if you want to find a good pattern, then check someone's profile on when he got that achievement as that date may have an easy pattern.

Not always tho, as there are other RNGs that can make a run easier. For example:

• Hydras (check the next next section)
  
• Angels (their gimmick is that they can revive multiple times in a battle, I have personally witnessed my angel carry me 1v6 on year 40)
  
• Buffs (Examples are: Chicken buff from the 1st belief Column, The Japanese race bonus and others etc.) these buffs are good but they are applied to random units each battle, so only if the correct units get the buff; then you are so much stronger.
  
• Formation - Didn't bother to research further but the gist is that units in your army will not always have the same formation (includes the way they move or attack) meaning some days, 4 soldiers can clear 3 enemy soldiers with no casualties but some days they cannot win without losing 1.

If you're curious, here are the dates I used for my runs:
Russians - June 24, 2022
Egyptians - July 22, 2022
Americans - July 31, 2022

British - May 3, 2024
Feb. 26, 2021 - Romans & Byzantines
Feb. 16, 2021 - French, Celts, Japanese, Greeks

Something that you should remember is that even though the pattern is different every day, Year 25 and Year 40 will ALWAYS be a myth army attack year; It will consist of multiple Minotaurs and Hydras and on very hard difficulty are almost impossible to clear without extra help. So make sure to always prepare a scroll, either the shrinking or transformation one.

Check your faith points on Year 24 and Year 39; if you are only lacking a few more, then one play you can do is to clear a dungeon and hopefully get enough faith points to get the transform scroll on the 1st belief column or the shrink scroll on the 2nd belief column.



Another play besides scrolls is to get the spawn tigers on death belief from the 3rd belief column or clear the hydra dungeon where the reward is to spawn a hydra on death. Otherwise, you can only hope for the best RNG (angel revive multiple times / buffs on the correct units / your army moves and attacks the enemies in a smart way).



Speaking of dungeons, there are at least 2 of them (I think there's more but too lazy to find them :P) whose reward is a free scroll. So keep an eye out for them and if you manage to get it, then you will essentially get an extra life line. If you manage to clear them early, then you can use the reward shrink scroll on Year 40 and the transformation scroll that you'll get from the 1st belief column can be used on the final year (gg ez).

Another thing I found out; if you have a hydra and it gets killed during battle, it will spawn 2 mini hydras. Here's the fun part tho, if these 2 mini hydras survive the battle, you will gain 2 regular hydras in your army even if you only have 1 hydra pond (and yes you can keep multiplying them). I don't know if this mechanic was written in game and I just missed it but I can confirm that if you do manage to get it, the game becomes so easy even on very hard difficulty. At one point, I was lucky to get 7 hydras and it felt like an auto win. Hydras are quite tanky and do splash/aoe damage.

Although to be fair, it could get tricky trying to get them killed and save the 2 mini hydras so maybe they are balanced after all.

Here is a quick preview of the mechanic:

https://youtu.be/izR_uOdmC_A

So one of the beliefs in this game is the chicken buff belief from the 1st belief column. The first belief column is good because of the free transformation scroll you can get from it which is useful for dealing against the 25th, 40th and final year. Unfortunately, you have to unlock the 1st belief from this column before you can get the scroll belief so the chicken buff is something you'll probably see often.



The buff is not bad and it sounds great on paper, "+20 bonus life on 2 of your units." Wow amazing... but in practice, the units that will receive this buff are chosen randomly. So if you're very lucky like me, this buff will almost always go to your archers/druids which is of course... cringe.

So to ease the pain a little, I discovered that at least when you are attacking a dungeon, you can kinda manipulate the buff by cancelling the attack until the buff is given to your front liners and not the archers. Here is a demo:

https://youtu.be/PIhnGetQKvA

I want to give credit to this guy [Valadorn], for his walkthough videos and especially the info that the patterns change daily was thanks to him.



As well as everyone that shared info and guides to this game, thanks to you too. Fun game but my goodness the road to 100% achievements was annoying AF.

Q: So you found out that you can play the same pattern by setting the date, why then did you not make a step by step walkthough of a specific date???

A: