So this whole RNG building thing

[Baron]

Ive played a couple of maps and cant seem to get a grip on why this is good. Seems clunky and inorganic so far. I was wondering if I could ask some of the players been around a while - do you end up with more control over your building options?

I can see that over time Ill unlock more options and I DO like that there are many options - just seems at the moment Ill unlock random useless crap over the course of a game - first pick for example might be a tavern as I know I get farms but then I dont pull a mill all round, so very little flour, while meanwhile Im stuck with basic shelters for everyone at end game. Do I stick with it for a level or two?

Is this due a balance pass? Cos I might hold off if it is, seems like its good otherwise

[Nimea]

As always, don't get part 2 of a combo if you don't have part 1. Why get a tavern if you don't have a brewery to produce ale, nor a farm to produce the foodstuff for the ale, nor a barrel/waterskin/pottery building for the ale, etc.

You get what I mean? You're jumping hoops. Enjoy the step-by-step process of transforming your settlement from producing simple goods, to the next step of more complex goods, until you get services (like the tavern).

For shelters, you'll eventually unlock the race-specific houses through the Smoldering City.

Remember that you *always* have control over your building options and choices. Knowing what to pick and not overextending (nor picking part 2 without part 1) is what would dictate if you'll win or not.

Personally, I'd say the balance is running on a super tight ship right now. As long as you know how to make use of the resources on the map, you'll usually win, even on prestige levels. Even if takes 12 ingame years or what. It takes really, really bad RNG to lose due to the map, and not due to skill issue.

[Snobby Hobo]

Nimea already gave solid advice. The most basic strategy is recognizing what resource lies at the end of a chain and which at the very beginning. Looking at buildings in the encyclopedia is a worthwhile investment.

Like someone else told me you also just need to accept redundancy. There's no two ways around it. Sometimes it's best to just abandon ship on a plan you might have had earlier.

But I digress. The game does have a lot of issues with the new player experience, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be picked up upon by many. The meta-progression has some really important upgrades available which slowly cause the game to open up. Don't try to move up the difficulty ladder too fast as your game will be way more difficult than should be.

[Bukkfrig]

You actually end up with less control over your building options, but with more experience you'll have a more complete picture of the tech tree in your head and be able to see the paths available toward generating reputation.

You just have to make use of what you find, rather than trying to build it all. You can assume somewhere around 8 reputation points from completing that many out of your 10 Orders, then you just need to find a few more points from other sources, which are:

- the remaining Orders.
- glade events,
- caches (i.e. production of Tools),
- certain cornerstones,
- satisfying additional complex food needs, or
- satisfying additional service needs.

When you consider each of the complex food needs and service needs as separate opportunities to generate reputation, then it becomes apparent there are many more ways to do it than is required to win. If one of them falls through, it's not the end of the world.

The Tavern (or any service building) early may not be something you take highly in your early picks, as it can't provide any return in the early game and then may not work out at all, but if you do take it, then it's just something to keep in mind as a potential tech branch to connect up to in the future.

(One way that you do gain more control over building options is that you do eventually permanently unlock all of the species' house blueprints, which is signficant as you get fewer blueprint choices as you progress the game difficulty.)

[8-bit Cavalry]

I'm not super far into the game yet (don't have the whole tech tree unlocked even), but one thing Against the Storm constantly asks you is: "How much risk are you willing to accept for the chance of a big payoff?" if your town feels like a powerhouse, and you see a choice pick... it can be fun to take that chance even if you don't have the pre-reqs, but its a gamble!

Just remember every time you pick something you can't use right now, you're also burning future opportunities because the safe pick probably opens some options itself (which you might or might not see on future picks).

That's what keeps me playing... I feel like I can't go 2 minutes without facing a real risk-vs-reward choice that I'll be feeling the rest of the game (for good or bad). I play 4x / empire / wargame/ deckbuilder games for those choices, and wow, does this game just throw them at you non-stop.

[Samseng Yik]

Rogue ish game is always asking player adapting the random and "play the game differently still win".
You may not well verse in this genre, as a beginner you already call things in this game as "useless crap".

Kinda reminds me a youngster walk into a MNC corporation and asking "why do people still use computer this useless crap? Phone is better than computer in every way"

A seasoned player can answer you usage of each building and when shall you pick them over another.

[Baron]

Plenty of veteran and well considered advice here that I shall take on board. Thank you all

[Bolt]

Somewhat new to the game too but I can give some advice still:

Let the stars guide you: The more stars a production structure has for a good the lower are the material requirements and the faster the goods are produced. Things you always need for construction: Planks, lots of them. So if you have something that can produce them at a 3 star level: Go for it. Having something that can produce fuel for the fire is nice too. To not run out of resources ALWAYS set a production limit how much of a good you want to have at most (this refers to the amount found in your warehouses), so that you don't end up with 1 resource pile that's annihilated another, or multiple others, to produce vastly more than you need. Disable the production of things you don't need.

Before starting a map you get an info what resources can be found on it. You won't get other resources unless buying them from vendors, being lucky with randomly discovered loot caches or getting a cornerstone like +[AMOUNT] of [RESOURCE] every [TIME] minutes. So these are the resources you have to work with. Certain map types also make it easier or harder to get certain resources, which you can read up on as well. Aside from a structure's production efficiency resource gains can be increased by assigning the right race to the right structure, so that they have a chance to produce bonus goods, or their happiness (resolve) increases, ideally both. Info on that can be found in their tooltips. The icons may be a bit hard to identify because of different scaling though.

The more you level up the more structures, vendors and bonus effects you get access to, along with some minor passive and permanent bonus effects. One unlockable bonus also grants you the option to pay amber to reroll what you get.

I think for happiness (resolve) it's easier to have multiple fires and level them up (+2 global resolve) than to make use of any complex food bonus, because that's just too hard to get most often and imo farmers aren't efficient enough, even with a warehouse right next to each for minimal travel time and a +25% bonus for all their tasks, unless you get a +[AMOUNT] more [RESOURCE] produced for them.

A major bonus you can unlock is trade routes, which allows you to amass amber for trading with vendors, although some offers pay almost nothing. The main catch with this is that vendors sometimes sell structure blueprints or permanent bonus effects.

For me the main issues I've run into are:
-making sure to not run out of food when getting no option to farm some yourself but relying on new sources being discovered and
-getting enough wood on mushroom tree maps, which is really hard

[Morannon]

I'm still really struggling to like the blueprint RNG system. I'm honestly thinking they need to start breaking it up more and give you more control over the choices. It's ridiculous that I have gotten 3 service buildings in some draws when I have zero chance of knowing whether I'll ever be able to manage a production chain for them and can't even produce planks yet.

I would like to see them categorize the buildings and for each choice, ask you which category you want to pull from:
Tier 1: Primary ingredients: planks, fabric, camps, farms, water
Tier 2: Secondary ingredients: flour, metals, complex foods from primary ingredients
Tier 3: Final products and service buildings: ale, incense, tavern, etc.

When going to choose a blueprint, you select Tier 1, 2, or 3, and you get a random pull of THOSE buildings. Give you more of a chance to set up some form of logical production chain instead of getting spammed with Tier 3 buildings early in the game and never ever finding a use for them.

It retains some of the RNG but gives some control / choice to the player.

[Lil brekky]

Originally posted by Morannon:

I'm still really struggling to like the blueprint RNG system. I'm honestly thinking they need to start breaking it up more and give you more control over the choices. It's ridiculous that I have gotten 3 service buildings in some draws when I have zero chance of knowing whether I'll ever be able to manage a production chain for them and can't even produce planks yet.

I would like to see them categorize the buildings and for each choice, ask you which category you want to pull from:
Tier 1: Primary ingredients: planks, fabric, camps, farms, water
Tier 2: Secondary ingredients: flour, metals, complex foods from primary ingredients
Tier 3: Final products and service buildings: ale, incense, tavern, etc.

When going to choose a blueprint, you select Tier 1, 2, or 3, and you get a random pull of THOSE buildings. Give you more of a chance to set up some form of logical production chain instead of getting spammed with Tier 3 buildings early in the game and never ever finding a use for them.

It retains some of the RNG but gives some control / choice to the player.

some of that is baked into the RNG, but it would be better if that information was included in the game. RNG "slants" food buildings to the early game, and services to the late.

I can relate with your feeling, but as I've learned more skills and strategies, frustration about blueprint RNG is something that just doesn't get to me anymore. instead of wishing buildings were something else, I just start thinking "how can I utilize any of the recipes in this thing?"

service buildings are good, I don't feel bad about taking a strong one pick 2 or 3 and building it later, but like many of the interesting mechanics of the game, their power is very poorly communicated. when you're looking at a service building in the choose-a-blueprint screen, it tells you the 1-2 items that can be used there and only the NAME of its unique buff.

this is very bad communication. Like, exceptionally bad.

because a normal player will focus on the only actually informative part of the tooltip for the service building - "Ok, Luxury...." (looks it up in encyclopedia) "Ugh, okay, so Luxury = Wine, I wish they would just call it Wine... So I need to have Wine to use this building." the next part of the tooltip is something like "The King's Begonias" or whatever and it looks like nonsense flavour text or something. This is unfortunate because the unique buffs are the main benefit of most service buildings.

these buffs do things like reduce hostility by an entire LEVEL (does anything else in the game reduce that much at once?), give flat resolve bonuses that can increase infinitely, 2x production in certain buildings. they're really strong, stronger than most cornerstones. But you cannot have even an intuition of what they do until you look them up in the encyclopedia or build them.

anyway... all this is simply to give an example of (1) why I think blueprint RNG annoys people so much and (2) how many choices in the game have a kind of hidden potential you have to learn about.

[DG]

Originally posted by Morannon:

It's ridiculous that I have gotten 3 service buildings in some draws when I have zero chance of knowing whether I'll ever be able to manage a production chain for them and can't even produce planks yet.

It's quite rare to get offered all service buildings at the start of a run. The best choice from random service buildings are the ones that suit your population. If you've mostly beavers at the start then you want service buildings that give the beavers education and luxury. Tea and religion are no use to them.

[Kyresti]

I differ a little here in that I'll often gamble on late-chain production buildings if there's something I think will be vital later. Things like biscuits before farms, or tools before smelters (if in a metal-heavy place like crimson).

If there's no immediate good picks in a building draw, it can make a good plan B.

And because every (industrial) production building has 3 products and almost every component can be substituted, they can wind up serving a different purpose altogether if your rolls land in the right kind of wrong way.

Outside of that, everyone's got solid advice.

Oh... as you level the citadel you do unlock a few buildings for permanent use. Notably the species houses will stop cluttering your draws.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

Originally posted by Lil brekky:

service buildings are good, I don't feel bad about taking a strong one pick 2 or 3 and building it later, but like many of the interesting mechanics of the game, their power is very poorly communicated. when you're looking at a service building in the choose-a-blueprint screen, it tells you the 1-2 items that can be used there and only the NAME of its unique buff.

Right-clicking on it brings up the encyclopedia page without having to navigate it, which importantly shows what the buff actually does. Looking at the details of blueprints like that is useful in general (ie checking ingredients, race synergies).

[cassembler]

@Baron - I felt the same way at first; hard to get meat without the Trapper's Camp, right?

I've come around to highly regard the game design. Finding more reputation points can be done without the Trapper's Camp (for example)... But how?

As excited as I am for the future of this game, I'm more excited for the games it will influence.

[Samseng Yik]

The worst RNG I got is I get offered 4 times Herbalist camp in a biome which only collect 1 resource. And it offer again immediately after I press reroll.
If only 1 improvement I hope, the blueprint random pool should temporary remove the current selection for 2 next blue print options "if we press reroll"

[Det.GingerSnaps]

I will say it took me a few games to figure out the building strategy. Lost about half of my first few games learning the mechanics. My most useful tip is to build enough shelter and 4 decorations points before the first storm hits. That extra resolve really helps early in each map. I feel I have the best success building tall over wide in this game. Also look at your woodcutter camps, you can tell them to avoid glades etc.