Frostpunk 2 beginner’s guide: 12 tips to help you survive the wasteland

The Great Frost has wiped out most of humanity, and only the unlucky few are left to fend for the scraps. Although the city has managed to survive in Frostpunk 2, the worst is yet to come as societal upheavals lead to dilemmas that can shape the future. Our Frostpunk 2 guide contains several tips to help you get started as you take on the mantle of the Steward. We hope you’re well-prepared, or the postapocalyptic challenges could lead to a rather icy doom.

We’ll tackle multiple gameplay mechanics here. We’ll start off with basic concepts, including those that make the sequel vastly different from its predecessor, and then discuss advanced features and systems, such as Council laws and Frostlands expeditions.

You need to Frostbreak to make tiles accessible

Frostpunk 2 differs from its predecessor since you’re no longer placing individual buildings around the city. Instead, the city is just a major point of interest in its own region. Surrounding it are hexagonal tiles filled with resources, such as food, materials, prefabs, and fuel. However, most of these tiles are inaccessible at the start. To enable building on them, you need to initiate the Frostbreaking action by pressing the “X” key. You may then select up to eight tiles for each process —  the whole process itself requires 200 workforce and 30 heatstamps.

Understand the functions of each district

This sequel sees you constructing entire districts, with each district requiring six tiles to be fully built. You do need to be mindful of their functions.

• Housing District — Provides shelter to your citizens; lack of shelter causes citizens to suffer from the cold.
• Food District — Generates food for your residents; lack of food leads to hunger.
• Extraction District — Collects resources such as materials, prefabs, and different types of fuel like coal, oil, and steam.
  • Most districts and buildings require materials for their upkeep costs. A lack of materials leads to squalor.
  • The generator, meanwhile, needs a type of fuel to provide heat to your entire settlement.
• Logistics District — Build these on top of Old Waystations to gain access to the Frostlands (more on this feature later).
• Industrial District — This particular district can be built on any vacant hexes even without a specific resource node. You can toggle these to produce prefabs or goods. Prefabs are needed for construction, while goods are needed by your citizens. This denotes a comfortable way of life that also lowers the crime rate.

Moreover, you can add building improvements to districts that have been expanded. These upgrades provide new functions, such as filtration systems that reduce squalor in Housing Districts, sawmills that increase materials generation for Extraction Districts, or automated factories in Industrial Districts that grant extra workforce.

Take note of placements, bonuses, material upkeep, and hubs

One of the most important tips in Frostpunk 2 is to carefully consider district placement. If you’ve played 4X strategy games like Civilization 6, then you should be aware of adjacency bonuses. Here’s a quick summary.

• Most districts, building improvements, and hubs have upkeep costs either in the form of heat demand, materials demand, or both. There are techs and laws that help offset these imbalances.
• The best way to alleviate any issues is to get adjacency bonuses. For example, a Housing District with three tiles next to the generator will automatically have +20 heat, partially offsetting the demand. If three more tiles are adjacent to another Housing District, then you gain another +20 heat, completely negating the base demand.
• Essentially, you’re building clusters of districts that will, eventually, have tiles that are next to each other to maximize potential bonuses. Moreover, you can construct hubs that have an area-of-effect. For instance, Heating Hubs provide more heat, while Maintenance Hubs lower the materials upkeep.

Emergency Shifts and Overdrive boost efficiency

There are two basic functions that become available early in the game.

• Overdrive for your generator.
• Emergency Shifts for non-Housing Districts.

Both of these greatly boost efficiency in terms of heat generation and production, respectively. However, there are also inherent risks. If Overdrive is active for too long, the generator can get badly damaged. Emergency Shifts, meanwhile, lower the people’s trust in your leadership capabilities, implying that they view you as uncaring and haphazard with your decisions.

Faction beliefs and tenets

Another Frostpunk 2 tip to remember is that you need to assuage the fears and manage the demands of multiple factions. Each group tends to follow a particular belief or tenet.

• Adaptation versus Progress
• Merit versus Equality
• Tradition versus Reason

The zeitgeist or the overall direction of your society, as well as related mechanics such as laws, technologies, and decisions, impact your relationship with these groups. This could lead to rallies or protests, too.

• Groups that are devoted to you will conduct rallies that eventually spread to various districts. You can have them increase your workforce, heatstamps income, or guard squads.
• Conversely, having poor relations with certain organizations may cause them to instigate protests. You can quell these by improving relations or appeasing their demands. These include repealing a law that they dislike or giving them extra funding for their projects.

Be ready to make tough decisions

Frostpunk 2 has you making choices that affect the daily lives of your citizens, though most of the dilemmas you encounter are tied to disparate factions vying for control. Here are a couple of examples.

• Early in the game, you’re asked if you want to “Embrace the Frost” (i.e. learn to adapt to the ever-changing landscape) or “Defeat the Frost” (i.e. find new ways to exploit resources).
• In Chapter 4, you have to choose on how to deal with a familiar settlement that must be colonized. Your decision here affects your reputation with two rival groups.
• In Chapter 5, these groups will end up in an open clash, and you’re given three distinct choices.

Negotiate deals to pass the laws that you want

Our Frostpunk 2 guide wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t talk about the Council, a system where you decide on proposals that are signed into law. Most laws require a majority — around 51 out of 100 delegates — to be in favor of it just so it passes with flying colors. If you’re unable to meet this requirement, then you need to sweeten the deal via negotiations.

The idea is to select the faction with a large number of “mostly hesitant” delegates, which are akin to swing votes. You may then select a deal as a means of reciprocating, such as researching a particular tech, constructing a specific building, giving them free rein to decide on the next law to propose, gifting them heatstamps as funding, and more. Just remember to hold up your end of the bargain; the organization will be greatly angered if you can’t keep your promises.

Be ready for emergent factions

Speaking of factions, there are emergent groups that appear as you continue to play through the campaign and sandbox mode. Generally speaking, these blocs tend to follow a combination of the aforementioned tenets, and they’re often diametrically opposed to the starting factions. Since these emergent groups are relatively new to the scene, they don’t have a lot of members yet. It’s up to you if you want to curb their ambitions early, or if you plan on promoting their goals further.

Tech research is related to the faction system

The faction system also affects the technologies you research.

• When making decisions and passing laws, you continue to move your city’s zeitgeist toward certain beliefs, which then unlock new tech options.
• Some are considered Radical Ideas, which are then proposed by specific factions that have stronger beliefs.
• Existing factions may back a particular tech research if it aligns with their worldview, which also improves your standing with them. In other cases, you may be asked to research a tech as part of a negotiation deal.

The pursuit of science, therefore, becomes part of your political maneuverings.

Prepare for whiteouts

Everyone from the lowliest citizen to the most vocal faction delegate fears whiteouts. These weather disturbances can happen randomly throughout the course of your campaign, though you’re given a warning so you have time to prepare. When a whiteout occurs, the temperature drops to deadly levels, something that even the most powerful generator won’t be able to offset. Moreover, food production takes a nosedive given the harsher climate. The goal is to stockpile a lot of food to prepare for this eventuality. Deaths can and will occur, though high population growth should help you get through the worst of it.

More resources, events, and colonies await

The Frostland is even more expansive this time around. This inhospitable wilderness has numerous regions that contain resources, including food, fuel, and materials. It’s also possible to find cores, a valuable resources that’s used by high-end district improvements and upgrades. More importantly, you can connect outposts via paths to funnel resources back to your city. Likewise, you may start colonies to build smaller settlements that dot the icy countryside.

Try the Utopia Builder sandbox mode

We encourage you to play through Frostpunk 2‘s campaign first. The story is set 30 years after the events of the first game, and the objectives should help you understand the new mechanics and features. Later, you can try Utopia Builder, an endless sandbox mode that you can continue playing to your heart’s leisure. The sandbox allows you to pick your starting location, available factions, and victory conditions. It’s up to you to lead your city to a bright future by any means necessary.

That does it for our Frostpunk 2 beginner’s guide. We hope these tips aid you in your quest to prevent the city from falling.