Civilization: Beyond Earth created by Firaxis Games.
Images used for educational purposes only.
Civilization: Beyond Earth Walkthrough Listing

The path to The Promised Land consists of four steps. The first two aren’t too bad; the third is a little annoying; the fourth can, depending on your circumstances, prove very irritating to accomplish indeed.

Setup

There are, as with all Victories, plenty of paths you can take to reach The Promised Land. That said, you may want to keep the following in mind:
  • Pursue Purity as your key Affinity from the start. You’ll want to hit the max level (13) as early as possible. You don’t need to avoid other Affinities, but they’re not nearly as important.
  • You’ll want to keep a few spots of land open for the Exodus Gate, as it requires a hexagon of space to build. It is nevertheless still attached to one of your cities, so make sure the hexagon is near a city with a high Production value.
  • You should also consider spacing out your cities period so there’s room between them to place other settlements. This will become very important near the end of the game.
  • As with any Victory, you’ll want a fair-sized army to defend your holdings. In this case, you have a fair amount to defend, and a long time in which these assets must be kept safe from enemy incursions.

Ready? Let’s begin.

A Lasercom Satellite, floating over a city in Civilization: Beyond Earth. You'll need at least one for The Promised Land Victory.
A Lasercom Satellite, floating over a city in Civilization: Beyond Earth.
You'll need at least one for The Promised Land Victory.
Step 1: Launch One Lasercom Satellite

Your first step, and most definitely the easiest, is to launch a Lasercom Satellite orbital unit. This will allow your colony to make contact with Earth. The Lasercom Satellite is created via the Orbital Networks branch of the Communications technology, down and to the right of the centre of the Technology Tree. With a bit of work you shouldn’t have any trouble launching a Satellite within the first fifty to one hundred turns or so (dependent on your Pace, of course), though you'll need to be able to see and mine Petroleum (Chemistry) and Titanium (Engineering). Once you have the Satellite ready you can send it up anywhere over your colony to proceed to the next step. (Lasercoms are useful for increasing your Science count when in orbit, so don’t forget about using them later in the game.)

Step 2: Research Nanotechnology

This step will take a bit longer, as it’s on the outer rings of the Technology Tree, but it’s still not difficult. Look directly to the left of the centre of the tree and you’ll find Nanotechnology waiting on the outermost ring. Research it to jump to the next step. Now your Victory gets a bit more difficult.

The Exodus Gate. Without this you can't get The Promised Land Victory,
as it pumps out valuable (if terrible) Earthling Refugees.
Step 3: Construct Project - Exodus Gate

Now the Purity Affinity comes into play. The Exodus Gate is a construct unique to Purity players, and can only be built when you reach Level 13 of Purity. Once you do so you can drop it down on any hexagon within reach of a city. Again, try and relegate this project to a city that’s well-established and is highly Productive. It should also be away from your borders, so as to prevent enemy armies from easily strolling in and attacking your Gate.

It takes a while to work up to Level 13 Purity, so here are some technologies on the Technology Tree that you can pursue from the start to speed things up a bit:
  • Genetic Mapping
  • Biospheres
  • Civil Support
  • Mobile Lev
  • Servomachinery
  • Vertical Farming
  • Alien Genetics
  • Biospheres
  • Tactical Lev
  • Surrogacy
  • Industrial Ecology
  • Human Conservation
  • Seismic Induction
  • Hyperconductors
The Exodus Gate takes roughly as long to construct as the average Wonder, so once you’ve got your Affinity pumped up to Level 13 it won’t be too long before the Gate is ready to go. Again, protect this thing at all costs. If it gets destroyed your chances of winning may go with it. After the Exodus Gate is completed you’ll reach the final step of Victory, and boy is it ever a pain…

The active Exodus Gate, ready to transport Earthling Refugees.
The active Exodus Gate, ready to transport Earthling Refugees.
Step Four: Settle the Earthling Refugees

Once the Exodus Gate is complete you can use it to warp in Earthling Refugees, once per turn (assuming the Gate is clear of obstructions), by clicking on the Civilian icon just above the Exodus Gate’s description in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Earthling Refugees appear on the map as relatively useless combat units that can move roughly one hexagon per turn. Their only useful application is to establish Earthling Settlements, special cities which have no effect on your colony besides contributing towards Victory. You need to settle twenty Refugees in multiple Settlements, either as independent Settlements or contributing to an existing Settlement.

Sound fun? It gets so much better:
  • Earthling Settlements follow the same rules as normal outposts / cities, namely that you can’t put one within three spaces of an existing outpost / city. If your game has been long and expansive you may not have enough room to settle these stupid people.
  • Each Earthling Settlement can only accommodate a maximum of six Earthling Refugees. Once one is full up you’ll have to create another. This means you’ll need a minimum of four Earthling Settlements. Be prepared to fight wars over these Settlements if you have to stick them near rival borders.
  • Earthling Refugees can’t populate your existing cities. They have to have their own Settlements. Sigh.
  • Earthling Settlements cannot defend themselves in any way, and contribute almost no new territory to your colony. You’ll need to provide defenders to keep them safe, because if one is destroyed…
  • Earthling Refugees are so slow. They take forever to get around, even on roads. On the plus side, however, they can occupy the same hexagons as other units, just not one another. Expect to have long trains of these idiots clogging up space as they meander to the nearest Earthling Settlement.
An Earthling Settlement. You must construct a minimum of four Earthling Settlements for a The Promised Land Victory.
An Earthling Settlement. You must construct a minimum of four
Earthling Settlements for a The Promised Land Victory.
All this adds up to a rather painful, laborious process of spitting out Earthling Refugees every turn and sending them off to colonize. Some tips for doing so:
  1. Send defenders along for every step of the way. Ideally, you don’t want your Refugees to leave your territory, and if they do wander into the wilds they shouldn’t be taking on aliens.
  2. Build Settlements as close to your Gate as possible. This means spacing out your cities at the beginning of the game, which, at first, can prove daunting.
  3. Keep an eye open for bare spaces on the fringes of your territory where you can potentially set up shop. Earthling Settlements don’t care about nearby resources or the ground they’re built upon; they just need to be more than three hexagons away from other inhabitations.
  4. If you wind up going to war over your Refugees / Settlements, make sure you station defenders around the Settlements, as well as on. They can’t take a beating like your normal cities, and will need firepower to survive.
Again, you need to get twenty Earthling Refugees shacked up in Settlements. Do that and the game will end in Victory for you. It’s a long, hard-won process, but it’s definitely do-able… so long as you plan faaaar in advance.

Civilization: Beyond Earth Walkthrough Listing