Child Labor is a trap.

[Black Sheep Wall]

Been seeing this a lot lately, people talking about Child Labor like it's a good choice.
It isn't.

It's a temporary boost to production that is outclassed by being able to tech up sooner with Apprentices.

In games like this, it's important to understand what your "Gates" are, the mechanics that restrict your ability to meet your Win Condition.

Now, there are many ways to "solve" Frostpunk, but generally speaking, if your goal is to have as many warm, happy, healthy people as possible, then it's helpful to recognize where your Gates/Bottlenecks are.

The 3 biggest Gates are Steam Cores, Tech Upgrades and Steel.

For all intents and purposes, this is a 4x game, and typically a 4x game is going to continuously cycle 3 stages - Growth, Stablization and Efficiency.

A Growth stage is where you expand your empire to harvesting more resources.
A Stablization stage is where you lock in your ability to sustain your empire at it's current state indefinately(roughly speaking).
An Efficency stage is where you find ways to overproduce in your stable state so you can start the cycle again (this is not Growth, it's not about having more dollars, it's about getting your dollar to do more for less((Example: You mine coal 10% faster, boosting the productivity of an existing mine as opposed to aquiring another mine)).

Frostpunk is not The Roman Empire, which is to say, it isn't a pyramid scheme.
It's not a house of cards that tumbles down if you stop expanding, meaning that it follows the model I just outlined instead. (Child Labor might actually be [mechanically] useful if this were an expantionist game, but it isn't.)((Rome fell because it stopped expanding and could not find a stable state, step 2))(((There are models for continously expanding empires, but they do not apply to this game for mechanical reasons.)))

That said, now we can understand our Gates.
The Gates prevent progress, and ANYTHING you can do to widen those Gates and allow more progress to flow through them, is usually the most important thing you can do if your current state is stable.

So, in general, a checklist for you to keep refering to while you play(daily for example):

Am I stable, and if not, how do I become stable? If yes then -
Can I harvest Steam Cores faster/sooner, if so, how? If no then -
Can I Tech Up faster, if so, how? If no then -
Can I boost Steel Production, if so, how?

I promise you, if you are holding these priorities in mind, and work to meet these goals, your City will be stupid efficient in no time.

Assuming these are proper Gate identifications, it should be clear that Apprentices are superior to Child Labor because one solves our gates directly while the other one can ONLY affect our gates indirectly, if at all.

You have been illuminated, go forth and prosper.

Edit: A roughball way to determine Gates is to continually ask "What am I waiting on right now?", and typically, this will identify your different gates over time. The more a specific answer pops up over the course of a game, the higher it's priority as a Gate is. Example: I was waiting on Steel a lot more than I thought I would that game, it must be a higher priority Gate than I thought it was, next game I should try and get more Steel before I need it.

[Malagon]

Child Labor makes Endless Extreme runs soooooooooo much easier because it's nearly impossible to beat the first storm without lacking something if you haven't had the kids helping out somewhere. Yea, Child Labour becomes useless later on once you achieve full automation, but if you want a run with no deaths, Child Labor is the way to go.

[PhailRaptor]

Child Labor/Shelter is an early vs late playstyle choice.

Child Labor is very valuable in the early game, where you are mostly limited by your population in order to get any of your resource incomes rolling. But the issue is that once you do get rolling, you can sustain larger populations, and you are bringing in more survivors. The shine rubs off Child Labor when you get to this point.

Child Shelters are extremely useful in the end game. The permanent bonus to Hope is a really nice cushion for if (when) problems arise. Depending on when you open the Shelter law, you might run into a city planning issue, but that's of little concequence if you are planning to choose Shelters anyway, as you won't want to build them early on. The Apprentice laws that it leads to are also very beneficial, but come with their own game phase trade off -- Engineer is more useful mid-game, while Medical is for late game.

Personally, Medical Apprentices is better than Engineer, due to the finite nature of the tech tree and the small % provided by the law. It's only 6% per Workshop. You get a bigger boost by building an additional Workshop. While Medical is also a small bonus, it's applied to each bed (slot) in every Medical Post and every Infirmary (and every House of Healing if you go that route). It is applied in more places, and it's on a process that you will never stop using.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Zimniak:

Just after extreme endless mode(stop at day 110 cuz with everything secured i had no threat to me so just quit).

Child shelters are the best thing that you could have, two workshop working on emergency shifts (one at the time then move all workers to another and start emergency again) with tech helpers is gamechanging.

On extreme your ppls get sick even at max temp so you cannot spare more enginners for tech advancement and techs are crucial for extreme.

Temperature is going down rly fast and your chldrens working at gathering posts could only get sick and ruin your hope and discontent when they could give you fat tech bonus.

.....Child Apprentices are only active during 10.00-18.00 FYI.

That means the 20% for medical is effectively 7%~, and the bonus for research gets reduced greatly if you are using Extended shift, all the way down to that same 7% if you use Emergency Shift. (lower even, unless you are using Emergency shift on all your workshops)

The only real benefit to Child Shelter is the active hope bonus.

On extreme you can just build extra med posts and staff them with engineers from your tech lab if the need arises.

Child Labour gives you a lot more people at the start, and throughout the entire game. It's a lot more useful then a minor bonus to research or healing. Also: it keeps them warm during the day since its easier to heat workplaces during the day then it is to heat houses.

[Flamerog]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Originally posted by Zimniak:

Just after extreme endless mode(stop at day 110 cuz with everything secured i had no threat to me so just quit).

Child shelters are the best thing that you could have, two workshop working on emergency shifts (one at the time then move all workers to another and start emergency again) with tech helpers is gamechanging.

On extreme your ppls get sick even at max temp so you cannot spare more enginners for tech advancement and techs are crucial for extreme.

Temperature is going down rly fast and your chldrens working at gathering posts could only get sick and ruin your hope and discontent when they could give you fat tech bonus.

.....Child Apprentices are only active during 10.00-18.00 FYI.

That means the 20% for medical is effectively 7%~, and the bonus for research gets reduced greatly if you are using Extended shift, all the way down to that same 7% if you use Emergency Shift. (lower even, unless you are using Emergency shift on all your workshops)

The only real benefit to Child Shelter is the active hope bonus.

On extreme you can just build extra med posts and staff them with engineers from your tech lab if the need arises.

Child Labour gives you a lot more people at the start, and throughout the entire game. It's a lot more useful then a minor bonus to research or healing. Also: it keeps them warm during the day since its easier to heat workplaces during the day then it is to heat houses.

So up to preferences, did my extreme endless run without child labor and for me (RNG) it was always more than 10ppl sick so i had to stuff 2 medical posts all the time and childrens helped me with tech greatly, i barely had safe workplace for them either. Btw endless extreme was great fun.

[Rock]

Ehhh. Child workforce is a legit strat. If you play endless mode for example that helps alot in the beginning. Engineer path for them becomes useless once you survive about 2 to 3 storms. You can handle the rest the game throws at you.

Only max value you can get from your childs in your city is medic apprentices. Just 15 of them will increase for example medical post efficiency up like 24%. People will always get sick no matter how far you get into the game and boosting your healing rates is a good idea.
Child labor becomes useless eventually because you have more people available to you than you ever could need. Engineer apprentices becomes useless once you have all the vital tech researched and even more so when you have researched all the tech.

[Tiasmoon]

Ilness is only partially rng. It's just that Chilly is basically what Cold is on Hard: moderate chance of illness.

If the children aren't working they will be staying at home untill you build a shelter. That means during the first day they'll probably get ill, since they count as ''homeless'' which gives a greater chance of becoming ill when someone is staying at home.

As mentioned: as Engineering apprentices they only give 20% bonus for 8 hours of the day. Thats only slightly more than half the shift if your using Extended Shift. That barely increases tech speed at all.

Meanwhile with Child Labour you get 15-150~ extra workers. That also means you won't have to put any new engineers to work on resource gathering: they can be put straight into tech labs or more medical posts (as needed).

Preferences is one thing, but statistically speaking Child Labour is strictly better for any purpose other than hope.

Originally posted by Rock:

Ehhh. Child workforce is a legit strat. If you play endless mode for example that helps alot in the beginning. Engineer path for them becomes useless once you survive about 2 to 3 storms. You can handle the rest the game throws at you.

Only max value you can get from your childs in your city is medic apprentices. Just 15 of them will increase for example medical post efficiency up like 24%. People will always get sick no matter how far you get into the game and boosting your healing rates is a good idea.
Child labor becomes useless eventually because you have more people available to you than you ever could need. Engineer apprentices becomes useless once you have all the vital tech researched and even more so when you have researched all the tech.

Number of children only affect how many workplaces they can help. IE: 15 children can help out in 3 fully staffed Workshops. Any workshops beyond that number won't have any children helping out. (1 child per engineer)

Benefit for both is 20%, added on top of the base value. They only help out from 10.00-18.00 that I could tell, so for a medical post thats treating ill 24 hours, they only provide a 7%~ bonus.

Medical apprentice children are still much worse than the benefits of Child labour.

I would say their one benefit is that they allow you to reduce treatment times to below 24 hours if a medical post is fully staffed, which allows you to cure any ill before the next days batch comes along.

Ofcourse, you might as well get Organ Transplants instead then, since that one works 24/7 and doesnt cost you the Child Labour workers. Or better yet, if you can spare the rations: Double Rations.


I used Child Shelters a lot in my scenario playthroughs apart from Refugees and Winterhome. At this point where I care more about efficiency I can't really see myself not picking Child Labour. The other options are just too weak.

Originally posted by Rock:

People will always get sick no matter how far you get into the game and boosting your healing rates is a good idea.

Late game my Infirmaries (with Organ Transplants + Shrine + Double Rations) were curing people in 1-3 hours. At that point Medical Apprentices falls off pretty hard, so altho its starting bonus is already pretty lacking, it also lacks longevity.

[Black Sheep Wall]

This post is months old and Endless wasn't a thing when I wrote it.

That being said, it's clear some people still don't get it.

Last attempt: It's like a racecar.

You can go REALLY fast.
OR
You can corner REALLY well.
OR
You can go PRETTY fast AND corner PRETTY well.

Which car is best?
First, it depends not on the car, but on the track.
So this means that it's situationally dependant on the scenario.

However, most of the time you'll find that the 3rd car is competative on most tracks, dominates on a few, and is rarely a bad choice. At the very least, it's at least finishing the race, even if it isn't placing first.

Unless the Scenario is restrictive on the early game, Child Labor absolutely is a trap.
It's not unviable, it's not "bad", but it's also not exactly clear what you're giving up for a minor boost in the early game.

A new player is going to look and see that they can get extra workers RIGHT NOW, and not realize that they gave up an option that would produce better gains in two weeks, which is exactly why it's a TRAP.

Also, the idea that engineer apprentices is a "minor" boost is laughable. If you read the initial post and still think that teching up even 1% sooner isn't a good thing, you don't get it and you never will, no matter how many times I explain it.

[Tiasmoon]

Did you actually completely ignore my words before posting that? Lol.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

Also, the idea that engineer apprentices is a "minor" boost is laughable.

Unless it allows you to get another tech out inside of that day (which is only an issue if you cannot use Emergency shift, IE: in golden path or similar, or in Winterhome...where Child Labour is already picked)
...yes, it is a minor boost.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

still think that teching up even 1% sooner isn't a good thing, you don't get it and you never will, no matter how many times I explain it.

You didnt actually read my explanation, which tells me you probably won't ever understand no matter how many times I explain it, but im going to try it one last time anyway:

Child Apprentices are not free. They come at the cost of trading away up to a third of your workforce. You cannot fund research without resources, and without coal to keep your generator going to prevent your population from freezing. Without food to prevent your population from starving.

A larger workforce means you won't have to use your precious engineers for that. Which means any new engineers go straight into the workshops you got waiting for them.

It also means you actually got the resources to research.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

it's not "bad", but it's also not exactly clear what you're giving up for a minor boost in the early game.

Its quite clear. Read my previous posts. Its also not a ''minor boost'' in the ''early game''.

Its a major boost in productivity in the early and mid game. Late game it falls off, like pretty much everything else does in this game. Children can take up to 1/3th of your total population. Thats up to a 30% increase in productivity. All game long.


Unless you are trying to hamfist this flawed opinion of yours because you don't feel like Child Labour is a good (for political reasons or whatever), I don't see how you failed to grasp that.

People that don't want to pick it because it doesnt fit the laws they envision for their city makes a lot of sense. I've done that myself in most of my earlier scenario playthroughs.

But in terms of numbers for those that care about the practical benefit of each law, Child Labour is massively better in any scenario where you don't need the Hope from Child Shelter.

The only trap in Child Labour is ''Child Labour - All jobs'' since that gives the children a chance to die/get amputeed.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

A new player is going to look and see that they can get extra workers RIGHT NOW, and not realize that they gave up an option that would produce better gains in two weeks, which is exactly why it's a TRAP.

A new player might read your BS and actually believe you when you say the alternatives are good. And probably have a very hard time on refugees as a result.

Even 2 weeks after the game started, Engineering Apprentices provide less of a gain than Child Labour does.


Question: How many workshops do you build in a usual playthrough? What laws do you pick?
I'm very interested in why you would consider Engineering Apprentices good even when they provide less benefit than a single extra workshop.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

If you read the initial post

Tbh I skipped most of pointless exposition. Its a whole bunch of vague stuff. It decisively lacks anything related to actual game experience.

Maybe you should consider...actually having a concise point?

You are like a student without any real work experience..a long of theory that just falls flat in practice because what you say isn't actually relevant..

[Black Sheep Wall]

You're an idiot.

You admit you didn't read the post because it went over your head and you didn't understand it.

Then you go on to explain how it's wrong.

If you're not going to engage the material presented, then shut the ♥♥♥♥ up.

[erneiz]

I will say that you cannot finish Survivor Refugees with zero death without child labor.

[Black Sheep Wall]

@erneiz

That is likely true.

I never meant to imply it was bad in every situation.

Again, the post is a necro of something I wrote months ago.
It was mainly geared towards the default scenario, regardless of difficulty.

[Andi]

Get hit by a truck you arrogant brick

[Lцсᶖаᶇ º¹]

a simple way to look at it is that +research is rare thus valuable buff. not much else in the game gives you this. on the other hand it's usually not hard to get more manpower or manage your manpower more effectively. the +medical ain't so great either since there's a whole handful of laws that buff healing

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

You're an idiot.

You admit you didn't read the post because it went over your head and you didn't understand it.

Then you go on to explain how it's wrong.

If you're not going to engage the material presented, then shut the ♥♥♥♥ up.

I didn't read your post because its too much stupidity. Ofcourse I did skim through it. Like I said, your entire post isn't relevant to the discussion of whether or not Child Labour is good.


Like I said before:

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

You are like a student without any real work experience..a long of theory that just falls flat in practice because what you say isn't actually relevant..

Why would I even respond to any of that non-sense? The topic you joined at this point wasn't even about your post anymore either.

I guess you really need to feel smart or something, considering how you revived your own arguments even when the discussion had evolved into talking about the real merits/demerits of Child Labour and its alternatives.

Originally posted by Blksheepwall:

If you're not going to engage the material presented, then shut the ♥♥♥♥ up.

Thats super ironic after posting right behind my posts and ignoring what I wrote in them.

I take back what I said about you being a student that has no real experience with things. I wouldnt consider the average student this stupid and tunnel visioned.



Btw Blksheepwall. Did you post this reply of yours after I ignored your friend request? LOL
Or did you send me the friend request afterwards because you are afraid to take part in a public discussion?

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Lцсᶖаᶇ º¹:

a simple way to look at it is that +research is rare thus valuable buff. not much else in the game gives you this. on the other hand it's usually not hard to get more manpower or manage your manpower more effectively. the +medical ain't so great either since there's a whole handful of laws that buff healing

-Every workshop you build and staff with engineers gives + research.
-Shrines boost it. (no idea if Order has something similar)
-Extended shifts boost it.
-Emergency Shift boosts it.
-Keeping all your engineers at livable or comfortable temperature boosts it (no/less ill = higher efficiency)
-Using Automatons in a workshop boosts it.
-Higher resource gain boosts it up to a point (the point where you can immediately research the next thing you want, without having to wait for more resourcs first)

And to come back to the first point: more workshops = more research basically means any engineers not used in healthcare can increase your research speed.

So.. there's actually quite a lot that boosts research speed.

In fact, when looking at these points you might notice that Child Labour also boosts it: a larger workforce means more engineers available to staff your workshops.

The real considerations in regards to child labour are:

-Do you expect you'll need the hope from Child Shelter?
-In which order do you get your laws? Shifts first? Or Child Labour?


Anyway, some others have already made similar posts. This discussion has now completely derailed as a result of the Blacksheep, so I'll leave it at this.