So I tried a pacifist run...and I became death, destroyer of worlds

[Carlos]

So for those who say the game is easy once you set up - not if you're going for the "no steal, no murder run".

First of all, the set up phase is key here. The worst part by far is finding food early on. You don't have the materials to build the traps and garden and trading for food will bankrupt you very quickly.

In my last run I got Arica, Roman and Bruno. A fantastic group - at first glance. Soon you realize you have only 10 slot inventory, therefore you have to trade for wood or components otherwise you never build anything. That leaves you with very little valuables that you can exchange for anything else.

Plus all three are smokers. They consume 9 cigarets a day. A day! If you don't provide them with the smokes, they'll go sad, sleep badly, be tired all the time and Roman will start violent arguments with the other survivors possibly leading to injuries.

On top of that I didn't get any good traders. No garage, the best trading place in the game, no church (I got the bandit version) and the other places like the Outpost, Hotel and Brothel unlocked quite late - day 21 or some such. Plus their prices stink.

So then I backed off of my my pacifist challenge a bit and decided to steal - but only from the bandits and soldiers. You don't get any moral hit from those but it's technically still stealing. This proved difficult though because sneaking around them takes a lot of time and is quite risky. So my no-kill hauls were quite poor.

And then I finally snapped, abandoned my challenge completely and started murdering them en masse. From then on, the game was indeed easy. Well except for the fact that I couldn't find any parts (the cogwheels) and I had to trade for them, so I couldn't upgrade most of my improvements until day 35 or so.

So if you wanna a challenge try a 100 % "good guy" run. My claim is in certain circumstances, if the RNG srews you over, this can even be impossible. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

[chairmanhobo]

Roman is good for a killing run.


If you want the pacifist run,you better start with Marko/Boris and Katia :D

[Smiles]

I had a pacifist run (no stealing no killing) that was a breeze. Marin, Burno, Katia. Arica joined later. I traded like twice at the hotel, once at a brothel, and then mostly with the traveling trade.

[Help]

I've done at least 3 perfect runs with no murder, no steal, no handouts, and gave away all my help when I can.
I got bored of it cause it was just the doing same thing each time.

Watch my twitch playthrough, heck I even did it when they gave me 1 survivor and no one else for 32 days straight till the war ended.

http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/manager/past_broadcasts

At this point, I think the hardest thing you can do in this game is to kill everyone you encounter on sight with no discrimination of who they are. See if you survive a perfect run that way when everyone is depresssed.

[Carlos]

Originally posted by Help:

I've done at least 3 perfect runs with no murder, no steal, no handouts, and gave away all my help when I can.
I got bored of it cause it was just the doing same thing each time.

Watch my twitch playthrough, heck I even did it when they gave me 1 survivor and no one else for 32 days straight till the war ended.

http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/manager/past_broadcasts

I did watch one of your "Past broadcasts" (waste not want not) but in that one two of your survivors got killed in two nights in a row and then you killed a bandit yourself (for the record, I don't even know why they turned hostile in that church).

So did you mean another one?

[Help]

Originally posted by Carlos77:

I did watch one of your "Past broadcasts" (waste not want not) but in that one two of your survivors got killed in two nights in a row and then you killed a bandit yourself (for the record, I don't even know why they turned hostile in that church).

So did you mean another one?

I'll link the ones which were part of the challenge and was successful;
http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/596322600
http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/596769842
http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/597105055

@1h 47m of the first attempt, http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/596289030, was a failure condition for the perfect run cause of a aggro bug which they claimed to have fixed. So after that point I wanted to just mess around.

I could do another one of these challenge runs live from start to finish.
Edit: Today's live run is done, they gave me solo Marko again, this time I'm also commentating while playing. No steal, no killing, no receiving free handouts. Can't satistfy the last condition of helping everyone since the game doesn't let you send out your only survivor for 10am visitors.
http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/597760731
http://www.twitch.tv/lackofwords/b/597847807

[zioste81]

I did a pacifist run helping all neighbours who came knocking, without killing and without stealing from civilians. Don't think I could have made it without stealing from armed thugs though.

[torocan]

I don't bother with cigarettes at all unless I just have extra room. I don't buy food and only buy ammo late in game when I'm set.

Build a radio and play music. The trick is that there's actually 2 music stations... make sure to alternate between the classical and the rock music station. Rock music will raise the morale of some characters and classical music will raise th morale of other characters. There's also 2 different news stations that give alternating news. Make it a point to turn on the radio every day and make sure to leave it on music. Don't sell or burn any books already in your house. Keep the temperature above 18 or 20 degrees as it makes a difference in terms of rate of healing and susceptibility to illness. And when you have extra materials build the nice chairs instead of the cheapo stools.

Raids are trivial once you have a couple walls up. Just post 1 guard every normal night and 2 guards during crime waves and with 2-3 walls and regular weapons your characters shouldn't take any damage at all even if all you have is a knife and crowbar.

10 slot inventory just means you need to plan better. The way to work around that is if you have enough food in the house already (+2 cans in the house for charity), stash excess food in the zone you find it in instead of bringing it to the house. Use the space to bring materials for builds (full stacks only). And when you go back to that zone remember to go completely empty handed for the extra slots to carry stuff. If you run short on food, just pop over to your stash and bring home the bacon. I end up hitting zones like the school and sniper's square 4-6 times.

[Carlos]

Originally posted by torocan:

Build a radio and play music. The trick is that there's actually 2 music stations... make sure to alternate between the classical and the rock music station. Rock music will raise the morale of some characters and classical music will raise th morale of other characters. Make it a point to turn on the radio every day and make sure to leave it on music.

What makes you sure about it? How have you tested it? I'm asking because people on various forums say all kinds of theories without any evidence - for example that Anton is good with traps which is simply impossible to test. So did you do your own tests or have you just read it somewhere?

[torocan]

If you're fast the NPC's will give a message to leave the music on that station. You'll then sometimes see their morale go up to content (with no other factors involved). So, if you have the NPC's near the radio, try one radio station and see if one of them talks. Then try another musical station.

It's can be easily tested. And I was mistaken, there's like 3 or 4 news stations... you can have multiple news updates in the same day like prices, weather, and progress on the war.

[Little Big Toe]

Arica, Roman, and Bruno was the exact same start I had when I did my first complete game. Got Emilia around day 6~8, so all 4 survivors only had 10 slot backpacks.

Figured I'd roll with them because Bruno is so over powered in the game it feels like cheating when I start with him.

Yeah, Roman beat the cr*p out of Bruno once but all was forgiven the next day. The smokers didn't really complain too much and I didn't go out of my way to trade for or make smokes. Not sure why your guys got so bent out of shape.

I didn't kill except the thugs at the warehouse and like you I didn't get the garage or the trading church. I think maybe it's because of the starting group you don't get those places.

It's doable with that group, IMO.

[b.langlos]

I did a run without killing anybody. Not even bandids. I had Bruno, Roman and Arica. Later Katia joined. It was a hard start, but with Katia trading (Moonshine) it was ... ok. But it was a little bit booring. ;)

[WaywardPython]

I've never killed anyone on any of my runs - except once when I tried to raid the hotel with Arica and she got gunned down by Guy No 2 after she successfully dispatched Guy No 1. I find the combat too nervewracking to commit myself.

I even won a pacifist game when I started with only Anton and Cveta. Of course, I let them die of disease/injury, so maybe that counts as 'killing' people. In the meantime, however, Marin and Bruno had turned up so I made it to the end of the game - just.

[Arrrtyom]

Are cigarettes that important to them? In almost all of my games I never provide them with cigarettes for the entirety of the 40+ days, and the most they do is to be sad. If they're not sleeping in beds then they'll sleep badly. Otherwise they won't.

Also I haven't encountered Roman beating his mates up when he's only at 'sad', he'd probably need to be at depressed or something?

I think the most RNG thing for me is the availability of weapon parts. For materials, they're generally available in whichever scenario you start in. Weapon parts are important for me due to the creation of the hatchet and knife. Chopping up furniture in your shelter allows you to board up quickly, and the knife helps to defend against raiders. Raids are by far the most crippling thing in the game, since your survivors can get wounded AND depressed at once, which is annoying.

[Little Big Toe]

I don't recall Roman even being sad when he beat up Bruno in my play though. I think he's just a psychopath ;-]