Is there a manual somewhere?

[giltheone]

I just started the game, and I have absolutely no clue what anything is: save for moving around the camera, I have now idea what's going on. I don't understand the menu -- I have no idea what to click, what is where, I just see a screen full of things, and for all I care I could be staring at a Jackson Pollock painting.

What I need is a manual, indicating how to play the game -- I see some guides about what to build, resources, etc. but that is all abstract to me: what I click on and what the result is going to be of the clicking I have no idea. From the very basics, very, very basics. Like at the beginning: it says to gather coal or some such, and I kind of did something but I don't know what it is and apparently I assigned some workers to do some gathering, but it was almost like stumbling into it, since I did not know what I did, and I don't know how to do anything else. This is extremely frustrating.

PLEASE, somebody point me in the right direction --- I have never played a city builder, so I have no frame of reference.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Stumbling into assigning stuff? You just click where you want people and in the corner choose which people to put there.

[Aturchomicz]

Originally posted by giltheone:

I just started the game, and I have absolutely no clue what anything is: save for moving around the camera, I have now idea what's going on. I don't understand the menu -- I have no idea what to click, what is where, I just see a screen full of things, and for all I care I could be staring at a Jackson Pollock painting.

What I need is a manual, indicating how to play the game -- I see some guides about what to build, resources, etc. but that is all abstract to me: what I click on and what the result is going to be of the clicking I have no idea. From the very basics, very, very basics. Like at the beginning: it says to gather coal or some such, and I kind of did something but I don't know what it is and apparently I assigned some workers to do some gathering, but it was almost like stumbling into it, since I did not know what I did, and I don't know how to do anything else. This is extremely frustrating.

PLEASE, somebody point me in the right direction --- I have never played a city builder, so I have no frame of reference.

Are you a troll?

[Tundra]

Originally posted by giltheone:

I just started the game, and I have absolutely no clue what anything is: save for moving around the camera, I have now idea what's going on. I don't understand the menu -- I have no idea what to click, what is where, I just see a screen full of things, and for all I care I could be staring at a Jackson Pollock painting.

What I need is a manual, indicating how to play the game -- I see some guides about what to build, resources, etc. but that is all abstract to me: what I click on and what the result is going to be of the clicking I have no idea. From the very basics, very, very basics. Like at the beginning: it says to gather coal or some such, and I kind of did something but I don't know what it is and apparently I assigned some workers to do some gathering, but it was almost like stumbling into it, since I did not know what I did, and I don't know how to do anything else. This is extremely frustrating.

PLEASE, somebody point me in the right direction --- I have never played a city builder, so I have no frame of reference.

Glad we live in an age where people struggle to understand basic concepts and need everything explained to them

1/10 made me reply

[Father Ribs]

TBH, given the subject matter, I like the idea of not knowing what to do. The apocalypse will not have an instruction manual.

I was exiled on my first playthrough, doing better on my second but I'm sure it's going to go bad quickly. I will try again, learning from my mistakes.

OP: Use the pause button liberally, and only start time when you are waiting for things to happen in between choices you make.

[stevasaur]

IIRC, there's a tutorial window in the upper-left-hand corner that explains things like assigning your people to worksites and wahtnot, accompanied with handy graphics. Look for the question mark and click on it. More screens unlock as you run across new concepts (like the Coal Thumper).

EDIT: Well, I loaded up A New Home, and while the Tutorial menu is there, it takes a semi-significant amount of in-game time for it to fully update with the first set of tutorial slides. There really should be a few tutorial slides available from the beginning: particularly the ones on resources, construction and workplace staffing.

[giltheone]

Thank you, @Father Ribs, @stevesaur. That "tutorial" is also extremely succinct -- it tells you what you can do, but it doesn't tell you how: I understand what it says, but I have no idea of the basic mechanics of what and where to click to do whatever needs to be done. I went to youtube, and the best video I could find was one where just had a bunch of in-game windows popping up, and selections being made there (but it doesn't show the mouse pointer, just quickly showing the selection made) -- at least it helped me with the first task. It was late, though, and being frustrated I went to sleep.

And @Aturchomicz, no, I'm not a troll, and @Tundra I have no need to have everything explained to me, but I have never played a game of this type, and have no intuitive feel for what's going on and what to do. I certainly didn't ask that from you or anyone else, I asked about a manual I could read on my own. That's what manuals are for, aren't they?

Anyone, when presented with something for which they have no frame of reference will feel lost and disoriented -- I am a professor, I know how people feel when that happens, otherwise I would be a very bad professor. You don't have to be rude to me if you feel so smart. As a matter of fact, go on, and tell your friends you are so much smarter than a PhD in physics, if that makes you feel good and superior.

I have read books on quantum field theory that were more clear than what I can gather about what I see on the screen of the game -- I have also read books on the subject matter that were completely unintelligible: it's not the subject, it's how it's presented, and for the complete newbie that I am to this type of game, diving head first is not turning out to be such great of an experience... Oh well, somehow I will figure it out eventually. I might end up laughing at and calling myself stupid. But I will never say or imply that to someone else -- I guess I was just raised to have good manners towards others

[Elitewrecker PT]

How could the youtube video not show the game cursor...
Well unfortunately game manuals aren't something that's done very frequently anymore. But come on man, city builders are usually even more complex with a lot more sub-menus than what we have here.

I think this first video should give as much information as you need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jod-ueGFGHA&list=PLcq9DHjo3g0ZlMOMXBVnKhxD4gclaAkUF
You don't need to watch a lot if you don't want spoilers for further on. But it'll show all the menus you can have.

[stevasaur]

At the risk of sounding like a shill for the channel, I'd recommend watching the first ten minutes or so of Marbozir's "Frostpunk 1.0" playthrough. He basically runs through all the controls/mechanics before jumping into the actual gameplay, and always does a pretty good job explaining his thought processes behind what he's doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shm0qL-pMgY&list=PLHQyGGzRHYIa-lARQbaczekas1kbAEzWh

EDIT: Darn it, ninja'd by Elitewrecker PT. Ah well, at least you've got options now.

[giltheone]

Thank you, @ Elitewrecker PT, and @stevesaur I will check out the videos :)

As I said, I have never played a city-builder game before. I have no other reference of the sort to guide me in this. I have played 4X, RTS, FPS, and RPG games -- those I "get", and any new one in those categories I figure out very quickly with a small amount of help from outside the game. I reckon that 4X is probably the closest to a city builder, but the selection of what you build is much more straightforward, and the mechanics are way, way different.

[Elitewrecker PT]

For a city builder this doesn't have as much stuff and complexity as others.

[Leo Fern]

Personally I enjoyed learning as I went along.

What helped me a lot was getting familiar with the statistics tab down right of the center. During daytime gathering and production you can see how much food you are projected to produce, same with wood, steel and coal. You'll find how many tents/houses are empty, how much storage space you have of different resources, how many medical beds are being used, and so on.

Whenever I have scouts returning within X hours I look through my statistics to see if I can house and feed newcomers, if I have enough storage for resources and all that. If I have 300 wood incoming and I already have almost 600 wood, I'd rather remove my woodproducers and put them to work with something else, than having to build a new storage depot just because my wood storage becomes full. I calculate with my projected research costs, plus the next research costs and other expected expenses, and attempt to make up a simple plan of how to proceed with priorities.

Regarding city building I attempt to reserve the first 2-3 rows of house-spaces closest to the generator for citizen's buildings. Also I prefer to keep some of the hospitals close to the heat as far as possible. You can remove houses before they are built without any cost of materials. There are also times when you want to remove and rearrange roads in order to maximize your heated area efficiency. You can rotate buildings by clicking the middle mouse button, this is very helpful when you need to place for example your research facilities, or coal thumpers for that matter.