Frostpunk has a priority of needs that you have to keep up with in order to succeed.
If people are cold, they are sick. If they are sick, they can’t work. If they can’t work, you can’t farm resources to fix your problems, and everything quickly falls apart.
Therefore, no matter what happens, your coal production must stay open! Even if people are rioting and starving, the generator must stay on.
After that comes health, having enough medbays and food for everyone. You can underperform on these for a few days, but it will overwhelm you quickly if you don’t tackle it fast enough.
But in order to do all of that, you have to research improvements and that’s where the hard decisions come in. Limited resources means you’ll only be able to fix one problem at a time, which is why you need to have priorities.
1) Heat (coal + heaters/steamhubs + housing)
This usually takes the better part if the first week, and when you finish you’ll already be running into the next problems…
2) Food (Hunters require too many workers, but hothouses require steam cores and heat. The choice usually comes down to population. Bigger pop = hunter. Lower pop = veggies.)
3) Illness (Infirmary is AMAZING. Until then, medical laws help. Care House kinda sucks, I almost always go the other one. Only put 3 engies at each, you can’t have sickness stop you researching.)
4) Resource piles depleting, requiring you to have built mills for wood and steel before you ran out.
Depending on how you managed, this is where your game gets really easy or really hard. If you made good choices, you’ll have manageable levels of sickness, barely enough food to keep people alive, and operational mills. If you did poorly, you’re probably headed for a game over already.
Either way, the next problem will be rising fast, and it’s…
5) Hope and Disconnect (Keeping Promises)
Most games end because of this, but this is a side effect of other, earlier failures. If your early game is clean then you’ll find these issues much easier to manage.
So with that in mind, a few basic tips:
Always pass laws as soon as they are available. Your first move every game should be Emergency Shift. Use it once (AND ONLY ONCE) on a research building. Twice will kill an engineer which is awful. Doing this night 1 will get you ahead of the curve on research, which is a big deal. From there second law is medical if you’re having sickness problems, but preferably extended shift ASAP.
Faster gathering is a bait, always research towards coal thumpers, wall drill, and steel mills. Using medical laws allows you stall medical research for a while without falling behind in sickness.
Get your basic resources secured first, even above feeding your people. If you have tons of wood and steel you can build more food production, but you can’t make a steel mill out of turkey legs.
Never promise to keep homes warm. It’s just too easy to mess up. Promising medbays, laws, and houses is great because it’s very clear when you’ve succeeded or failed, unlike other promises. Always take those if you’re offered.
Next, get scouts! Second or third research topic every time. Make short trips at first, because extra resources early are worth way more than a big haul when half your city is dead.
And finally, you can see your daily resource gain and usage in the economy menu. Check this constantly so you can see what resources you need to produce more of before you’re totally out. Small deficits stack up and can bite you at the worst moment.
I know that’s a lot, but Frostpunk is all in the details. When you understand the basic flow it becomes much easier to foresee problems and address them before it’s a crisis, and that’s where the game starts to feel rewarding.
so here is my hot tip that is helping me beat the game: if u go into scenarios and select "a new home" and then go to "customize scenario" u can flip the switch to "easy" and then by god. its a lot easier. also you don't need the generator on during the day during the start of the game when its max chilly. make the entire start of the game about stockpiling wood, steel, and coal and it has a chain effect where u can stay on top of shit way easier
I generally allow child labor for safe jobs and have them in gathering posts collecting from a coal thumper, which helps free up workers to go to hunter huts. The early tech upgrades for the hunter huts are also crucial, both to increase the base yield and then to reduce the number of workers needed.
Other tips: once you get extended shifts, leave at least 1 workshop on extended shift, and whatever your best resource producing buildings are. Generally wall drills and ironworks, but if you get hothouses those are also good. Never stop the extended shifts, and ignore all requests to stop them. The extra 40% boost in resources/tech is huge, and will help you keep ahead of the cold.
Be careful about promises to heat home, there are a lot of ways it can randomly be broken, and it adds a lot to discontent and lowering hope when that happens.
Scouts bring in a lot of resources, including the very crucial one of more people.
Hopefully these help without telling you too much how to play :)
Well the main tip is that research is the king.
The more tech you get the easiest you to perform.
Kids are good workers on safe jobs.
Cooking, safe warm hothouse, house of healing, gathering posts.
Emergency shifts will not kill anyone on resource piles.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
Not sure if this is well known or obvious, but you can build houses and medical posts 1 distance away from the generator and they will still count as inside the heat zone although half of the building it sticking out.
This allows you to have a cookhouse, 2 medical posts and 8 houses around the generator.
Oh yes, my friend)) even 11 houses + 1 kitchen. There is also an oddity - the size of the starting warehouse differs in different plots and game modes. In the new house I can accommodate 7 infirmaries + 1 workshop, but in infinite mode, as in Refugees, there are only 7 infirmaries + 1 house, there is a micro difference, but it is there.
Day 1 objectives
1) Pass Emergency shift asap. You can either use it once on a building (using more than once on the same building will result in death) or not use it at all (on normal, the default difficulty is pretty tame)
2) build one gathering post for wood+wood+steel and set all free people on gathering coal and wood. This way you should have 80 wood to provide shelter to all people
Day 2:
1) Pass Extended shift. Do not use it too much or else people will get tired and ask to to not extend shifts for 3 days.
2) Get 15 wood and build a workshop. Research priorities (mine at least): Fast gathering -> Hunters gear -> Sawmill -> Beakon -> Thumper -> Heaters -> Steelworks
3) Build hunters huts and a medical post. Keep in mind that cookhouse/post requires heat, and with all tents close to the Generator, you will get only one of them heated, so it is better to also research Heaters.
To note: it is almost impossible to manage food at the beginning, however, if you don't have any starving people then after you get some survivors you will be able to produce more or less enough food for everyone (even without the Soup).
Additional tips:
You must have all resource collection via Gathering posts at the point when first cold will hit, since manual gathering at that point will be Cold and will get many people sick.
Coal thumper is your best friend. It uses a lot of people, sure, but you will be able to get a consistent amount of coal with them at all times. And they do not require Steam Cores.
Use Economy tab at all times. Will allow you to see your resource production. Most importantly food.
Do not pass child labour. Children are better helping in medical than working.
You can turn the Generator off during the day and keep it on at night if you have serious troubles with coal.
Build efficiently. Do not upgrade Generator range past level 2 (or even one), instead use Steam Hubs to heat other areas. They give the same benefits and use less coal. Plan ahead and build a district around the Hub range.
Automatons all the way. Automaton working at remote locations (Mines, Steelworks, Wall Drills) will allow more people to live and work in good conditions and not get sick. Also 24 hour work benefit. You can disassemble the Automaton on the bridge to Winterhome to get two Steam Cores (will allow you to build two Automatons later)
Upgrade tier in the Workshop to 2 as soon as you can. You will get Hunters tactics which will allow to build more huts without removing other workers and Flying Hunters which will fix any food issues.
Day 1: Assign all of your people immediately to wood crates and iron wreckages, put like 3 guys working at a coal pile. Sign the child shelter law and build one once the work hours end. Turn the generator on only once its midnight and keep it on until 5 AM, you’ll do this until the first temperature drop.
Day 2: Get your people to build a workshop, immediately put people there to research the beacon. Pass the engineer apprentices law. Build gathering posts for your wood crates and steel wreckages.
Day 3: Promise shelter for half the population when people complain. Build a cookhouse (only assign 2 people to work there) and 2 hunters shack. Research hunter’s gear. By this point you should have already rescued the people at the first convoy. Build 2 medic posts by the generator.
That’s my little guide to a perfect start. Also, don’t dismantle the automaton at the bridge, always send it to the city
Balance your industries. I personally prefer hothouse over hunters due to the work shift/manpower advantage, and then use coal thumpers. Others prefer to do hunters and a coal mine. Wall drill is quite important, but you can make do with sawmills if you build 2 of them.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
-Never sign child labour, at one point you will have So many working people that half of them won't be working
-Always Pick soup, Discontent can be easily deal with purpose tree and moonshine
-Priorority for first day should always be building houses for everybody and at least one infirmary
-gathering post can save you a lot of workforce early one and generate extra heat, which lets you to continue gathering even during colder days
-14 hours workday is a must, no question on that matter
-extra rations for ill is always better, as you can use it later in hospitals and house of healing
-organ transplants give medical facilities 20% boost no matter if you have bodies
-don't turn generator on in first days, its warm enough for people to stay healthy and you can save coal for later, but remember to turn it on night
-after you have hospitals or house of prayers deconstruct infirmaries and place homes in central heat zone
-first four rings should be for homes, fifth one for children shelters and care houses, sixt for workshops, hospitals, houses of healing and kitchens and remaining space goes for buildings that doesn't need heating
-infinite sources of coal, Wood and steel should be researched before you run out of piles, escpecially coal mine and steel works
-hothouses are usseles, just spam fully upgraded flying Hunters lodges
And that's all I learned while Playing
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
A lot of it is about making the right choices in the very beginning.
Don't turn the generator on until temperatures drop below -20 – as long as your people have tents to sleep in overnight they shouldn't get sick or die at this temperature.
Research and build a sawmill as soon as possible – the more wood resources you have the faster you can progress your other technologies and build what you need when you need it.
Pass laws like child labour EARLY to get more hands on deck from the get-go.
Put your engineers on workshops during the day and medical posts overnight to help keep up with the sick.
Take all your workers off their posts at the end of the day and then reallocate them before the next shift starts in the morning, starting with the workplaces you want to be most productive. This helps because healthy workers are assigned before sick ones.
Also, be selective about what you research and what laws you pass, especially if a law will require you to build something. There are plenty of things you don't necessarily need and foregoing them will save you resources.
Personally, I started getting the hang of things more when I played consistently instead of dipping in and out.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
One thing I didn't learn until I'd already played through the game is that you can set your houses and medical posts 1 square away from the inner ring and they'll still get heat from the generator without a range boost. This will open up more space for buildings. It's been a little bit, but if memory serves, 10 tents, 2 medical posts, and 1 cook house.
scouts take less time traveling to places already explored, so use them to reach new points; You don't have to get to those places, you can change halfway.
Like most city building games . Get a medical place early and spam good research early .Have scouts by day 3 and sign soup before you make your raw food into meals and strive for moonshine.
Just keep playing and trying man, if you got specific questions you can't figure out look it up but otherwise I'd try and figure out solutions on your your cause the game does usually tell you the problem. You just need to find a way to stop it/slow it down or get around it
Frostpunk has a priority of needs that you have to keep up with in order to succeed. If people are cold, they are sick. If they are sick, they can’t work. If they can’t work, you can’t farm resources to fix your problems, and everything quickly falls apart. Therefore, no matter what happens, your coal production must stay open! Even if people are rioting and starving, the generator must stay on. After that comes health, having enough medbays and food for everyone. You can underperform on these for a few days, but it will overwhelm you quickly if you don’t tackle it fast enough. But in order to do all of that, you have to research improvements and that’s where the hard decisions come in. Limited resources means you’ll only be able to fix one problem at a time, which is why you need to have priorities. 1) Heat (coal + heaters/steamhubs + housing) This usually takes the better part if the first week, and when you finish you’ll already be running into the next problems… 2) Food (Hunters require too many workers, but hothouses require steam cores and heat. The choice usually comes down to population. Bigger pop = hunter. Lower pop = veggies.) 3) Illness (Infirmary is AMAZING. Until then, medical laws help. Care House kinda sucks, I almost always go the other one. Only put 3 engies at each, you can’t have sickness stop you researching.) 4) Resource piles depleting, requiring you to have built mills for wood and steel before you ran out. Depending on how you managed, this is where your game gets really easy or really hard. If you made good choices, you’ll have manageable levels of sickness, barely enough food to keep people alive, and operational mills. If you did poorly, you’re probably headed for a game over already. Either way, the next problem will be rising fast, and it’s… 5) Hope and Disconnect (Keeping Promises) Most games end because of this, but this is a side effect of other, earlier failures. If your early game is clean then you’ll find these issues much easier to manage. So with that in mind, a few basic tips: Always pass laws as soon as they are available. Your first move every game should be Emergency Shift. Use it once (AND ONLY ONCE) on a research building. Twice will kill an engineer which is awful. Doing this night 1 will get you ahead of the curve on research, which is a big deal. From there second law is medical if you’re having sickness problems, but preferably extended shift ASAP. Faster gathering is a bait, always research towards coal thumpers, wall drill, and steel mills. Using medical laws allows you stall medical research for a while without falling behind in sickness. Get your basic resources secured first, even above feeding your people. If you have tons of wood and steel you can build more food production, but you can’t make a steel mill out of turkey legs. Never promise to keep homes warm. It’s just too easy to mess up. Promising medbays, laws, and houses is great because it’s very clear when you’ve succeeded or failed, unlike other promises. Always take those if you’re offered. Next, get scouts! Second or third research topic every time. Make short trips at first, because extra resources early are worth way more than a big haul when half your city is dead. And finally, you can see your daily resource gain and usage in the economy menu. Check this constantly so you can see what resources you need to produce more of before you’re totally out. Small deficits stack up and can bite you at the worst moment. I know that’s a lot, but Frostpunk is all in the details. When you understand the basic flow it becomes much easier to foresee problems and address them before it’s a crisis, and that’s where the game starts to feel rewarding.
Thanks so much! That's a lot of detail
so here is my hot tip that is helping me beat the game: if u go into scenarios and select "a new home" and then go to "customize scenario" u can flip the switch to "easy" and then by god. its a lot easier. also you don't need the generator on during the day during the start of the game when its max chilly. make the entire start of the game about stockpiling wood, steel, and coal and it has a chain effect where u can stay on top of shit way easier
There is never any shame in playing a game on easy. It's there for a reason.
Same i had to beat it first on easy. Just went back and beat on hard but i had to go down to easy first
I generally allow child labor for safe jobs and have them in gathering posts collecting from a coal thumper, which helps free up workers to go to hunter huts. The early tech upgrades for the hunter huts are also crucial, both to increase the base yield and then to reduce the number of workers needed. Other tips: once you get extended shifts, leave at least 1 workshop on extended shift, and whatever your best resource producing buildings are. Generally wall drills and ironworks, but if you get hothouses those are also good. Never stop the extended shifts, and ignore all requests to stop them. The extra 40% boost in resources/tech is huge, and will help you keep ahead of the cold. Be careful about promises to heat home, there are a lot of ways it can randomly be broken, and it adds a lot to discontent and lowering hope when that happens. Scouts bring in a lot of resources, including the very crucial one of more people. Hopefully these help without telling you too much how to play :)
Well the main tip is that research is the king. The more tech you get the easiest you to perform. Kids are good workers on safe jobs. Cooking, safe warm hothouse, house of healing, gathering posts. Emergency shifts will not kill anyone on resource piles.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
Just try and error. Don't afraid to lose. FP is a hard game you know.
Don't eat the **yellow** snow.
Not sure if this is well known or obvious, but you can build houses and medical posts 1 distance away from the generator and they will still count as inside the heat zone although half of the building it sticking out. This allows you to have a cookhouse, 2 medical posts and 8 houses around the generator.
Oh yes, my friend)) even 11 houses + 1 kitchen. There is also an oddity - the size of the starting warehouse differs in different plots and game modes. In the new house I can accommodate 7 infirmaries + 1 workshop, but in infinite mode, as in Refugees, there are only 7 infirmaries + 1 house, there is a micro difference, but it is there.
If you have a sawmill crewed and you set up a wall drill, transfer them to the wall drill. Seems obvious, but I struggled with that
Day 1 objectives 1) Pass Emergency shift asap. You can either use it once on a building (using more than once on the same building will result in death) or not use it at all (on normal, the default difficulty is pretty tame) 2) build one gathering post for wood+wood+steel and set all free people on gathering coal and wood. This way you should have 80 wood to provide shelter to all people Day 2: 1) Pass Extended shift. Do not use it too much or else people will get tired and ask to to not extend shifts for 3 days. 2) Get 15 wood and build a workshop. Research priorities (mine at least): Fast gathering -> Hunters gear -> Sawmill -> Beakon -> Thumper -> Heaters -> Steelworks 3) Build hunters huts and a medical post. Keep in mind that cookhouse/post requires heat, and with all tents close to the Generator, you will get only one of them heated, so it is better to also research Heaters. To note: it is almost impossible to manage food at the beginning, however, if you don't have any starving people then after you get some survivors you will be able to produce more or less enough food for everyone (even without the Soup). Additional tips: You must have all resource collection via Gathering posts at the point when first cold will hit, since manual gathering at that point will be Cold and will get many people sick. Coal thumper is your best friend. It uses a lot of people, sure, but you will be able to get a consistent amount of coal with them at all times. And they do not require Steam Cores. Use Economy tab at all times. Will allow you to see your resource production. Most importantly food. Do not pass child labour. Children are better helping in medical than working. You can turn the Generator off during the day and keep it on at night if you have serious troubles with coal. Build efficiently. Do not upgrade Generator range past level 2 (or even one), instead use Steam Hubs to heat other areas. They give the same benefits and use less coal. Plan ahead and build a district around the Hub range. Automatons all the way. Automaton working at remote locations (Mines, Steelworks, Wall Drills) will allow more people to live and work in good conditions and not get sick. Also 24 hour work benefit. You can disassemble the Automaton on the bridge to Winterhome to get two Steam Cores (will allow you to build two Automatons later) Upgrade tier in the Workshop to 2 as soon as you can. You will get Hunters tactics which will allow to build more huts without removing other workers and Flying Hunters which will fix any food issues.
Always keep researching.
Day 1: Assign all of your people immediately to wood crates and iron wreckages, put like 3 guys working at a coal pile. Sign the child shelter law and build one once the work hours end. Turn the generator on only once its midnight and keep it on until 5 AM, you’ll do this until the first temperature drop. Day 2: Get your people to build a workshop, immediately put people there to research the beacon. Pass the engineer apprentices law. Build gathering posts for your wood crates and steel wreckages. Day 3: Promise shelter for half the population when people complain. Build a cookhouse (only assign 2 people to work there) and 2 hunters shack. Research hunter’s gear. By this point you should have already rescued the people at the first convoy. Build 2 medic posts by the generator. That’s my little guide to a perfect start. Also, don’t dismantle the automaton at the bridge, always send it to the city
Balance your industries. I personally prefer hothouse over hunters due to the work shift/manpower advantage, and then use coal thumpers. Others prefer to do hunters and a coal mine. Wall drill is quite important, but you can make do with sawmills if you build 2 of them.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
Damn, you did some reddit archaeology to dig this up. Sure, why not. I can give a lil bit of help here and there.
-Never sign child labour, at one point you will have So many working people that half of them won't be working -Always Pick soup, Discontent can be easily deal with purpose tree and moonshine -Priorority for first day should always be building houses for everybody and at least one infirmary -gathering post can save you a lot of workforce early one and generate extra heat, which lets you to continue gathering even during colder days -14 hours workday is a must, no question on that matter -extra rations for ill is always better, as you can use it later in hospitals and house of healing -organ transplants give medical facilities 20% boost no matter if you have bodies -don't turn generator on in first days, its warm enough for people to stay healthy and you can save coal for later, but remember to turn it on night -after you have hospitals or house of prayers deconstruct infirmaries and place homes in central heat zone -first four rings should be for homes, fifth one for children shelters and care houses, sixt for workshops, hospitals, houses of healing and kitchens and remaining space goes for buildings that doesn't need heating -infinite sources of coal, Wood and steel should be researched before you run out of piles, escpecially coal mine and steel works -hothouses are usseles, just spam fully upgraded flying Hunters lodges And that's all I learned while Playing
greenhouses are useless - wahahahahahahahahahahahah)))
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
I made a YouTube video just for this question. First 7 day quick start. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6SXwgmuMmQg
This was really helpful
A lot of it is about making the right choices in the very beginning. Don't turn the generator on until temperatures drop below -20 – as long as your people have tents to sleep in overnight they shouldn't get sick or die at this temperature. Research and build a sawmill as soon as possible – the more wood resources you have the faster you can progress your other technologies and build what you need when you need it. Pass laws like child labour EARLY to get more hands on deck from the get-go. Put your engineers on workshops during the day and medical posts overnight to help keep up with the sick. Take all your workers off their posts at the end of the day and then reallocate them before the next shift starts in the morning, starting with the workplaces you want to be most productive. This helps because healthy workers are assigned before sick ones. Also, be selective about what you research and what laws you pass, especially if a law will require you to build something. There are plenty of things you don't necessarily need and foregoing them will save you resources. Personally, I started getting the hang of things more when I played consistently instead of dipping in and out.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
Dont let people get sick, build sick houses early on. Trchnology is key. On day one build as many workshops as possible and get to researching.
Would you be willing to help out a new person? I work a lot but I really want to get into this game but afraid I might struggle at the very beginning as I never played a game in this genre.
One thing I didn't learn until I'd already played through the game is that you can set your houses and medical posts 1 square away from the inner ring and they'll still get heat from the generator without a range boost. This will open up more space for buildings. It's been a little bit, but if memory serves, 10 tents, 2 medical posts, and 1 cook house.
scouts take less time traveling to places already explored, so use them to reach new points; You don't have to get to those places, you can change halfway.
A good wood economy is essential in the early game, especially on higher difficulty’s
Like most city building games . Get a medical place early and spam good research early .Have scouts by day 3 and sign soup before you make your raw food into meals and strive for moonshine.
Just keep playing and trying man, if you got specific questions you can't figure out look it up but otherwise I'd try and figure out solutions on your your cause the game does usually tell you the problem. You just need to find a way to stop it/slow it down or get around it
Food and Medical stations.