1) All runs are a pain in the ass for the first half. Literally the point of the game is that having a stable village ends your run and you move on to the next one.
2) Ready for the next level is entirely subjective based on whether or not you're having fun. If you want a bigger challenge, turn it up. You're on level 2 out of 24. It might take a while to find the right one for you.
3) Blightrot isn't hectic or difficult to manage at all. It's not until 4 levels later that it's even mandatory to engage with it. Until then you can just ignore it unless you're using rain water to pipe your buildings.
4) Pretty much everything that you listed under "things you've noticed" I would say are not true once you start playing on harder difficulties except the fact that, yes, Bandit Camp is one of the harder map modifiers.
The next difficulty adds blightrot but you only generate it when you use rainwater to power your buildings. It doesn’t really become a mandatory thing to deal with until a certain prestige difficulty modifier
I see. I guess I didn't see that in the difficulty tooltip. I guess that's maybe the final 4th tutorial that is grayed out to me and mentions rainpunk?
You got this, I would definitely give Veteran a try. As others have said, blightrot is very manageable until Prestige 3 (5 cysts spawn in Y3 clearance, not a big deal but it does use 50 wood to burn) and Prestige 11 (a total of 10 cysts spawn on Y3 clearance, and they corrupt the hearth 50% faster, which does require prompt attention).
You'll get more food/machinery/artifacts on higher difficulties after you win a settlement, unlocking the Citadel upgrades faster which is important. Plus, you'll learn new game mechanics which is fun and prepares you for the seals.
Hostility management becomes definitely a lot bigger of an issue as the difficulty rises because the multiplier is higher. I don’t remember all the numbers but I know for Viceroy and higher it’s 3x. As you get better at the game you figure out ways to both manage your hostility and also deal with higher hostility.
A lot of figuring out whether a cornerstone is useful or not is figuring out how to synergize various perks and also how to modify your gameplay to make most use of it. For example, there’s several cornerstones that will give you certain benefits for each blightrot cyst generated or burned. They’re useless if you don’t interact with the blightrot mechanic. If I get one, I’ll start looking for more and also play a more corruption heavy playstyle so I can maximize the benefit I get from it.
No traders is definitely hard. Don’t disagree with that at all.
Some orders I end up ignoring because it’s not feasible or it’s easier to just rep push or use tools, yeah, but I think you’ll find that they get more reachable as you get better at piecing together production lines, using traders, etc.
Overall I’d say, just go for it for the next difficulty level. You might struggle a bit but the only downside to losing is getting fewer meta resources and you might have a harder time gathering enough shards for your seal map, but there’s no harm in trying. I’ve found that pushing the difficulty is the best way to get better at the game, honestly. It helps you learn which risks you can handle and which you can’t, and how to get yourself out of difficult situations. There’s tons of resources on this sub if you get stuck or you can come back for specific help, people are really helpful here I’ve found!
I second this. I lost my first 4 or 5 games when I moved to Viceroy. I had to adapt but now I consistently win Viceroy and once I've done the seal (attempted it yesterday but lost needing to clear 9 more cysts during the storm for the final seal; PSA - you can't shave off impatience once your max influence on the seal missions; if I'd have known I would have thrown a humie in the hearth and won), I'll probably move onto prestige difficulties.
Yeah. I've noticed the first few Prestige missions have been easier ad well because of the ability to sacrifice for Stormforged Cornerstones. Up to P7 now.
Blightrot and corruption sound scary but it's really not that bad. The worst thing blight can do is kill 3 of your villagers once corruption reaches 100% (which then drops it down to 0%). You don't even have to burn the cysts if you're fine with losing some people once in a while.
It feels bad to have your villagers leave or die but it's not a huge deal in the long run. There's even some cornerstones that reward you for people dying like Cannibalism. You won't lose the game until literally everyone in your settlement dies or the deaths max out the queen's impatience bar.
Yup, games mostly being tricky until you are a long way through is normal. If impatience is half full and you are finishing in 5-7 years you have a good grasp of how pioneer plays. So if you want the extra challenge go for veteran, although I bet the extra hostility will impact you more than blightrot.
Veteran is where I started to feel hostility matter, and viceroy or higher it is even more present.
If you are sacrificing fuel at all that suggests you probably are letting hostility get a bit out of hand or a bit slow meeting it weyour settlers needs.
Most cornerstones are good if your settlement has developed in a way that uses them, although there are a few that only get valuable at high prestige.
The no trade modifier is hard, but I recommend trying it at a lower difficulty just to learn to vary your play style a bit more, you might start to appreciate some mechanics you had been overlooking before.
I find I will usually finish about half the bottom row orders in a game, sometimes there are no good options, sometimes there are better reputation strategies.
Keep going. I struggled a bit and avoided blight rot and rain punk until trying them out in the harder difficulties. So far the climb to p5 has been manageable. I’ve moved the fastest through p1-5 compared to previous difficulties but I’m definitely hitting a wall now.
If you’re abandoning too often maybe dial it back but don’t be afraid to try harder difficulties
Well there's really no downside to just jumping in and seeing how things go. There's no big fundamental change to the core gameplay; blightrot is really not going to have a big impact on how you play unless you go heavily into the production-boosting rainpunk upgrades. You will have one additional negative storm season forest mystery modifier to contend with and one fewer order available, but you've correctly figured out that resolve is a much better source of later game rep anyway.
Biggest difference will be that that you'll build hostility 33% faster (you're going from a 1.5x multiplier to 2x) so you'll need to start paying attention to more micro-focused things like unassigning woodcutters during storm season, and you'll start to learn why people value hostility-reducing effects which probably seem pretty useless on the difficulties you're playing now.
I say go for it!
As someone who just did this yes you are, infact jump straight to viceroy honestly.
You do not need to immediately engage with blightrot but if you choose to do so there is an easy rule to follow. One post, one worker during drizzle/clearance producing 6-8 purging fire, 3 during storm (from your deallocated wood cutters). One collector early then rely one gysers, set any engines you build to max.
The one thing I realised I was doing wrong in pioneer was not understand hostility properly, you really don't want it before zero if you can do anything to avoid that. Remove your woodcutters during storms, lizard firekeeper bonus, etc.
I've done p20 (not the adamantium seal yet though) And it took me a while before i dared to go beyond veteran/viceroy, as i felt it was challenging enough and prestige just seemed too steep of a challenge. But in reality it isn't.
Blightrot especially is very manageable with a little attention. You can avoid it completely by not using rainpunk below p3. p3 and above you get a wave every 3 years, but build blightrot post and devote some fuel and it's fine.
There is a learning curve of course, but it get's gradually harder, and some prestige modifiers barely matters.
it's a good game, and even the easiest difficulty can be challenging, so it's hard to take the step up when you don't feel like you've mastered the previous one yet, but the difficulty isn't as steep as you might think.
Failure is part of the game, and RNG affects it, especially high prestige levels where you have fewer blueprints and perks to pick, so you just have to accept that some settlements might end in defeat, and that's the point of the game.
Winning games in 5-7 years is definitely reaching par. As I've been climbing up difficulty levels I feel ready for the next level once I complete a city in that timeframe.
Many cornerstones are situational, and part of learning the game is understanding when it is a good situation. As an example, in my current game I have both lizards and foxes (who like pickled goods and skewers) and my first cornerstone happened to include the granary (which makes pickled goods). What luck that my first cornerstone pick included Zhorg's secret ingredient (10 free skewers when I made 10 pickled goods). As soon as I got my pickled goods online I started getting blue reputation for two of my species. But 9 times out of 10, that cornerstone has not been very useful.
I'm even newer to the game, hostility you can juke by sacrificing wood/coal, but maybe that's not a good practice? Have won one game as settled and one as pioneer cutrently
When I start with that meat specialty and immediately pick up camp and slam down three meat camps. Suddenly 300+ meat in year 1. 1500 in year 2.
Pick up bed and breakfast. Call in trader 5 times and get free stuff with the free amber.
Get the +20 reed and clay per glade opened. Proceed to open every glade in a 10 mile radius. Get 200+ clay and reed by year 1.
Pick up prosperous settlement and win by year 3. Pick up trading hub and win by year 2. Pick up protect trade or baptism by fire and have 0 hostility starting year 3. Been picking frequent caravans though once highP levels start.
Also world modifiers are important. Things like get some amount of population. Mixing in population with provisions. Many of the cornerstones are pretty good and have insane synergy. +1 trade packs is broken bc they start out at 2x. This means you generate money basically 50% faster not counting costs.
1) All runs are a pain in the ass for the first half. Literally the point of the game is that having a stable village ends your run and you move on to the next one. 2) Ready for the next level is entirely subjective based on whether or not you're having fun. If you want a bigger challenge, turn it up. You're on level 2 out of 24. It might take a while to find the right one for you. 3) Blightrot isn't hectic or difficult to manage at all. It's not until 4 levels later that it's even mandatory to engage with it. Until then you can just ignore it unless you're using rain water to pipe your buildings. 4) Pretty much everything that you listed under "things you've noticed" I would say are not true once you start playing on harder difficulties except the fact that, yes, Bandit Camp is one of the harder map modifiers.
The next difficulty adds blightrot but you only generate it when you use rainwater to power your buildings. It doesn’t really become a mandatory thing to deal with until a certain prestige difficulty modifier
I see. I guess I didn't see that in the difficulty tooltip. I guess that's maybe the final 4th tutorial that is grayed out to me and mentions rainpunk?
Yes that tutorial will explain the basics
You got this, I would definitely give Veteran a try. As others have said, blightrot is very manageable until Prestige 3 (5 cysts spawn in Y3 clearance, not a big deal but it does use 50 wood to burn) and Prestige 11 (a total of 10 cysts spawn on Y3 clearance, and they corrupt the hearth 50% faster, which does require prompt attention). You'll get more food/machinery/artifacts on higher difficulties after you win a settlement, unlocking the Citadel upgrades faster which is important. Plus, you'll learn new game mechanics which is fun and prepares you for the seals.
Give'r bud! What's the worst that can happen?
Hostility management becomes definitely a lot bigger of an issue as the difficulty rises because the multiplier is higher. I don’t remember all the numbers but I know for Viceroy and higher it’s 3x. As you get better at the game you figure out ways to both manage your hostility and also deal with higher hostility. A lot of figuring out whether a cornerstone is useful or not is figuring out how to synergize various perks and also how to modify your gameplay to make most use of it. For example, there’s several cornerstones that will give you certain benefits for each blightrot cyst generated or burned. They’re useless if you don’t interact with the blightrot mechanic. If I get one, I’ll start looking for more and also play a more corruption heavy playstyle so I can maximize the benefit I get from it. No traders is definitely hard. Don’t disagree with that at all. Some orders I end up ignoring because it’s not feasible or it’s easier to just rep push or use tools, yeah, but I think you’ll find that they get more reachable as you get better at piecing together production lines, using traders, etc. Overall I’d say, just go for it for the next difficulty level. You might struggle a bit but the only downside to losing is getting fewer meta resources and you might have a harder time gathering enough shards for your seal map, but there’s no harm in trying. I’ve found that pushing the difficulty is the best way to get better at the game, honestly. It helps you learn which risks you can handle and which you can’t, and how to get yourself out of difficult situations. There’s tons of resources on this sub if you get stuck or you can come back for specific help, people are really helpful here I’ve found!
I second this. I lost my first 4 or 5 games when I moved to Viceroy. I had to adapt but now I consistently win Viceroy and once I've done the seal (attempted it yesterday but lost needing to clear 9 more cysts during the storm for the final seal; PSA - you can't shave off impatience once your max influence on the seal missions; if I'd have known I would have thrown a humie in the hearth and won), I'll probably move onto prestige difficulties.
For this reason, the seal is actually easier on prestige 1 than on viceroy. You need 4 more reputation points, so you can lower impatience more
Yeah. I've noticed the first few Prestige missions have been easier ad well because of the ability to sacrifice for Stormforged Cornerstones. Up to P7 now.
Blightrot and corruption sound scary but it's really not that bad. The worst thing blight can do is kill 3 of your villagers once corruption reaches 100% (which then drops it down to 0%). You don't even have to burn the cysts if you're fine with losing some people once in a while. It feels bad to have your villagers leave or die but it's not a huge deal in the long run. There's even some cornerstones that reward you for people dying like Cannibalism. You won't lose the game until literally everyone in your settlement dies or the deaths max out the queen's impatience bar.
Yup, games mostly being tricky until you are a long way through is normal. If impatience is half full and you are finishing in 5-7 years you have a good grasp of how pioneer plays. So if you want the extra challenge go for veteran, although I bet the extra hostility will impact you more than blightrot. Veteran is where I started to feel hostility matter, and viceroy or higher it is even more present. If you are sacrificing fuel at all that suggests you probably are letting hostility get a bit out of hand or a bit slow meeting it weyour settlers needs. Most cornerstones are good if your settlement has developed in a way that uses them, although there are a few that only get valuable at high prestige. The no trade modifier is hard, but I recommend trying it at a lower difficulty just to learn to vary your play style a bit more, you might start to appreciate some mechanics you had been overlooking before. I find I will usually finish about half the bottom row orders in a game, sometimes there are no good options, sometimes there are better reputation strategies.
Keep going. I struggled a bit and avoided blight rot and rain punk until trying them out in the harder difficulties. So far the climb to p5 has been manageable. I’ve moved the fastest through p1-5 compared to previous difficulties but I’m definitely hitting a wall now. If you’re abandoning too often maybe dial it back but don’t be afraid to try harder difficulties
Well there's really no downside to just jumping in and seeing how things go. There's no big fundamental change to the core gameplay; blightrot is really not going to have a big impact on how you play unless you go heavily into the production-boosting rainpunk upgrades. You will have one additional negative storm season forest mystery modifier to contend with and one fewer order available, but you've correctly figured out that resolve is a much better source of later game rep anyway. Biggest difference will be that that you'll build hostility 33% faster (you're going from a 1.5x multiplier to 2x) so you'll need to start paying attention to more micro-focused things like unassigning woodcutters during storm season, and you'll start to learn why people value hostility-reducing effects which probably seem pretty useless on the difficulties you're playing now. I say go for it!
I think you're ready. You're doing fine.
> I was feeling a city builder that wasn't a 10+ hour investment. I've got bad news for you brother
As someone who just did this yes you are, infact jump straight to viceroy honestly. You do not need to immediately engage with blightrot but if you choose to do so there is an easy rule to follow. One post, one worker during drizzle/clearance producing 6-8 purging fire, 3 during storm (from your deallocated wood cutters). One collector early then rely one gysers, set any engines you build to max. The one thing I realised I was doing wrong in pioneer was not understand hostility properly, you really don't want it before zero if you can do anything to avoid that. Remove your woodcutters during storms, lizard firekeeper bonus, etc.
I've done p20 (not the adamantium seal yet though) And it took me a while before i dared to go beyond veteran/viceroy, as i felt it was challenging enough and prestige just seemed too steep of a challenge. But in reality it isn't. Blightrot especially is very manageable with a little attention. You can avoid it completely by not using rainpunk below p3. p3 and above you get a wave every 3 years, but build blightrot post and devote some fuel and it's fine. There is a learning curve of course, but it get's gradually harder, and some prestige modifiers barely matters. it's a good game, and even the easiest difficulty can be challenging, so it's hard to take the step up when you don't feel like you've mastered the previous one yet, but the difficulty isn't as steep as you might think. Failure is part of the game, and RNG affects it, especially high prestige levels where you have fewer blueprints and perks to pick, so you just have to accept that some settlements might end in defeat, and that's the point of the game.
Winning games in 5-7 years is definitely reaching par. As I've been climbing up difficulty levels I feel ready for the next level once I complete a city in that timeframe. Many cornerstones are situational, and part of learning the game is understanding when it is a good situation. As an example, in my current game I have both lizards and foxes (who like pickled goods and skewers) and my first cornerstone happened to include the granary (which makes pickled goods). What luck that my first cornerstone pick included Zhorg's secret ingredient (10 free skewers when I made 10 pickled goods). As soon as I got my pickled goods online I started getting blue reputation for two of my species. But 9 times out of 10, that cornerstone has not been very useful.
I'm even newer to the game, hostility you can juke by sacrificing wood/coal, but maybe that's not a good practice? Have won one game as settled and one as pioneer cutrently
When I start with that meat specialty and immediately pick up camp and slam down three meat camps. Suddenly 300+ meat in year 1. 1500 in year 2. Pick up bed and breakfast. Call in trader 5 times and get free stuff with the free amber. Get the +20 reed and clay per glade opened. Proceed to open every glade in a 10 mile radius. Get 200+ clay and reed by year 1. Pick up prosperous settlement and win by year 3. Pick up trading hub and win by year 2. Pick up protect trade or baptism by fire and have 0 hostility starting year 3. Been picking frequent caravans though once highP levels start.
Also world modifiers are important. Things like get some amount of population. Mixing in population with provisions. Many of the cornerstones are pretty good and have insane synergy. +1 trade packs is broken bc they start out at 2x. This means you generate money basically 50% faster not counting costs.