Tools are OP?

[Kams]

5+ woodcutters and a tool production chain beats any game preset.
Hostility over the top, people starve, die or leave. Orders don't matter, if you can complete one - great, if not - just make more tools, break into a grove and send those crates to the Smoldering City. You get rich pretty quick too along the way.

Who needs temples, taverns, crazy production chains, just to satisfy your settlers if that's not the requirement for victory. Reputation is, and it's so easily gained with tools.

I feel extremely bored with the game, though I enjoyed it immensely before I discovered the tool god.
Am I wrong?

[prpl_mage]

Doesn't most crates just give 0.5 or 0.75 reputation nowdays?
I mean, sure you can probably rush 14 ish glades trying to get the crates but does it really work?

I haven't tried this myself, but in general I feel like production for tools is kinda rare to get from buildings? I tend to get most of my tools as rewrds from orders. But it's a nice solution when the orders aren't lining up with what you have to complete the map.

[Samseng Yik]

I agree if you able to do this, you can stockpile the tool then bruteforce the glade opening then send crate back....... But these experience are from the biome you can mind copper?
But you can do this in all biome?
Did this method win Seal forest ?

[Kams]

I admit, the Seal Forest is the only biome that doesn't succumb to the tool mass production strategy. Only because you can't win it with Reputation.
But I mean, it's the "boss fight" of the game, it happens rarely.

[arjensmit79]

Same answer as always when people think they can play every game the same and think it might be boring:

Play higher difficulty level.
(And try to win in as few years as possible once you got p20 down)

[Samseng Yik]

Only people who finish Queen Hand mode can justify their skill.

[Kams]

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

Same answer as always when people think they can play every game the same and think it might be boring:

Play higher difficulty level.
(And try to win in as few years as possible once you got p20 down)

That's what I'm asking actually. I play on Veteran, and it feels like I must make those tools faster, that's all. There're less orders available and winning on orders becomes more difficult.

Does the game change on later stages / difficulties / biomes?
Or is it the same tool rush, and I'm better spending my time on other things in my life free from the grinding the meta resources in this game?

[mk11]

I don't get it.

In a single-player game if you find one strategy that seems overpowered why not just forgo using it?

[el Darkness]

I was never able to start mass production of tools, I always had problems, one of them being long production time. I never found this strategy reliable, but perhaps I just do not know how to do it.

I prefer win through Resolve.

[Unimportant]

So you get to set up tool production chaim every game? Because more often than not I can't fully set up a line.

[arjensmit79]

Originally posted by Kams:

That's what I'm asking actually. I play on Veteran, and it feels like I must make those tools faster, that's all. There're less orders available and winning on orders becomes more difficult.

Does the game change on later stages / difficulties / biomes?
Or is it the same tool rush, and I'm better spending my time on other things in my life free from the grinding the meta resources in this game?

The game changes in multiple ways.

First of all, 4 more reputation points will be needed for victory, lengthening the game a bit.

Then the hostility multiplier goes up stopping you from opening so many glades as you would need to find the caches to gain those reputation points. (So you change tactics to hoarding tools and then opening all glades at the same time and winning a few minutes later before a storm hurts you and before the glade events take effect, but that means you cant use the gold you get from the caches to obtain more tools)

Then more difficulty modifiers are added in 20 prestige levels reducing your options and dramatically reducing the OPness of trading. so producing tools effectively is something that can sometimes be done when you happen to get the buildings but definately not always, not even most of the time. Also will you need to pay far more attention to keeping your people fed and happy so you'll have less workforce/time/resources to spend on producing tools.

Gradually you will learn to rely more on reputation trough resolve.
And finally you may learn to split and optimize to do both at the same time to make possible those year 4-5 wins on P20.

All in all, the game really is balanced at p20 and that is where its rogue-lite nature truly comes to shine. It would be cool if new players could experience that from the start, i'm sure it would eliminate the posts in these forums with words like grind and boring. But you need to go trough the learning curve which is offered by going up the prestige ladder, it would be far too difficult to jump right into that.

PS: you are always better of doing other things in life than playing games. I have only found 1 exception and that was texas holdem which bought me food and shelter for 5 years.

[Platapoop]

Originally posted by Kams:

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

Same answer as always when people think they can play every game the same and think it might be boring:

Play higher difficulty level.
(And try to win in as few years as possible once you got p20 down)

That's what I'm asking actually. I play on Veteran, and it feels like I must make those tools faster, that's all. There're less orders available and winning on orders becomes more difficult.

Does the game change on later stages / difficulties / biomes?
Or is it the same tool rush, and I'm better spending my time on other things in my life free from the grinding the meta resources in this game?

I would play P1 at the bare minimum. If you are new to videogames, then you go easier difficulties. If you have done any rogulike and/or citybuilders than viceroy. Otherwise, P1 is considered standard difficulty. I'd say after P10 or something is where you can't win by just doing whatever.

[Lorska]

Originally posted by Unimportant:

So you get to set up tool production chaim every game? Because more often than not I can't fully set up a line.

That actually makes sense on a newer profile.
The whole chain and all the alternatives are all unlocked very early on, so this is actually very viable before bloat becomes an issue. I don't see a viable way to ensure a tool production chain on P12+ on a higher level profile unless you manage to roll exactly Carpenter into Forester. Relying on copper RNG seems like a bad idea.

That said @OP tools were actually way stronger before because you could solve any glade event with tools, making it possible to open any glade at any time, giving you free stuff and rep and amber from caches.
These days tools are one of the least used items in events, so making a production chain around it and spam opening glades can land you in real trouble. Especially when P10 is gonna screw you out of buying things to solve events with.

Also if you spam open glades on viceroy+ prepare for your resolve to drop to arctic levels.
Even back in the day you could totally get stuck if you couldn't deal with the resolve drop through buying/looting complex foods.

[Lucky_Star_Fan]

Lots of things work on lower difficulties.

[Samseng Yik]

TBH, Veteran is just "normal difficulty"
Viceroy is "Knee Deep Into Hard"

Like other said, Viceroy difficulty alone, will change your play style drastically.
Viceroy + 5, will change how you look back to your Veteran memory.
However, I still want to know is this strategy viable in high difficulty or not.
It may not carry the whole game, but can be a good last few point YOLO victory rush

[doomleika]

If you can mass tool then you are in pseudo win condition. At higher difficulty this is hard.

Bump your difficulty