Let’s not even pretend: Frostpunk 2 is an extremely challenging game, one that will test even the most veteran strategy and city-building fans. But if you really consider yourself a masochist, you can always up the challenge by playing the game on ‘Captain’ difficulty—something the studio recommends you do if you’ve finished the game and wholly understand its complex rhythms and mechanics. As its own description says, here there’s no room for mistakes, and mounting catastrophes will spell your downfall without adequate planning and preparation. So let’s plan and get prepared!
After spending countless hours tearing my hair out playing Frostpunk 2’s most challenging difficulty setting, I have a few tips to share with you. Hopefully, by the end, you’ll find the confidence and know-how to excel at the end of the world!
Starting your settlement strong
Some people might immediately think the Captain difficulty in Frostpunk 2 is too easy, but that line of thinking can lull you into a false sense of security. You want to walk into the scenario prepared. The first hour or so of your playthrough makes all the difference in the world.
Furthermore, I recommend starting on The Crater. It’s a compact map full of naturally occurring resources (with the exception of rich coal deposits), that will give you an excellent start.
Here’s a starting build order to help you with the game’s most brutal difficulty setting:
- In this scenario, you require five Housing Districts to cover the entire starting population, and it’s best to invest in a single upgrade for the Research Institute immediately.
- Off to one side of The Crater, specifically, you’ll find several clusters of coal. You can easily fit three Extraction Districts here, but it’s enough to start with a single one.
- Next, build another Extraction District up the cliff to acquire Prefabs and/or Materials. Keep in mind that you can expand down the line, so focus on covering as many nodes as possible with a single District.
- You’ll want to plop down a Logistics District to explore Frostland, where you can find additional resources and manpower. To do that, start Frostbreaking toward the edge of the map, where you’ll spot a Logistics node.
Research to prioritize on Captain difficulty
While the buildings you choose are crucial to your everyday survival, the research projects you select are equally important. The buffs from your chosen Ideas will determine your fate by increasing production, optimizing extraction, and spreading heat more efficiently. Here’s what to prioritize:
- Sawmills: In the early game, you must use resources wisely, which often means you can’t afford to build multiple Extraction Districts for materials and prefabs. But with a Sawmill upgrade, specifically a Mechanized Sawmill, you can increase materials production for a single slot, allowing a single District to act as two.
- Hothouses: Without food, you have no workforce. Without a workforce, you have no settlement. It’s a never-ending circle that requires sustenance, and Hothouses help feed the population by increasing food production at your Food Districts. While they require additional workforce and heat to operate, the expense is worthwhile.
- Scouts’ Headquarters: Eventually, resources will run dry on your starting map, and despite exponential growth, you must continue pushing outward to survive. You’ll want to send teams out into the Frostland to seek resources and citizens to bring back via the Logistics District.
With the right build order and technology, along with a careful, calculated approach, you’ll find that surviving Frostpunk 2’s most challenging difficulty setting is not only doable but approachable, too. Of course, it does help to have a few tips and a handy guide. Before you go, check out some other stunning uses of snow in video games!
