How to deal with opposing factions?

[bortas]

I'm wondering what's the best course of action to deal with the two opposing factions (reason vs. tradition).

I'm generally leaning more towards reason, but the traditionalists have useful ideas, too, so it's actually quite a close call between the two and I don't really want to lose any of their possibilities, so until now I've tried to maintain a balance and keep them both neutral.

It's getting increasingly difficult, though, so is it even possible to keep them both calm or is the civil war inevitable?

Also will these factions "forget" past actions at some point? If I use the deradicalization or secret police on them, will they forgive me at some point, or would this damage relations forever?

[Airatome]

It really depends on several factors.

These factions remember. Even if it's seemingly petty stuff like you built a building they wanted you to build as part of securing you that vote you asked for weeks ago, but then you demolished it. Or worse...you demolished it and then built the opposite version of that building. They'll remember.... they always remember....
They'll even approach you about laws that are having adverse effects on their beliefs.

But there IS a path where you keep everything balanced and find a way to reconcile or keep the peace despite having two factions that stand for complete opposites.

The trick here is to make sure you have a somewhat even spread of laws enacted that keep both of their zeitgeists in mind. In this case, Reason AND Tradition. If you go too far into one direction there will be unhappiness. On top of that, you probably should't put any radical ideas in place as those will have a higher weight to them. Lastly, make sure you use the voting sessions to keep the peace. Promising something to the faction that's starting to lose favor with you, or the highest thing you can do: Grant them the next say so for what's being voted on, can go a long way. And if they propose something you don't want? Just promise the OTHER side something else to sway the votes in favor of the law failing to pass. Win/Win. The Traditionalists get to decide what the vote will be, and the Reason folk shut that vote down because you promised THEM something that you'll handle shortly in the future. Just because a vote failed because you were tricky about it doesn't mean the Traditionalists are wise to it.

Other shenanigans involve use of the Promote feature and also once you are raking in more Heatstamps, paying them for favor.

Deradicalization is an important thing to be using when either of them begin getting fanatic so keep your OTHER factions liking you as well, at least one for both major faction, so that they can deradicalize them when needed so that you don't have to lose the secret police on them. The secret police buttons should be used as a last resort unless you are using them for good things.

Few things are FOREVER.... but they do remember. Like if you take violent members of faction to fill out your secret police guard forces (the tooltip WILL tell you that you are taking VIOLENT members of the faction so read everything before committing...) then those secret police will start doing violent things of their own accord. Cause and effect is always happening in Frostpunk games, and this one is no different.

So play the council sessions to your whim... and when you can't do that anymore, pay them to like you and promote their interests. If (while playing in Utopia mode) you can get ALL 5 factions to be devoted, there's an achievement for that. Going middle ground is definitely an option, you'll just miss out on the most powerful things that going fully one direction or the other has to offer.

Edit: But, as a bonus to getting them both to like you, you can use BOTH of their special faction abilities instead of one or the other.

[bortas]

Originally posted by Airatome:

Few things are FOREVER.... but they do remember.

Damn I'm telling you... I used "raise funds" on one of my faction at the start of the game to get things going. Now I'm 1200 weeks in, and it's still negatively influencing relations, although I have given them many times what I have asked for to fund their projects. So the negative impact remains forever it seems.

Edit: But, as a bonus to getting them both to like you, you can use BOTH of their special faction abilities instead of one or the other.

Great idea. And thanks for everything you told me... very informative.

All those hidden consequences are what sets FP apart from other games and makes it fun and interesting even after so many weeks in.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by bortas:

Originally posted by Airatome:

Few things are FOREVER.... but they do remember.

Damn I'm telling you... I used "raise funds" on one of my faction at the start of the game to get things going. Now I'm 1200 weeks in, and it's still negatively influencing relations, although I have given them many times what I have asked for to fund their projects. So the negative impact remains forever it seems.

Edit: But, as a bonus to getting them both to like you, you can use BOTH of their special faction abilities instead of one or the other.

Great idea. And thanks for everything you told me... very informative.

All those hidden consequences are what sets FP apart from other games and makes it fun and interesting even after so many weeks in.

As an addendum after playing in Utopia mode past the objective completion time and so I've had ample time to explore these mechanics: I had a group that drastically despised me because I locked in two of the three zeitgeists that they are directly apposed to. No matter how much I used the secret police or granted them an Agenda to "Greatly increase" how much they like it... it would NOT budge because they had three stacks of "EXTREMELY DECREASED BY" the city moving towards X, Y and Z .

Finally.....after several weeks of trying to turn back almost locking in Progress over Adaptation, I've been rolling that back and researching Adaptation perks and laws and replacing Progress buildings with Adaptation ones. Now they only have two stacks of Extremely decreased and the third has reduced down to "greatly" instead. NOW when I start paying them and using the secret police to grant them favor, it's actually working. Soon, once I've started researching Frostland laws for Adaptation side, I'll start voting those into being and their mood should considerably increase.

One thing I am finding, and now I'm not sure how to counter or prevent.... is that now that I'm the Captain and control all the laws, if I grant someone agenda and then make the vote fail, their favor with me is sharply decreased because I fixed the votes.....but now there's no way to turn that off so EVERY vote is a fixed vote...... blah.
Apparently they have very long memories >.<

All this to say, even when a faction DESPISES you and constantly preparing a protest? There's hope. If you make the right choices. My city is 2/3rds opposing them and yet I'm halfway to getting them neutral. Perhaps after this whiteout that's coming, I can use the warmer season to get them to Devoted and check another Achievement off my list xD

[NovaGenetics]

Having trouble with upstarts who think they know best? Send in the guards and beat them into submission. That's what I do. Order has always been my favorite because I can shut people up and throw them in prison for being a pain in the ass and breaking my stuff. Doesn't matter if they protest since you can shut it down easily if you have enough guards.

I had Pilgrims at Lv3 Fervour for pretty much all of the endgame and it never stopped me from progressing and killing them off one by one.

I prefer efficiency over "morals" in Frostpunk. Which is why I sent the Pilgrims to their deaths in Winterhome, because ♥♥♥♥ them. Go there, get my supplies and don't come back.

[bortas]

Originally posted by Airatome:

One thing I am finding, and now I'm not sure how to counter or prevent.... is that now that I'm the Captain and control all the laws, if I grant someone agenda and then make the vote fail, their favor with me is sharply decreased because I fixed the votes.....but now there's no way to turn that off so EVERY vote is a fixed vote...... blah.
Apparently they have very long memories >.<

Weird... I did exactly the same and it is working for me... grant agenda -> get reputation bonus -> reject law (I'm captain, too) and the bonus remained.

[Harris]

Originally posted by bortas:

I'm wondering what's the best course of action to deal with the two opposing factions (reason vs. tradition).

I'm generally leaning more towards reason, but the traditionalists have useful ideas, too, so it's actually quite a close call between the two and I don't really want to lose any of their possibilities, so until now I've tried to maintain a balance and keep them both neutral.

Reason wins simply due to Panaceum factories, if you want an infinite food supply for 100k+ people in Utopia mode, your options are pretty much either this or 10+ food hoarding inspectorates, which locks you into Equality. Otherwise, Tradition feels like "Reason but worse". It's good at population growth, but Algorithm can achieve the same and has more options that can be more situationally useful. It got better dealing with crime, but crime is generally the easiest problem to deal with.

Tradition does offer more options for dealing with the civil war that help manage tension (asylums and relink chain), but that's mostly for correcting misplay mistakes that stop happening with experience, so it's whatever. One thing I really like about Tradition tho are Recovery hospitals. They combine reducing disease with population growth, which seems more useful than Teaching hospital's buff to research speed which is irrelevant once you've researched everything.

So really, it's a pairing of either Equality/Tradition or Merit/Reason.

As for factions, the best way to keep both around is the path of Order where you build ghettos for them. Naturally, this is not gonna make them like you and is only relevant if you don't want to be locked out of each faction's radical ideas... but you can grab whatever radicals you want before civil war even starts, making it a moot.

As for bonuses, I find most are no longer that relevant in the late game. Sure, some like Venturers are useful if you need lots of guards for indentured if you play that way. And having a single massive 62k faction you keep around as your personal piggy bank is fun. But really, I prefer the outcome where you get rid of both factions and all the problems associated with them.

How to accomplish that? Pick the banishment path, but choose the faction that's more likely to survive the fighting. Then help the faction you were supposed to banish slaughter their opponents by managing their size and fervour. At the end you get the choice either to offer amnesty to the faction or exile them.

[bortas]

Originally posted by Harris:

Otherwise, Tradition feels like "Reason but worse". It's good at population growth, but Algorithm can achieve the same and has more options that can be more situationally useful.

Where exactly in the tech tree can I find "Algorithm"? I'm currently using "Sterilization" to stabilize my population but have to lift it from time to time, to replace the secret police victims.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by bortas:

Originally posted by Harris:

Otherwise, Tradition feels like "Reason but worse". It's good at population growth, but Algorithm can achieve the same and has more options that can be more situationally useful.

Where exactly in the tech tree can I find "Algorithm"? I'm currently using "Sterilization" to stabilize my population but have to lift it from time to time, to replace the secret police victims.

Each of the 6 zeitgeists has a "Capstone" ability in the research tree. Once you get one to 100 percent, the icon in the middle no longer looks split in half, but rather a BIG golden icon of the one you maxed out.

Click it.

It will tell you if you want to activate its final research option.
The Algorithm is the Logic version of this in which your core city has a button at the generator/city center called the Algorithm. This can DRASTICALLY have several effects that you can toggle at will (after like a few day cooldown):

* Extremely increase population growth
* Extremely decrease population growth (I have used this in conjunction with sterilization to flat out pause pop growth until I had more momentum to house feed and warm them all)
* Extremely increase research speed (Useful if you dont need to do anything else)
* And I believe there's a few others like disease / food management... but I have never seen the food option so that must be a particular combination that unlocks that.

[brooklyncontrivance]

Originally posted by Harris:

So really, it's a pairing of either Equality/Tradition or Merit/Reason.

I've found equality/reason works quite, quite well.

[Harris]

Originally posted by brooklyncontrivance:

equality/reason

That's not a very good pairing because at the end of the day the most powerful thing both offer is trivializing hunger - either by producing tons of food at panaceum factories or by completely negating hunger penalties by spamming food hoarding inspectorates.

Merit pairs with Reason better because disease from workers dormitories (that are really good to spam to boost production and reduce housing needs) ends up negated by panaceum factories even without needing other buildings to counter disease.

Equality pairs better with Tradition because of recovery hospitals that both take care of disease and boost population growth, and Equality is perfect at keeping massive populations fed (technically) and supplied with goods. Meanwhile, frostland deportations buffs your outposts.

I found that the game on whole has just two optimal builds - Adaptation/Equality/Tradition which gives you an authentic Soviet Union experience with 100k+ population; and Progress/Merit/Reason where you keep your population to a minimum, prioritizing maximum efficiency, and have your colonies entirely run by automatons. The respective factions are perfect for this playstyles too - Menders boost your population while Venturers provide guard to watch over the servants later on.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by brooklyncontrivance:

equality/reason

I found that the game on whole has just two optimal builds - Adaptation/Equality/Tradition which gives you an authentic Soviet Union experience with 100k+ population; and Progress/Merit/Reason where you keep your population to a minimum, prioritizing maximum efficiency, and have your colonies entirely run by automatons. The respective factions are perfect for this playstyles too - Menders boost your population while Venturers provide guard to watch over the servants later on.

I am doing a Progress/Merit/Reason Utopia run right now where I was originally going for the Isolatioist achievement until the objective is complete. Which I chose hoarding resources for. I think I had everything hoarded right after the first whiteout.

Having strict control over my population and plenty of work force to handle labor for me was massively integral to not having to touch the Frostland buildings or even build that zone.

But NOW, with that unlocked, I am heading out into the Frostlands in an attempt to get enough cores so that I can survive 2K weeks and unlock the authentic Utopia mode ending for Endless Mode unlocking. And I am not prepared to deal with in fighting so I am rolling back all my Progress momentum and turning it into Adaptation. Since it's the only one I haven't locked in with a Cornerstone ability yet. With only a few exceptions (Like deep vein drills). I have almost gotten all 5 factions to revered and haven't needed a single prison yet.

We will see how this goes....usually I just hate on one until there are so few of them that they're inconsequential. So this should be a nice experiment.....

[brooklyncontrivance]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by brooklyncontrivance:

equality/reason

I found that the game on whole has just two optimal builds - Adaptation/Equality/Tradition which gives you an authentic Soviet Union experience with 100k+ population

Which I just did effortlessly with equality/reason. I did also adopt the adaptation cornerstone, but it was at week 1991 so not really a big factor.

Not only did I do megalopolis with that run, I also did the 50k pop outside the main city achievement and the all factions devoted to you achievement on it as well, and ran it for 2000 weeks to get to unlock endless mode.

So yeah, gonna stick with stating that equality/reason works quite, quite well.

[Iron Horse]

The game needs an assimilation feature towards later in the game.

When do Frostlanders become New Londoners? In the Utopia builder, it would be nice to have a way to build a faction, or setting some values goals, and work your factions towards a goal like a melting pot.

[Cykouxis]

Originally posted by Airatome:

Originally posted by bortas:

Where exactly in the tech tree can I find "Algorithm"? I'm currently using "Sterilization" to stabilize my population but have to lift it from time to time, to replace the secret police victims.

Each of the 6 zeitgeists has a "Capstone" ability in the research tree. Once you get one to 100 percent, the icon in the middle no longer looks split in half, but rather a BIG golden icon of the one you maxed out.

Click it.

It will tell you if you want to activate its final research option.
The Algorithm is the Logic version of this in which your core city has a button at the generator/city center called the Algorithm. This can DRASTICALLY have several effects that you can toggle at will (after like a few day cooldown):

* Extremely increase population growth
* Extremely decrease population growth (I have used this in conjunction with sterilization to flat out pause pop growth until I had more momentum to house feed and warm them all)
* Extremely increase research speed (Useful if you dont need to do anything else)
* And I believe there's a few others like disease / food management... but I have never seen the food option so that must be a particular combination that unlocks that.

came here looking for the answer why the food management option doesnt appear and do not find info nowhere , anyone can add to this ?

[adrien_perleflamme]

Originally posted by bortas:

Originally posted by Airatome:

Few things are FOREVER.... but they do remember.

Damn I'm telling you... I used "raise funds" on one of my faction at the start of the game to get things going. Now I'm 1200 weeks in, and it's still negatively influencing relations, although I have given them many times what I have asked for to fund their projects. So the negative impact remains forever it seems.

Edit: But, as a bonus to getting them both to like you, you can use BOTH of their special faction abilities instead of one or the other.

Great idea. And thanks for everything you told me... very informative.

All those hidden consequences are what sets FP apart from other games and makes it fun and interesting even after so many weeks in.

The "raise funds" permanent debuf is a bug. I got this bug too. I raised funds from all my other factions. For some reason, only this one (Icebloods) got fed up with it for nearly 2000 weeks. It feels the negative impact has become permanently stuck.