Frostpunk

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"The City Must Survive"

– Ad for the game

Frostpunk is a 2018 survival Strategy game released by 11 bit studios, with the overall premise that due to the Eruption of Krakatoa the entire world has experienced extreme cooling. And by extreme, we mean that -20 degrees Fahrenheit is considered a WARM day. This results in a long winter that wipes out most of humanity, save those who managed to make it to the giant Coal burning generators that allow you to produce heat and survive.

The universe itself is Steampunk that is not nearly as gaudy as normal steampunk, and also takes a page out of the 40k book by being incredibly dark. Child Labor, Propaganda, and even declaring yourself god all being possible actions you can take throughout the game. This game doesn't even hold back, and will sometimes openly call you out at the end game cutscene for having gone too far and abusing power.

Things that Rock

• The City must Survive
• Automotons look like awesome combinations of Mechanicus and steampunk tech
• The ending cutscene
• Foreman. These are straight up broken and are an outright requirement for completing some of the DLC
• Steampunk that for once isn't obnoxious and overdone.
• Diverse setting. While you never play non Brits, Americans, French, and even the colonies of Britain are either mentioned or directly interacted with.
• Voice of God
• Beating the game on hard difficulty
• Beating the game on any difficulty
• Dreadnoughts. Think a midget version of an Ordinatus, without doomsday weapons and powered by Coal.
• When replacing housing, you can simply upgrade existing structures at a discount. No need to demolish and replace houses.
• Propaganda machines to incentivize your subjects workers

Things that suck

• The Order Law tree is outright broken compared to faith.
• You will constantly have to micromanage buildings and your workforce unless you want to lose.
• Foreman. They take the challenge out of the game.
• Heating. This isn't so bad if you plan carefully, but if you don't, you'll strongly regret it.
• The storm.

Vanilla Game

In the base Campaign, you are a group of survivors from London who have fled north in the hopes of finding a giant steam generator. Once you find it, you activate it and construct basic infrastructure, making sure you can keep the generator active at all times. After you get settled in, you begin exploring the surrounding area. You discover resources, survivors, waypoints, and eventually a sister settlement: Winterhome.

After exploring winterhome, you realize the city is deserted and dead, apparently from an uprising against a repressive dictator that resulted in damage to the cities generator and the eventual death of the city. People are now afraid, and pretty much lose all hope. From here, you rally them either under the banner of faith or the promise of Order, and continue to upgrade your infrastructure and take in more refugees along the way.

You continue to search the area, discovering the fate of the Americans (Nikola Tesla ended up becoming a dictator and was chased out and overthrow in a revolution. Those who fled either died in the wilds or nearly died before you discovered them) as well as hundreds of ravished, starving, and lost refugees, all of which you can choose to not bring. By about midway through the game, you send up a weather balloon, and discover the worst: A giant storm is approaching, and it will drop temperatures to a blistering -150 DEGREES below zero! (For context, assuming snow is falling and you are but naked, this is almost 200 degrees lower than what is needed to kill you). The storm will prevent most mining, food gathering, and other supply runs, so you must recall all your outpost teams and scouts, and stockpile reserves. After that, you must wait out the storm.

After the storm passes, you will get a cutscene that tracks everything you built and commentary on how "evil" you became, dependent on which laws you passed, reminding you that being a dickbag doesn't have consequences.

Strategy

If you want to win, Order is the outright best law path to take once it becomes available. Foreman are outright broken, and even effect automotons. Speaking of those, getting Steam Core outposts in Tesla city is perhaps the best investment in the entire game. They are far more efficient than motivated workers, only require coal to operate, and can operate in any temperature, no matter what. Spamming them makes the storm that much easier.

You'll want to focus Steel as a resource as well, as Steel is not easy to acquire, but is required for most late game research and buildings, all of which is incredibly valuable. This includes the best research unlocks in the game, such as Housing redesign(discount to build houses, the best living quarters in the game), steam hub and generator efficiency(reduces the amount of coal you burn), and overdrive couplings(overdrive far more viable and easier to use)

As for the adaptation laws, generally avoiding putting children directly into the workforce can pay off really well. Short term, they really only work as light labor, but as apprentices they can buff your medical or engineering jobs, which includes research. Avoid sawdust like the plague: It is a trash law, and soup makes the storm that much easier to survive.

Extended shifts are good if only for those times when you will be absolutely boned without extra resources or supplies, but generally should used on your Research Centers. Speaking of those, stacking about two or three will be the most efficent, as anything more provides negligible benefit.

Hospitals and medical stations should be built to accomodate up to about 1/3 of your population at any given time in case of fatal incidents such as the storm, poor housing placement, or for emergencies. The disabled can be brought back into the workforce, and this is the wiser decision, as they can lend helping hands in a variety of jobs once you unlock prosthetics and the building needed to build them.

Housing in general should be built carefully from the first moment you start the game. In general, an entire district of nothing but housing is a wise investment, and steam hubs should be used to keep this district as warm as possible without being inefficient. Range upgrades and insulation upgrades will be incredibly useful.

Much like HOI4, this game requires you to jump around a lot between multiple different production lines and jobs, prioritizing which ones are the most important. Sometimes you'll have jobs completely unfilled due to not having the hands to go around. Additionally, don't forget to remove laborers from all but your most important jobs once the storm hits: If you do, they'll try to work in freezing weather and get sick, and that is not something you want to happen, period.

The Fall of Winterhome

The fall of Winterhome is a DLC released for the game that tells the "story" of the fall of Winterhome. Contrary to what the vanilla game insinuates, there is no cannibalism and mass murder beyond the initial civil war that the people use to overthrow the tyrant. After that, you are tasked with essentially redesigning the entire city and ripping out useless burned out buildings.

With the situation stabalized, you must have your engineers inspect the generator, and they reveal that the machine is damaged beyond their ability to permanetely repair it. You must plan to evacuate everyone to a dreadnought that you previously used to travel to Winterhome.

Racing against the clock and your own ability to gather resources, you manage to secure space for survivors on the Dreadought, power it up, and flee Winterhome.

Strategy

Winterhome is far harder than the original game. Using Child labor is a requirement due to the sheer amount of destroyed buildings you have to remove. Gathering huts come in valuable here, as they can gather from multiple buildings at one time and clear them out with fewer people than needed. You'll need to disassemble most of the city and rebuild it to be more efficient.

In this scenario, Steel and coal will be your greatest prorities, and research is largely irrelevant compared to a need to have either of these materials. Thus, keeping the Automaton you found on the bride is the best early game move for your foragers. You'll want to upgrade their speed, as this will affect the Snowtrain that you use to transport people to the Dreadnought, cutting the time it takes to ship supplies, people, and coal to the vehicle.

Order is required if you don't hate yourself and want to evacuate as many people as possible from Winterhome, because as stated, Foreman are overpowered.

It is a good idea to at least research the techs that allow you to repair the generator faster, as if the generator dies, you will lose right then and there. Make sure to have plenty of supplies on hand to make this happen, and always keep as many engineers as you can on hand to get the machine repaired ASAP.

The Last Autumn

Ipsum Lorem