This achievement is harder than it seems like it should be, at the time of writing this guide. We feel as if that is partly due to bugs still in the programming, since the game is only about a week out. But, the goal is to cross a full landmass as Russia, with a trading route & road that is 60 “tiles” long. Sounds simple but the goal is complicated by the AI’s method of counting tiles. We’ll just give a trouble-shooting guide to get you there.
Problems
- The game counts tiles “as the crow flies” from your capital to the last city on the route.So, it doesn’t matter how many twists & turns you make.
- You will invariably spawn in the middle of the land mass.
- Trading routes now are the same whether by land or sea. Supposedly they only connect at a port on each coast. But, that is not consistent at this time. The AI tries to pull Christopher Columbus stunts, switching you from an intended eastbound route, to a westbound, or vice versa, at about the point that you get anywhere near the opposite coast, regardless of whether you have a port there, or even have the city touching the coast.
Solutions
- Basically, you need to set up a game on a huge Pangaea map, low sea level, hot & dry, with an old earth. This will make travel easier & faster, & presumably give you more “tiles” to work with. Starting in a late era helps because you start with multiple settlers and recon units. If you turn off the barbs you can explore at ease.
- Most importantly, when you spawn in, don’t settle anywhere yet. Spread your settlers out east to west and march one to each coast. Once you arrive at one coast, be absolutely sure it is on the point that projects farthest into the ocean as possible. This should be simple by this point because you will have explored much of the world. Settle there on that coast. then plant settlers about every 10 tiles headed back towards the opposite side of the map. Be sure to head towards the farthest projecting point again, but do not get within a city’s distance of the far coast. Also, be aware that Russia starts with a huge land area for cities. You can go ahead & buy a few more settlers at different cities to fill the gaps. Also, trading routes can’t go any further than 15 tiles apart between cities, so going 10 tiles prevents errors ruining a whole game.
- The first cities will plant with free traders. Start laying trading routes between each two cities until they are all connected. Completing a route to a city creates a post in that city. You won’t be able to see it as an option until it has a post. Then, check at St. Petersburg, your capital, for your far city to show up in the list of options for routes. Out to the side of each city is a number that represents how long the AI is counting that route as. Don’t be surprised if the number is less than you thought.
- If you run out of room, then you can turn due north, not at an angle, and plant another city. Then turn towards the far coast again & continue where hopefully the coast is farther away. Sometimes the trader will make up his own route, different from what the projection lines show. Once a road is laid it can’t be changed. I built a road across the landmass in 3 different games before I got it to work correctly, by trial and error.
- Once the last city reads as 60+ tiles away, start your route and keep hitting next turn until the trader reaches the end of the line, & your achievie pops.
Here is how my route looked after I traded away some cities to Harald the VIking:
A Few Tips to Manage the Game While Doing all this Tedium
- Ignore culture, religion, & science. Ignore the other cities & civs pretty much, except to be friendly. I turned off all victory conditions except points & set a 500 turn time limit.
- Focus on food, water, housing, amenities & gold with your building, policies, & research. Once the basics are built in each city, then you can just put the production towards gold from the “Commercial Hub Investments.” This will pile up gold for you to be able to purchase settlers & builders as needed. Use at least 2 builders for each city to make mostly farms. And, you’ll have plenty of luxuries to trade when your other civ asks.
- Expect late game spy siphoning raids, & be prepared to have counterspies installed in each of your cities.
- Lastly, if you find your last couple cities are too far out & the numbers are receding, (those from past the point where you turned North) you can always trade those for nothing to the AI so you won’t have to manage them for the 60 turns you are waiting for the route to run at the end.
Conclusion
Hopefully, with these tips, it won’t take as long or all the trial & error. Good luck & enjoy the game! Here’s the inset map above cropped for easier viewing:
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