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Insider's Money Grinding Guide

In the proper SuperCheats Guide to Forza 4 there is, in full detail, a basic description for grinding both Credits and Affinity for those players who prefer to do so or, alternately, for those players who are intent upon grinding out the 50 Levels of Affinity for their preferred Manufacturer in order to unlock the associated Achievement.

That is all well and good, and really workable information, but when you are seeking a more efficient route towards Credits and are not so invested in racking up Affinity Levels in one particular Manufacturer, well, there is a more efficient - dare I say it? - Better - Yes I dare! - Way! And that way is detailed below in this Insider's Money Grinding Guide. Or perhaps Mini-Guide would be better.

The Basics for Efficiently Grinding Money
First and foremost you should know that this approach is a variation of the scheme that was outlined in the unofficial SuperCheats Guide. It entails using the Test Track (Variation A) but differs in that rather than choosing a specific Manufacturer and sticking to them, you will instead be doing a different Manufacturer each time.

The most efficient results for this method involve a combined total of four races (one race per each unique Manufacturer for four unique Manufacturers), and if you do it right and drive well, are all completed in just under one hour of game play, and gain you a whopping 8,080,000 CR for that hour of work.

It is therefore recommended that, far from approaching this as a Grind per se, you instead adopt it as a measure of your normal play. That is to say, each day that you settle in for a session of Forza 4 you spend the first hour completing the four races for four Manufacturers you have not obtained Affinity for, and in so doing you actually accomplish a number of worthwhile goals! These are:

(1) Obtain a tasty chunk of Credits for an hour's driving in a circles on the Test Track A.

(2) Raise the Affinity of a Manufacturer you have no Affinity for to Level 6 (which means that when you DO end up in a race that requires and/or can use that Manufacturer later, when you are working towards one of the massive time-consuming Achievements like Forza Gold or World Tourer, you will be happily at a level at which ALL upgrades AND downgrades are FREE for that Manufacturer.

(3) Constantly raising your Driver Level, which in turn results in a tastier amount of Credits as the reward for each new Driver Level.

There! You see? All worthwhile!

So with that certain conviction in mind, let as now turn to the details for this magical feat...

Setting up the Race

First thing first, from the main menu hit A (assuming you are using the standard gamepad as your controller), then select COMMUNITY, followed by MY PROFILE and AFFINITY.

You now are being displayed a list of all of the Manufacturers for which you have Affinity Levels, and the actual Level of that Affinity. What you want to do here is make a note of the Manufacturers you do NOT have Affinity with. I know, bit hard to do really since they are not listed here, so instead make a note of the ones you DO have Affinity with and what it is. That can come in handy in a moment when we get to picking the car - which we will in just a moment so bear with me.

Now that you have that list, back out to the COMMUNITY menu (hit B twice) then select RACE ONLINE, and then CREATE RACE.

Next select GAME SETUP, and make the following settings changes, which we will discuss after we do that..

• Lobby Type: Private
  
• Game Type: Circuit Race
  
• Environment: Test Track
  
• Track: Test Track Layout A
  
• Track Conditions: Late Morning
  
• Max Players: 12
  
• Max AI Players: 11
  
• AI Difficulty: Professional
  
• Laps: 50
  
• Car Class: Any (or perhaps R1)
  
• Drive Type: Any
  
• Damage Difficulty: Cosmetic
  
• Collision Mode: Default
  

Note that you can increase the difficulty percentage (and thus your reward) by making different choices above - for instance you can set Damage to Simulated for more money - but I do not suggest you do so for the simple reason that if you make any mistakes, hit a wall, fail to make a turn, or dust it up with another car on the track you may (often will) find yourself driving a car you can no longer fully control... It is your call but the settings above are what I recommend and use.

If you are satisfied with the above, hit A to confirm the race settings, and return to the Race Menu, at which point you now want to select the SELECT CAR option on the menu, where you will be presented with the Manufacturer list menu.

Pick a Manufacturer you have no Affinity for (or one you have really low Affinity for but that will skew the results below) and then go to race, staying to the INSIDE of the inner oval rather than the outside which means you have roughly half the travel time and distance than your competitors and so spend half the time racing than you otherwise would for the same result.

After you win the race, select a different Manufacturer and rinse and repeat three more times, for a total of one hour (or thereabouts, depending on you, your skill, and the cars you choose to race it), and earn amazing CR!

This breaks down to the following:

• Race 1 - Manufacturer W - Affinity Level 0 to Start - Affinity Level 6 at Finish
  
• Race 2 - Manufacturer X - Affinity Level 0 to Start - Affinity Level 6 at Finish
  
• Race 3 - Manufacturer Y - Affinity Level 0 to Start - Affinity Level 6 at Finish
  
• Race 4 - Manufacturer Z - Affinity Level 0 to Start - Affinity Level 6 at Finish
  

Affinity Level 0 Race - 4 Race Session - Anticipated CR Income

• Race 1: Level 0 to Level 6 earning a total of 505K CR PLUS any Driver Level Rewards*
  
• Race 2: Level 0 to Level 6 earning a total of 505K CR PLUS any Driver Level Rewards*
  
• Race 3: Level 0 to Level 6 earning a total of 505K CR PLUS any Driver Level Rewards*
  
• Race 4: Level 0 to Level 6 earning a total of 505K CR PLUS any Driver Level Rewards*
  

Total Income for a Four-Race Session = 2.02M CR (505K + 505K + 505K + 505K)*

* Driver Level Rewards will vary depending on what your Driver Level is presently, but can add anywhere from 20K to 200K to the total at the end of the four races. As that will vary depending, we do not include the CR's here, but you should factor them in when you estimate your income from this method.

Now bearing in mind that with your Driver Level in the 50's or higher - for example mine was 78 or so, and it popped up one last time I did this so that added something like 165K to the total, which meant that for an hour of grinding I took in a total of 2.185M CR - and that will only grow larger as you gain Driver Levels, just saying.

Now bearing in mind that if you only have the base game and have NOT purchased any of the DLC (car packs or the Porsche DLC) you will only have 80 Manufacturers you can race for in the game to do this, which will allow you to earn a total of 161,600M - yes you read that right, one-hundred-and-sixty-one-million-six-hundred-thousand CR.

That is WAY more than you will need to unlock the two car buying Achievements and should leave you more than enough money to purchase all the cars you want in addition to the really expensive ones in the game.

Don't say we never gave you anything, OK?