Unbalanced playstyle difficulty

[Mr.America]

I have played a bit now and it is a bit odd how drastically different the game's difficulty gets when you switch around your playstyle. On Captain's difficulty, utopia or story mode, it's almost impossible to get through the first couple whiteouts if you direct your politics in a balanced way. You're simply getting bombarded with too many demands without the means to acquire the resources or funds to actually complete anything and you'll eventually just perish due to attrition.

Meanwhile, you just immediately start pushing down one side and ruthlessly restrict them and break your promises given only to pass this or that, and the game becomes extremely easy. I'm not even through the second whiteout and already have captain's authority with one of my radical factions completely supressed down to <500 members, with everyone else reverent of me or neutral.

I think there's a mechanic missing here, something that would promote keeping factions evenly balanced, like reduced cooldowns, reduced tension, maybe increased production bonuses or synergies. Idk.

[Danke]

Being cruel does make the game easier, yes. And I think it should stay that way. Being nice shouldn't be easy.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Mr.America:

Captain's difficulty

The intended playstyle is right there in the name.

Originally posted by Mr.America:

I think there's a mechanic missing here, something that would promote keeping factions evenly balanced

There actually IS such an incentive already, you get to use both factions' abilities and you get to poach people from both for Steward's Militia, which is twice as many guards than if you only went with one.

That said, If you've been following the updates, the whole design direction is to make civil war unavoidable, because civil war is this game's main challenge whereas whiteouts are not as much of a big deal as they've used to be. Early on players found ways to keep all factions happy and so the devs have been busy adding realistic reactions that would make your tools largely ineffective. As the famous quote goes, "take sides". So right now keeping everyone happy is something reserved for lower difficulties.

On Captain, I find it's very important to remember the basics of Frostpunk - have housing for all your people, keep them warm, keep them fed. If you don't - they die, and deaths lead to a big hit to trust and, more importantly, faction relationships. That makes it harder to pass laws you need to fix things, which in turn leads to even more deaths and it spirals from there. As soon as you have your early economy figured out, it doesn't really matter where you go from there.

Originally posted by Danke:

Being nice shouldn't be easy.

Yeah, because if you have a more efficient choice and a less efficient choice - why would you ever go with the latter? Morals and the recurrent question of "You saved millions but a kitten died - WAS IT WORTH IT??? (YOU MONSTER)" is what Frostpunk is all about.

[Danke]

Originally posted by Harris:

Yeah, because if you have a more efficient choice and a less efficient choice - why would you ever go with the latter? Morals and the recurrent question of "You saved millions but a kitten died - WAS IT WORTH IT??? (YOU MONSTER)" is what Frostpunk is all about.

Well, yeah? The cruel option has always been the easiest. Throughout Frostpunk 1, as well.

[Zeky]

This was also a problem in FP1, on higher difficulties you had to enact child labor on the first day, the second day you had to enact soup or sawdust additives, third day extended shift, fourth day 24 hours shift, and on hard and very hard difficulty you are forced to go with Faith instead of order. This made the game more of a puzzle game rather than a city builder.
At least i expected that kind of game design, but also higher difficulties are just unrealistic, people consume more and produce less and overreact to everything.

Originally posted by Harris:

That said, If you've been following the updates, the whole design direction is to make civil war unavoidable, because civil war is this game's main challenge whereas whiteouts are not as much of a big deal as they've used to be. Early on players found ways to keep all factions happy and so the devs have been busy adding realistic reactions that would make your tools largely ineffective. As the famous quote goes, "take sides". So right now keeping everyone happy is something reserved for lower difficulties.

So that's why the Coldbloods start rioting because i send childrens to schools or by building machines that makes their job easier.

[HardNRG]

You want to be nice, it's harder. That's intended. So it is in the real life too.

I always play nice.

For the Technocracy!