50 Years

New Game:
Very Easy, Byzantines.

Year 1: Buy 2 Peasants
Year 2: Do nothing.
Year 3: Build church
Year 4: Do nothing.
Year 5: 1 swordsman
Fight battle.
Pick the 1st and then the 4th of the 5th belief system (far right).

The following guide assumes that you are starting "50 Years" for the first time rather than only needing to complete the Title Update achievements.

There are several guides that highlight the easiest way of getting the religious attribute achievements that start with choosing ‘Special Game’. These guides are outdated since the Title Updates means that ‘Special Game’ now crashes the game to the console menu.

Here’s a path to unlocking up to 8 religious beliefs (R1 to R8) in a single game, meaning that you can end up completing all achievements in 2.5 play throughs. You can probably still wrap this up in about an hour.

This is going to be a slightly broader guide than some of the others for 50 Years given that your game will be influenced by which religious bonuses you choose. In short:

- Pantheon of Fat Chickens: more food, more small units
- Legends of the Miners: more gold, more food, more unit damage
- Legends of the Forest: more food, more wood, more unit healing
- Temple of the Defenders: more human units, weaken magic units (including your own!)
- Equality Church: revive units, more peasants, some free buildings

‘Temple of the Defenders’ is the worst belief tree as most of its benefits are one-off. Also, picking the fourth belief will actually make your game harder if you spend resources on non-human units, which you’ll probably want to do. Leave this as your final religion achievements to unlock.

I’d probably think that ‘Equality Church’ + ‘Fat Chickens’ is a suitable combo for game 1, then ‘Miners’ + ‘Forest’ for game 2, then ‘Defenders’.

Main Tip

You have to balance investment in your town resources (including faith) with building up a sizeable army. The Title Updates have really spiked the size of some enemy waves and made it more difficult, even on Very Easy.

Method

The following provides a rough Year by Year guide; although focused on getting the fourth religious belief achievements, it will unlock other achievements as well.

Difficulty: Very Easy
Race: French (heavily damaged units run away, meaning they’re more likely to survive a fight) or Byzantine (get your second religious belief for free after picking the first one)

Year 1 (Y1)
Buy 2 peasants (+2 peasants)

Y2
+ 1 peasants

Y3
Nothing

Y4
+1 swordsman

Y5
Buy a chicken farm

Y6
+1 swordsman

Y7
+1 peasant

Y8
The Chicken Devil will appear. A lot of people like picking the ‘Kill’ deal, meaning that He’ll kill one unit for free in most battles, but I prefer to banish him – I want those extra faith points from killing those units.

+1 peasant

Y9
Buy a chicken farm

Y10
You should be able to take on the Poachers Camp den when it is found by your scouts. Your two swordsmen should be able to easily take out three archers. Be aware that scouting is paused until you clear out a den, so the sooner you clear this one the more time you’ll have to deal with some of the tougher ones.

+1 peasant

Y11
Buy a stable – you can now start buying knights

Y12
You should hit religious belief 1 (R1 – 150 faith). Your game will now start to diverge from specific tips because of the bonuses you choose, so the path below becomes more of a suggestion.

+1 knight

Y13
Buy a church

Y14
Buy a cowshed

Y15
+2 peasants

Y16
+1 peasants

Y17
You should pass R2 – 358 faith – about now. Pick your next belief.

Buy a townhall to start getting more peasants

+1 peasant

Y18
+1 knight

Y19
+3 peasants

Y20
Save up

Y21
Buy a monastery

Y22
You should pass R3 about here – 621 faith.

You’ll need to consider what you need at this point. Short of food? Buy a cowshed. Extra peasants are important to growing economy. You can also start training paladins and repurchasing knights. If you have the funds, perhaps another Stables to boost your knight numbers.

If you are going with Legend of the Miners, you can also buy a Lumber Mill here, perhaps a Shooting Ground and start building up those Archers, Druids and Unicorns over time.

Y23
There should be some dens you can take on for bonuses. Only take the fight if you are definitely going to win. The only den to really avoid is a Mirror den, where your forces will be evenly matched and it is a 50/50 chance of winning.

Y24
Extra peasants is probably a good idea to drive your earning potential up.

Y25
Start buying the structures that let you unlock more powerful magic units, such as the Minotaur Maze

Y26
You should pass R4 here with 973 faith.

+1 Minotaur

Y27
Save up some money.

Y28
Buy a cathedral.

Consider the state of your economy and look to buy a townhall and more peasants around this point.

Y29
You should pass R5 with 1474 faith. DON’T buy the fifth belief in a religious tree – there is no achievement for it!

+1 knight

Y30
Keep building your forces. Buying paladins or exorcists will use your faith, but with some planning you’ll earn it back. It will hurt a lot more if you lose a fight.
Y31
Build up what you need and can afford.

Y32
Hopefully you have at least 30 peasants by now.

Y33
There should be some more dens to raid for bonuses. Earning a scroll or two from them (once you are confident in your army’s size) can make the final battle trivial.

Y34
Hopefully you have passed R6 with 2249 faith earned. Make sure you are adding to your army as much as you can at this point.

Y35
There’s a big fight around this year that can decimate your forces if you are under-prepared.

Y36
Save up some money if you need to in order to…

Y37
Buy a Cathedral. We want those faith points rolling in!

Y38, Y39, Y40
There are some larger fights coming, so make sure your army is strong. If you haven’t already, picking up a Lumber Mill, a Shooting Range and adding Archers is a very good tactic.

Y41
You should pass R7 with 3591 faith earned. (Byzantines will have unlocked eight religious beliefs by now, so you will have those achievements and some discretion about which other belief to choose. If it is available, Legend of the Miners 1 will boost peasant gold by 10% a turn, plus give 500 gold, which is a pretty good deal for the last 10 turns of the game.)

At this stage you’ll want to be saving for what you need to build your forces but also some more faith generating buildings.

Y42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47
Build another Monastery and Church (or Monastery and Cathedral if possible, or perhaps even a Sky City) somewhere in here while still ensuring you’ve got a robust army. By this stage of the game I was earning somewhere between +800 and +1000 faith per year before battles.

You might be able to pick up a Druid as well if you have enough wood.

Y48
You should receive R8 for earning 6324 faith by now. This will see you unlock all religious belief achievements for two trees, or eight achievements in total (assuming you are doing this from scratch).

Once you’ve unlocked that R8 point, there is no reason to hold on to faith points (R9 requires 13491, which is unlikely to achieve from this point) so buy up paladins and exorcists, remembering to replace those knights.

Y49
Add the buildings that will let you boost your forces. It might be more Stables, or another Shooting Range, or it might be something bigger if you can afford it.

Y50
The final battle. Use any scrolls you uncovered during play, make sure you have as strong an army as possible before starting that fight.

It is possible to earn enough faith during the final battle to unlock a new religious belief, but it’s a bit of a waste from a game play perspective.