Spike from veteran to viceroy is crazy

[pi73r]

Im not that great of citybuilder player but when it comes to gaming/challenging games i'd call myself a hardcore/pro player. I don't have much of the metaprogress unlocked so that may be it but hostility spike is just crazy. I find veteran too trivial at this point completing settlements in 4-5 years with 0 impatience etc.
My problem may also be that I started with gold seal so I couldnt hald woodcutters etc (I also got bad rng with no steady source of fuel).
I follow most reasonable strategies but after year 2-3 it's just -15 resolve on most species.
I know Ill get over it with more practise/metaprogress but I just wanted to point out how big of a spike that is for a challenge seeking player, let alone a casual (I assume prestiges change much less).

[kory]

Veteran to viceroy is probably the biggest jump there is, but I don't think its unreasonable, I suspect you did just have a bad game there, try viceroy without it being a seal map first to get used to it.

[Samseng Yik]

Totally agree. I still remember the 1st few times I do it.

Still victory, but utterly leave me devastated and exhausted from the constantly on the edge situation (that time I am not as good skill yet).
I remember I can only play maximum 1 settlement a day for Viceroy and P(1-5).

But they said, staying in comfort zone is the reason why I can't grow better.
So slowly I get used to it and know how to play Prestige.

I play Veteran difficulty until around passive level 9 or 10

[mostly willing]

agree with the sentiment, just wanted to comment on this part

Originally posted by pi73r:

I follow most reasonable strategies but after year 2-3 it's just -15 resolve on most species.
I know Ill get over it with more practise/metaprogress but I just wanted to point out how big of a spike that is for a challenge seeking player, let alone a casual (I assume prestiges change much less).

no amount of meta progress is going to give you +16 resolve during y2-y3 storm. this is purely a result of macro decisions

[Matthew]

If it is -15 during a storm, that is not too rare. Especially if it is a seal map or particular bad set of variables.

You'll have more people leave on higher difficulties. That is fine. Impatience is only a timer and as long as you still win before the timer is up, you win. You don't need to finish by year 5 with zero impatience.

The meta progression unlocks help, but it isn't needed. I start new accounts on viceroy. The first cycle is a bit rough, of course, but you can win just fine. It may take up to year 8 or 9 and nearly maxed out on impatience, but a win is a win.

[hardy_conrad]

The difficulty curve is a bit uneven, spiking at times. Comes with the territory and speaking as someone who finally, with enormous difficulty, beat the adamantine seal, the sense of satisfaction at overcoming those obstacles is considerable.

[pi73r]

Update: I've kept on playing and it got much easier past year 4 and I've actually completed the seal and still have 100% win ratio :D So it's not as harsh once you pick up a little speed. Also never surrender :D
It wasn't even too hard in the end. I didn't need to micro much later on.

[kabill]

Originally posted by pi73r:

Also never surrender :D
It wasn't even too hard in the end. I didn't need to micro much later on.

One of the brilliant things about ATS is its rubber-banding mechanics. In contrast to a lot of similar games, where bad starts almost always snowball into eventual defeats, ATS gives you space to recover after losses and get back on your feet. So "never surrender" is actually genuinely good advice for this game!

[el Darkness]

Originally posted by kabill:

...So "never surrender" is actually genuinely good advice for this game!

Agreed, during one game at P6 I believe in cursed biome I almost gave up. I started picking Orders (and doing other stuff) just to get over it, without giving it a thought. At some point I was like "damn, this actually looks winnable, if only I had put more thought into what I was doing...". Even with all the bad RNG and my "mistakes" that were actually lack of thought more than a mistake I still managed to pull it of. I think I was half an Impatience bar from defeat at worst point.

[John Hadley]

You don't realize how much hostility you can handle until you start to play on viceroy. Its only after having people leave every year for like 5 years straight and still managing to win in year 10 at level 6 or 7 hostility that you realize how resilient you can be in this game.

[John Hadley]

You also may underestimate the effect that ranking up is going to have on making it easier to play viceroy. If you try viceroy after you have unlocked enough to have like 8 embarkment points, extra guaranteed starting resources like planks, fabric, and bricks, faster caravans, slower impatience gain, extra cornerstone and building choices, hearth upgrades, and species housing for every race its going to be a lot easier to manage than if you try to do it at rank 1.

[Skallagrim]

I would say if you have people leaving almost every storm, then you are probably doing something wrong, or missing some key factors in keeping resolve positive. The most basics would be reducing/stopping wood cutting entirely. If you have rain engine hooked up, it can provide up to 10 resolve for that particular worker(s), even if that's not a "comfort" job for that worker, nor does the worker need to actually do anything in there.

There's also the option to micromanage favoring / fuel sacrificing. Tedious for sure but it's quite effective.

You probably still want to have at least 1 complex food online by year 3 storm, otherwise year 4 and beyond can be quite challenging.

[HouseOfTheRat]

It's not that big a spike. Especially considering how I skipped Veteran completely after playing two or three settlements at it (because there was no real difference between Pioneer and Veteran). There is probably some area you are lacking, that was being covered by you being good at other areas until now. The fact that you find Veteran completely trivial is a very clear indication for this. It might just be that you are bad at managing resolve, and up to this point you were getting by by being good at everything else and finishing games before it became an issue.

[pi73r]

Originally posted by 2024:

It's not that big a spike. Especially considering how I skipped Veteran completely after playing two or three settlements at it (because there was no real difference between Pioneer and Veteran). There is probably some area you are lacking, that was being covered by you being good at other areas until now. The fact that you find Veteran completely trivial is a very clear indication for this. It might just be that you are bad at managing resolve, and up to this point you were getting by by being good at everything else and finishing games before it became an issue.

Actually it was just the seal being harder (2x longer storms) + bad rng in the end. Next viceroy game was nice and easy, so a false alert I guess.

[Miathan]

I played only 1 viceroy game so far but it was an easy win. It definitely felt like a jump in difficulty because of the higher hostility, but it wasn't anything special from what I saw, at least not for normal games. I played just like I did on veteran and succeeded without getting close to failure.

[Prowler™]

Some of the difficulty levels are significant jumps over the previous ones.
The double food consumption is one of the biggest difficulty spikes in the game as it also makes you extra vulnerable to random events such as: no consumption control, blood flower/worms, replying on a field kitchen until you find better blueprints, forest mysteries hitting food stocks.

Others are really not so bad. Extra storm duration for example is actually great for you as it gives you way more time before hostility rises to prepare your next glade opening lol