You’ve just finished Frostpunk 2’s prologue, helped The Wanderers establish a small civilisation, and learned the ropes of the game. Now, it’s time to return to New London and see how it’s grown since we last saw it in Frostpunk. The Captain has died, and now you have to take up the mantle of Steward and lead your city.
While the prologue covered the basics of Frostbreaking and building districts, this chapter will introduce you to the sequel’s new Faction and Council mechanics, showing you how to manage the different communities in your city and their different agendas.
This guide was developed by playing on Citizen difficulty. You may need to adapt or streamline your strategy to succeed on higher settings.
Bringing Heat To New London
Your first task will be to find more coal for the city and build more shelter for its people. To do the first, Frostbreak towards the Shallow Coal Seam in the bottom right corner of the map.
Choose your tiles so that you uncover as many resource tiles as possible in one action. As Frostbreaking takes up Heatstamps and requires part of your workforce, it’s best to be precise with the tiles you uncover so as to maximise the use of your resources.
Once you’ve done that, build Extraction Districts over them. While these build, you can continue Frostbreaking – make sure to uncover coal deposits for future use, and create paths towards other deposits you’ll need soon. These extend in different directions on the map, so you should send as many teams out in as many directions as possible.
You’ll want to be sure to Frostbreak towards one of the three Old Waystations on the map, as you’ll need them later in this chapter. You’ll find them on the very edges of the map – one on the bottom, one on the left, and one on the top right.
Best Housing Layout
Once your district is built, turn on the generator and build Housing Districts in the crevasses on either end of the city. They will have +20 Heat bonuses because they’re sheltered from the wind. Make sure to take advantage of natural features on the map as you build. As heat bonuses can max out for a single District, you don't need to build your whole Housing District inside the crevasse.
When you build districts, the game may warn you about penalties or bonuses to those districts because of their proximity to other districts. In this case, you may want to consider not building a Housing District bordering an Extraction District as it will increase Squalor there.
How To Unlock The Idea Tree
Now that shelter and heat is handled, you’ll have to build a Research Institute, but you can only do that in a Housing District with an available building slot. Right now, your Housing Districts don’t have building slots, but you can create them by expanding the District. I chose to expand the one on the left of my city, as it was further from any Extraction Districts.
Once that’s done, open up the Building menu and select the Research Institute under the Housing tab. When you select it, a beam of light in the Expanded Housing District will indicate it can be placed there. Once you place it, you will unlock the Idea Tree, which we have a complete guide on.
Open the Idea Tree to the Heating category, and you’ll see a quest marker on the ‘Coal Mines’ node. Clicking it will reveal what ideas the different Factions in the city may have. You’ll have different Factions depending on the choice you made in the prologue.
In my case, the Frostlanders wanted to look into a Dust Coal Mine, while the Stalwarts and New Londoners wanted a more destructive Blasting Coal Mine. Whatever you decide, click on the research button to spend 50 Heatstamps on exploring the option.
If you regret your decision, don’t worry – you can always spend more Heatstamps to research different ideas.
The research will take ten weeks, so go ahead and build some other districts around the city to preempt any resource scarcity that might come up. You should prioritise building a Food District, an Extraction District over the Prefabs (this will stave off the need for an Industrial District for a while), and expand your Housing Districts to ensure your citizens have shelter.
Don’t worry about including every resource tile into a single district – you can expand it later by three more tiles to maximise each district’s reach and save on construction costs.
When the research is complete, select it in the Building menu under Extraction and pop it into your Extraction District in the Shallow Coal Seam. Make sure you have the Heatstamps and Workforce necessary to construct it, or you won’t be able to select it.
Building The Council Hall
Now, the people you lead want to decide if you deserve to lead them or not. This means you’ll have to form the Council. The game will prompt you to build the Council Hall. Select it in the Buildings Menu from the Central tab and place it in the Central District.
Once you build it, the Council will hold a vote on whether you get to stay in power or not. Our guide on the Council will walk you through how to negotiate with Factions to secure enough For votes. Remember to follow up on the promises you made, or your relationship with that Faction will suffer.
Finding Fuel In The Frostlands
Now it’s time to venture out into the Frostlands and find a new source of fuel, which means you’ll have to build a Logistics District over an Old Waystation. Hopefully you’ve already Frostbroken your way to one of the three on the map, but if you haven’t, do that, then build the District.
Heating is probably becoming a big problem now, so while this District is building, you should research Housing Insulation in the Idea Tree, which will make your Housing Districts require less Heat.
Once the Logistics District is built, we can go out into the Frostlands. We have a complete guide to Frostland Exploration, but here’s how to finish this objective most efficiently.
With one Logistics District built, you’ll have 15 Frostland Teams to send out for exploration. A question mark on the Frostland map will allow you to take in a group of New Londoners. Use five Frostland Teams to escort them back to the city, and send another ten Frostland Teams to the Frozen Bay to explore.
While waiting for the expedition to finish, build new Housing Districts for the rescued New Londoners, Frostbreak into more crevasses for future Districts, research new ideas, and pass laws in the Council. As you continue to play, your citizens will ask you to pass laws and regulations, so prioritise the most pressing ones.
Once the Frozen Bay is explored, go back to the Frostlands map. A notification will tell you to investigate the Desolate Coast, and another will tell you there’s a group of Frostlanders to take in. Send an expedition to the Desolate Coast and rescue the Frostlanders, building Housing Districts accordingly.
The Fishing Village vacated by the Frostlanders can be harvested for Food as long as it has five Frostland Teams in it.
Around this time, your Prefab resources will begin to run out. Make sure to build Extraction Districts on Materials and an Industrial District or two to create Prefabs and goods. Building Industrial Districts on the borders of Extraction Districts offers extra heat.
Once your teams have scouted the Desolate Coast, click on the icon with a flashing exclamation mark over it to find the Old Dreadnought from the prologue. Congratulations, you’ve found oil! To access it, you’ll need to build a trail between the Old Dreadnought and New London.
Select the Trail Construction button on the button right select Connect Path from the Old Dreadnought. Connect pins on the map to create a route to New London. Once that’s done, you can send 20 Frostland Teams to create a colony at the Old Dreadnought.
Even if you expand your Logistics District, you won’t have enough teams to maintain the Dreadnought colony and the Fishing Village. Go back to New London and build a new Logistics District over another Old Waystation.
You should also build a Survivalist’s or Scout’s Headquarters over your existing Logistics District so you can explore new areas.
When construction is complete, send a team to colonise the Old Dreadnought. When they reach the location, you’ll have to build a settlement there – getting deja vu? Build the appropriate districts over the appropriate resources, and don’t forget to check back in on New London regularly to make sure nothing goes awry.
Once you’ve started extracting oil, click on the Old Dreadnought icon next to the Frostlands icon. There will be an icon of a box with arrows on either side with a flashing exclamation mark over it – opening that menu will let you transfer resources from Old Dreadnought to New London. Adjust the sliders so that the colony is receiving enough food to survive, and is transferring oil out to New London.
You’ll have to transfer more citizens to the colony to build all the districts and have them fully efficient.
Continue to adjust this as you build more oil extraction districts. Completing this objective ends the chapter.
Important Events And Decisions
While you’ll be called on to resolve a number of events arising from your decisions so far, the most important one that recurs is what to do with the Wanderer graves at the Old Dreadnought.
Oil Tombs: Nomads
Remember in the prologue, when the Wanderers lowered their dead into the Oil deposits as part of their funerary rites? You now have a choice to desecrate those graves in order to access more oil, or respect the dead and leave some oil deposits untouched.
- If you choose to desecrate the graves, nothing will happen in this chapter. However, down the line, the Wanderers will return and demand a large stockpile of oil from you as penance. If you don’t comply, they will raid your settlement and kill many of your colonists.
- If you choose to respect the dead, they’ll still show up, but they’ll ask for less oil and give you 48 weeks to secure it.
Deposits Run Low: Coal Is Running Out
Another decision you'll have to make involves your coal mines. If you begin to run out of coal before finding oil, which you most likely will, you'll see an event telling you that the different Factions in New London have different ideas about how to maximise your existing coal deposits.
- You can access lower levels in the mine by laying explosives. Available coal in all tunnels will increase by 10 percent. Relations will improve with the Stalwarts and New Londoners, but explosives and mines are a match made in hell.
- Volunteer children, mostly from Frostlander families, will go into the tighter tunnels to collect leftover ore. Available coal in all tunnels will increase by 15 percent. Relations will improve with the Frostlanders and Pilgrims, but obviously, sending kids into the mines means putting them in almost certain danger.
- You can avoid all risks and leave your deposits as is without putting anybody in harm's way.
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