Were there techs and laws more useful on harder difficulties?

[Panfilo]

One of the biggest things I noticed on harder difficulties was how much more relevant discontent is. On Normal you can probably skip fighting pit/public house/moonshine/house of pleasure in favor of more immediately useful laws. But on harder difficulties these certainly become more useful as they let you get away with more 24hr/extended shifts which you'll want to have to offset lower resource gathering.

Another one was radical treatment. In Normal you'll get so few gravely ill that I found I didn't need to risk it and could just take sustain life. But on harder difficulties you get a lot more sick people and can't really afford to have your beds clogged with people you can't cure yet, so I think it's worth the risk of Amputees for sustain life.

I'm not sure if Cemetary/funeral is any more worth it. My challenge was discontent, not hope. Getting a lot of deaths kind of kicks off a failure spiral and I've started to notice that even some scripted deaths (propiganda poet suicide, workplace accident, for example) don't add these bodies to the snow pile/Cemetary, which makes me worry the hope mitigation effects won't proc in these circumstances, nor do you get harvestable bodies for fertilizer/cannibalism. You do get a nice chunk of hope just for passing/building Cemetary, but the utility of organ transplants can't be understated when you are flooded with sick.

[Bobywan]

If you don't care about doing the right thing:
radical treatment / overcrowding
snow pit / organ transplant (you actually dont need any dead for it to work)
You will probably never need fertilizer or cannibalism
And of course going for faith is usually easier without the need to staff the church, shrines and house of healing to save steamcores.

[Tomato & Egg]

at hard or extreme, you get executed by your people because of discontent rather than hope. Hope will rise to around 50% over time as long as there. Usually Hope only drops when there is death or because of very specific law, but even so the effects are temporary. So long as there is no death, hope is not a big problem.

Discontent is quite another story. You have so many things to increase discontent: long shifts, emergency shifts (each use increases around 30% at extreme), cool, cold or freezing houses, bad food or no food at all, and no medical treatments. All of them are related to early stages of tech research and resource gathering. Striking the right balance is very difficult at extreme level. Well, unless you become bloodthristy and you want to sacrifice a body to the cold wildness every two day, cold homes alone will be enough to raise discontent to over 100% within 3 to 4 days at extreme. So I always try to contain discontent instead of pumping hope.

[amordron]

Discontent is a resource as much as wood and other stuff is. On higher diffs esp you want to manage it to keep it around 50 ish to maximize the value of longer shifts. This means keeping other sources low. Yes this gets harder on harder diffs as otherwise would be to easy running longer shifts always without thought.

This is where the soup vs sawdust issue comes in.

Sawdust gets worse as diff goes up for sickness rate. But soup adds discontent. In general the sick from sawdust is so low it dosent matter till extreme where it’s high enough using sawdust will get you more food at the cost of every other place taking a hit (including tech and tech you never want to give up) making soup the better one in many cases on higher diffs due to not costing you tech.

But if you can’t manage your discontent eg using a build that cycles 24 hour shifts sawdust is still worth as the cycled 24 hours more than make up the tech loss from sick eng.

Faith is the better option in pritty well every case on extreme due to house of healing. The advantage of not needing any medical tech freeing up a ton of tech time plus needing no eng in tech mid game is quite massive. Yes order boosts production and tech but unless you got discontent under control quite well order falls behind as it needs to cycle 24 hours to really keep up and that takes a lot of discontent that already is harder to maintain in higher diffs vs faith the amount of tech savings you have don’t need 24 hours to stay in a good place all game.

Snowpit is the only option for death law. Cemetery might as well not exist. Would rather sign no law than take cemetery unless forced to via doing a good play by. But even golden path allows snow pit. When you have deaths it’s the time your behind. Cemetery makes workers stop for a funeral on death making you more behind. The reduced Hope loss is meh as Hope should not be a issue on higher diffs as you should know how to maintain it by than. Vs snowpit has a real advantage of better med.

Radical vs sustain is a moot choice in many cases. The real option is never let them reach grav I’ll making you choice only there to get overcrowding. I like radical. Outside of refugees and winterholm should not see grav I’ll till house of healing or inf. Radical thou the chance of a amp is low ish at 30 percent. So even if you get a grav good odds it dosent matter. If you do get a amp no big he takes up a bed at that point vs losing a ton of beds. It’s easy to deal with amps you don’t bother with them. Shouldent see any outside of refugees and winterholm. Winter you have to deal with them anyways so meh and refugees any you get you leave them the map is so fast paced never a need to deal with them just get a carehouse later for them.

[Panfilo]

How much does moonshine mitigate the Discontent from soup? Because I figure if it's some flat percentage like - 75% discontent per pop eating soup then it becomes progressively more cost effective as its discounting more discontent at harder difficulties.

I think the issue with snowpit vs Cemetary is that organ transplants are just flat out overpowered. It's pretty obvious they were intended to need corpses to work, much like fertilizer or alternate food source. Cemetery even if deathless is a flat chunk of hope at least. Based on the way you minmax its clear that the snowpit hope /discontent needs to be much higher, organ transplants needs to require corpses, or Cemetary needs other buffs/less time sink on funerals.

Even on hard I saw gravely ill from people being homeless a day and a half. Not many, mind you, but certainly more than 'none' I saw on normal outside of putting them on a 24hr shift on a pile at - 80C or something similarly sadistic.

[General Idea]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

How much does moonshine mitigate the Discontent from soup? Because I figure if it's some flat percentage like - 75% discontent per pop eating soup then it becomes progressively more cost effective as its discounting more discontent at harder difficulties.

I think the issue with snowpit vs Cemetary is that organ transplants are just flat out overpowered. It's pretty obvious they were intended to need corpses to work, much like fertilizer or alternate food source. Cemetery even if deathless is a flat chunk of hope at least. Based on the way you minmax its clear that the snowpit hope /discontent needs to be much higher, organ transplants needs to require corpses, or Cemetary needs other buffs/less time sink on funerals.

Even on hard I saw gravely ill from people being homeless a day and a half. Not many, mind you, but certainly more than 'none' I saw on normal outside of putting them on a 24hr shift on a pile at - 80C or something similarly sadistic.

Some Cities Do Ave 'Em

I see you're getting into the spirit of soup and moonshine. Of course you can always go back to the full hardy normal meals and not have to worry about that liquid substitute.

Snowpit gives your city the added boost for those patients waiting in line for any organ transplant that may become available. The good thing about it is that it works even if nobody has previously donated body parts. I'm not complaining and nor is anyone else in my city. There's another queuing line for the amputees, first on your right, if you'd prefer.

Leaving people outside to the open elements with no shelter over their heads, vulnerable and exposed, is a problem in societies all over the world. Not sure if your clearing them off the streets and assigning them to work camp details is going to be well received to be honest, especially when they have no where to go afterwards.

There's always room for them in my city if things get too bleak in for them in yours.

[Tiasmoon]

I always pick Sustain life over Radicial treatment. Most of the time I also pick Rations for the Ill over Overcrowding. Dealing with ill is really just a matter of being prepared well enough. If you are, you will rarely if ever get gravely ill.

Originally posted by Panfilo:

How much does moonshine mitigate the Discontent from soup? Because I figure if it's some flat percentage like - 75% discontent per pop eating soup then it becomes progressively more cost effective as its discounting more discontent at harder difficulties.

I think the issue with snowpit vs Cemetary is that organ transplants are just flat out overpowered. It's pretty obvious they were intended to need corpses to work, much like fertilizer or alternate food source. Cemetery even if deathless is a flat chunk of hope at least. Based on the way you minmax its clear that the snowpit hope /discontent needs to be much higher, organ transplants needs to require corpses, or Cemetary needs other buffs/less time sink on funerals.

Even on hard I saw gravely ill from people being homeless a day and a half. Not many, mind you, but certainly more than 'none' I saw on normal outside of putting them on a 24hr shift on a pile at - 80C or something similarly sadistic.

People get ill much easier if they are homeless. If you have homeless, then you will want to have your generator running (with overdrive if you can) during the night. I forget when its needed tho. Could be as early as the workshift ends (18:00) till about 6:00 in the morning.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

How much does moonshine mitigate the Discontent from soup? Because I figure if it's some flat percentage like - 75% discontent per pop eating soup then it becomes progressively more cost effective as its discounting more discontent at harder difficulties.

I think the issue with snowpit vs Cemetary is that organ transplants are just flat out overpowered. It's pretty obvious they were intended to need corpses to work, much like fertilizer or alternate food source. Cemetery even if deathless is a flat chunk of hope at least. Based on the way you minmax its clear that the snowpit hope /discontent needs to be much higher, organ transplants needs to require corpses, or Cemetary needs other buffs/less time sink on funerals.

Even on hard I saw gravely ill from people being homeless a day and a half. Not many, mind you, but certainly more than 'none' I saw on normal outside of putting them on a 24hr shift on a pile at - 80C or something similarly sadistic.

Moonshine dono the exact % but once gotten I norm see no issue with discontent if using soup. Between the discontent reduce from moonshine + the reduce from soup I think it works out as net a discontent reduce when using soup with moonshine vs not using soup alone.

Yes organ transplant is just overpowered vs the other option.

Homeless get sick easy you need to get at -20 2 heat levels to housing from something overnight. This means either run the gen + homes or run the gen + overdrive. The best way being just use overdrive. Obv get home up sooner than later but don't delay what is more important. Using 3 24 hour shifts day 1 2 on wood one on steel helps a ton with getting houses up early game. Even on extreme its quite possible to not have a single grav ill on a new home/arcs/any endless map endurance builder mode you will see some. Once you have it down sustain vs radical becomes a moot point. Radical thou is just better in most cases. Sustain uses up beds no matter what and peoples time to death ticks going to the medpost than going to the carehouse than going to the inf so more often than not people still die in the end on extreme. Vs radical gets them back to work quick has a low chance to use the bed as only dose if the amp triggers. While the maps you will see grav ill you cant stop (refuges and winterhold) one they don't matter on as swimming in labor (assuming your not letting them get amped left and right) the other you have to deal with amps anyways as it gets you some bonus eng while you start with some.

You only need to run the gen with overdrive from 2-6 4 hours. turn the gen on at 1 as takes time to heat. Can run for the entire night if you want thou doesn't hurt if spare coal. Overdrive if used only from 2-6 thou (I personally use 12-6) you will lose all the stress before the next day making it free heating.

[Panfilo]

I wondered if moonshine just canceled out the malus of soup. Seems reasonable considering you have to slog through fighting pit and public house just to get to that point. None of them are bad laws but there's so many good ones it's tough to decide what to pick now and what to take later.

One tactic I've been developing is to use care homes as dumping grounds for gravely ill /Amputees since they'll only eat half the food while in there and if you have tons of healthy people then you're not missing out on their labor. I did a hard run with sustain life+care homes and just let em pile up in there which focused my med posts on curing stick people sooner. Infirmary is great no doubt but I feel like wasting time healing people back up to being eating machines is just a liability.

I've used triage on normal as a panic button to free up capacity during storms and stuff but I wonder if this is impractical on hard /extreme since the hope loss will be amplified.

At first I thought it was bugged but I guess it makes sense New Order isn't gonna leave sabotage victims in the snow pit when they can just make up a BS story about how they just 'left'. Still, if you're going to make a tactic around using bodies as a resource it's kind of stupid that sectarian violence doesn't at least contribute.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

I wondered if moonshine just canceled out the malus of soup. Seems reasonable considering you have to slog through fighting pit and public house just to get to that point. None of them are bad laws but there's so many good ones it's tough to decide what to pick now and what to take later.

One tactic I've been developing is to use care homes as dumping grounds for gravely ill /Amputees since they'll only eat half the food while in there and if you have tons of healthy people then you're not missing out on their labor. I did a hard run with sustain life+care homes and just let em pile up in there which focused my med posts on curing stick people sooner. Infirmary is great no doubt but I feel like wasting time healing people back up to being eating machines is just a liability.

I've used triage on normal as a panic button to free up capacity during storms and stuff but I wonder if this is impractical on hard /extreme since the hope loss will be amplified.

At first I thought it was bugged but I guess it makes sense New Order isn't gonna leave sabotage victims in the snow pit when they can just make up a BS story about how they just 'left'. Still, if you're going to make a tactic around using bodies as a resource it's kind of stupid that sectarian violence doesn't at least contribute.

Well it doesn't just cancel it moonshine has two effects one that reduces discontent every meal and one that makes soup cause less. With moonshine I think soup still causes a bit but adding the 2nd part I think the net is ether nothing or a slight reduction. By having the two effects moonshine is still good if not using soup just not as good.

Care houses are good but also a real pain in extreme. As soon as people leave the medcenter to be moved to a carehouse there time to death start to tick untill they reach the carehouse. This happens once again being moved to infirmary. In lwoer diffs this time dosen't matter in esp extreme it really dose as they can further be pulled to eat or do other stuff while moving wasting more time. This often will cause a death which is why I find sustain lift rather meh. Esp as taking sustain means you need carehouse early to deal with them vs radical dosen't have this issue and is only 1 law letting you use the other law on anything else that is more useful. Ideally going for house of healing giving you a tech boost by not needing to get inf and a tech boost by not needing eng in medcare. Tech boosts in extreme are important and any you can get are the key to winning. So anything like this that nets a tech boost no matter how small is often the better option. Esp as sustain means losing eng from tech/medcare into the carehouse also vs only a 30% chance. Carehouse is a law I only sign on the way to dealing with amps if I pick to do so mid game once house of healing is up so the good laws are covered. So manly only in winterholm and endless.

Triage is fine on extreme even hope is not a real issue if you got a good build should never be seeing a hope issue. While not using it means more deaths than using it in most cases so no using it will be a larger hope loss.

The big thing about higher diffs is aiming for as deathless of a run as possible as deaths really hurt you more than anything. The sooner you get to the point of limiting deaths to under 10 in a game you will see the diff of the game drops a ton. A few deaths are fine and can make the game easier to allow esp if using them to unlock stuff like house of healing but more than 10 over the game is wasting resources making the game harder. While likely pointing out that you have to many sick further wasting resources by them not working so not getting that income. In frostpunk problems spirals out of control. The early game IS frostpunk. you master the early game and you have mastered prob 70% of frostpunks difficulty. As what kills people is early game messups putting them behind without them even knowing it and taking 10-20 days before it catches up to you making you think you where doing fine but in fact you messed up long ago so they don't find that mess up as they only look at the last few days.

Prime example you have sick so you add more medposts by taking eng from tech now you have less tech you get by that flash of cold yes great. But now you have one gen level lower for the next cold flash due to lost tech and die. You think you messed something up near that cold flash vs the real problem being that you needed to swap the engs over in the first place vs using overdrive or something earlier to prevent those sick in the first place.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

I wondered if moonshine just canceled out the malus of soup. Seems reasonable considering you have to slog through fighting pit and public house just to get to that point. None of them are bad laws but there's so many good ones it's tough to decide what to pick now and what to take later.

One tactic I've been developing is to use care homes as dumping grounds for gravely ill /Amputees since they'll only eat half the food while in there and if you have tons of healthy people then you're not missing out on their labor. I did a hard run with sustain life+care homes and just let em pile up in there which focused my med posts on curing stick people sooner. Infirmary is great no doubt but I feel like wasting time healing people back up to being eating machines is just a liability.

People are your resource and research earners. Without them youll gain less and less. On higher difficulties anything that gives + healing rate is a high priority because of that. If you dont have Infirmaries and/or other bonusses then your sick will just spiral out of control untill a large portion of your workforce is sick.

If you think you have a lot of ill now, Extreme vastly increases the odds of someone becoming ill. Chilly might as well be ''Cold''.

The discontent laws seem like they are very good, and while they are handy for giving more room with Shifts, you dont actually need them in most scenarios. Keeping discontent low isnt that much of an issue if you dont let people die, starve, stay cold, etc.

High priority Laws are: Shifts, Child Labour, sustain life (or alternative, it doesnt really matter) so you can get overcrowding/rations for the ill, snow pit so you can get access to organ transplants.
Others are the early Laws in Order/Fate. For Fate, Healing Houses and Shrines are both high priorities.

Soup/Saw Dust can help early on with food if you plan on doing other research first, but the rest of that tree is just bonus for when you have all the high priority stuff already.

[Bobywan]

About soup/saw dust. If used too much, you will get an event where they ask for normal rations and if you refuse or fail you will have even more discontent.
I think moonshine remove this event.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Bobywan:

About soup/saw dust. If used too much, you will get an event where they ask for normal rations and if you refuse or fail you will have even more discontent.
I think moonshine remove this event.

It dose. That extra discontent from the event is a big thing to note as it happening at the wrong time can really hurt. Thou turning of your extended shifts can get rid of the lower discontent event than turn them right back on to buy more time as needed ideally turning on only what is needed till you lower a bit. Doing so has a hope boost.

[Panfilo]

Yeah but you have them off for 3 days which is a painfully long time. If you have guards you can just choose 'force them to work' with zero gameplay malus.

That option isn't available when they complain about food, though in that case you can just build a prison and arrest the people that complain about it (which, I believe, mitigates the discontent from the people whining about).