|
Jamsque posted:Nah, you don't need safe kid jobs even on hard, in fact I think the research speed bonus from the child shelter tech path is more valuable I've been really struggling trying to do a 'clean' run of Refugees (no deaths, save all the lords) on Hard without using Child labor. You start with so few people that it seems almost required to leverage the children at the start.
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 05:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 12:00 |
|
|
Child engineers never felt too vital to me, since I usually ended up with more Engineers than plain workers anyway, and the workshops are reasonably well heated, so... Never bothered with the coal mine or wall drill, got my steel plants built quicklike, and then just spammed resource dens until I could carry 25000 coal for the end, which was way too fuckin' much. Never made it this far on easy so I figured the hothouses would still function during the storm, so I dismantled all my hunting lodges for them (  ). Didn't sign any of the really intense Faith Laws beyond whipping, and that was because I had a promise to fulfill accidentally. Got real fuckin dicey at the end though, but 16 Automatons spread out to Gathering Posts / Coal Thumpers kept us reasonably comfortable in coal. I definitely got sloppy near the end but hey, 400 people ain't too bad.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 05:35
|
|
|
Faldoncow posted:I've been really struggling trying to do a 'clean' run of Refugees (no deaths, save all the lords) on Hard without using Child labor. You start with so few people that it seems almost required to leverage the children at the start. Refugees on Hard is the toughest challenge in the game for sure. I was able to make it through the early game crunch without child labor partly by knowing what resources are available from scouting, but I probably did kill one or two people with overwork to do it.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 08:10
|
|
|
Darkrenown posted:I guess I am talking too much about soup, but soup is just one example of the odd morality system the game presents. "Humanity survived but you said we might need to make soup if food runs low, WAS IT WORTH IT???". Uh, yeah. The "bad" choices I'm making don't seem actually bad while the game is perfectly happy with fighting pits being the default social gathering venue, so the whole thing falls flat. I won my first game on normal, but I was told "Order was abused". The existence of prisons was brought up as a negative, which are something which exist in every western society - I guess we are all oppressed by fascism then? Perhaps corporal punishment is the more humane option? Or to banish people into the wastes? Perhaps there should just be no consequences to crime? What are you trying to say, game? I remember having a similar with this This War of Mine. I only did one playthrough, but it felt like the game mechanically incentivized the hell out of bad behavior and counted on balancing that by making you the player feel awfully bad about... stuff that really didn't seem that bad at all in a desperate survival situation. I remember rolling my eyes at one of my characters breaking down into tears and shouting "THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY!" at me because I had him steal some cigarettes from an armed bandit's house the previous night.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 08:53
|
|
|
Darkrenown posted:... The existence of prisons was brought up as a negative, which are something which exist in every western society - I guess we are all oppressed by fascism then? ... I mean, there's a really good argument to be made for that. Like REALLY good. But I don't think that was your point. I just saved New Manchester. My engineers started yelling at me for sending resources away to help those strangers like they aren't sure we'll have enough for ourselves, while I'm stockpiling enough coal to fill their Christmas stockings every day until they die.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 10:42
|
|
|
Bogart posted:
There's also a quest chain, I don't know if it always happens, where an engineer will upgrade your automatons. The one I gave him to test the process on got a "MK II" at the end of it's name  Bogart posted:Never made it this far on easy so I figured the hothouses would still function during the storm, so I dismantled all my hunting lodges for them ( That was kind of annoying, I had top level heaters and insulation and had my hothouses near a steam hub - They only got down to Chilly but the game claimed the soil had froze. With the generator on Overdrive they were comfortable. Cobbsprite posted:I mean, there's a really good argument to be made for that. Like REALLY good. But I don't think that was your point. I mean there's prisons and there's prisons depending on which country you're in, but the one in Frostpunk seems to rehabilitate people with a short stay rather than using them for slave labour for years, so it seems like a pretty good type.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 10:58
|
|
Your automatons have funny little autogenerated names
|
I've been keeping myself spoiler-free because I've been wanting another Banished/lovely-world citybuilder for ages, but there's one thing from the reviews that bugs me: at least one reviewer claimed that once you played a scenario a few times and got a good sense of where it was going and what it was going to throw at you, it became easier/borderline trivial to succeed. Is there any truth to that, or does the game retain replayability once you have decent mastery of the mechanics? I mainly ask because This War Of Mine felt like it had the exact same problem, where half the challenge was knowing what was in each salvage site and the instant you knew where to loot in what order, a lot of the challenge disappeared.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 21:45
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:I've been keeping myself spoiler-free because I've been wanting another Banished/lovely-world citybuilder for ages, but there's one thing from the reviews that bugs me: at least one reviewer claimed that once you played a scenario a few times and got a good sense of where it was going and what it was going to throw at you, it became easier/borderline trivial to succeed. Is there any truth to that, or does the game retain replayability once you have decent mastery of the mechanics? I mainly ask because This War Of Mine felt like it had the exact same problem, where half the challenge was knowing what was in each salvage site and the instant you knew where to loot in what order, a lot of the challenge disappeared. There are three scenarios (and rumors of more later), and it is true that each scenario has a fixed set of events and fixed set of locations to explore, and the more times you play the easier it is to prepare for an upcoming event that really should be a surprise. Still, at the harder difficulties that knowledge doesn’t actually help with the technical “gently caress how do I spin all of these plates” of getting things up and running and good. But I don’t think there’s much fun in completing a scenario more than three or four times, so there’s maybe ten complete runs in the game- but that’s still over forty hours for a mid priced game.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 22:04
|
|
|
skeleton warrior posted:There are three scenarios (and rumors of more later), and it is true that each scenario has a fixed set of events and fixed set of locations to explore, and the more times you play the easier it is to prepare for an upcoming event that really should be a surprise. Still, at the harder difficulties that knowledge doesn’t actually help with the technical “gently caress how do I spin all of these plates” of getting things up and running and good. That sounds promising, thanks!
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 22:06
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:t once you played a scenario a few times and got a good sense of where it was going and what it was going to throw at you, it became easier/borderline trivial to succeed. Is there any truth to that, or does the game retain replayability once you have decent mastery of the mechanics? I mainly ask because This War Of Mine felt like it had the exact same problem, where half the challenge was knowing what was in each salvage site and the instant you knew where to loot in what order, a lot of the challenge disappeared. There's definitely a lot of truth to that. In my first playthrough of the main scenario, I won, but barely, with some edge-of-the-seat deadlines and crises. I just replayed it to try the other tech tree and see if I could make better decisions and I cruised through the 'desperate' climax with every resource maxed out, every tech researched, 0 deaths, 0 discontent, and 100% hope. The other thing that kind of hamstrings replayability to me that's straight out of This War of Mine is that you're building in a limited space with pre-ordained spots to build specific things. In the main scenario, your Steel gathering options are: using 0, 1 or 2 of the 2 and only 2 places to build Steel mines, and an unnecessary Steel outpost if those aren't enough (they are). In fairness, there are difficulty sliders that I didn't try yet that might make a big difference. There's also 3 multi-hour scenarios in the main release, and they've promised to add more.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 22:16
|
|
|
double post
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2018 22:21
|
|
|
It's pretty fun going back in and trying to super optimize your poo poo or get achievements. Ignoring morality issues by brutally optimized/efficient processes so that everyone is adequately fed, heated, and healed without having to work in -200F weather. The first playthroughs were a lot more about surviving, then it became basically a city building game, and it's all doable without leaning on fascism/theocracy. The achievements also make it an interesting, almost puzzle-like game. One of the achievements is to complete the game while only building tents. Another is to never build a tent. Both of these are radically different games, because a bunkhouse requires steel and wood and is a L2 research item which means you need to have a steel and wood industry going real early just to keep housing your dudes, after spending a bunch of resources just to research it however the rest of your game goes a lot smoother because heating is less of a concern. The tents only require wood which is nice but you need a LOT more coal to make sure they're adequately heated late game and makes the late game intense (especially New Home).
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 04:16
|
|
|
Hmm, I took the plunge and grabbed it (great game thus far), but my people keep starving in droves during the first scenario. Hunting seems like such a bad return on investment, should I be hightailing it for hothouses on the research tree?
Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 05:52 on May 6, 2018 |
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 05:50
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Hmm, I took the plunge and grabbed it (great game thus far), but my people keep starving in droves during the first scenario. Hunting seems like such a bad return on investment, should I be hightailing it for hothouses on the research tree? are you cooking the raw food? generally, just build more hunters (hothouse has a HUGE footprint)
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 05:55
|
|
|
boner confessor posted:are you cooking the raw food? generally, just build more hunters (hothouse has a HUGE footprint) Hmkay, thanks! That's what I figured... it looked like such a good deal on paper that I assumed it must've been schmuck bait of some sort. And yeah, right now I've been doing one cookhouse, two hunter huts, then trying to juggle enough workers away from coal thumpers/gathering to ensure there are always 30 people hunting.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 06:02
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Hmm, I took the plunge and grabbed it (great game thus far), but my people keep starving in droves during the first scenario. Hunting seems like such a bad return on investment, should I be hightailing it for hothouses on the research tree? Hunters huts don't need warmth and can be placed anywhere. Hunters huts produce 15 (20 with research) raw food which turns into 30 (40) food rations (assuming no soup/sawdust). Food rations are consumed 1 per day (2 if starving). 15 workers feed 30 (40) people. So 37.5% of your population needs to be hunting. There's a Tier 3 research that makes hunters huts only require 10 workers, meaning 10 workers can produce 20 raw food which feeds 40 people. So with that technology only 25% of your population needs to hunt. Hot houses, with 10 workers, feed 60 people (more with extended hours/emergency) and, more importantly, can be run by automatons later on meaning you get a 24-hour food provider. With hothouses only 16.6% of your population needs to focus on food. Hothouses require steamcores, though, which is a bitch, and are really big so heating them is rough. Steam cores are used to make automatons and other high-value poo poo like coal mines. The hours on hunter huts are such that they begin hunting the second a standard work day ends, so you can pull workers off of other things to hunt at night since they won't work at night otherwise. This has zero repercussions and kind of feels like cheating. I always do it, though.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 06:09
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Hmkay, thanks! That's what I figured... it looked like such a good deal on paper that I assumed it must've been schmuck bait of some sort. how early is this, like day 5? generally get a bunch of hunters huts because you need a steady if not wide food surplus. if you get a ton of new population you can easily convert them to food production to feed themselves (so long as you dont plow them all into industrial resource generation)
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 06:26
|
|
|
...wait a minute, hunter huts don't need warmth? Oh derp, I think I might need to totally rethink my base then, I crammed 'em all in the second row, since I figured they'd have tons of people and would need the heat. Also, I suppose this is more story than strategy, but in the first scenario I found the winterhome icon super-early, but ignored it because I wanted my scouts to run around grabbing other stuff before I progressed the plot. Then a single person came staggering into camp and said that everyone in Winterhome was dead... did I screw up by not making a run for it the instant it appeared on the map?
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 06:45
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:...wait a minute, hunter huts don't need warmth? Oh derp, I think I might need to totally rethink my base then, I crammed 'em all in the second row, since I figured they'd have tons of people and would need the heat. No, they force that on you so you can't ignore that event forever.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 06:56
|
|
|
What is everyone's early tech priorities? The more I play the more I bump up beacons on the list. Now I research it second after the increased resource gathering.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 07:44
|
|
|
I get emergency shift first no matter what, and i make my engineers work through the night. hunter hut upgrade first, then efficient gathering, beacon, then steam hub. Then whatever, sometimes I don't ever get a thumper and just zoom to coal mine (and the bridge with 2 steam cores on it)
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 08:12
|
|
|
How fast is your research supposed to be? My first run was barely saved, 300/500 people died in the storm, and I was only just getting to be halfway through the level three techs by the end. Granted, I completely forgot that you could build more than one workshop until 20 days in. Despite knowing that now, my second game I've built 6 so far (180% research efficiency) and even though it's still on normal difficulty the storm is going to come on day 30, a full week ahead of when it did in the last game and I'm basically at the exact same point tech-wise as I was before. How on earth does anyone reach any of the final techs in time, I feel like I'm still doing something very wrong.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 08:30
|
|
|
Morzhovyye posted:How fast is your research supposed to be? My first run was barely saved, 300/500 people died in the storm, and I was only just getting to be halfway through the level three techs by the end. Granted, I completely forgot that you could build more than one workshop until 20 days in. Despite knowing that now, my second game I've built 6 so far (180% research efficiency) and even though it's still on normal difficulty the storm is going to come on day 30, a full week ahead of when it did in the last game and I'm basically at the exact same point tech-wise as I was before. How on earth does anyone reach any of the final techs in time, I feel like I'm still doing something very wrong. You don't need to research every single thing to beat the storm on normal. As long as you get all of the generator upgrades and most of the other techs you'll be fine. When researching, don't forget using emergency laws to run them 24 hours a day as well as the engineer's apprentices to let kids give them a small bonus. Later, you can have automatons run your workshops 24/7 without the hit to discontent that emergency laws will generate.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 08:38
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:...wait a minute, hunter huts don't need warmth? Oh derp, I think I might need to totally rethink my base then, I crammed 'em all in the second row, since I figured they'd have tons of people and would need the heat. They don't work in the hut, they just meet up there and then head off into the wilderness, so the hut's heat is moot
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 13:30
|
|
|
I went back to A New Home on easy, just to see how absurdly over-prepared I could be. Made getting steam cores from tesla city and early automatons and advanced coal mines a priority. A day before the storm hit I had depleted two of the three mine spots, and fired up a few charcoal kilns manned by robots. When the scenario concluded I had 13000 food stored, and enough coal stored to run my heating at full tilt for 35 days. And even then my coal production was higher than my consumption, and would be till the third mine that had around 5000 coal remaining ran dry.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 13:39
|
|
|
Morzhovyye posted:How fast is your research supposed to be? My first run was barely saved, 300/500 people died in the storm, and I was only just getting to be halfway through the level three techs by the end. Granted, I completely forgot that you could build more than one workshop until 20 days in. Despite knowing that now, my second game I've built 6 so far (180% research efficiency) and even though it's still on normal difficulty the storm is going to come on day 30, a full week ahead of when it did in the last game and I'm basically at the exact same point tech-wise as I was before. How on earth does anyone reach any of the final techs in time, I feel like I'm still doing something very wrong. A couple questions: * Are you running extended shifts? I keep my researchers on the 6 - 20 shift schedule, and that’s 40% more production for only minor discontent. * Are you keeping a material surplus so you can immediately jump into the next research, or do you finish research then let it idle while you wait for resources? * Are you researching everything on a level? You really don’t need to - you shouldn’t have both Hothouse research and Hunters Hut research, you shouldn’t have upgraded Sawmills *and* upgraded Wall Drills and you might need all of the basic coal but only one of the three options particularly upgraded.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 14:02
|
|
|
Morzhovyye posted:How fast is your research supposed to be? My first run was barely saved, 300/500 people died in the storm, and I was only just getting to be halfway through the level three techs by the end. Granted, I completely forgot that you could build more than one workshop until 20 days in. Despite knowing that now, my second game I've built 6 so far (180% research efficiency) and even though it's still on normal difficulty the storm is going to come on day 30, a full week ahead of when it did in the last game and I'm basically at the exact same point tech-wise as I was before. How on earth does anyone reach any of the final techs in time, I feel like I'm still doing something very wrong. Don't explore Winterhome until day 14/15. If you explore it before then it shoves everything up a few days. I found Winterhome on day 11 and just parked my scouts there for 4 days and researched a couple more techs
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 14:50
|
|
|
Whoo, so I finally survived the first scenario with 163 of my 550+ citizens left alive, and holy crap that ending. It was fun and atmospheric, but the blizzard miffs me in the same way the last wave of They Are Billions does- surviving it explicitly requires you to build for it, and a lot of the optimal ways to prepare go directly counter to what you're rewarded for doing during the rest of the campaign. Like, I was stable and pretty comfortable with 2k coal, 200 raw food/day, and one infirmary far from town, and the terrified sprint to build up food in the week or so warning I had before the big one sucked.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 15:14
|
|
|
Don't you need to have explored Winterhome to get to the American expedition though? Getting a few extra steam cores is great for automating as much as possible of your city during the storm.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 15:15
|
|
|
Groetgaffel posted:Don't you need to have explored Winterhome to get to the American expedition though? The Big Spooky Storm countdown starts when you learn the fate of Winterhome. So the ~*~Optimal Path~*~ is to maximize the time you have by not exploring Winterhome until right when the lone survivor shows up anyway and then have a second scout team in position to book it down the Tesla City points.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 16:47
|
|
|
Also scouts travel to places they've been before faster, so its also optimal to just send them to say, a place right next to where your new unexplored place is, then redirect when they get there.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 17:19
|
|
|
drat I love this game. The arks scenario is pretty easy after beating new home with a good ending. My little frozen utopia has ALL the techs and robots. The seeds will live on.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 20:32
|
|
|
It there a set time the refuge from Winterhome shows up if you don't explore the city first?
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 20:42
|
|
|
Are the wall drills or upgraded sawmill/steelmills ever worth it? I was having wood/metal supply issues in the last week or two, but wasting steam cores to unclog those bottlenecks didn't feel worth it when the alternative was more automatons. Basically the only thing I've been okay with using cores on are the steam-powered coal mines, because it feels like you need those to keep up with a fully upgraded generator's coal drain.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 22:24
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Are the wall drills or upgraded sawmill/steelmills ever worth it? I was having wood/metal supply issues in the last week or two, but wasting steam cores to unclog those bottlenecks didn't feel worth it when the alternative was more automatons. Basically the only thing I've been okay with using cores on are the steam-powered coal mines, because it feels like you need those to keep up with a fully upgraded generator's coal drain. Upgraded Steelmills and Sawmills don't require steam cores and are absolutely worth the cost. Wall Drills and Coal mines do, but are super worth it. 240 coal for one core, or 600 for two and even more for 3. The wall drill is a similar situation. Basic automaton output is only slightly more than a crew working 6-20. Less if you included refueling. They are super useful late game, but by that point you have plenty of steam cores to get every important building ran by an automaton thanks to Tesla City
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 22:48
|
|
|
i'm not entirely sold on advanced sawmills, at least on hard. research time becomes a bigger issue than the extra labor cost of just building and running two sawmills next to each other. the chunk of steel you have to tie up while they're running is more precious too.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 22:59
|
|
|
Bondematt posted:Upgraded Steelmills and Sawmills don't require steam cores and are absolutely worth the cost. Wall Drills and Coal mines do, but are super worth it. 240 coal for one core, or 600 for two and even more for 3. The wall drill is a similar situation. Wait, did tesla city have a thing? I explored it, my guys ran around the lightning traps and said it scared the crap out of them, then they went on with their lives; I ended the game with probably 10-20 steam cores, most picked up 1-3 at a time from scouting events.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 23:39
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Wait, did tesla city have a thing? I explored it, my guys ran around the lightning traps and said it scared the crap out of them, then they went on with their lives; I ended the game with probably 10-20 steam cores, most picked up 1-3 at a time from scouting events. I don't know if it's random or not. When my dudes explored it, they disabled the lightning trap, and it turned into an outpost spot where steam cores could be harvested at the rate of 1 per trip.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 23:47
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Wait, did tesla city have a thing? I explored it, my guys ran around the lightning traps and said it scared the crap out of them, then they went on with their lives; I ended the game with probably 10-20 steam cores, most picked up 1-3 at a time from scouting events. Yes, if you have your guys take the risk you can the establish outpost that produces one steam core a day Prav posted:i'm not entirely sold on advanced sawmills, at least on hard. research time becomes a bigger issue than the extra labor cost of just building and running two sawmills next to each other. the chunk of steel you have to tie up while they're running is more precious too. That's fair, I played on normal. Where the only issue you run into is running out of room for resource depots.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2018 23:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 12:00 |
|
|
Holy crap, I never even considered setting up outposts, this sounds like it calls for a replay of that campaign. Incidentally, if anyone's interested here's the build order I roughly settled on for scenario one; it's predicated on rushing scouts and getting that huge group of survivors from the first story exploration within 3-4 days so they can be the food makers. It works great when I manage it, but I had like 6-7 false starts where I couldn't balance everything right, and either I ran out of food on day 3-5 or lost a ton of guys to the first -40 day: So day one I send 15 guys to pick up coal, 15 to pick up metal, leave 5 engineers at the generator to build stuff, and put everyone else on wooden crate duty. The engineers build a workshop ASAP(second row, on top of the resource depot thingie, so it's not taking up a naturally hot bit of land), then hop into it and research beacon. Sometimes I'm lucky and I can finish it on the first night, which means building a beacon and deploying scouts that night. Usually it only gets 80% done, so I use the wood that would've gone into beacon + scouts to build 8 tents, a medical thingie (only non-house on the first row, so sick people don't freeze), and a children's shelter. (The shelter is probably a suboptimal indulgence, but I like the bonus I get from having medical apprentices.) Day two is more picking up wood/metal, I try to finish the day with the beacon built and scouts deployed. Once that happens, I build a cookhouse on row 2, then sprawl a hugeass road all the way towards the boonies, usually towards the two coal mines since I know I'll need a road there eventually. 2-4 hunter's huts get built right before the coal mines, suitably out in the sticks so I'm not wasting warm real-estate. Depending on how much wood and metal is left, at this point I either research sawmill or save up and rush the first research upgrade so I can unlock the coal mine. By day 4 I've gotten the 33-ish survivors from that first scouting event, put most of them to work in my hunter's huts/sawmill, and put the rest to finishing up crate/metal pickup detail. If I actually get that far, I usually end up with coal mines, stable food, and more metal than I need by day 7 or 8, then it's just a matter of managing research and scouting trips to buff the hunter huts, start upgrading the generator range/output, then just gradually scaling up my coal/heat/industrial economy while the scouts putter around. I think it's too many plates spinning at one time, as evinced by the fact that small problems can quickly derail it early on. That big cold snap in day 4 is one of my biggest consistent stumbling blocks- I always seem to get a few guys stuck in the care house/pallative wing from frostbite, even if the houses are comfortable and most of the workers have inside jobs instead of gathering tasks.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2018 01:04
|
|