Fall of Winterhome

[Beanzoboy]

Welp, I just finished my New Home game on hard (Thanks for fixing that medical treatment bug, devs) and so I figured I'd play Fall of Winterhome. I'd never done it before, so I figured I'd try it on easy. Dead on day four. Welp. I can see why the town fell in the first place. It looked like a six-year-old planned the city. Not sure why there needs to be a dozen paths weaving in and out of all the buildings, leaving tiny holes that cannot be filled by any other buildings. There are groups of houses (mostly tents) on three sides of the city, far from the generator. Apparently there's no way to increase the hope, because even after putting up 5 watch towers, the hope was still less than 15%. I had to dismantle all the buildings I could before I could even construct the buildings I needed, and of course 8 people died from "lack of treatment" because the three clinics we start with can't heal the 50 sick that we start with. And it took me a couple of days to research and then build the infirmary to try to stop the people from dying. They continued to die regardless.

This has to be the worst designed scenario in the game. Nothing about it makes sense. We're given nothing and no time to dismantle the ruins to get places to actually build the necessary buildings. Everything is spread out stupidly, and huge amounts of excess paths that break up what little land is even there. So you have to spend a good twenty minutes removing the paths just so you can do something useful.

[PhailRaptor]

The ridiculous city layout is part of the challenge. You have to spend the first 2/3 of the scenario remodeling the city into something that is actually workable.

Then the final objective sequence starts. Gotta strap on your big boy snowboots once you get there.

[Shining Hector]

Yeah, it's pretty much working as designed. You're expected to make lemonade out of lemons, that's all. You have some starting research, some starting laws, and a huge population, so act accordingly. Early research is a lower priority, so nearly all engineers should be on heal duty. Extended shift can wait with 500 population. Tear down for the useless streets and coal thumpers for wood and space, priority buildings are hunting huts and medical posts. First laws are radical treatment and overcrowding, to clean up the sick, only then worry about the purpose tree. Use gathering posts to clean up the city for the warmth.

[Howl]

I hear you. It's miserable. I got to day 4 and was making steady progress. Hope was up, discontent was down. I was already working on food and medical bits but then I just quit. I just wasn't really enjoying cleaning up someone elses mess. I'm sure there are people that would find it interesting and challenging but I found it incredibly tedious.

[Shining Hector]

Well, basically every other scenario as well as endless is the stock build from a blank slate, grow your population routine, so there's plenty out there to suit you. Maybe after you get your optimized build routine down and that gets tedious, you'll find cleaning up someone else's mess to be a nice change of pace.

I found it to be an interesting take and well designed scenario. Everything is in reverse, so it's a controlled demoltion unlike all the other scenarios. If you quit in the cleanup phase, you missed the next part where it really gets interesting, too. You literally come up with the most efficient way to dismantle your city as the population leaves and demand for services also decreases as a result.

[Kershee]

I really liked this scenario. It hard, but very intresting. I solved the problem with the sick by adopting the laws of the path of faith, ignoring the construction of hospitals with engineers. I was able to successfully complete this scenario only on the fourth attempt, while the rest were completed on the first attempt. That's cool.

[Montana]

See, Winterhome was built by a player who just got the game and who didn't bother planning or learning anything.

Now it's you, the veteran player, who has to fix this.

[docj360]

yeah this scenario is difficult. people have to die in this one. i can't find a way around that.

[mr_bman]

It's supposed to be a hard one to finish. I think I ended up saving only a couple of hundred people but I did complete it. Starting out I concentrated on removing buildings in key areas - like for example there's only a couple of spots you can build another sawmill so I made sure to dismantle the buildings in those areas first and around the generator. You also have wreckage blocking iron and coal deposits so removed those first. Try to get automatons as fast as you can because your available work crews are all going to be sick and dying. But be prepared once you do get those because they don't work at full capacity either.
A trick I used was to delete existing tents to get people to move to the center and only kept as few steam hubs operating as possible. I also would remove sick work crew members and get someone healthy to working.

[Ysthrall]

It's a classic city builder scenario: Here, have a badly designed mess falling apart at the edges, and fix it!

Building a perfect city from the ground up, slowly and carefully, is like slowly juggling balls one at a time. Winterhome is like replacing the previous juggler, and the balls aren't all the same size or shape, and one of them is a live grenade....

It's difficult. It's doable. To a given value of success....

But then, you already know it was going to fail messily. The scenario is more "how much can be salvaged" than "Onwards to prosperity!"

[Zippah]

do the engineers in the fallout shelter ever give anything useful? i had them for a long time without any new sites to explore

[Cougarific]

If you leave them out there long enough I think they discover a hidden cache of supplies they can bring back to the city when you recall them.

[PhailRaptor]

Originally posted by Zippah:

do the engineers in the fallout shelter ever give anything useful? i had them for a long time without any new sites to explore

If you leave them there long enough (as in, during the final objective sequence), they will eventually report signs of smoke rising in the distance. But the terrain is too rough to evacuate that direction. But you can choose to send a Scout Team that direction. 2 destinations out, they pass a point of no return -- if they keep going, it counts as the death fo that Scout Team.

It seems to be 100% lore related, as it is heavily suggested that the random man from Winterhome who arrives on day 19 of A New Home should you not discover Winterhome by then, is from that Scout Team you may have sent. Nothing actually happens as a result of jumping through those hoops. You're basically just denying yourself, what, 15 Engineers?

[lordcrekit]

You can stack multiple gathering huts over the same wreckages.

[Aturchomicz]

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

Originally posted by Zippah:

do the engineers in the fallout shelter ever give anything useful? i had them for a long time without any new sites to explore

If you leave them there long enough (as in, during the final objective sequence), they will eventually report signs of smoke rising in the distance. But the terrain is too rough to evacuate that direction. But you can choose to send a Scout Team that direction. 2 destinations out, they pass a point of no return -- if they keep going, it counts as the death fo that Scout Team.

It seems to be 100% lore related, as it is heavily suggested that the random man from Winterhome who arrives on day 19 of A New Home should you not discover Winterhome by then, is from that Scout Team you may have sent. Nothing actually happens as a result of jumping through those hoops. You're basically just denying yourself, what, 15 Engineers?

But then why does the man from wintertime say that they're all dead?

[davide.guidotti91]

Originally posted by Aturchomicz:

Originally posted by PhailRaptor:

If you leave them there long enough (as in, during the final objective sequence), they will eventually report signs of smoke rising in the distance. But the terrain is too rough to evacuate that direction. But you can choose to send a Scout Team that direction. 2 destinations out, they pass a point of no return -- if they keep going, it counts as the death fo that Scout Team.

It seems to be 100% lore related, as it is heavily suggested that the random man from Winterhome who arrives on day 19 of A New Home should you not discover Winterhome by then, is from that Scout Team you may have sent. Nothing actually happens as a result of jumping through those hoops. You're basically just denying yourself, what, 15 Engineers?

But then why does the man from wintertime say that they're all dead?

You can help me?
hi I know I have completed the winterhome scenario at normal level twice but I can't get the event to work (passage to the south and smoke signals) I read on the wiki that this event is active if you leave the specialists to explore the frozen lands. this event suggests that you see Newlondon's smoke signals. but in 2 parts that I have surrounded, it has not occurred to me. help!!!