Frostpunk - ice age city builder from This War Of Mine devs

[Toffeli]

Yes, the first 2 times my scouts were vaporized at Tesla City, third time they survived. Did nothing different.

Is there anything in this city?

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

 

[Jaedar]

always rush double scouts

Generally yes but it's not always so simple. Scouts can bring in a lot of resources but unupgraded it takes them days and in Refugees you have -50 on day 7. You have to rush basically everything else first or you'll just freeze to death. It's a fine balance.

It's not worth it on refugees imo(at least not on hard), because the resources you can scavenge are actually quite low on that map.

 

[Hellraiser]

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

You can do that even if they die from what I can tell. The reward for a lucky dice roll is a lot of steam cores from what I remember.

 

[cvv]

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

You can do that even if they die from what I can tell. The reward for a lucky dice roll is a lot of steam cores from what I remember.

I don't think there's any reward at all, except your scouts live.

 

[wjw]

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

You can do that even if they die from what I can tell. The reward for a lucky dice roll is a lot of steam cores from what I remember.

I don't think there's any reward at all, except your scouts live.

Errh... you get acces to the best Outpost in game. It delivers a daily Steam Core. If you want to have a comfortable stock of everything in Hard on the end phase, you try to rush the tesla city.

 

[cvv]

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

You can do that even if they die from what I can tell. The reward for a lucky dice roll is a lot of steam cores from what I remember.

I don't think there's any reward at all, except your scouts live.

Errh... you get acces to the best Outpost in game. It delivers a daily Steam Core. If you want to have a comfortable stock of everything in Hard on the end phase, you try to rush the tesla city.

You get the outpost even when your scout die.

 

[wjw]

Thats... odd.

 

[Friday.13]

Consider it as those poor scout build the road to tesla city for you with their frozen, toasted dead body.

 

[Jaedar]

If remember correctly, you could set up an outpost there which would provide you steam cores now and then.

You can do that even if they die from what I can tell. The reward for a lucky dice roll is a lot of steam cores from what I remember.

I don't think there's any reward at all, except your scouts live.

Errh... you get acces to the best Outpost in game. It delivers a daily Steam Core. If you want to have a comfortable stock of everything in Hard on the end phase, you try to rush the tesla city.

You get the outpost even when your scout die.

My scouts died, and I sent an outpost there, but it never returned any steam cores.

 

[Dickie]

Yeah, good point about triple shifts. They should definitely implement that - if you have more workers, enable double/triple shifts.

They already seems to have the system in place to implement this because medical buildings have the concept of shifts. If you put five people on a medical post, then 3 will work during the day and 2 will work the night shift. I'm not sure why this isn't allowed for other buildings.

 

[Puteo]

It's not worth it on refugees imo(at least not on hard), because the resources you can scavenge are actually quite low on that map.

Just beat it on hard quite easily because my double scouts were able to empty the frostlands well before the first lords arrived.

The excess steel and wood made it so I was never resource limited until I got the third level steelworks going and then it was a cruise to the finish line. Only 1 death (from the 24-hour shift special event) and 1 amputee.

If I wanted to, I could have easily abused the absurd number of steam cores you get from the frostlands in this map and left the generator on overdrive almost the whole time.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Played it for a while, I gotta say it's probably the most pointless, futile game I have ever seen. All the advertised tough decisions and moral dillemas are basically fake news. Playing on normal I crushed it on 2nd playthrough and that was that. It's obnoxiously scripted with fake reactivity, nothing you do matters.

The only redeeming quality are the art and the atmosphere, but otherwise, meh. It's not a good city builder, it's not a good storytelling game, it's not a good survival game, it's not a good game, period. Maybe the challenge playthroughs on higher difficulties will be interesting, but not sure if I will bother trying them.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah i think core design of game is wonky, imo it would work much better as DF, Rimworld type of game than current form. There are shitload of interesting stuff in it but like you said most of that stuff is completely futile as there are no consequences.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah i think core design of game is wonky, imo it would work much better as DF, Rimworld type of game than current form. There are shitload of interesting stuff in it but like you said most of that stuff is completely futile as there are no consequences.

It seems like they changed direction mid-development. It's like there's two games there and both are half-assed. Feature wise it could make a good fully-fledged city builder with a winter twist. And narrative wise it could make a cool survival game with a winter twist. Instead it's this weird thing, packed with buildings and upgrades and stuff you'll never even use because it's a 10 hour game, and the narrative just goes limpdick the moment you realize it's basically 2-3 scripted events with no variation between them.

As you say, it should either have been a sandbox, or a much more limited basebuilding game, with half the features thrown out, and instead packed with random events and scripted scenarios and shit like this.

 

[cvv]

It's obnoxiously scripted with fake reactivity, nothing you do matters.

Yes there are scripts, it's not a sandbox. Nothing wrong with that.

As for "nothing you do matters"....depends. That's 11bit for you. That was their schtick in This War of Mine too. Getting to the end isn't necessarily winning, your choices do matter but you see the outcomes only on the final slides/text. For example if you pass child labour, drive your people hard and eventually institute a tyrannical rule you CAN win but the final text will say "You won but was it worth it" or some such.

Personally I don't like it either, I never give a shit about the final screens, I prefer gameplay outcomes of my decisions. I still liked both TWoM and Frostpunk a lot.

And btw Normal is pointless, there's zero challenge. Try the Refugees scenario on Hard.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

"You won but was it worth it"

fuck yes. what's your point?

 

[Balor]

"You won but was it worth it"

fuck yes. what's your point?

That's millennia-old 'Does the ends justify the means?' question. It has single and concrete answer - "It depends".

 

[cvv]

"You won but was it worth it"

fuck yes. what's your point?

That's millennia-old 'Does the ends justify the means?' question. It has single and concrete answer - "It depends".

The age old cautionary wisdom says: "Sometimes it does but humans are too stupid to judge this correctly so preferably we shouldn't do it at all."

 

[Balor]

"You won but was it worth it"

fuck yes. what's your point?

That's millennia-old 'Does the ends justify the means?' question. It has single and concrete answer - "It depends".

The age old cautionary wisdom says: "Sometimes it does but humans are too stupid to judge this correctly so preferably we shouldn't do it at all."

That's one way to put it. There is an other argument - it might be simply *impossible* to predict consequences of your actions. You might save a child and he'll turn out to be Hitler.
You might run over a promising athlete, paralysing him from wait down... and he'll quit sports and becomes a scientist and invents cure for cancer... but than that cure turns out to have a side effect of causing a zombie apocalypse and ending human race for good.

However, *saving a child* and *running people over* are very easily judges as 'good' and 'bad' by themselves by Kantian categorical imperative, so a rational choice would be to abstain from doing bad things unless consequences are apparent and totally unavoidable.
There is also a case where 'means' become 'ends' in themselves - happens all too often...

 

[Lagole Gon]

"Crossed the line."

Oh, fuck you game. Everything I did, I did for my people!

Early game is a solid survival city builder. Doesn't mix well with story events though...
And it falls apart during the mid-late game.

Meh.

 

[thesheeep]

"You won but was it worth it"

fuck yes. what's your point?

That's millennia-old 'Does the ends justify the means?' question. It has single and concrete answer - "It depends".

True, but the way the game colors things seems to be at least silly.

Take child labor, for example. Doing it is colored to be a bad thing, but why?
The human race is on the brink of extinction. It won't fucking matter if children get to play around a few years longer instead of working if it risks wiping everyone out.
Once the situation improves (and afaik that is the "end goal" of the game story, even if not necessarily depicted in the playable part), you can always undo that law.
It is simply the logical thing to do - that it pleases nobody is of no relevance.

Honestly, the do-gooderism in this game I found quite off-putting sometimes.

 

[Althorion]

Plus, if the alternative reality of the game isn’t too ‘alternative’, kids would have been working before the apocalypse too. So the game pulls ‘oh, you didn’t make drastic socio-economical changes in face of impending doom? Shame on you!’ stupid manoeuvrer and expects me to care… No guys, I didn’t forbid child labour, legalized same-sex marriage or made any other ‘progressive’ choices, because you know, fight for survival and all!?

 

[cvv]

fight for survival and all!?

B-but would it be wort....

nah just kidding. 11bit are obviously packed tight with progs and the feelzy types, it's obvious from This War of Mine too. They're also uber-talented tho so I forgive them.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Lol every slide is packed with Kevin Saunders style, Very Clever Game Design Terms.

Mebbe they shoulda spend less time brainstorming these Cool Concepts during meetings, and more time making a game that doesn't suck gigantic dick.