Frostpunk, developed by 11 bit studios, is a challenging city-building survival game where players are tasked with managing a society struggling to survive in a frozen, post-apocalyptic world. The core gameplay revolves around resource management, making difficult moral decisions, and keeping the last city on Earth alive. Success in Frostpunk requires balancing heating, food, health, and citizen morale while tackling escalating crises. This guide will walk you through how to master the essential aspects of Frostpunk and ensure your city survives the brutal cold.
Introduction
In Frostpunk, the line between survival and collapse is thin. As the leader of the last city on Earth, you’ll face harsh winters, dwindling resources, and moral dilemmas that will challenge your leadership. Managing your people’s basic needs—food, warmth, and health—while keeping their hope alive and discontent low is key to success. This guide will help you navigate through the complexities of the game, offering step-by-step advice on how to secure survival for your people and build a city capable of withstanding the bitter cold.
1. Setting Up Your City: Early Game Priorities
Gathering Essential Resources
At the start of Frostpunk, your immediate goal is to gather crucial resources to keep the city running. Your first priority should be to stockpile coal, wood, and steel. Coal powers the generator, while wood and steel are used to construct buildings and craft upgrades.
- Coal: Essential for keeping the generator running and maintaining heat in the city.
- Wood: Needed for early construction projects such as gathering posts, tents, and workshops.
- Steel: Used for advanced structures and tech upgrades.
Building Basic Structures
Once you’ve gathered initial resources, build essential structures. Start with tents for shelter, medical posts for treating the sick, and a workshop for unlocking future technologies.
- Tents: Shelter your population to keep them from freezing.
- Medical Posts: Ensure early healthcare is available to prevent a surge in sickness.
- Workshops: Essential for research and unlocking key technologies.
2. Managing the Generator: Keeping the City Warm
Balancing Heat Levels
The generator is the heart of your city, and learning to manage it efficiently is crucial. Keep it running to prevent citizens from freezing, but be careful not to overwork it, as running it at higher levels without upgrades risks overheating and damaging the generator.
- Heat Zones: Place housing and essential buildings near the generator to maximize heat coverage.
- Generator Overdrive: Use Overdrive during extreme cold spells to temporarily increase heat but monitor it closely to avoid catastrophic failure.
Researching Heating Upgrades
Researching upgrades in the workshop is key to improving your generator’s efficiency. Prioritize research on heaters and insulation upgrades, especially as the temperature continues to drop.
- Improved Heaters: Allow individual buildings to generate heat without drawing too much power from the generator.
- Insulation: Upgrade housing and medical posts with insulation to reduce the need for constant high heat output.
3. Food and Hunger Management: Keeping Your People Fed
Building Food Infrastructure
As your city grows, the need for a stable food supply increases. Early in the game, build hunter’s huts to collect food and set up cookhouses to process raw food into rations.
- Hunter’s Huts: Send hunters on night missions to gather raw food.
- Cookhouses: Turn raw food into rations that can feed the city.
Researching and Upgrading Food Production
As you progress, research advanced food production technologies. Eventually, transition from hunter’s huts to hothouses, which can grow food in the cold.
- Hothouses: A reliable source of food production that doesn’t depend on hunting.
- Flying Hunters: Upgrade your hunters to gather larger quantities of food each night.
4. Managing Sickness and Health: Building a Healthy Society
Medical Facilities and Treatment
Maintaining your citizens’ health is crucial to keeping the city productive. Building medical posts early on is vital for treating the sick, but as your population grows, you’ll need to expand your healthcare infrastructure.
- Medical Posts: Offer treatment for basic ailments and injuries.
- Infirmaries: Advanced medical buildings that can treat more patients and prevent disease spread.
Preventing Sickness
Sickness often arises from poor living conditions, exposure to cold, or lack of food. Make sure you address the root causes by providing warmth, food, and shelter.
- Cold Homes: Ensure homes are properly heated to reduce sickness.
- Overcrowding: Avoid packing too many citizens into a small area, which can lead to outbreaks.
5. Law and Order: Keeping Citizens in Line
The Book of Laws
Throughout the game, you’ll have the option to sign laws to address various social issues. The Book of Laws gives you control over your citizens’ daily lives, allowing you to make important choices about child labor, medical care, and even the handling of dead bodies.
- Child Labor: You can either ban child labor for a morale boost or allow it to increase your workforce.
- Corpse Disposal: Decide between traditional burials (which are resource-intensive) or more practical solutions like cemeteries or organ harvesting.
Choosing Purpose Paths: Order or Faith?
Midway through the game, you’ll have to choose between two paths for managing your city’s morale: Order or Faith.
- Order Path: Focuses on maintaining strict control, building watchtowers, and establishing a police force to keep citizens in check.
- Faith Path: Builds hope by promoting spirituality, allowing you to construct churches and places of worship to unite your citizens.
6. Research and Technology: Unlocking Key Advancements
Prioritizing Research
To keep your city running efficiently, research is critical. Prioritize early-game research in heating, food production, and resource gathering. Mid-game research should focus on improving efficiency and building advanced infrastructure.
- Heating Tech: Upgrades like improved heaters and steam hubs are crucial to maintaining warmth during cold spells.
- Resource Gathering: Automating resource gathering with Automatons is key to freeing up manpower.
The Importance of Workshops
Workshops are the backbone of technological advancement. Make sure to build multiple workshops to speed up the research process and unlock crucial upgrades before the next cold wave.
- Multiple Workshops: Having more than one workshop accelerates research time.
- Engineer Workforce: Assign your engineers to workshops to maximize research output.
7. Managing Crises: Adapting to Events
Cold Waves and Heat Management
During cold waves, the temperature drops significantly, and citizens become vulnerable to sickness. To survive these harsh conditions, make sure your generator is functioning at optimal capacity and that you’ve stockpiled enough coal.
- Overdrive: Use the generator’s Overdrive function sparingly during cold waves to increase heat output temporarily.
- Emergency Shifts: Consider using emergency shifts to ensure enough coal is gathered to maintain heat throughout the cold snap.
Social Unrest and Revolts
If hope falls too low or discontent rises too high, citizens may protest or riot. Building watchtowers or guard posts (Order Path) can help keep unrest under control. Similarly, signing laws that boost hope, such as religious laws in the Faith Path, can maintain peace during crises.
8. Expanding Your City: Mid to Late-Game Strategies
Efficient Resource Management
As your city grows, so does the demand for resources. Automate as much as possible using Automatons and advanced gathering posts to collect coal, steel, and wood. Efficient management of these resources will allow you to focus on long-term projects and infrastructure.
- Coal Mining: Transition to coal mines and coal thumpers for a steady coal supply.
- Steelworks and Sawmills: Build advanced steel and wood production facilities to keep up with the growing demands.
Managing Population Growth
With more citizens arriving or being born, your city’s infrastructure will need constant expansion. Ensure you are prepared by constructing more homes, food production facilities, and healthcare buildings.
9. Endgame Crises: The Final Challenges
The Londoners and Leaving the City
In certain scenarios, a group of citizens known as The Londoners will try to abandon the city. Managing this crisis requires balancing hope and discontent through speeches, laws, and either religious or order-based actions.
- Convince Them to Stay: Use hope-boosting actions like building Houses of Prayer or Guard Posts.
- Prevent Exits: Arrest key figures or bolster watchtowers to prevent defections.
Preparing for the Storm
As the final storm approaches, all previous strategies must come together. Ensure you’ve stockpiled coal, food, and medical supplies. Construct bunkhouses or houses, and research the final heating upgrades to prepare for the city’s ultimate test.
10. How to Keep Hope Alive: Balancing Morale
Boosting Hope Through Symbols
Symbols of progress, such as The Beacon or Shrines, are essential for raising hope. Constructing these will signal to your citizens that you are working toward a brighter future.
- The Beacon: Acts as a symbol of exploration and the potential for future rescues.
- Shrines and Public Houses: Faith-based buildings that provide citizens with hope during times of despair.
Managing Discontent
Discontent rises when citizens are cold, hungry, or overworked. Be sure to balance work shifts with rest days, provide adequate food rations, and maintain proper heat levels to keep discontent in check.
- Discontent Triggers: Identify causes like cold homes, hunger, and overcrowded medical facilities.
- Reducing Discontent: Use laws, heat adjustments, and entertainment buildings to lower discontent levels.
Conclusion
In Frostpunk, mastering the balance between survival, resource management, and citizen morale is key to keeping your city alive in a frozen wasteland. By focusing on strategic resource gathering, upgrading your generator, and managing crises effectively, you can lead your people to survival through the most challenging conditions.
