General Tips & Tricks

A collection of information I discovered that either wasn't covered in other guides or was particularly difficult to find. Some of this may be obvious, but CTRL+F exists and is your friend.

Introduction

Okay so at the time I'm making this guide, most of the information available about this game in English is scattered around. The Wiki is being worked on, but is far from complete. And I'm bad at wiki editing, so I'm here instead. I've never made a guide on Steam before, this'll be kind of scatterbrained. I might edit it later to add stuff as I learn more things.

I am not an expert on this game and will not be taking questions in the comments, if you ask something about ACS in the comments on this I will be ignoring your question.

That being said, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF I HAVE SOMETHING WRONG. And if you have something to add, feel free to contribute that as well. I've read through literally hundreds of pages of guides and there's literally hundreds for me to still get through. A lot of the problems I had came in the form of not realizing stuff that seemed obvious - so if you had trouble with something you've since found an answer to, this is a good place to mention that. Something of a collection of helpful tips people threw together, huh? I mostly made this because there isn't one elsewhere I can see of and the Discord has a lot of repeat questions, I noticed.

This link is to the Discord. CTRL+F there to have a better shot of finding something. Everything here is stuff I didn't realize or couldn't find searching over there.

https://discord.gg/uSXsk2T

The Bulk Of This Guide

I'm not an organized person. The following is a list of (mostly minor) things I didn't know and either couldn't learn despite searching for it or it was a huge pain in the ass to find it, as well as a few things that are general common knowledge but exceedingly important.

1: You've probably been told not to start with a Yaoguai and you probably decided to heed that advice after, at most, the first or second time you made the mistake. The important thing to know about Shapeshifter Tribulations is that you have to manually activate them. Select your Yaoguai, hit the yin-yang symbol on the right and then click the icon that tells you how many days until your next tribulation. I didn't think it looked clickable but it certainly is! You then select a spot to have your fistfight with Heaven.

2: Yaoguai that have successfully survived their Shapeshifter Tribulation will never have to undergo another Shapeshifter Tribulation (but may need to survive a different Tribulation based on how you choose to progress their Cultivation.) You can use a drop-down menu that appears in the bottom left to switch them between their beast, monster, and human forms. There's statistical differences but I'm unsure what specifically they are. This body cultivation resource's Demon Guide section states that the beast form remolds body parts faster: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QfVZ9tvaUFXORqIEG3zOP2O-KYcPlpd0I7aR0Y0SzJI/edit#gid=1175597012

I couldn't tell you what else applies.

3: Spirit Soul Gems are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to farm so buy them any chance you get because you're unlikely to have access to them when you need them most. There is no consistent farming method to get them, unlike Anguish Soul Gems (Hell Gates).

4: Don't make a bunch of storage, you'll get a miniature universe relatively early on.

5: In order to construct the miniature universe, all you need is a cultivator at or above Golden Core. Examine the orb, then examine the scroll, it's in the building category "Wonders". It requires some rare-ish resources but it's not terrible. (Fire and Ice Essence, Holy Stone Blocks, etc.) The small offshoot pillars of the mini-universe are not necessary - all they do for you is let you take items from the universe out at the location of the pillar instead of the universe, but most things your disciples will have teleported to them.

6: In light of this and other reasons, there's huge advantages to having exactly one inner disciple who blitzes through and gets a garbage golden core. Primordial Spirit (the tier after Golden Core) takes a long time to reach no matter what you do, and it's worth rushing to so you can unlock the spells that boost allies' stats by a percentage based on how low the stats are at the time you cast the spells (there's one for Perception, Constitution, Charisma and Intelligence. None for Luck or Potential that I'm aware of.)

7: Once you hit the second tier of sect, it's advantageous to make multiple "throwaway" inners (3 or so) who you just send on looping adventures to places with resources you find valuable that aren't terribly rare. So not crimson fruit, but stuff like ores. Having 300 igneocopper or ice ores at all times is a good policy - it means you can donate 200 to factions when they need them for World quests. Those quests are a decent way to get connection/favor.

8: That said, those quests aren't nearly as valuable for favor as camping at a given faction's headquarters and inviting a bunch of Qi Shaping/Core Shaping disciples over. There's tons of benefits to this - if they have nice rooms, nice food, access to a place to meditate and some recreation options (and it ISN'T WINTER), you'll likely get anywhere from 17 to 50 favor per. This is good. Run a fancy hotel for them. You can try to recruit their people out from under them, too!

9: It's better to keep the numbers of Physical Cultivators you train down - they require more micromanaging than Xiandao, and while your mileage may vary I learned having 3 is a pain in the ass to coordinate. 1 is fine, 2 if you really must. Once you have one mostly trained up, of course, it's no big deal to add more.

10: 9 is even more true of Shendao, with a caveat. Shendao are extremely annoying to level once they have a Palace, but also getting there takes a really long time. However, if you slap every possible talisman that increases Mental State, if made on T12 paper at 95% or higher, you can clear the second phase of Shendao mental cultivation relatively quickly. If you're planning on making multiple Shendao, have your first go a bit ahead of the others.

11: Shendao are extremely prone to getting obsessions, those nasty little balls that give you semi-permanent negatives. Particularly Anxiety (if you're going too slow) and especially Hedonistic. One way to slow getting Hedonistic is to throw them into a REALLY unpleasant place for a short while every now and then.

12: Don't overload yourself with too many save slots. This may seem common sense, but, you know. I had around 150 and it started to lag really bad trying to load so. Yeah!

13: If you're trying to get the talisman law from He Zudao (which you need), then know that it seems like her stats are randomized every save. I was able to mug her when she was Golden Core on one save, and then I went to see her on another and she was Primordial Spirit and BEAT MY ASS.

14: The Laws that you can get from mugging/poaching people from other factions are variants of the base Law that you can get from either winning Kunlun or stealing/conquering said factions. All three that I've found so far (Seven Slaughtering Sect, the elixir one and the artifact crafting one) are REALLY GOOD, and worth either holding on to people to make them cultivators of or using Reincarnation to nab them.

15: Spirit Trees are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Read the guide on the Discord. It's really, really long. And it has to be. And there's no easy way to work around them. But it's true, the rewards you get from them are awesome. If you're brand new, don't bother. It'll just be a miserable time.

16: Never invites guests in wintertime, they'll go freeze outside and blame you for it and there doesn't seem to be anything you can do.

17: I'm convinced nobody knows EXACTLY what the stats (Bless/Curse, Fatness, Physique) mean on Spirit Pets. I know Bless makes them tankier and Curse makes them do more damage, and they're obtained by the pet being either a huge ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or a good-boy saint, but nobody can give a straight answer (and I couldn't find one) about Fatness/Physique or why you would ever, ever feed your pet food that does nothing but lower one/both of those. Supposedly they increase HP and damage - but then, if that's true, why would you want those lower?

18: Every Xiandao needs Spiritual Breath Chant. Get it early. It's inexpensive and will save your life. It's the fastest way by far to regen Qi.

19: If you're having a terrible time you can always go into the Realms Palace on the main menu and add some custom items or equipment. It's relatively easy to understand what you're doing (I mean, I was able to figure it out!). Note: If you want simple stat boosts to fine-adjust stats instead of just maxing them outright, you'll probably want to make several of the same effect. I haven't been able to find a way to make elixirs/medicines that give permanent boosts stack with themselves.

20: The reason people don't tell you how to get certain manuals is because many are random and you just have to get lucky and that's how it is.

21: You can make any Xiandao cultivator you find give you a manual that has a small effect on it "unique" to each cultivator if you max their relationship, have high social, and click Secret Knowledge twice. Be careful not to do this if you're visiting and have no inventory space. You won't get a second copy. People tell me that this is true of He Zhudao for their law, but in my experience that isn't the case.

Oh hey, sections have character limits here

Yeah so turns out the last section hit character limit cap for the Workshop guides. Weird, right?

21: This applies to the Discord server (NOTE: I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH THEIR LEADERSHIP/ETC., I'M NOT SPEAKING ON THEIR BEHALF, THIS IS JUST FROM MY EXPERIENCE) - the Helper's Hall channel is where you want to ask questions for help, and the odds are about 50% anyone will have an answer for you depeending on time of day and who's around. Don't spam the same question, come back awhile later if you can't figure it out yourself. That channel's extremely busy, like, all the time, and it's easy to lose questions in the mess. Make sure you CTRL+F to try to find an answer before asking the question to maximize your odds of actually finding out what you need to know.

22: You can make Spirit Crystals with Alchemy immediately, but you need high enough Alchemy to actually make them.

23: Check the in-game comments before asking or looking anywhere else, odds are decent they've got you covered.

24: Most guides for this game exist in written, or written + image format. Video guides are not common.

25: Take notes. Yes, you, yourself, take notes. Read guides and take notes. If you want to make a physical cultivator then pick what you want to do yourself. Read the physical cultivator guides that are already handy so you can make sure you're not wasting time. The general rule to always keep in mind IMO is that artifact suppression sucks and you never want more of it, ever. This is because actually catching an artifact drains your qi and if you're fighting anyone serious enough you WANT to use a high-end body cultivator then you're not 1v1-ing anyone, and if you ARE you're fighting someone with multiple artifacts to begin with. Artifact suppression can only, at most, catch 1 artifact at a time.

26: NEVER DISMISS SPIRIT PETS NEVER DISMISS SPIRIT PETS NEVER DISMISS SPIRIT PETS they are EXTREMELY USEFUL AND GOOD and if you dismiss one when they first show up, you'll never get another shot at them this save.

27: Speaking of spirit pets, you will always get the dog on day 30, then (if you have the DLC) the panda a bit later, then the fox awhile after that. All three are good but the Panda constantly whines so if you want to skip it, well, nobody should blame you for that.

28: If a spiritual pet dies, you can get them back. Build a statue to them (you only need one per pet) and activate it. Three days later, they're back. This also lets you swap between pets (with the same 3 day period of waiting.) Make the statues in advance.

29: If you have the merchant mod you can make some serious bank by making bows out of Spirit Blocks and selling those bows to the merchant. I do not recommend this as a strategy if you don't have the merchant mod, because the merchants are too few and far between and there's always a risk they'll decide to pay you 0 for Gear Items this trip.

30: When planning your farms, don't plant wheat/etc. over spirit grass if you can avoid it. That's better used for herb garden (and, if you're ready for the chore, Spirit Trees). They need the fertility.

31: Your farms aren't big enough. You think they are? Double their size. Now they're closer to big enough.

32: Just make your own Reincarnators, it's not worth the headache of randomly rolling characters every single time you start a new game. You don't have to give your Reincarnators max stats if you don't want to, but please, you deserve better than a 60-year-old blind grandpa with 2s in all stats who can't do physical labor.

33: If you REALLY want to start with a Yaoguai and you just will not back down from that, make a Reincarnator. Give them custom Ideas that give them all the stats you want, give them a total of 3 ideas, THEN use them. You'll have 600+ days to sort them out for their Tribulation, which is plenty of time.

34: Tribulations that hit Xiandao cultivators start out comparatively easy.

35: Kunlun is a great way to get Laws that you otherwise can't (if you win) but it WILL skyrocket your sect's fame and honestly? Is it worth it? Make the value call yourself.

36: Artifact quests usually have you either leave or fight someone for it, and they're rarely worth it in my experience. The artifacts you get from those tend to be merchant/devour/etc. fodder.

37: Ice Essence Bracelets are good for making artifacts out of earlyish on.

38: Max Artifact Qi is either really good or really bad and I haven't found a consensus. If you quote me on this I'm going to have a lot of angry people after me though, probably : ( For my money, low max artifact qi is probably the way to go.

39: The game's music is really good, I promise.

40: If you came here from Rimworld, I'm sorry. This isn't a colony management sim, it's a huge chain of minigames that share resources and interact with one another and at their core is an RPG where you power up your party as much as possible.

41: Do all of the in-game tutorial before getting into it. It'll prepare you for the first 30 days or so. It's not enough on its own but it's something.

42: This game is going to take you time to learn and get down and if you don't think it will then this message is doubly for you. Your arrogance will get you steamrolled. Swallow your pride, read a guide!

Outro

Again, I'm like, the furthest thing from a master of this game there is. I've played like 120 hours and still haven't ever reached Demigod (mostly because I don't want to deal with it. Honest!)

I've never fought a sect, I've never beat the dragon (or fought it to begin with), I've never bothered to set up formations and I genuinely feel like I've only experienced the first half at most of this game.

This guide is meant for people like me who constantly ask questions that either aren't easy to find or are so obvious it's just assumed you know them.

Amazing Cultivation Simulator's a phenomenal game and I only have one more piece of advice for you, until I inevitably update and expand this someday:

0: Turn on the setting that puts your real-world clock in the bottom left of the screen. It'll help. Hopefully.

[Ain!]

Feel like this list is sorta "do this, don't do that" as in, playing the game for the reader it's quite common and I'm not bashing in the sense that nobody's forced to read this. But just offering constructive criticism, it's much nicer to read it if it invokes though but still allows discovery by the player.

[ryuniji13]

Thanks for the advice! I have decided you & every one else are right about Yaoguai. I watched this video tutorial by IcOn Gaming earlier today before I noticed your reply:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbZ1LZlrI1Y&list=PLkHfUAaH9nIfy5jWvM9U_tTFOADShRLtc&index=18 ,

in which he fully explains all types of Tribulations including Yaoguai. That vid changed my mind since it showed just how much Qi is needed to pass a regular Tribulation with one element & the Yaoguai one is 5 elements all together. He, IcOn Gaming, has a whole series of tutorials all about ACS very detailed, well done, & quite educational. I've been watching them for the last few days. There are 16 so far & the Tribulation vid is last 1 published on YouTube on July, 6, 2021, so they are fairly current. I would suggest anyone watch them as they are all under 30 min. each & breakdown pretty much every aspect of the game. Anyway thanks again for your help/advice!

[DxGGG | Megalomancer]

I understand the temptation to start Yaoguai, but the reason it's not recommended (I have since learned) is that it's a catch-22 situation. Either your Yaoguai starts out so awesome that it's EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to get them to a point of usefulness in time to survive tribulation, or they start out so garbo that you'd be better off with a disposable human instead

I recommend buying a caged awakened animal as early as you can, preferably one with minimal extant thoughts, and hand-sculpting. The minigame is intense, but by the time you're done you should have a Sect that can keep them afloat, particularly if you already have a physical cultivation path opened up.

One more note: Yaoguai make terrible Shendao because Shendao have a very high ceiling, yes, but it takes forever to get there and you'll usually get slapped by tribulation before then.

[ryuniji13]

Thanks for writing this guide! I really liked how you threw all the tips together & kinda tied up a bunch of my questions. I have been stubbornly sticking to my Yaoguai as my very 1st play through; although, I've already had 1 die (I have know idea why or how), another 1 along with everyone else got into low moods & quit working (another mystery unsolved), & so far the one I'm still playing has lost her mind. Kinda like me at this point as I knew this game had a hard learning curve but OMG I've spent more time reading guides & other info than actually playing the game. Even though I've started at least 3 brand new games cause of above failures. So after my bit of frustration I'm feeling hopeful again after reading your organized & very useful guide. Thanks!

[tokumeiko]

very helpful, wish i'd read this before i screwed up my first save by getting my first cultivator severely injured, i'd even made 3 reicarnators for the reasons you described, but when she went of to loot a yaogai she knocked out she got ambush by a bull and none of the outers had a decent healing skill because she's the one who had been the doctor until recently.