The strategy in this guide requires Rising Tide!

In Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, Apollo is the hardest difficulty, and most people are unlikely to attempt a legitimate game on it. However, using a specific rush strategy, one can achieve victory on even the hardest difficulty in less than 50 turns. This obviously works on lower difficulties as well, but this is mainly for people who want the achievement.

Please note that this does not work 100% of the time simply due to spawns, alien agression, and other random factors. However, I found it to work about 80% of the time. You may need to restart once or twice, but overall this should not take longer than an hour.

You'll need to set up your game in a specific way, however, this does not block achievements in any way.


Launch Beyond Earth, and set up a singleplayer game.

For difficulty, select Apollo.
For game pace, select Quick.
For planet size, select Duel, then continue to the next screen.


The game should want you to select your sponsor, but you are going to click "advanced setup" in the top right instead. Ensure you have only yourself and 1 AI playing, the sponsors don't really matter.

For Colonists, select Engineers.
For Spacecraft, select Continental surveyor.
For Cargo, select Machinery.
For Planet type, select Terran OR Archipelago, whichever you prefer.
For Planet Biome, I recommend Frigid, however I have been successful with others.
Lastly, make sure to turn on All coastal start, this is VERY IMPORTANT!
I also recommend you disable marvels, resource pods, and turn on "new random seed", but none of this should be neccasary.

After you have done all this, launch your game.

As soon as you start, ensure your city has access to the entire world by water. If your city is on an inland sea or blocked by ice, restart. If you are good to go, automate your worker and start looking for excavation sites with your explorer. Have your city begin building an Old Earth Relic. For research, open your tech web and locate Ballistics (It's directly left of your starting tech, Habitation.) and queue it for research. (Physics is a requirement and will research first.)

When your city is finished building the Old Earth Relic, start building Gunboats and Patrol boats. You'll need about 3 of each. Don't build anything else! If your opponent has not yet made planetfall, keep them close to your capital. As soon as your opponent makes planetfall, begin moving all your ships towards him, but be careful not to accidentally attack aliens. DO NOT ATTACK ALIENS!
Unless the aliens are feeling like jerks or you attack them, they should leave you alone.

Additionally, you should be on the lookout for excavation sites with your explorer.
If you find multiple excavation sites, prioritize Progenitor Ruins first and foremost, then Crashed Satellites, Derelict Settlements and the like. Ignore Alien Skeletons. If you get a free Affinity level from a Progenitor Ruin, select Purity.

When you unlock your first Virtue, select Adaptive Tactics in the Might Tree. After that, whenever you unlock another Virtue, simply go straight down the tree from that.

Around Turn 25, make sure to grab the Imperial personality trait in the Military category.

Around Turn 45, when Ballistics is finished researching, you'll be able to upgrade your units. The upgrades you select doesn't matter too much, though I have a slight preference for the bonus to naval ranged units on the Patrol boat and the bonus to ground targets on the Gunboat.

Once your units are upgraded and your naval units are in position by your opponent's capital, declare war. Before you attack, make sure you have at least 2-3 Cutters and 2-3 Cruisers. Also ensure your Imperial personality trait is upgraded as much as possible.

Avoid killing any units, you need to focus all your firepower on the city. Also note that the more sides of the city exposed to the water, the better. Have your Cruisers attack first, then have your Cutters go in for the kill. It's possible to take the city in a single turn (without letting your opponent retaliate) though in my experiences it usually takes two.

If your first attack fails to capture the city, you should be able to take it on the second attack so long as you have one Cutter and two Cruisers to bombard the city.

Boom! You're done! Achievement unlocked! Party Time! Woo!

Here's some examples of games that I played.

Slavic Federation vs Chungsu. I got really lucky here, he made planetfall very late and had no defenses. I won in a single turn without upgraded units.

PAC vs Polystralia, terrain was a lil tough but still took the city in two turns.

KP vs Polystralia. Okay, so it was turn 52, big deal..

That's my guide. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them, though I am not on too much, so the response may be slow.

Thanks for reading!