Another Frostpunk 2 Utopia Faction Tierlist

Alright, so I've played through Utopia, and it seems to me like there isn't a lot of people online who have really dug into the various factions. So here is another faction Tierlist with some specific descriptions of what the factions actually do.

The Tierlist assumes 5-tales deathless on an bountiful map (my comparisons were on Broken Shore specifically). Maps can change a lot in terms of faction priorities. I don't think this is that difficulty dependent in the end, but it is worth noting that my experience has been on Steward difficulty rather than Captain. In general I will be placing a lot of emphasis on having a legit city together by week 100 as Doomsayers are a major milestone and after that exponential growth tends to set in allowing for the completion of Broken Cores and the game gets a lot easier afterwards.

Furthermore the evaluation below assumes not going into the opposing faction's tree more than a node or two and not building any of the opposing faction's hub. Some factions (like Icebloods and Venturers) get significant bonuses with the opposing faction's hub specifically. With these disclaimers out of the way, here goes the tierlist:

#S Tier:

-- Menders --

Menders combine a lightning-fast home economy with a powerful frostland, in fact, the best frostland of any faction. Construction costs are halved by the Construction Drives node, outposts no longer require frostland teams and become infinite with the Herd Outposts node (instead requiring a temporary commitment of reindeer). Exploration is greatly hastened by the Herd Outposts' prerequisite node, Scouting Herd. The downside is that the Menders' faction refuses to raise funds.

Menders easily satisfy resources other than heatstamps through the frostland. Menders will fall behind on heatstamps around week 150 if they don't seek a solution due to their faction not raising funds but they have powerful options to mitigate this. Venturers' tools can work, as can Heat Auctions with the cheaper housing.

Priority nodes (utopia tree nodes) are Construction Drives (acquire this before building housing districts) followed by Herd Outposts. Dutiful Youth and other workforce-enhancing laws are more important than normal because Menders can build out really fast. Nodes I leave behind are Free-Roam Reindeer, Healing Rite, and Feast. Hub cheese (building hubs day 1 for the utopia node and then cancelling them), is the fastest way to get the Construction Drives node.

Venturers are somewhat annoying because their auto-hate can be fixed by funding their projects, but heatstamps are the last thing I want to part with as Menders. Later on when this can be afforded the Venturers are very chill.

As far as managing their special Reindeer resource goes, it isn't too complicated. Menders get +1 Reindeer every week, and then an additional +1 for every 50(?) IIRC Reindeer they have, and an additional +1 for every gifted Herd Outpost. 5 frostland teams can be dedicated for 10 weeks to gain 15 Reindeer. Reindeer are spent to increase frostland speed (55 Reindeer on logistics IIRC), increase food income (-25 Reindeer for 30 food/wk for some weeks), and 1/wk per Reindeer Tannery (20 goods/wk or 1 hide/wk). Reindeer also passively produce a small amount of food. Upgrading housing districts increases the maximum amount of Reindeer you can have (as does building more hubs) and it is recommended to have many hundreds of Reindeer eventually. Exchanging reindeer for hides generally isn't the best use of them.

#A Tier:

-- Venturers --

The Venturers just have a massively empowered economy, centered around their law Desirable Goods (which greatly increases goods demand) and the ability of their Hubs that increases goods demand. More heatstamps = more everything. As if that wasn't enough, later on they can buy outposts that don't need frostlands teams -- making the Venturer's frostland also powerful but only later in the game. Their district upgrade is also quite powerful as it provides free goods which feeds into the Venturers' heatstamp machine. The Venturers have no significant weaknesses.

Priority Nodes I haven't really figured out out, and to an extent the Venturers are so powerful that isn't necessary. Venturers' Housing and Company Outposts are mandatory. Materialist, Share Dividends, and Senior Staffing all seem good.

My thoughts right now is to stay on exactly two faction hubs until Doomsayers unless there is a need to further increase goods demand as the hub costs 200 workforce which is limiting if more hubs are built before beacon waves. Other than that, the Venturers play very normally to me and just do the normal things but better.

The Venturers' economy is just crazy strong both in the city and also the frostland. Don't forget that the Venturers have access to the Menders' food economy later on if you choose to go cross faction a bit.

#B Tier:

-- Overseers --

The Overseers have both an empowered economy and frostland speed increase as well as a smorgasbord of other bonuses. With the second largest bonus to heatstamp income in the game from Issue Fines, the Overseers are among the strongest factions. However, this is only if most of their other mechanics are ignored for quite a while. If you pass their starting faction law and quickly construct the archaeology extractors the Overseers aren't abjectly awful, but are definitely not strong. Their faction also gives +20% efficiency as a community action, which is a quite helpful bonus. Regardless, the Overseers fall off extremely hard in the late game compared to other strong factions, which is what puts the Overseers down a tier.

The memento mechanic is rather complicated. Here is how the memento bonuses work (you get a bonus every ten mementos on display):

1. 3x charges of +30% efficiency (applies to one workplace per charge)
2. Exploration Speed greatly increased (greatly actually means greatly here, it is quite strong)
3. Flat +4 heatstamps/wk (Steward difficulty, not sure if this scales)
4. Available Workforce greatly increased (feels pretty substantial)
5. +3x efficiency charges
6. Research Speed increased (+40)
7. Relations increase
8. Trust increase.
9. +3x efficiency charges
10. Rule laws are much easier to pass.

The first six bonuses are rather worth the effort to obtain later on, but the second bonus is crucial to getting into the frostland. The Overseers' hub tells you that it is a weak Tension hub, but it also improves research speed. You need one hub (the Imperial Academy) for every 10 mementos you want to display. AFAIK, every colony you visit (including the initial city) contains 18 mementos in three deposits that can be extracted with the "Archaology Hub", which is really more of a specialized extraction district. Mementos can be gained in other ways (Scout Archaeologists and Confiscate Mementos, for instance).

Priority nodes IMO are Issue Fines, then Confiscate Mementos, then Constables, then their district upgrade (though swapping Confiscate Mementos and the district upgrade is very reasonable as the district upgrade is guard squads). Nodes I leave behind are Honor Shared Heritage, Loyal, and Recalibrate Heating Hubs. Hub cheese (building hubs day 1 and then cancelling them) is rather important as Overseers.

Issue Fines is the main economic engine for the Overseers, together with Heat Auctions rather than instead of it. The resulting tension is usually a non-issue that can be alleviated by the faction hub or Constables (from the utopia tree node of the same name).

For this reason I'd recommend starting with 5x housing district instead of the usual 4x, and make the first two researches Mechanical Factory and Patrol Watchtower (not sure about the order for that one). The goal is to build 2-3 watchtowers and make >30 heatstamps/wk and 45 prefabs/wk by week 30 -- which is pretty trivial to achieve. Mementos aren't worth bothering with until at least week 60 if not week 80.

The Bohemians are a relatively friendly opposition faction. Overseers are much more comfortable on maps where food is easier to come by since they fall-off in the late game and food is the hardest resource for a normal faction to acquire lots of for the whiteout.

-- Technocrats --

So the Technocrats are a complicated faction that provides powerful economic bonuses, but considerably less powerful than the Venturers. Their main power comes from their faction hub which can provide heatstamps and efficiency at the cost of materials (and a bunch of other things if placed next to the generator). Technocrats also get massively increased research speed and a bunch of smaller bonuses. Their main weakness is the Icebloods, who are extremely ready to murder random civilians if you ever make a mistake before the Doomsayers show up. Technocrats also have difficulties exploring the frostland and getting enough Materials to power their hubs. Compared to the Overseers they have an extremely better late-game and a substantially worse early-game.

From my testing 100 spare compute provides an 80% bonus to production for optimize outputs or something like a 55% reduction in required workforce for optimize inputs. 10 spare compute provides an 18% bonus to production for optimize outpouts. 20 spare compute a 30% bonus to proudction for optimize outputs. 50 spare compute a 53% bonus to production for optimize outputs. For the whiteout upwards of 400 spare compute is recommended.

Priority nodes are Defragment Finances, followed by Calculation Overclocking, eventually followed by Civic Index. Replicate Core is also nice after this. The remaining three nodes are Generator Shelters, Capacity Overclocking, and Dispassionate.

Defragment Finances is what makes the Technocrat economy early-game, it costs the 5 compute generated by a hub and returns a heatstamp. Calculation Overclocking is a massive power spike that doubles compute production (allowing for both Defragment Finances and Optimize Outputs/Inputs to be used very effectively). The Civic Index is a law that starts off with a mild decrease to fervor but later grows into a massive decrease to fervor -- which is necessary to mend the icebloods' murderous ways and provide some leeway for mistake. Finally Replicate Core spends 20 compute over 10 weeks to gain back the cores you missed by not completing IEC as soon as other powerful factions (and more cores besides).

My thoughts right now is to hold off on building the hubs until week 30, and then build a 6-9 hubs in a row around the generator. They will come online at about the same time as Defragment Finances if you detour for Heat Auctions and Paid Essentials first. The hubs will make back their heatstamp cost in 40 weeks, so that by week 110 you are up 40 heatstamps per hub and can use that to build prisons for the doomsayers (and icebloods). The prefabs from City Development Support are increased by the hubs, so I think actually going for that is superior to Heatpipe Watch. Building a logistics district before you have to hurts as the Technocrats.

The Icebloods themselves are a rather nasty opposition, but ultimately not one that slows the Technocrats down. That additional research income that the Technocrats have turns into completed promises and relations from being assigned to research. Even the Icebloods are dazzled by the Technocrats research. Later on, the Round Up prison ability and Civic Index will let you avoid serious penalties for angering the Icebloods. So the Icebloods might be a real challenge if you restrict yourself to not passing rule laws, but generally aren't that significant. Icebloods do have an auto-hate, but it isn't that bad if you improve the beacon. The auto-fervor is the main annoyance.

Technocrats are much more comfortable on maps with at least two infinite materials nodes, otherwise materials will require even more coal liquefaction and synthetic composites than usual.

-- Proteans --

So the Proteans get lots of workforce from their hub, as well as (eventually) large amounts of workforce-free frostland teams. Moreover, they start with 20 frostland teams and some exploration already done. They can connect trails without need for logistics districts. A faction that starts with frostland teams like that can never be outright bad. However, they do not get any heatstamp bonus. Frostland Teams scale very well, but they take their time to do so. Proteans reach B-tier despite the heatstamp issues because the stronger frostland compensates quite well, though even with my best efforts at optimizing Proteans I still found them to be the weakest faction in B Tier by a smallish margin.

How does one get large amounts of frostland teams? Specifically, an Augmentarium (build cost 80 heatstamps, 80 prefabs) produces 2 augments per week, plus an additional augment for each tile of an adjacent industrial district (let's say +9 for simplicity). There is also a utopia node that costs 100 materials/wk (default cost is 80/wk) for an additional 3 augments/wk. Each augmented crew costs 20 augments, plus 20 additional augments per crew in that Augmentarium Initially there is a maximum of 10 crews, but the 10th crew will cost 200 augments, so it is typically better to build more Augmentariums, especially since Augmentariums themselves don't need to cost workers after being further upgraded (yay worker crews), only materials. Each augmented crew is 150 workforce or 2 Frostland Teams or 2 Guard Squads (with the appropriate utopia nodes).

The result is that building out a single Augmentarium surrounded by an expanded industrial district to 10 Frostland teams (or 8 Frostland teams and 2 workforce teams) takes 300 augments, produces 11/wk and so will fill itself to that degree in 30 weeks from the time it is built.

Augmentariums have a very weird and tooltip-bugged mechanic! Building an augmentarium after signficant augmented teams have been produced in other augmentariums may increase the cost of teams in that augmentarium. For this reason it is necessary to build Augmentariums only once per game. As a result there are two main Protean builds as I see it: Rush Logistics week 5 and construct a 10 Augmentarium explosion on week 50, or start building 5 Augmentariums in week 5. Week 5 Augmentariums provides a straightforward early game, whereas the 10 Augmentarium explosion is downright awkward until week 60, but pays dividends so that by week 100 both approches were of similar strength. I think week 50 Augmentariums is the more principled opener but it requires some doing and leans heavier into the frostland.

Either way Augmentariums provide large bonuses but cost planning, frostbreaking, resources, and time.

Priority nodes are Augmentarium, Protean Guides, and then Augment Workers and Self-Stewardship (a +25% efficiency law). Nodes I leave behind are Human Cores, Augment Guards, and Tireless (though this one might be worth trading in for something else). Proteans can't do hub cheese day 1 (so an Augmentarium rush requires passing the faction law).

The Legionaires are an extremely friendly faction that auto-loves you for stockpiling resources. While this tier list excludes playing both factions, the Proteans sure make doing so quite easy. As a caution, pressing the promote button will make your city governed by the Legionaires very quickly.

Proteans are much more comfortable on maps with ample empty space, as the desire will be to build industrial districts ringed around hubs and also excess housing districts.

#B- Tier:

-- Icebloods --

Icebloods get heatstamp-free frostbreaking and 10 frostland teams for each upgraded housing district (-120 heatstamps, -60 prefabs, 0 workforce). They can also use their hub to upgrade their Logistics districts with more teams and less workforce. That is the bulk of their bonuses and using these bonuses is about as free as a youtube superchat. It is enough to make them reasonably strong, but the are generally significantly worse than the other factions for deathless. In particular, for my purposes, they are kinda power-crept by the Proteans, since the Icebloods will not be able to output significantly more frostlands teams than the Proteans until much later in the game.

Because Icebloods can field an arbitrary number of frostlands teams -- and a bunch particularly quickly with no research -- the icebloods can focus on prefabs and heatstamps, which will take up a lot of effort. Not having a faction way to make heatstamps is bad enough, but the Icebloods' free frostlands teams cost a lot of heatstamps. Furthermore their factions are prone to causing issues in a deathless run since the Technocrats can auto-hate and counter-protests can turn deadly (for a non-deathless run, you can just have the Icebloods engage in murderous counterprotests every once in a while and your faction problems aren't particularly difficult).

The good news is that frostlands teams are naturally efficient. It is possible to get everything necessary for the beginning of Doomsayers with just Housing, Logistics, Industrial and prefabs Extraction districts, along with the faction hub.

The main challenge with Icebloods is taking the absolutely extreme measures necessary to deal with their relative lack of heatstamp bonuses, and a high heatstamp cost of their upgraded housing district. My thoughts right now is to build out to ~80 prefabs/wk ASAP as this can fund further housing districts for Heat Auctions.

Priority nodes are Icebloods Housing followed by Honour Scars. Mechanized Scouts is an unusually potent law because of the number of frostlands teams involved. Nodes I leave behind are Alpha Challenge, Resource Hunts, and Resource Raids (as these can cause deaths). Icebloods can't do hub cheese day 1.

Technocrats have a pretty potent auto-hate that the Icebloods can afford to placate later. This makes the Technocrats a nasty opposition faction, though part of this is just my relative inexperience with the Icebloods.

#D Tier:

-- Legionaires --

The Legionaires get a bonus to prefabs as soon as the faction becomes favorable. They also get more faction recruits from the promote action, which quite literally pays off later on. They have a friendly opposition faction in the Proteans who supply twenty frostland teams when they show up.

The Legionaires are an extremely vanilla faction, and that makes them very weak, comparatively. The bonuses they get from their faction hub are extremely marginal.

Priority Nodes are pretty straightforward: Drill Citizens followed by All Hands on Deck. If you're going for the faction achivement, you need Extend Base Reach first. Nodes I leave behind are Recast Prefabs, Reinforce Stockpile Scaffolding and Emergency Insulation.

Proteans are friendly, and don't forget to redeem the free 20 scouts when they show up!

-- Bohemians --

Okay so I haven't played this faction or seriously tried to understand it -- which is a major omission. However everyone who mentions it online says they are annoying to play because of the wear mechanic and briefly looking into it, boy does that sound annoying! So I just kinda don't want to, which is a tier unto itself, I guess. They should be mechanically stronger than the Legionaires, but hardly seem mechanically strong themselves, either.

TL;DR: Menders, Venturers, Overseers, Technocrats, Proteans, Icebloods, Bohemians, Legionaires.