How to build a successfull city(On the Edge edition)

This guide will advise players on how to build their cities, advice on laws and exploration. from the early game until the storm. this guide also includes sections for other scenario's and how to complete them.

Introduction

In this guide i will outine what you need to focus on to get your city through the storm all while trying to support as many survivors as possible. advice on buildings,laws and exploration. from early game till the late game.

Early game - Getting started

you begin the game with 80 survivors, 15 who are children. it's a good idea to pause at this time and take a moment to familiarize yourself with the situation. decide where you will build most of your housing and see where you need to build your industry. you can use this image as reference for where it's best to build housing and where not


for a start you'll need to gather enough coal to start the generator. If you don't start the generator b4 night comes 1/4 of your ppl will die and that's pretty much game over. Build a gathering post where the wood and steel crates are. gathering posts are VERY good, they gather from all the types of resources at once, although they are a bit slower than directly assigning ppl it is much more effecient to use posts. Focus on geting the emergency shift and extended shift laws first. extended shift is REALLY good and i always use extended shifts on workshops to get more research done. an emergency shift is always free if used on resource piles, if used on anything else, you get deaths when you use it a second time. Child labor can also be a great early game boost but is pretty much useless late game. the other option is child shelter which is good late game. the follow up laws let the children contribute to sickness recovery OR faster research. the research one is better in my opinion. getting techs faster means more resources for your city to prepare for the storm.

Hold off on building tents, your ppl can sleep on the ground for a few nights no problem(as long as you start the generator!). Cookhouse, medical post and workshop have higher priorities. Make sure you build the cookhouse and medical post in the heat zone of the generator. workshops have better insulation so you can build those farther away.

Your resource situation should be fine at this point for now. Once your workshop has been built we can finally start some research. If we want to support a large amount of ppl, the first step is to get a beacon. we'll need to get as many steam cores as we can get so getting outposts will be our primary goal for the early game.

if you have spare wood you can build some tents and hunters. you only have food supplies for 2 days so make sure you have some food supply ready by the third day.

Your resource piles will be running low so the next most important thing is to get sawmills, coal thumper and steelworks. build 2 sawmills and you should be fine on the wood front for the time being. In order to work the coal thumper you'll need some extra hands so make sure you have a scout team ready to get exploring and bring back survivors. Once you have secured your supplies for the time being once agian, you can focus on getting that juicy outpost tech(don't rush it! don't be afraid to start some other tech if you don't have the resources or the cold is an issue).

Get a second scout team and faster scout teams too! it's really good. as for the exploration choices, you should focus on getting as much steam cores as you can. that means dismateling the automaton on the bridge and dismanteling the coal mine(isn't needed anyway, we don't need the coal and we'll need the cores late game).

constructing additional workshops can give great benefits. the 2nd gives 30%, the 3rd gives a 20% research rate bonus. each one after that gives 10% if you have spare engineers, put them to work in a workshop! you can never research things too fast.

Use your first steam cores to build hothouses. Hothouses are much more effecient than hunter tents are AND you can set the shift hours to boost their output.

if you don't go to winterhome in time, then a man from winterhome will arrive. he'll live just long enough to convey the situation in winter home then die. if you don't have a dead body law this can be annoying so make sure you trigger winterhome b4 day 15!

Mid game - Faith and Order

As we discover the fate of Winterhome we progress the next stage of the game. As our ppl lose hope we'll need to choose a path forward. There are benefits and demerits to each choice.

We have a choice between the path of Faith and the path of order.

The guardposts of the order are smaller then the chapels of faith but their influence area is also smaller and they require manpower to function. the guardposts also take up the same space as tents/bunkhouse/house. so it's much easier to fit in the guardposts in your housing district than chapels who have a rather weird size to fit in.
The laws of Order also generate more discontent than Faith does.
Order can greatly boost the efficiency of their workplaces by using the foreman abilty. it only requires 20 rations.
The Order agitators are inferior to the Faith shrines, the shrines give a hope bonus in addition to their 20% efficiency boost.
Faith has houses of healing which don't require engineers, can be manned by children and can heal the gravely ill but take longer(but are one of the only buildings who can stay warm enough during the final stages of the storm to work AND don't require steam cores, if overclock is active).
in addition Faith has a small building called a field kitchen which increases the Heat level of nearby workplaces in exchange of 20 food ration per day(really handy if going for central heating on refugees).
Faith also can't fight back against the Londoners until you build faith keepers, though order can fight back from the start.

order has a great resource advantage with foreman, but pays for it with higher discontent, although order has more ways to combat discontent than faith does. it also has(in my opinion) the best ability in the game: patrol. patrol lowers discontent, raises hope and has a 24h CD, so you can almost always use it.

Faith has the better support buidings(healing house, field kitchen) and tons of ways to raise hope, but pays for it with fewer ways to combat discontent and they only become available later in the law tree.

EIther is good but Order has good synergy with child labour, since order requires more workers than Faith. With faith you can go with the child shelters and graveyard laws more easily than with order.

narritive wise order is pretty much focused on "suppression", suppressing the population rather than giving psychological support. while faith has a more "support" feeling to it. there's just something satisfying in the events and popups you get from faith. the order story events are more dark and damaging, having to choose between the truth or societal stability. there's a random event for order where 7+ ppl can die(which is not so for faith, whose death driven events are "brighter").

Going too far down your chosen path will make the end sequence a tiny bit diffrent but has no effect otherwise. Going beyond public penance and temple for faith willl trigger it. for order don't sign Pledge of Loyalty and Forceful Persuasion, everything else is fine.

Don't be afraid to dismantle! you can always build more tents later. having better coverage on your guard posts or chapels is more important.

As the game progresses you'll need to start looking into Coal mines to boost you output. Also upgrade your steel mines as soon as possible. you'll need mountains of steel if you want to weather the storm with 600+ ppl. On exploration prioritize getting ppl and steam cores. this is why you need those outpost teams! SAVE before your scout team enters Tesla city and tries to disable the forcefield. it can kill your scout team and the precious cargo of the team!
here is a list of all the locations, their follow-ups and resources. i hope it'll help you.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TVQ43f3n1PaXROPYEUHjFpu35R2EhTfrDrOKTewL7zw/edit?usp=sharing

Use your oupost teams on Tesla city(steam cores if chosen to enter the city) and the iced dreadnought(steel). steel and steam cores are the best choices to build outposts on. but they are in the north and means that the storm will get there earlier. Thats why you need to get those going as soon as possible. every day you don't have an outpost on Tesla city is a steam core you missed!

By now you'll have collected quite a bit of steam cores due to exploration. Start building up your industy using steam cores. Coal mines, hot houses and wall drills. automatons are especially usefull late-game. they work 24h so even if you haven't done any efficiency upgrades they have a better output than ordinary ppl who only work 10h standard. fully upgrading the automatons makes them really OP in comparison to ppl. having 95%(with automaton project) for 24h? it's a free emergency shift. nearly doubles the output. still not convinced? with order you can take it to the next level with the foreman ability, making use of the full duration instead of just 10h. the best places to use automatons on are the coal mines, steelworks, wall drills and hothouses(though i haven't used them yet for hothouses). almost managed to deplete my coal mines cuz of the ridiculous output of automaton work(lol).

Check your temperature overlay often! if your tents bunkhouses and houses are comfortable on the heat you can turn down the heat level of your generator and save some resources! it's also more efficient to use the extended range of the steam hubs. the range 2 setting covers about 15% more than 2 range 1 hubs. researching the more efficient steam hubs completely blows away the use of range 1 hubs.

Also if you have a surplus build a resource depot immediately! the production buildings shut down if you can't store it! each hour not working is an hour they could have worked to prepare the city better for the storm!

recently discovered that the storm arrives on different dates depending how fast - or how slow you - dealt with the Londoners. so if you are able to, stretch the Londoner conflict so you have more days to get steam cores.

Late game - The storm

Once the first group of refugees arrive the late game starts. Your goal is to expand your city so you can support 600+ ppl. a whole new bunch of locations unlock at this stage so get to exploring. you can choose to escort the ppl in the locations closest to you but the more farther ones are best to just send to your city. you only have a limited amount of time to explore everything after all.

the most amount of survivors i've ever managed to gather is 690. if you build shelter for 700 i believe you'll never run out of space for ppl.

Use extended shift on all food production buildings. Use emergancy shift too you can never have too much food stored for the storm.

the storm arrives first on the iced dreadnought on tesla city the next day. so make sure you withdraw your outposts the day b4 the storm arrives on these locations. you'll fail one of the objectives otherwise.

Make sure you have around 2000 wood stored. once the storm is only a few days away the ppl will demand wood for their homes and you'll need to accomodate them.

For research make sure you get the housing techs b4 you start upgrading houses. much less stress on your steel department. get all the insulation techs.

make sure that almost every place en route to the workplaces and back home for the ppl is heated. if any spot between isn't heated they'll fall ill during the storm. so unless you can't afford to build more steam hubs, build some so your ppl are in a heat zone 24h/d.

other than that it's pretty much wait and see. you can keep the generator in overclock for about a day so if the end of the storm is a day way you can use overclock to make sure everything is going smoothly.

during the storm your coal mines will encounter some trouble. if you don't sacrifice 45 ppl to get them running agian they'll have a greatly diminished effeciency and seeing as you will likely be using them as the bulk of your coal production this is a major problem, but seeing as we focused on getting as much ppl as possible we'll be able to sacrifice 45 and have next to no effect on our city even more so if you have signed the child labor law.

NOTE: if you unstaff the coal mines during the storm you can avoid this event. to be able to do this is no small feat and require that you have divided your coal needs among your thumpers and kilns.
EDIT: it seems you now need to deconstruct the coal mines in order to avoid the sacrifices in the event. deconstruct the mines once you get the inital warning about the mines freezing and wait a day or two before reconstructing them.

here follow some images of my Faith playthrough were i picked all the "humane" laws.

Handy tips & tricks

Here's a few handy tips & tricks i picked up while playing the game these few years:

-at about 05:00 the game checks if there are any ppl not in housing & not in a heating zone. about 1/4 or 1/5 of those affected die and this effectively means game over. but we can use this to our advantage to save on coal costs and run the generator only at night for the first few days until the first temperature drop.
-emergency shift is free the first time you use it, but there is an event that giving you a death if you use it a second time, except if you use emergency shift on resource piles. using it on the wood crates/piles you can cut down the time spent gathering & building your initial buildings significantly.
-ppl go to the cookhouse if they need rations. if ppl are starving and there is no cookhouse but there is raw food or rations in storage, they teleport these out of storage to feed themselves. we can use this in order to stretch the amount of time food supplies last us. Convert all your raw food to rations (ideally after signing soup) then begin to decontruct your cookhouse (pause the deconstruction). now ppl will only consume rations when they are starving, thus stopping them from unnecessarily consuming much needed rations when they are not starving. you can cancel the deconstruction when you need more rations, though be warned ppl will consume rations normally again when you do, so make sure to time it to when work starts to cut down on unneeded losses.
-making sure the sick have a bed in medical facilities and are healed quickly is important. sick ppl cannot work and have a habit of dying if they are not treated. there are a few laws in the adaptation tree that can help out with this. there is the overcrowding law after sustain life, which doubles the capacity of all medical facilities only at the cost of some added discontent. it requires no micromanagement, which it's counterpart laws needs in addition to costing rations. choosing 'child shelters' and then 'medical apprentices' makes the sick heal 20% faster during worktime. in addition if you choose 'snow pit', the following law 'organ transplants' makes the sick recover 20% faster -even if you have no corpses-. stacking these will make your sick heal at 144% speed at worktime & 120% at night (the modifiers compound on eachother like shrines/agitators & tech does) just from laws alone.

Hard mode: iron new home

On hard mode everything goes slower and thus takes more time. therefore you'll need to build more facitlities to get the same output as in normal. everything is about 15% less efficient. you also get zero starting resources, except your steam core and a measly 50 raw food. also your discontent bar fills up more quickly and hope is more difficult to raise after taking hits to hope. temperature drops last longer. about twice as long i think. you also get less resources from exploration, but the amount of steam cores stays the same, so nothing too drastic there.

I highly recommend you to be able to build a very successfull city on normal b4 tackling this challenge. this roughly means having this just b4 storm:
-> 20k coal stocked all the time during storm
-> stock 2000+ wood and be able to supply the ppl with their wood
-> have 1000+ steel and build every home as a house
-> have all advanced buidings(tier 3 mines,steelworks,wall drills) operated by automatons and have enough cores for 5 industrial hothouses and 5+ infirmaries.
-> have 6000+ food rations and 1000+ raw food stocked.
-> have rescued and escorted all survivors + explored all possible locations.
-> have 80%+ of all researches finished
-> do not cross the line with laws.
-> no1 died, except event driven deaths.

establishing a good food income is paramount. research hunting tactics first, then move on to heater, sawmill, beacon,steel works, coal thumper. building 3+ workshops is a must! you won't get the necessary techs ready in time otherwise. extended shifs are also a must! the increased research time is the most annoying thing on this difficulty. you'll need to make some difficult choices in the research department so having more workshops really helps reduce this stress.

switch workers between hunting tents and crates! when it's 17:00 reassign your workers to the hunting tents so you get a good food supply. early game this is pretty much a necessity to get a good city going. also remember to build gathering posts.

sign the sustain life and overcrowding(really handy to get more ppl treated, the other option is too costly early game).

ensure every home has access to a fighting ring, helps keep that pesky discontent bar in check. sign the public house and moonshine laws.

getting the city started and getting a sizeable resource and food production going will most likely be your most difficult time in iron mode. beyond that it's pretty chill. just like i said previously, make sure you settle Tesla city and icebound dreadnought for steam cores and steel. you'll most likey settle them a couple days later than when you did so on normal. the most important thing is to get a large wood supply real fast. your future growth depends on how fast you get wood.

keeping the londeners in check is another story. even if you have pretty much every law you need from adaptation and don't cross the line, it's real difficult to get ppl to leave to londeners on their own. you'll need to use your path specific abilities to get ppl to stay in the city.

some of the technologies you get from exploring the final set of locations can be real lifesavers. so make sure you have all scout team related tech done! have 3 scout teams ready when the first refugees arrive, so you can immediatly send them to rescue others. also don't immedaitly set them on a course for an unexplored location. send them to the nearest explored location first then send them to the unexplored location. this reduces travel time since traveling to an explored location takes less time.

if you go for the iron saviour achievement. deaths from events don't count. so you can send your ppl to fix the coal mines during the storm without worry. as long as you pay attention to your population's needs and conditions, you have nothing to worry about.

Refugees scenario

In refugees you take control of a group of commoners who wrested control of the generator site that was intended for a group of lords. the scenario revolves around the class conflict between them. to get the best ending it'll really put your planning capabilities to the test.

the start of the game is pretty much the same as new home. if you follow the early game for a new home you'll be set.

the diffrence with new home is that the map is much smaller and you have barely enough space for every1. But you don't have a storm in this scenario so you'll only need to deal with the lords. there are 2 outpost locations in this scenario and they are really usefull to get. there is a wood outpost and a food outpost. get the wood settled first( the wood is extremely usefull) then get the food outpost(which is necessary to feed the lords). Since there is no storm, you don't need to worry about disbanding the outpost teams on time.

if you accept every1 and you don't play favorites on the class dilemma's you'll get the "perfect" ending where the class conflict slowly fades from the society. if you didn't accept all of them, the workers will take control over the lords and the class conflict doesn't fade. if you refuse all the lords(doesn't matter if you sent them supplies or not, doesn't do anything), you will recieve a mission to secure your city agianst the lords. It involves getting guard stations/faith keepers and building guarded outpost stations( cost 500 wood and 500 steel, not an amount to laugh at). By doing so you'll pursuade the lords to pack up and convice your ppl they are safe. if you fail your ppl will wipe out the lords, making the end somewhat grim.

this scenario is perfect for worse than london and central heating achievements.

The Arks scenario

In arks you'll take stewardship over 4 seedling arks. The mission is to keep the seedling arks warm enough so that the seeds will survive the endless winter so that the green earth can be reborn once the winter ends.

The biggest caveat on this scenario is that you can't get additional ppl. this is a major pain in your *** during the scenario trust me on this. you'll be relying on automatons for most of your industry, but the factory plans are lost and you'll need to build a beacon and have scouts retrieve the plans. it's best to do this as early as possible. you'll be relying on those automatons for your entire industry.

there is a storm in this mission so once you unlock the northern section of the locations go there first b4 sending teams south.

You can get by using Heaters for the first 10 days or so. but after you'll need to use steam hubs too. as it's unlikely you'll have a good coal industry by the time you'll need those hubs, be sure to turn off whatever heaters you can to save coal. overload can be a lifesaver during those temperature dips.

10 days b4 the storm hits you'll be greeted by a man from a city nearby. they are in desperate need of aid to survive the incoming storm. It's paramount that you continued to expand and improve on your industry b4 this point. you'll need a ton of resources so best get started early.

the first stage is 600 wood & steel and 1 automaton. you activate the expeditions on the beacon. where you normally recruit scout teams there should be an arrow button. clicking it will select a diffrent beacon recipe.
the second stage is 2000 rations and 2 automatons.
the final stage is 6000 coal and 4 automatons.

completing stage 2 lets half of new manchester's population survive the storm.

if you upgraded your industry ahead of time and explored all the relevant steam core locations you'll have more than enough to accomodate this and still have enough automatons to have a comfertable industry going.

you'll get several dilemma's if you decided to help. pick the option to continue helping if you want. there'll also be a dilemma where you get a quest if you pick "i won't endanger our mission". the quest is to keep 6 automatons in the city(which is a piece of cake).

to prepare your own city for the storm you'll need 8000 coal, disband all scout teams, build 5 houses and 500 rations.

if you manage to fullfill the needs of both your city and new manchester you'll get an achievement.

this scenario is great for the better than london, satelites and city of steam achievements.

Fall of Winterhome scenario

you take control of winterhome after the previous leader was evicted from the city for mismanagement. he wasn't evicted without a fight and large portions of the city are in ruins. it falls to you to rebuild the city and make sure the generator stays operational after malfunctions during the riots.

this scenario is fairly difficult so you should have a good understanding of game mechanics, city management and building placement optimization.

the scenario is split up into roughly 2 parts
1. cleanup of ruins & reorganization
2. generator examinations & evacuation



1. CLEANUP
this part is the hardest of the scenario. although the scenario is difficult in of itself one misstep in this part can mean you have to restart. you have to clean up ruins, lower discontent and raise hope back up.

the first thing you do when starting is pausing. you really need to make yourself familair with the city since it's a fully built city and you don't build it yourself. man every workplace. and man as many ruins as you can(prefferably some in every ruin cluster, so you can build gathering posts). with a gathering post selected to build you can see where you still need to clear out ruins real handy later in this part.

start with generator output at level 1 you cannot sustain any more than this initially.

sign the radical treatment law first. it's imperative to your survival. you won't get anywhere with the sustian life. it takes too much time to get carehouse and ppl will die spelling the end of the scenario.

you have plenty of food for the first few days, but you need to make sure you clear out a large area of ruins in time to build lots of hunter huts, you have few steam core and you'll need them all for somehting else than food. the area to the right of the generator has lots of ruins and a large swath of land perfect for building hunter huts once it's cleared. make sure to upgrade these to hangars, you'll not get the food required in part 2 otherwise.at the end of this stage you need around 200-300 ration overproduction to be safe for the next stage.

remember to deconstruct the roads. lots of wood to be gained that way. also make sure to build the wall drill. is required for late-game research.

there are 3 coal mine spots and 2 coal thumpers in your city. 2 of the coal mine spots are occupied by ruins. clear these out. it's a good boost. when the ruins nearby these spots are cleared out build 2 to 3 extra thumpers to have a very comfortable coal output.

you have few engineers, they are a very precious resource so make sure you don't lose them! build 2 extra tech labs and build extra med tents to fill up the rest of the engineers. go for infirmary straight away! sickness is deadly early in this scenario and can end your run!!!

in terms of exploration there are a few of very interesting dillemma's: the city has sent out precious resources for several purposes. you can recall these at the cost of their benefits.
the weather station has 20 engineers, but provides the temperature drops information. recalling these means you no longer see when temperature changes will happen.
the bridge has a automaton that keeps the bridge free of snow and ice, making it possible to establish an outpost past this point. recalling means you lose the ability to establish a steel outpost.
the storm bunker has 20 engineers who look for new exploration paths. recalling these means you will no longer be able to send a scout team south to (assumed) reach new london.
all these locatioons can be reached on the weather station exploration path.

i recommend recalling all the engineers. you have a level 3 generator ready. making the forecast a bit useless. the storm bunker provides no real benefits except narative. the extra 40 engineers will be vital to your city in the future, speeding up research and making sure the generator stays operational.

once you have a decent production going, move the outpost team to the iron mine.you'll going to need the steel later. make optimized steel production a priority, but make sure you build a wall drill to have wood production later on.

make sure you build shelter around the generator. houses are preffered for late game stability but not required.

as for laws you'll need to aim for new order and foreman. these will be vital to keeping your city under control and keeping up the efficiency of the ppl.

make sure to move your snow pit as it's in the range of the generator.

at the end of this stage you'll need at least
-200 to 300 food overproduction
-500 to 1000 coal overproduction
-best steel production you can have(advanced steel works + automaton 90% X2 + steel outpost)

Fall of Winterhome part 2

2.THE EVACUATION
once you have the city rebuilt and the population has regained hope, you'll need to find out the source of the generator malfunction. leading to the discovery that the generator is going to explode in the near future even if you repair it.

you will recieve a mission to build and man a repair station that will examine and repair the generator. with the extra engineers we recalled we'll be able to comfortably station a good number of them. keeeping this manned and researching upgrades for it is going to be imperative to the success of this scenario. make sure this is manned at all times with a sizeable force is nessecary in order for the malfuntions to be less severe.

when you discover the generator's fate you'll have a choice: lie to the ppl and hope stays high but comes to bite you in the♥♥♥♥♥later OR be honest and workplace effeciency drops by 10.

you'll recieve a mission to send the children first. accepting and completing this mission for ALL children will grant you a workplace effeciency bonus, offsetting the drop mentioned above(may be tied to the corresponding achievement).
there's also a mission where you'll be able to send all your engeneers to the dreadnought. don't accept it for all of them for some reason i always fail it :/.

you'll need to get your last dreadnought operational agian to evacuate your city. it will take an enormous amount of resources and effort to get this beast to it's maximum capacity.
you'll have to send an initial 25 engineers to be begin the project.
the thing has 5 decks each capable of housing 100 ppl. each deck will take increasingly more resources to outfit. going from 300 steel and 1 steam core to 4000 steel and 4 steam cores for deck 5.not having enough space or rations for everybody means that sickness and starvation will hinder your dreadnought. also not having enough engineers will mean that the dreadnought will not get far with it's cargo. the very last transport you send should be all your leftover engineers.

to get full dreadnought you'll need:
9k steel
10 steam cores(almost all of the ones available).
5000 coal & food


you'll only be able to send 50 ppl and 2500 resources per 24 hours. so you'll need to balance sending ppl and resources sent. best thing i have found is to have a large food industry and keep sending large amounts of rations each transport and once you it has reached the convoy, you'll be able to downsize your food production. once you have sent a good amount of ppl you'll be able to dismantle your outlying shelter centers and reduce coal consumption.

there isn't enough space on the dreadnought so as this stage progresses you'll get events were ppl are desperate to get on the dreadnought but to maintain a good evacuation you need to keep putting these protests down. increasing in severity as the generator keeps malfuntioning. you'll sacrifice some ppl every time but it's nessecary to keep the evacuation under control and make sure the dreadnought is in good condition. don't give pref treatment beyond children.

as you send more and more ppl, don't forget to salvage useless buildings. it keeps things a bit more orderly.

there are 2 techs that are especially handy in this scenario:
-faster outpost teams speeds up your evacuation trains too, enabling you to send a transport every 20h.
-generator bypass safety, which makes generator stress rise less quickly. you'll have more time b4 the generator explodes after final malfunction.

to get the maximum amount of time you'll need to stretch rebuild the city to it's absolute limit. extended shift really helps in this regard. getting the bypass previously mentioned. and lastly; at the very last moment, when the generator is about to blow you'll recieve a pop-up. which asks to either launch the dreadnought OR sacrifice a couple ppl and a steam core to delay the explosion for another day(using save&reloading you can get extra steam cores from the canyon wreck).


for those who are interested for getting as close to canon as you can i'll list what you need to do to get it:
weather station: you need to recall these scientists.
steel bridge automaton: you need to leave this automaton on duty
storm bunker: this is tricky to deduce since this is connected to smoke to the south event. though it is my assumption that canon there is no scout expedition south. since scouts should have had enough supplies to reach new london safely, but only a "last survivor" reaches new london.
judging from the trailer i think it's safe to think that the scientists here were recalled before they even had the chance to report a new trail. and the last survivor in winterhome leaves for new london instead of the scouts.
shrouded cave: should you still have children left, and it's the final few days then a event pops up asking if they may take the rest of the children to the shrouded cave. you need to accept this offer.
freshwater springs: should the dreadnought be full, a riot can come up asking for ppl to leave for freshwater springs. you need to comply.

The Last Autumn

The last autumn takes place just before the world is frozen over due to global cooling. The company you work for IEC(imperial exploration company) tasks you with constructing a generator as a precaution should what the scientists are saying be true.

This scenario has completely diffrent mechanics than the other scenario's:
->There are no "mines"(permenant sources of resources) in your city, instead you have the docks which create resource piles you can gather.
->There are no hothouses or hunting huts, instead you have fisheries.
->There are 4 harbour building slots so you'll have to balance them between fisheries and Docks
->In the area around the generator you can only build gathering posts, factories for generator parts and resource depots(the outer rings of the generator area is perfect since you can't build anything else usefull there)
->All building relating to the generator have a mechanic called "work safety". This indicates how safe it is to work there. The lower this is, the higher the chance for accidents, potentially reducing your workforce as a result.
->until the third stage of the generator construction process has finished, toxic fumes are released fromtthe generator shaft, these reduce work safety and this amount can vary based on it's concentration.
->Buildings relating to the generator can go on strike, meaning they don't do anything until the strike is resolved. To resolve this you can agree to sign additional laws or appease them with more food. Lots of events relate to this mechanic.
->You can call in additional personnel and steam cores by building the telegraph station. This reduces your logistical support, which recovers over time.
->hope is replaced by motivation which has 3 stages: the first stage gives a 30% efficiency malus, the second stage nothing and the final stage gives a 30% efficiency bonus. Motivation decreases each morning by a set amount( this amount increases as the game goes on and the reality of the frost comes closer and closer).


There are many new mechanics so it can feel a bit overwhelming at the start. Taking your time is key here.

The generator construction process is divided up into roughly 5 stages:
1:setting up basic infrastructure DL(deadline) day 7
2:building framework DL day 16
3:laying foundations DL day 25
4:setting up the Core DL day 35
5: outer assembly DL day 45

(this step by step guide is for medium difficulty)
Stage 1:
This stage is the most important since this is where you lay the foundations for your success. The first things you should do is:
-> build 2 gathering posts so all resource piles can be gathered from. assign the extra workers to piles. priority is wood.
->Gruel should be your first law(which also conveniently blocks off the hearty meals law)
->first research should be sawmill, switching to foragers next and after that docks.
->for housing i use the southern part of the map. Prioritize this part of the map for your sawmills in order to expand this clearing quickly.
->wait with building (or activating) your cookhouse until your ppl are hungry and when you do only produce gruel in order to extend the amount of time your initial food reserves last. you can switch to standard meals once you have both fisheries built.

Form your forager team quickly in order to begin exploring fast. Leave sources of food for later(since these only work for a limited time) and focus on exploration.


focus on "positive" laws that increase motivation. Chapel and house of pleasure(public house) should be among your first laws. Always make sure you have good coverage on your chapels. comfortable quarters to permanently reduce discontent. sustain life, care house, evening service. It's very important to raise your motivation quickly since at the final stage you get a 30% efficiency bonus

There are 2 Coal piles in the very south which each have 2000 coal. Place a gathering post there to start gathering that coal, but don't use it for the bathhouse it's not really worth the coal to keep it operational (just build it for the motivation from the quest). it's much better spent on ventilation.

after docks fisheries should be your next research target in order to have a good source of food.

2 docks and 2 fisheries should be your target. For this stage i use a steel and wood dock in order to build up those structural profiles fast.

the stage is finished when you have built a dock and have a source of food.

construct reloading stations on the resource piles of your docks. it is more efficient than gathering posts.

use your logistical support to call in more workers. you should grow your manpower as quickly as possible since the actual building of the generator requires A TON of workers.


Stage 2:
Continue to expand and build up your basic infrastructure with the goal that you can build the generator parts the next stage requires.

you need 50 workers for constructing the generator parts. Build up your workforce so you can permenantly assign 50 workers there.

Here you'll be introduced to the Toxic gasses mechanic and you'll gain access to a whole new set of laws, mainly concerning work safety and work shifts. Getting short shift and safety measures is a MUST and should be signed as quickly as possible.

!!Double shifts allows a workplace to work around the clock with the price of requiring double staff. It is a very powerfull law especially after signing it's followup which reduces the extra labourers required by 50% and should be your target for the mid game. It also completely outclasses extended shift and should be taken every time. !!
the only downside is increased discontent.

some maths here for the ppl who are interested:
if a workplace on normal shift with 10ppl produces 100 units per hour it produces 1000 units in a day
the same workplace on double shift produces 66 units per hour for 24 hours it produces 1584 units in a day. It increases the amount a workplace produces by nearly 60%! This is without assigning the extra 5 workers required to get the efficiency to 100%!

!!getting your docks and reloading stations on double shift is insanely good as it increases your resource income greatly and should be activated as soon as you have signed the laws.!!

when i don't need that much wood anymore i switch the wood dock to steel. The sawmills should be able to take care of any further needs. if you are fine in terms of food production you can forego a second fishery and go for a third dock. a third dock is handy in the mid and late game of the scenario as the increased coal production you get from a third dock is really good for keeping those ventilator plants operational and keeping that safety level high(and consequently not having to sacrifice workers for generator performance what at safety checks)

at 70% completion of this stage's generator part you will get your first safety check. An explosion occurs at the generator site and a large group of workers are trapped. The higher your safety level is, the better the outcome for this event. It's very important since you WILL get amputees from this event if the site is anything but "safe". Amputees are incredible drains on your resources you either have to order prostetics from your telegraph station (costs 3 support) or you'll need to send them back home, losing those workers forever. This kind of safety check happens every stage.
on the first safety check i usually wait at 69% until i have a "low" toxicity level so when i activate both my ventilation plants i get the "safe" work safety.

after this event you'll experience your first strike and in response you'll need to choose between focusing on your workers or the engineers.

i aim for about this for most of my game
3 research labs and 1 medical tent
2 docks(steel) and 2 fisheries
2 sawmills
1 structural profiles factory
1 steam exchanger factory
1 steel composite factory
2-3 ventilation plants

The Last Autumn pt2

Workers or Engineers

After your first strike you'll need to choose who your next laws will favor.

The worker laws focus on keeping strike risk low and motivation high at a risk of detrimental decisions by the labour union.

The engineer laws focus on keeping effeciency and safety high at a cost of strike risk and motivation. The strike risk can be overcome by employing convicts.

The worker laws' best building is by far the council square, which you build in the generator factories area and has an AoE which reduces strike in it's vicinity. If this building is correctly placed it can reduce the strike risk in all the relevant buildings of your generator area, nullifying much of the strike risk penalties of some events. I also recommend rigging the union elections if you choose workers, because they will block most of the nonsensical proposals in the council square. The idea's that pass will mostly be about raising motivation or increasing construction progress. It also provides a daily motivation boost, which is sorely needed in this scenario. it's very possible to keep motivation at "high" with choosing the workers, offsetting some of the efficiency you lose out from by not choosing engineers. The events of choosing workers can cause a lot of your engineers to die so be careful with the event choices.

The best thing about Engineers is their initial building, the factory inspectorate. This increases work safety at 3 workplaces, effectively replacing an entire ventilation plant, allowing you to occasionally turn off safety procedures, increasing efficiency. Though this comes at the cost of not having any initial strike resolving abilities, you can eliminate this by signing the penal colony law and employing convicts instead(who have no chance at strike), but choosing engineers means that you have a constant need for engineers(due to their shortage) and will have to use the internal promotion law to grow your engineers population. engineers are also sorely lacking in motivation late game, costing you a good deal of efficiency. The security outposts of engineers also lowers discontent of the workplaces in range, mitigating some of the penalties of double shift.

Engineers have great early boosts, smoothing the transition towards those triple ventilation plants, though it provides less benefit later on(needless to say the achievement for no coal consumption buildings is best done with engineers).
Workers provide their bonuses over a long period of time and is currently my favored faction due to the many more motivation bonuses it provides.

General stage progression tips
-make sure you build the materials for the next generator construction ready in time.
-research upgrades for your docks and build an infirmary(required for the house of pleasures sickness)
-have perfect coverage on you chapels(very important for mitigating motivation loss)
-double shift on as many buildings as possible
-once you get "the plan changes" event where you get notified when deliveries stop, you should begin stockpiling coal and food, since these are the most important(you can also best use food outposts for this time period).
-after the sea freezes, you can still easily gather steel from the crashed ship in the top left of the map(ignore the wreckage otherwise).

Exploration choices
-there is no consequence for stealing the winterhome parts nor is there any reward for returning them.
-always explain the misunderstanding at the french warehouse, if you take the steam cores; There is a chance your scout team will die, costing you 15 precious workers and whatever they were carrying.
-taking in the survivors at the abandoned generator construction sites is highly recommended.
-i recommend leaving food outposts be for later, in favor of exploring the frostland faster(you can always increase food production by producing gruel).

On the Edge

The last expansion of frostpunk takes you to after the events of the "a new home" scenario. you are the outpost team tasked with setting up an outpost outside an army warehouse. deliveries are expected every few days, new london sends food every day, or so the deal was.

Just like in last autumn, your resource acquisition is quite different than in new home in addition to a couple other things:
-steel and steam cores are gathered at the army warehouse, but you can't gather them at the same time.
-wood is limited by the fact you have no wall drill and the trees on the map itself are quite few.
-there is no possibility to gather food yourself so you will rely in the early game on new london.
-coal is the least affected, but you still only have 1 coal mine.
-there is no generator,instead you rely on a steam hub replacement called the brazier for heating.
-after severing ties with new london you will gradually begin to rely more and more on other settlements for resources, sending them shipments or helping them improve their infrastructure.
-laws are restricted for the first part of the game, since your laws are decided by new london. though you can influence them by asking for help, like having a gravely ill person you can't treat, when asking new london for help, they will sign the radical treatment law.
-asking for help requires favor, which recovers after sending shipments. this applies to both new london and the other settlements.

The scenario divided into 3 sections:
-Early game, on new londons leash
-finding settlements
-new london's response

Early game, on new londons leash

first priority is building a gathering post that can salvage from ALL the ruins at once. assign workers and engineers to resource piles(priority to wood and the path to the warehouse).
with these resources build the tents for your ppl. since there is no generator this is a HIGH priority(ppl will die).
!the most important thing is to save your stocked raw food for when you truly need it! especially in the early game when food is the scarcest. turn off your cookhouse when your starving ppl are fed to preserve raw food so your ppl don't consume more rations than needed!

you have 7 days to get a shipment to new london. this is the ONLY required shipment of the scenario.

as the early game progresses new london will be sending you firstly less food each time and secondly less frequently. forcing you to begin searching for a new source of food.
you need to explore to the south of your outpost to find the location of the settlement of hot springs.
once you find it, bring the food to your ppl and bulid a trade depot there with a construction team, new london will find out about it and requisition the obtained food, enraging your ppl, who take out their anger on the new london administrators. you can then choose to allow these administrators to prepare for their departure or kick them out immediatly.

you get a deadline of 3 weeks to reconsider your stance and cool off. at the end of the 3 weeks new london would send a punishment expedition.

in terms of tech there are only a few you should actually really pay attention to:
-first and foremost is the faster gathering,sawmill and warehouse techs. always prioritize warehouse over anything else though(skip mixed crews).
-extra scout team and 1 faster sleds tech. this should be more than enough for the entire frostland.
-brazier upgrades and heater.
-infirmary, coal mine, bunkhouse and housing tech.
you can pretty much ignore any other techs.

finding settlements

since you severed ties with new london you need to strengthen your ties with other settlements you find in frostland.

there are 3 settlements:
hot springs: produces food, is spiritual and so dislikes engineers and science.
convicts' barge: produces wood, they dislike authority, worked on constructing generators prior to the storm(likely a reference to the last autumn).
childrens mine: produces coal, a settlement where a large amount of children are being looked after by a small group of elders. they believe in survival of the fittest and "you don't work, you don't eat" mentality.

you are also able to upgrade the other settlements, which provide you with buffs, the most notable of which the ability to construct a "safe road" between you and the settlement, allowing them to send you shipments of resources every 2 days. a construction team will be required to build the road at 3 spots each costing 50 wood and 75 steel. in addition to that there is also a possiblity that you will need to spend extra wood in order to eliminate the risk of a shipment being lost.

do not send shipments to hot springs for food, do it via favor or upgrades instead. i only sent shipments to the shipwreck for more wood since it only costs 30 coal and 20 food rations, something that should be easily aqcuired.

however you will need to react to discoveries and problems of your improvements.you improve your relationship to loyal by consisently selecting the option that pleases the settlement.

make liberal use of your favour in other settlements. Food from hot springs, wood and workers from the shipwreck. children's mine is somewhat useless since you have a coal mine yourself. i never really asked from the mine.

should you have the goal of supporting new london in the last section, you should build your relations with all the settlements to loyal which roughly means getting them to tier 3.

new london's response
the last section starts with you learning the large amount of ppl coming to your outpost from new london is actually a group of refugees. and you learn the actual reason why new london reduced the food shipped your way: an epidemic ravaged new london, leading to riots and the generator and their food production being damaged. they are barely hanging on now, but new london will fall if they don't get help soon. The mood in your outpost rapidly changes and the previously enraged populace is conflicted on what to do.

to save new london you require these shipments to be sent:
-3000 coal
-200 rations
-50 workers
-5 steam cores and 250 steel

if you strengthened your relationships with the other settlements until they got to loyal(do things that please them). they will take care of one of the shipments for you. if all of them are loyal you only need to take care of the steam cores and steel shipment.

leaving new london to die requires you to build up your own outpost in order to recieve the wave of incoming refugees.
->20 extra bunkhouses
->200 food rations in storage
->5 working infirmaries.
->bunkhouses MUST be at least chilly.

if you strengthened your relationships with the other settlements to loyal, you will recieve greater resource shipments to relieve some stress on your resource department.

Endless mode

endless mode has 2 difficulties: serenity: which has no temporary hazards and is overall -as the name implies- serene
endurance mode; which has temporary hazards and has longer "storms".

there are 4 maps to choose from:
flats: VERY large map with a ENORMOUS forest to harvest with mills. has an equal amount of advanced resource building spots as new home(3 coal,2 steel, 2 wood).
crater: basically the map of new home with a few alterations to resources.
craggs: building is hampered by these rocky outcroppings; making it harder.
canyon: a long small canyon hampers your expansion.

the advanced resource buildings also have infinite reserves(thankfully). so that no matter how much time you play your coal mines will always be available for coal extraction.

every 17-20 days there is a "storm". this storm is a toned down version of the new home one. on serenity it lasts a day. as in a new home it disables hunting and food buildings and requires you to recall your scouts. after the second storm you'll be prompted to explore a dreadnought, which likely contains a "relic". these relics provide some insight into the world of frostpunk and are a nice read. though to explore the dreadnoughts, whithout risking your scouts you'll need to expend resources. there are 3 tiers of "risk" to this
some risk: 100w 50s
moderate risk: 250w 100s
extreme risk: 500w 300s 1core
if you don't pay this fee you'll have a chance to lose your scouts and lose precious ppl(ironically the only resource that isn't "endless" on this mode)

once the storm has ended the frostland opens up again with a new set of locations to explore while the previous set is gone. this is likely the reason why there are no outposts in this mode.

the storm intervals remain the same on serenity mode. but on endurance the interval between storms gets shorter as you continue to survive. reducing your chances to find the steam cores and ppl you need. i noticed that at day 70 ish the interval was 6 days(8 days on "survive!"). which means you only get 4 days for exploration since you need a buffer of 2 days to recall scout teams.

the temporary hazards you will encounter will severely reduce a certain part of your economy. overreliance on a single type of building for a resource can lead to failure. these hazards reduce the effeciency of these buildings by 90% for 5 days! not something you can just wait out if you haven't got large stores of resources. Diversity of resource extraction is key here! On endurance mode these hazards will eventually last until the storm. lasting about a day even when the storm has hit.

these hazards include:
->animal migration: due to animals migrating hunters have to find new hunting areas.
hunting huts and flying hunters have a reduced efficiency.
-> frozen ground: your coal thumpers and gathering huts have a reduced effeciency.
-> generator congestion: due to bad air and bad coal your generator(and all active steam hubs) consume double the coal. this one is one of the more bad ones, since if you don't have a large stockpile or a huge overproduction; this can lead to lots of deaths.
-> steam core seizing: ALL steam core buildings and automatons have a reduced effeciency.
this is -of the ones i have encountered so far- the most damaging. as your city grows and expands, you'll naturally rely more and more on the extremely good resource to space/manpower used ratio of steam core buildings. as there is no limit to steam cores and time, you'll use automatons on a lot of your building too(since automatons have the best output/day).
->rotting roots: reduces efficiency of hothouses.
->clogged pipes: all heat zones have a 20% reduces radius.
->brittle steel: ALL buildings who require steel, need at least 30 more steel.
->strong winds: slows down your already slowpoke scout teams by 50%. on endurance this effectively means you won't be able to even think about getting steam cores or survivors. you'll need to be really lucky to find a location in during this hazard

i managed to clear medium endurance by completely forgetting the beacon until the first storm. after i focused on getting automatons up and running. this method doesn't rely on getting more ppl as much as the previous method i used.

Endless mode: Rifts

In rifts your expansion is restricted by the bridge mechanic. resources are scattered across cliffs that can only be accessed if you build a bridge to it. each bridge is rather costly at a 200w and 150s. it is thus crucial that you carefully plan your expansion to make optimal use of the cliffs you expand to.
i have made a rough map of the cliffs and their resources to help you plan your expansion better. there is a single bridge pre-built this is the one in red on the map.
As you can see the coal mines are rather far away so this will pose a problem in your early game!
cliffs 5 & 11 are rather large and are ideal for coal thumpers or additional residential districts should it be necessary. since the generator cliff is the largest this will be your primary residential district. as the game progresses you should move facilities to other cliffs to make room for more housing. the generator cliff has just enough space to accommodate the 700 pop cap.

Building Efficiency -how it works-

So here i want to explain how efficiency works in frostpunk.

every worker has an amount of efficiency it contributes to the building. for ex you have a building with 5 ppl then to reach 100%, each person contributes 20%. for 10 ppl 10%, and so on.

the amount of ppl who work and their efficiency make up the base efficiency.

a lot of bonuses from research use the base efficiency.

lets take for example the coal mine. it has 2 techs that increase it's efficiency by 10%. if this coal mine has a normal workforce of 10ppl then it does as it says; increases the efficiency by 20%. but if one of the workers is absent, this also reduces the bonus the techs provide. foreman works in this manner too.

the shrines/agitators work on the efficiency each worker brings. 20% of 10 is 2; so each worker would bring in 12%.

the hazards of endless mode reduce the efficiency each worker brings in by a set amount. for a building with 10w it reduces each worker's efficiency by 9%. this is completely seperate from the shrine boost.

10 workers: 10w * 10 =100% base. 10% of base is 10% => 120%
9 workers: 9w*10 = 90% base. 10% of base is 9% => 108%
10 workers+ shrine: 10w * 12 =120% base. 10% of base is 12%=> 144%
1automaton no upgrades: 60% base. 10% of base is 6 => 72%
1 automaton full upgrade + project: 95% base. 10% of base is 9.5 => 114%
10w+ shrine + hazard: 10w * (10+2-9) = 30% base. 10% of base is 3 => 36%

Hope

Here i want to explain how hope works, as i personally had a wrong understanding of how it worked initially.

When you lose hope it doesn't automatically go back up after some time. the description of "temporary modifiers" can be a bit misleading. they are permenant. this is the reason why Order and Faith is necessary. their abilities that raise hope are invalueble for recouping lost hope(since in the adapation tree there are no such abilities). this is also why deaths are to be absolutely avoided. if you have a wave of deaths early on this can be fatal to your current game. since early game you have scant few oppertunities to raise hope.

Conclusion

Thx for reading this guide in it's entirety. Leave a comment if you have anything to say or have feedback to give! I would like to know what can be done better and would appreciate any additional knowledge i didn't put into this guide.

4/5/18: as of now i've completed the last of the location lists. for every scenario you'll find a drive link below here. it's unlikely i'll add anything else to the guide unless it's something the comment section points out or 11bit publishes new content. if you haven't experienced already, the game has little replay value, so i hope they add in some randomness into the game in the future.

20/5/18: played and finished iron mode today. added a section for it as well. wanted to play frostpunk again, so i decided to up the difficulty and it was a nice experience.

20/6/18: haven't been able to beat survivor yet. will update if i manage to beat it.

22/9/18: finished fall of winterhome and updated guide. was a great scenario and had fun with it. i hope they'll continue to add scenario's like this.

23/9/18: noticed that steam flags my location lists as mailcious :/. no idea why, they are google spreadsheat links.

20/11/18: updated guide for endless mode. added efficiency and hope sections.

22/11/18: changed faith and order section to better summerize the benefits of each choice.

30/8/19: added rifts section.

31/1/20: finished writing the last autumn section. i will continue to update this guide as new content releases so check my guide.

22/8/20:added and updated the on the edge section.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading my guide, it's been a long journey with frostpunk and i loved every bit of it. The guide is now functionally complete, the next updates will likely be small tidbits i find out during my replays of the scenario's. it's a shame there's no further DLC or content planned, but i'm going to look forward to the next game 11bit releases regardless(next game of the team behind frostpunk is in a diffrent genre and on a way bigger scale). i hope you found this guide interesting and helpfull.

exploration locations lists(google drive link)

a new home(main campaign):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TVQ43f3n1PaXROPYEUHjFpu35R2EhTfrDrOKTewL7zw/edit?usp=sharing
Refugees:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VXOtbckH8SRtf2SkM93U1Fp_BAnJPj1SMbeyVP4IjQo/edit?usp=sharing
The arks:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ji_TcTjm_I64kQQcy8EN6roQk-pl9Rc5LN7mzXJLZvg/edit?usp=sharing

[mphambi]

Hot springs keep sending instead of food

[Gordon Freeman]

Thanks for this guide... It's still relevant in 2022 while the real world deals with the energy crisis lol

[Fabiaville]

bedankt

[Lexes]

Danku voor de guide hey heeft me echt geholpen met de gameplay

[Fabiaville]

thanks. well i tried like 4 times and my scouts got decimated every time so i thought it was a fixed thing/

[Ritoguy]

Very exceptional guide. For the French Storehouse though in the Last Autumn, I ended up successfully obtaining the Steam Cores 3 out of 4 times which means its a chance check like any other.

[Fabiaville]

my house power shut off at the exactly right time in order to F up my work on this guide.... had a whole lot written when it shut off aaaaaargh sigh

[Fabiaville]

i find the faith punishment better than the order one. with order you lose a person cuz you imprison them. with public humiliation you only have to cure some injuries. my political beliefs have nothing to do with any of this. i only outline the benefits and demerits of each choice. besides if you use public humiliation yourself and not in an event, a diffrent event chain will be triggered that is a bit darker than the other events in the Faith path.

[Remove skull merchant]

I get that Hope is your personal preference...but it is pretty dark also. Public humiliation by penitents in front of everyone? You're probably a leftist. Those who know the true nature of criminals know they won't just repent from religion.

[Uncle_Gobi]

By the way i found some survivors on usual difficulty in endless mode and several times after third storm. Please make a correction)