How to beat Viceroy difficulty (or higher)??

[Beast Regards]

I admit I am not that good in this game...

However, I've played the game on the Settler, then of Pioneer, and then on Veteran, and so far the difficulty raised gradually, and thus there was always possible to learn something new. It was also unlocking the new content, so it made sense.

However, I found out that the change between the Veteran and Viceroy is exponential. Not only you get the blueprints you don't need, and the cornerstones which won't help, that's a course of the normal game, but also the impatience raises with a rocket speed, as does hostility, maps are spawned without food or are always the ones you couldn't harvest, and traders are no longer buying stuff...

Basically, whichever strategy I might have used on previous difficulties are totally non-applicable on Viceroy and it turns into completely different game.

So, what are the tips or guides for Viceroy difficulty?

It is very clearly meant to be played differently on that level

[el Darkness]

The biggest thing is to not open unnecessary Glades, they raise Hostility by a ton. Unnecessary Worfroce is also detrimental, cause it raises Hostility. Stop cutting wood during Storm. You need to learn to gain Reputation from sources different than Orders (like Resolve), luxury food will help with that (also luxury food helps solve starvation).

[4t2]

It's hard to give you advice on what you are doing wrong/could improve on if we don't know what you are doing in the first place.

If I think back to my beginnings with this game I think one huge mistake I made was to not care about housing. At least build general houses, though you should always aim for specialized houses.

But again, as long as we don't see like a specific (early) game that you lost it's hard to really give advice.

[Perception312]

I have made some notes for myself and so far have 100% winrate on Viceroy using them. I have pasted them below.

General build order/priority:
2 wood-gathering buildings
basic resource and food gathering
shelters, decorations for 1st hearth level, workstation, makeshift post, trading post
efficient recipe for planks, and bricks and/or fabric
complex food
efficient fuel
racial housing, decorations for 2nd hearth level
services*, clothing/boots, 3rd hearth level

*top priority when choosing blueprints at any point in the game

Expansion pace:
Open a dangerous glade at the end of the first storm, and at the start of every year thereafter. Avoid small glades if practical.
Put a warehouse in each dangerous glade if possible, first to help with the event, then to help with whatever you put there (or scrap it afterwards).
Aim for a population between 34 and 40, with 2 hearths.

Species analysis:
Beavers have perks that encourage trading. They are the most difficult species to generate reputation with via resolve, so it may be best to focus on the other species' needs.
Harpies give +5 carrying capacity as main firekeeper and have low decadence, but they take frequent breaks.
Humans have the highest base resolve and they help with farming.
Lizards are resilient but highly decadent. Their starting ability is good, and they are comfortable in many jobs, but they take frequent breaks.
Foxes can be difficult to build species housing for, but they are immune to forest hostility.
Frogs take fewer breaks. They reveal the nearest ruin at the start and speed up newcomers if assigned as firekeeper. They often need species housing early on.

[Beast Regards]

Nope, doesn't work. Works on the Veteran just fine. Could win Veteran without orders, only through resolve and events, did the challenge too.

I couldn't win anything on Viceroy difficulty.

One play through I managed to open like 90% glades on the Viceroy difficulty (in desperate search for food, because the Viceroy difficulty don't generate good near you, I suspect) and was able to decently manage the hostility. I say decently, because, well, I opened too many glades. Normally, you shouldn't open them in quick succession.

Yet, it failed, because queen impatience grew too fast. My personal assumption is it must be quadrupled or something, at least.

The food perhaps wouldn't be that much off the problem, the Veteran taught me I shopping for food, and focus on getting money through trading to buy food. Unless there is a challenge that forbid training, then I need the food, but even then I could win with victory points through completing the events.

Doesn't work on Viceroy either, you couldn't sell items to the trader even if you demonstrably have them.

I would probably win on Viceroy too, if the half of the impatience just disappeared...

...but it won't disappear, because, well, that's the point of the difficulty.

[Perception312]

It sounds like your games are dragging on too long, but I don't know why that might be happening. In my experience, Impatience is a good thing, because it reduces hostility. I've never seen it get past the halfway point of the bar. I assume you've been buying upgrades from the citadel between games? I imagine it would be very hard to raise the difficulty without them. I waited until I did the second seal before playing on Viceroy, so I have a good chunk of the upgrade tree unlocked.

From the trader I mostly buy perks/blueprints, building materials, or whatever I need to complete an order or glade event. I might also buy service goods and clothing for pushing resolve up later in the game. I feel that food would run out too fast if I bought it instead of constantly producing it myself.

[Entropy Judge]

Originally posted by Beast Regards:

...
However, I found out that the change between the Veteran and Viceroy is exponential. Not only you get the blueprints you don't need, and the cornerstones which won't help, that's a course of the normal game, but also the impatience raises with a rocket speed, as does hostility, maps are spawned without food or are always the ones you couldn't harvest, and traders are no longer buying stuff...

So, since I don't actually know what you're doing, and therefore specific advice is pretty useless ...

* If Impatience is a problem, make sure to get the central Upgrades, as they reduce Impatience Growth. Similarly, a Human Firekeeper in the Ancient Hearth reduces Impatience Growth.

* A Fox Firekeeper in the Ancient Hearth will reduce Hostility from opening Glades. The Temple and the Monastery also help reduce Hostility.

* Make sure to get the right-side Upgrades, as at the very least, not having the Housing buildings cluttering the Blueprints is a great help.

But also, generally ... like, it's been a couple weeks since I've played, but I don't think the issues you're complaining about are actually real. Checking the Wiki briefly, the only harsher penalties for Viceroy compared to Veteran are higher Hostility growth and more 'difficult' Orders. Impatience isn't affected, map generation isn't affected, traders aren't affected.

[Beast Regards]

Originally posted by Perception312:

It sounds like your games are dragging on too long, but I don't know why that might be happening. In my experience, Impatience is a good thing, because it reduces hostility. I've never seen it get past the halfway point of the bar. I assume you've been buying upgrades from the citadel between games? I imagine it would be very hard to raise the difficulty without them. I waited until I did the second seal before playing on Viceroy, so I have a good chunk of the upgrade tree unlocked.

From the trader I mostly buy perks/blueprints, building materials, or whatever I need to complete an order or glade event. I might also buy service goods and clothing for pushing resolve up later in the game. I feel that food would run out too fast if I bought it instead of constantly producing it myself.

Yes, I do buy the citadel upgrades, I am not too high in the tree, but I have some. (I don't know which level it is, one where you unlock the fox houses and field kitchen)

Games dragging for too long may be a problem.

I didn't found a way to shorten them.

I am usually trying to speed the things up when I can, complete orders as soon as possible, use the reputation option whenever is possible, but the games always drag too long it seems.

Still I get past the half-way patience quite often, but still win the games...

...occasionally when the things align better, I did managed to win the games with nearly empty impatience bar (as getting reputation quickly decreases the impatience, a lot of caches and lot of tools help with that)

...which doesn't happen if I try Viceroy difficulty, hence the reason I am quite frustrated with it. (and hence, the this thread bothering everyone)

***

As for the general strategy I prioritise the cornerstones that give materials, people or lower hostility (like watchtower), in some combination. There are ones which lower impatience, which is something I have problem with, but they have some convoluted condition so I rarely try to use them.

I use caches for reputation, or break them open for goods if I could exchange those goods for something that give reputation, like some event. Farming for the crystalized dew (or whatever those blue ingots are) seems to be fastest way to manufacture tools, with tools being essentially tokens for events. I take farms for food if there aren't any large gathering nodes though, usually open the first large glade after the first order to find out

I am usually quite torn which gatherers I need. One of the better cornerstones (not mentioned above) was the one that unlocked all gatherers as it takes away the necessity to make a choice.

[Entropy Judge]

Originally posted by Beast Regards:

As for the general strategy I prioritise the cornerstones that give materials, people or lower hostility (like watchtower), in some combination. There are ones which lower impatience, which is something I have problem with, but they have some convoluted condition so I rarely try to use them.

I use caches for reputation, or break them open for goods if I could exchange those goods for something that give reputation, like some event. Farming for the crystalized dew (or whatever those blue ingots are) seems to be fastest way to manufacture tools, with tools being essentially tokens for events. I take farms for food if there aren't any large gathering nodes though, usually open the first large glade after the first order to find out

I am usually quite torn which gatherers I need. One of the better cornerstones (not mentioned above) was the one that unlocked all gatherers as it takes away the necessity to make a choice.

My two cents:
Get better at Resolve-based reputation. Learn complex-food-farming, and streamline your Service Building work.

Play some games - you're almost definitely going to have to go back to Veteran for this - without opening any caches. I play Viceroy, and I almost never use Tools to open caches; I either break them open or leave them (and, yeah, I have year 7-9 wins; I'm not exactly a great player, myself).

As far as the advanced Gathering buildings go, unless I'm on the Marshland biome, I tend to dislike them. Unless I know there's already a specific Large X in a Glade I've already opened, it's a toss-up as to whether I'll actually encounter the thing or not, and it seems like half the time I pick an Advanced Camp, I find a Ruined one in a glade anyway.

[Woudo]

I'm still a beginner like you, but one thing I have noticed;

- Get accustomed to interacting with the warehouse. Disable all complex foods/gear/services at the start of the game, and only enable them if you need it for the resolve. Leaving it on only seems to use up the resources for a negligible amount of happiness at a time in the game where you can't make much use out of it. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like happiness/resolve does nothing unless it's high enough to be blue-ringed, (at which point it is generating reputation). Prior to that, anything above 0 is fine. Obviously loitering around low resolve is dangerous because events and Storm are going to make it fluctuate, but those are the cases where you do want to enable complex/gear/services. And of course once you have a supply chain of that food/gear/service, you can keep it enabled.

It's also worth turning off certain base foods sometimes, like meat or insects, for when you don't have a great supply of them but can turn them into higher quality foods like skewers or jerky.

Either way, get into the habit of checking the main warehouse and keeping an eye on your ins and outs.

[el Darkness]

Usually on higher difficulties people avoid opening too many Glades. Strategy I used when playing Prestige 10 was to delay picking most buffs (unless they were no brainers) until I open 2 Dangerous Glades at the end of the first Storm (or beginning of 2nd Drizzle). At this time I opened first Dangerous Glade, got to know what I found in it and decide if I can risk opening second Glade (90% of time I could). After opening 2nd Glade I considered opening 3rd Glade, but no more than that. After I opened those 2-3 Glades I started picking my Buffs, I postponed this decisions in order to get more information. Now knowing which Nodes I have I could make informed decision about my Blueprints and Cornerstones.

If your games tend to get too long, you may need to farm. While farming is not good for fast winning, it may be easier for you to shift focus toward farming rather than winning fast. Just to let you know there is an option here to consider.

If your games are long and you cannot win quickly, put more weight on permanent buffs from rewards. Resources/Items may help you win faster but cornerstones will make your Settlement stronger in the long run.

DO NOT I repeat DO NOT take all the Villagers you can. You can easily win with less than 40 Workers (even less). More Workers will require more Food and Services and Houses.

Build Houses, even if they are just Shelters, build them!
Make Complex Food and later Luxury Services, this will help you win through Resolve.
Tools are great, but it is hard to make them from base Resources with entire production chain. Perhaps if you have found ready Ingots then you can just take building to make Tools without actually smelting Copper.

[Skallagrim]

Why don't you post a screenshot of a "typical" settlement around year 3 storm , ideally from a couple of different angles to capture all the glades. That way we can more easily recognize if you made any significant mistake.

Otherwise most things posted in this thread are valid, but it's hard to be more specific without having a sense of what you have been doing.

[Beast Regards]

I just posted the results window from the game on Veteran.

It's on my profile. Tried to upload here to chat, but can't, don't know why, but it is image is public.

I hoped it would show the time spent on map, but unfortunately, it does not. It's on Veteran, however not sure how much time I've spent on the map. I did opened the two dangerous glades early on, in the first season, to complete the order, but it was still manageable on Veteran.

Otherwise, I don't know what to show for ... but I could probably start a game on Viceroy, and do the screenshots during game-play.

Any input is welcome, otherwise I could be back later with more screenshots.

[Skallagrim]

It would be more helpful if you expand the species need panel. However I see only foxes have resolves above 20, even with +3 global resolve perk and Rebellious Spirit (which does nothing if impatience is low). This seems to suggest you are not providing any service. Again this would be more obvious if you have the need panel open.

Level 5 hostility on year 6 is also on the high side, consider this is on veteran, as it would mean level 7 on Viceroy. This can be due to several reasons:

1. 49 population is too high. 39 is plenty, even 29 is arguably enough. The only time I go over ~35 population is when the last few orders give unwanted population as reward. I would only claim the reward as I'm about to beat the settlement. Seeing you have a few unfinished order this wouldn't be the case.

2. Are you building enough hearths? Each gives -30 hostility and they stack. Leveling those hearth too as they provide + global resolve.

3. Are you opening too many small glades? On average they are not worth opening, although it doesn't take much to swing it the other way. BTW one thing that can swing the favor is

4. Having a fox keeper. It's significant hostility reduction at late game, which would be enough to drop you to level 4 (+2 resolve on beavers and lizards, more during storm). Lizard keeper is worthless late game.

5. Call traders toward end game, repeatedly even. Not only it lets you buy whatever you need/can, but the increase in impatience reduces hostility AND enables Rebellious Spirit.

[Beast Regards]

1. I accepted all the extra population as I was racing towards the end (they won't run out of food, and population orders were easier to achieve)

2. No. Single heart only. I rarely build more than one Heart. They consume extra fuel, and wasn't sure if they even give bonuses. I was under impression only the main one gives bonuses)

3. Sometimes. This game I knowingly opened unnecessary small glades looking for clay or stone, there was none, and I finished the name without it. In Viceroy, I usually look for food instead.

4. 90% percent of the time I use Lizards as firekeeper because of efficiency. Only lately I changed this, but mostly went with harpies where applicable.

5. I often call traders on Veteran difficulty. This time, I shopped for tools, as I wasn't manufacturing enough (and I was left with orders unlikely to complete)

As for rebellious spirit, selected it when impatience was higher, it was in fact probably the first game I used it.

As for service buildings (like temples and such) there was only a clan hall, needed for the order that demanded lizard resolve and the building itself.

[Skallagrim]

Based on your responses, it seems a few notable things are:
1. Aim to build 2 hearths over the course of the game. Having 2 level-2 hearth and 1 level-1 requires 36 population, but gives +5 global resolves, 20% production speed, -90 hostility, and some blight resistance (doesn't really matter here)
2. Higher priority in getting service online. Once I have one good complex food online, I take service building over just about anything else. Other player would even prioritize them above complex food. Most often you won't need to actually produce the service goods, rather just buy them from traders. Keep in mind to only enable service consumption when you need to resolve push or survive a nasty storm. Amber is almost always better spent on buying service goods than tools.
3. Put less emphasis on orders in general. The first ~5 orders are important since they unlock critical early game blue prints, but don't stretch too much for orders on the second row. Sure complete them if they are easy, but if they require (delivering) too much resources or too much setup, you are better off diverting the resources to setup services/clothing/extra complex food to push resolve.

With hearth keeper, you get a specie-specific global bonus on the Ancient Hearth (+1 resolve with lizard, extra carry capacity with harpy). The +1 resolve means very little past mid game. Each individual small hearth, since it's a warm building, will give +5 resolve to the particular lizard if you have one there. No reason not to put a lizard in small hearths.

Looking at your screen shot again, I noticed you have quite a bit of water stored up. Using Rainpunk effectively is also a huge boost in overall efficiency too.