Ultimate Beginner Guide

USEFUL PAGES
List of Synergy and Conflicting Events
FP2 Guides
Factions list

Getting the right start for your City in Frostpunk 2 can be a challenging task, but with this ultimate guide you will learn how to get a good start, which Ideas to go for, get the good Districts and Buildings order and get ready for the incoming threats and difficulties you will have to face.

Depending on the game mode you will be playing there could be additional conditions to take into account, but most of the tips from this guide will be useful for all the game modes, so you can use game mechanics properly to your advantage.

Basic Mechanics

It's important to understand the basic Game Mechanics and interactions that take place in the game to plan ahead and manage your City well. You can always go to the Game Mechanics page to read more about each aspect, we will cover only the main aspects for beginners in this guide.

First thing you have to understand is Frostbreaking. It will cost 30 Heatstamps, so make sure not to overdo it, you will need those later for other important things. While Frostbreaking is under way it will take 300 Workforce and will last 2 weeks. When you order Frostbreaking you will have to select 8 tiles next to each other and when they are selected Frostbreaking will begin. If 8 Tiles cannot be chosen because the aren't any more connecting tiles (in case of "Islands"), Frostbreaking will still cost full price and time. You can select 8 tiles in a line to make a path towards important resource or node, or make clusters, it's up to you, but early game you have to be efficient and get some Coal deposits early and aim for Logistics District location to get access to Frostland exploration ASAP.

Next you need to know how Population and Resources work.

Population will increase the Heatstamp income, but will require Shelter, Food and Goods. If those will not be supplied Problems will start to occur and over time can severely impact your City if remain unattended. Population determines the Workforce available in the City. By default it's 60% of the Population, but can be increased and decreased by Disease and different Laws.
Population will grow through the game and it's being increased in batches. This rate can be affected by different Laws and Problems in the city.

Different strategies rely on fast or slow population growth, but you should be ready to accommodate new citizen with housing and food to prevent issues. Moreover, fast population growth will exhaust City resources at a higher rate, so make sure that you are taking that in consideration when deciding how fast you want new people to arrive.

Since Population upkeep requires a lot of resources, it's imperative to know what to focus on and how to balance your production to keep up with the demand. Different Resources serve different purposes and depending on the game stage you need to focus on specific things.

Early game it's important to supply your City with enough Basic resources that are being consumed by population or being used in the production cycle and have storage limits:

• Heat being generated from Coal when needed on each cycle. Mainly demanded by Housing District
• Shelter Provides housing for population, mainly by Housing Districts. Lack of Shelter will cause Cold Problem. Rough estimation is 10 Shelter for 1000 Population
• Food is being used to feed the Population. Lack of supply will increase Hunger and in turn might lead to Disease
• Goods are providing Population with consumer products and they are being produced at Industrial District using Materials. Lack of Goods will lead to a higher Crime.
• Materials are being used by most other Districts and are being produced by Extraction District from Iron or Wood deposits.

It's important to balance those resources production properly to avoid having Problems in the City. Make sure that resource deposits will not exhaust, and you start harvesting them from the Frostland or upgrade buildings, districts, propose Laws that will help with better sustained production.

With the basic resources that will affect your Population wellbeing out of the way let's move on to other resources:

• Heatstamps are main currency that you generate mostly from Population and can be increased by different Laws. Default value is around 12 heatstamps per 10k Population
• Workforce is being used to construct Districts, Buildings and Frostbreaking. If building won't have enough Workforce it will not operate. There are multiple ways how to improve % of Population working as a Workforce or lower the amount of Workforce needed in the buildings.
• Coal is your basic Fuel source for Heat generation in the early game.
• Frostland Teams will allow you to scout, explore and work in the Frostland providing you with extra resources, population and more.
• Guard Squads help to fight Crime and protests. You can get more Guard Squads from special buildings like Surveillance Watchtower.
• Cores are special high tech resources that are being used for high end building construction. You can get them from Frostland expeditions.
• Oil is another fuel source for Heat production and it can be found in the Frostland

Starting Out

When you just start your run it's important to get your priorities right and plan ahead. Frostbreak towards your nearest Coal deposit and build an Extraction District there. It will allow you to get the basic fuel supply for your generator. Afterwards cater to your people needs and try to rush Logistics District to set up Frostland Exploration.

Frostland exploration is essential for long-term success in Frostpunk 2 and will yield you a lot of different resources that will help your city grow and survive. During your exploration runs try to balance out between exploring and collecting the resources. If you can use Frostland resources instead of City deposits - do that, that will allow you to have more resource sources and will help during the storms when you can't explore the Frostland or bring resources from there.

As you develop your city try to plan Districts properly to make use of their synergy bonuses. All Districts can be expanded one time, adding 3 additional tiles to them and Housing District can be expanded 2 times, adding 6 tiles in total. Make sure that you planned those expansions, so there will be space for them and they will border the right districts. Housing and Food districts consume less heat if they share 3 tile border. Industrial District consume less Materials if it shared 3 tiles border with Extraction District, while bordering Housing district reduce workforce requirement and increase Squalor.

Later on in the game you will be able to build Hubs, one-tile buildings that affect nearby districts. It would be wise to plan the place for them as well, to increase your city efficiency. For example Air Transport Hub decrease required workforce in the neighboring districts by 100, while costs only 50 Workforce and 20 Materials to maintain.

Balancing out resource production in your city and planning for the future demand is essential for survival. Make sure to have proper production and stockpile of fuel and food, otherwise things will go down pretty fast. Goods are important as well, but they are not SO essential as other resources.

Research and Idea Tree

Research priority in the Idea Tree is very different for each playthrough and will depend on the factions you will get and your game situation and goals. Each research will take time to complete, which will be higher for higher tier research. Building research will also cost heatstamps, while Law research are free. Use it to your advantage and go for the laws when you don't have a lot of heatstamps on your hands.

Unlocking essential buildings will be pretty much a priority. Goods Factories, Sawmills, Coal Mines, Hothouses, Logistics Bays will allow you to build essential buildings. Do not forget that there are Economy and Society tabs as well, that focus on efficiency aspects of the game and can be essential for growing your income and reaching your population and workforce goals.

Each research has several variants, some of them favor specific faction. Usually, faction variants of the buildings are better than basic ones. It's totally ok to have a mix of different faction variants of different buildings in the City or just go one specific faction and focus on its research and buildings.

Council and Laws

Law system might be confusing for the new Frostpunk 2 players and it's not very intuitive. You can propose laws about every 10 weeks, between that council will be in recess and unavailable.

When you propose a law you will see estimated votes breakdown. In order to pass the law, you need at least 51 votes. Votes will spread based on city communities and factions, their views, relations with Steward and Zeitgeist. Hesitant voters will decide on where to vote during the actual vote. It is possible to negotiate with the faction to earn their votes or pressure delegates to vote for the law.

Some laws can be harder to push through than others. Usually, the higher tier research was used to unlock the law, the harder is will be to pull through the council, especially if you don't have matching ideology faction as a majority of the City population.

Communities and Factions

You will start game with 2 Communities, those are population groups that follows specific zeitgeost ideology. Their basic ideology presets will define the way they react to decisions that you make. As the game progresses Factions will start to form. Different research, laws, event decisions will make factions like or dislike you. Balancing faction relations will be one of the main challenges of your playthrough and usually it's pretty hard to please everyone.

Over time population from the communities will join their respective factions making them stronger. Different events might trigger more people joining the faction.

If you have a good standing with a faction, you can ask them to help you with some of the game aspects. Make sure to utilize that when available.

It's possible to sway faction's relations with you by offering them something. It can be heatstamps, promise to build some building or push the law of faction's ideology, promise to get rid of buildings and laws of the opposing ideology.

If faction relationships will go low it might trigger protests. Protests will render districts useless and can be very dangerous for City economy. You can deal with the protest by increasing faction standing or using Guard Squads to quell them. Quelling the protests too often will lead to more severe actions from factions, so be mindful of that.

×