Azazel's guide to Any%

Hi all! This is my first-ever guide, but I love speedrunning this game, even if not many others do. I decided to write this guide to celebrate my sub 50-minute time! This is as much for me as it is for other people, so I can put down my thoughts. The story mode has so much room for optimization, and I want to help others get started!

# Overall Principles

These are general rules and themes you want to follow in order to save as much time as possible.

### Preparation

The main story is a Prologue and 5 chapters. Each has a specific set of objectives and conditions that advance the story. Knowing exactly what those are and what they cost can help you stay on track during the longer periods in the run. The right research and law at the right times can make or break a run.

### Exploiting Triggers

We are speedrunning this game, not building an efficient city. That means that to advance objectives, you don't have to keep your city or colonies running well. If the objective calls for 75 oil to be sent to New London, send it, trigger the next set of research unlocks and objectives, and then reduce that oil.

### Efficiency and Reaction

You want to be spending as much time on x3 speed as possible. You need to make your decisions and react to situations as fast as possible. Oddly enough, you want to pass as few laws as possible as each one you do takes around 15 seconds, and can add up. However, there are so many places you can optimize the run that a few mistakes won't make or break it. If you know you're slow in one area, you just have to prepare to gain time in another.

# The Big Picture

These are some of the TL;DR tips that apply to the whole run and are the most important.

Difficulty is not enforced, so play on Citizen, the easiest.

### Ending the Run

Everything in the run all goes toward the **Enforce Order** ending. It is by far the fastest way to complete Chapter 5 (sometimes in just 1 minute). All you have to do is:

1. Pass the final Rule law
2. Click "Enforce my rule" in the middle area
3. Wait, then build 1 enclave
4. Build a watchtower in the enclave
5. Click button in enclave
6. Win

Compared to the other endings, this is **significantly *less work*** to do. That means, in addition to the regular objectives, you need to do the following before then:

- Pass all the Rule Laws
- Get at least 45 guards (though, you'll have more than this usually)
- Research a watchtower
- Build a prison

Surviving until that point is the challenge.

### Don't make goods. Make Guards

Since you need 45 guards by the end of the game, why not get more? By stacking LOTS of guards from Steward's Militia and Mobilize Enforcers, you can get enough guards where crime is no longer a factor. It could get a bit hairy until that point, but it eliminates the need for goods entirely.

Of course, that depends on if you get Steward's Militia in a timely fashion.

**Prefabs, Prefabs, Prefabs**

Prefabs become the biggest bottleneck of resources and progression in the mid and late game. There are zones that offer a LOT of prefabs, particularly the south area closest to your start. However, those will run out as well.

The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is to build an industrial district *early* and have it produce prefabs for the entire run. You want to have at least 1.5k prefabs stockpiled for Chapter 5.

# Prologue

Objectives:

- Build 2 housing districts
- Extract oil and turn on generator
- Stockpile 40k food

Not much to say here. Keep it on 3x speed, frostbreak and build the right districts as fast as possible, build 2 food hubs before they prompt you to, and get 3 food districts. If you get 3, you can avoid the message asking to sacrifice something.

# Chapter 1

Objectives

- Get coal and turn the generator back on
- Find oil and establish a colony
- Get 75 oil to New London.

The beginning of the run has the MOST stuff to do.

# Chapter 2 - The Whiteout

Chapter 2 is the LONGEST chapter and gives you the most amount of time to prepare.

# Chapter 3 - Finding Winterhome

At this point, you should remember where Winterhome is, and even build a skyline to it preemptively. That way, the *moment* the Whiteout passes it, you can send colonists.

Establishing a colony costs:

- 300 Prefabs
- 1 core
- 20 Frostland Teams
- 3000 people

From here, you have to make a decision: Salvage or Colonize?

# Chapter 4 - Winterhome

Personally, I choose to Colonize Winterhome every time, because the objectives are quicker to do.

- Frostbreak to plug up poisonous fumes
- Build 2 watchtowers (I usually have to build Patrol Watchtowers since I side with the Pilgrims)
- Eliminate all problems in the colony
- Have 9000 colonists in it.

Here's where we're going to *exploit the trigger and objective.* It's possible to eliminate all problems in Winterhome with a low population. That means you only need to build 2 expanded housing districts for the watchtowers and supply enough resources to keep everyone happy. The MOMENT all problems disappear, send enough colonists for the population to hit 9k. That will *immediately* trigger the events for Chapter 5.

This will eventually destroy New London but the game will be ending very soon so don't worry about it ;)

# Chapter 5 - ANGER

Wait for the tension to hit the max point. Then, immediately vote to give yourself a dictatorship. It doesn't matter what you have to do because the game will end very quickly.

You have to select "Enforce Rule" from the central district, and you must have 45 guards and an active prison. After you activate it, take the time to frostbreak out a large 14 tile area for an enclave if you haven't already.

You only need to jail 1 faction, build a watchtower, and start the great migration.

[IN PROGRESS. SAVING SO I DON'T LOSE THIS.]

Evolvers are OP - Griston's guide to Any%

In case I don't manage to make a breakdown video of my run, here's everything you need to know to get a world record.

##   Play on the fastest game speed

It's crucial to spend all your time on the fastest game speed. You lose time with frostbreaking, building, being in the council hall or in the idea tree as they pause the game time. You also want to exit from the pop-up events as quickly as possible, because they also freeze time. And be careful while you are navigating in the frostland! Everything you click on there pauses the time so you want to close the panels quickly. Also, don't go too close to your buildings or frostbreaking because you might zoom on it, and not only does the time stop during that, but it also sets to normal speed after you exit.

The game resets its speed to normal when entering the frostland, a new message appears, or closing messages. Make sure to disable these in the settings:

![](/static/blob/pzm90wyn.png)

##   Evolvers are OP

I was playing the story on Captain difficulty when I realised how insane the Evolvers are. I didn't have enough resources, and I barely had any production. But everything changed when Evolvers came and I started to **promote** them. Thanks to the favourable relations, **I could train workers**, and they **increased my production efficiency**. They began to love me even more, so they started a rally. **I chose to train my workers even more and my resources began stockpiling**. Then they offered to **enhance the workers, and the production** in my city **started skyrocketing**.

All I want to say is that boosting production efficiency is pretty busted in this game. **You basically get resources out of thin air**. So thanks to the Evolvers you barely need to build any infrastructure and you still get tonnes of resources.

##   The Path of Order

Out of the 3 endings enforcing order by far is the easiest and the fastest. **By Chapter 5, you need to have all the rules enacted besides Captain's authority, a prison and at least 45 guards.** In the whole run, **you only need to enact only 2 laws besides the rules**. I'll get to them later in this guide.

##   Promise skipping

I accidentally discovered a glitch while I was doing runs. There might be more areas in the game where you could exploit the UI, but I haven't tried this outside the promise-making panel in the council hall.

You can make blank promises to factions, and they'll vote for the law. All you need to do is select one of the faction's terms while leaving the panel. So it should look like this: select your term (vote for), move your mouse to a term of theirs, press right-click then spam left-click. You have to start left-clicking almost at the same time as you press right-click. With right-clicking you exit the panel (it works with ESC too) however, you can still select a promise for a short period of time (that's why you have to spam left-click), but the game will only register your term. It might take a few tries to get the timing right, and if you got it, you won't be able to open the promise panel with the faction (if you exit and come back to negotiation it'll say that you've already negotiated). You can do this glitch with multiple factions at once if you need to!

# PROLOGUE - *Why do those elders eat so much?*

The prologue is just a warmup for your hand. I don't think there's a better setup so here's everything you need to build:

- 2 Housing districts
- 3 Extraction districts (2 oil, 1 prefab)
- 3 Food districts
- 1 Food stockpile hub

![](/static/blob/7n63gv2n.png)

*This could be achieved with 5 frostbreaks.*

**You don't have to worry about materials**. The squalor shouldn't do any significant damage (if it does, you'll have enough prefabs to repair it). **Your people will worry about it instead, but you just ignore them when you get that pop-up**.

With this setup, you won't gather enough food before the whiteout, so **you have to let the elders leave**. The game doesn't give you any punishment for that, and with this decision, you lower the required food by 38% (which I don't know how's possible as only 500 people leave the dreadnought, but let's not bother with this).

You have plenty of time before the whiteout comes, and there are no triggers here, so **take your time to lineup your camera to frostbreak and build as fast as possible**. You won't have this opportunity in the rest of the run! Start **your run by setting the game speed to x3 instead of frostbreaking or building**!

Because you don't have to pay attention to so many things in the prologue, you can align your cursor to close the messages that appear after finishing objectives as soon as possible. Or you build everything before turning the generator on (as I did in my run) and close all the messages in one pile. After you secure the food, the only thing you have to look for is the whiteout. **When the storm hits the game speed will be set to normal, so keep spamming the fast-forward key!**

# CHAPTER 1 - *Building the infrastructure*

This is the hardest part of the run so **I recommend you to practice this part a lot** before you start doing proper runs. My biggest mistake was that I wasn't prepared for this chapter, and I was just resetting runs from here until I got a decent one. It was really exhausting and quite demotivating starting from the prologue every time. So **don't be me, and start practicing from Chapter 1 and skip the prologue**!

##   Start building by going counterclockwise

Here's my order of how I start Chapter 1:

1. Build 2 Housing districts
2. Frostbreak towards the Old Waystation on the west
3. Build an Extraction district on the prefabs
4. Frostbreak to coals
5. Frostbreak to the iron vein
6. Build the council hall

This should look something like this:

![](/static/blob/rz2vw4gn.png)

##   Focus on research & expedition

You need to enter the dreadnought as fast as possible so build a logistic district on the west and also a research institute. You need lots of heatstamps so you should **raise funds from New Londoners** or the Frostlanders. After the research institute has been built, **a pop-up will appear** that leads you to the idea tree so **use that to choose your research**. The first two ideas you research should be Blasting Coal Mine and Survivalist's Headquarters, the order doesn't matter and use the *Rush Researchers* ability. **Don't build the researched buildings yet**!

##   Exploiting promises

After the council hall has been built, enter it but **don't start the vote of confidence**! They will vote for you automatically after 10 weeks, and you can focus on the research and expedition. Build an Extraction district on the coal, and start the generator.

The first law you have to enact is actually one of the available rules. I don't have any particular order for enacting the rules, but you can rush Steward's Militia and get all your guards from that as [Azazel's guide](https://www.speedrun.com/Frostpunk_2/guides/ma0ge) suggests. You should already have the Blasting Coal Mine and the Survivalist's Headquarters researched by now, so **you can promise the New Londoners and the Frostlanders to build these and enact your first rule**.

##   Getting resources

You can build the Extraction district on the iron vein whenever you feel like it and usually 1 Food district is enough to build. Unlike in the prologue, **you have to worry about squalor and you shouldn't waste your prefabs**! But luckily, you don't need any Industrial districts, because there are enough prefabs out in the frostland, and don't worry about goods, Evolvers got you covered. You'll need more materials and food later so connect the material outpost (Imperial Freighter) towards the west from the dreadnought (in The Graveyard) and gather food from harvesting sites when you need it.

##   Preparing for Chapter 2

Build a second Logistic district on the north (you should build another Survivalist's Headquarters here), and get to the Abandoned Coal Mine while you are exploring towards the dreadnought. Research Skyways, and **connect the mine to the city with Skyways as it's going to be upgraded to a settlement**. The next law you should pass is Expedition support. You can use *promise skipping* on New Londoners to get enough votes. You'll need many frostland teams for the next chapter, so research Vanguard Logistic Bay after the Skyways. After you pass Expedition support, your last law (besides the rules) should be Family Apprenticeship.

When you discover the dreadnought, you have to wait for the Evolvers to appear to enter it. You can **connect it to the city via Skyways**, and **gather at least 1 steam core** while you're waiting. **Don't start further expeditions because you'll need 20 frostland teams to settle**! After the Evolvers appear, **remove the bodies** from the dreadnought, and start building the infrastructure there. Build an Extraction district on the oil and 2 Housing districts will be enough. You have to send at least 75 oil to New London as quickly as possible to get to the next Chapter.  **Use an emergency shift on the district to export enough oil**!

# CHAPTER 2 - *Whiteout is coming, but we don't need to prepare for that. We need cores!*

**Embracing the frost** will be so much more beneficial for the run as you can use the Abandoned Coal Mine during the whiteout and also the extracted coal won't be wasted. **Research the Settlement Furnace** as soon as possible (rush the researchers), and upgrade the mine to a settlement. While you are waiting **build the Adaptive Pumps**.

##   Steam cores and prefabs

**You need to have at least 19 steam cores and plenty of prefabs by the start of Chapter 4**. It's the best if you get all of them from the frostland. Here's a map:

![](/static/blob/dz4wmvre.png)

**You should connect Winterhome via Trails** (they cost less prefabs) **before the storm hits!**

##   Azazel said *Don't make goods*, Evolvers said *We don't care. We make goods as well.*

You have to maintain good relations with Evolvers so you can **keep training workers** (and get some guards from them with Steward's Militia). They'll start a rally, and you can train your workers even more. The rally will expand, you train your workers again, and as the whiteout approaches, they will offer you to **continue their experiments** and **enhance the workers**. You should enhance your workers as many times as you can! If you keep doing this, you can even get to a point **where you are stockpiling goods without having any Industrial districts** (you actually don't need goods, but I find it quite hilarious).

##   Preparing for Chapter 5

You can research prisons in any Chapter, but you'll need to build one before Chapter 5. You also have to research one of the watchtowers beforehand when you don't have other things to research. **Keep in mind that you'll need 45 guards in Chapter 5 so you might need to build a watchtower as well!**

##   Getting more oil

Build one more Extraction district on the oil, expand it, research Fracturing pumpjacks and build 3 of them. When the storm hits, you can export all your oil to New London. During the storm, you can enhance the workers one last time so you can get even more oil. And **you should research the second generator upgrade** so you need less fuel.

# CHAPTER 3 - Finding Winter... wait, we've already connected Winterhome to our Trail system

In this Chapter you just have to wait for the whiteout to pass Winterhome. During this time you should keep collecting those cores and prefabs, enacting rules, and research the final generator upgrade. You can also dismantle pumpjacks in the dreadnought to get even more prefabs.

I haven't tried that but theoretically, you could replace the Vanguard Logistic Bays with Survivalist's Headquarters after you get everything from the frostland to enter Winterhome even faster.

# CHAPTER 4 - *I'm sorry Evolvers, but there's no way I'll colonise Winterhell!*

If you played with The Fall of Winterhome scenario then you'll agree that we should never-ever see another city in Cursed Valley. Putting the jokes aside **salvaging Winterhome and building the last generator upgrade is the fastest route**. You'll need to build **3 Extraction districts on 3 different piles of cores** and **set emergency shifts** on them. When you have 40 cores, build the generator upgrade.

Note: Frostbreaking around Winterhome's generator is quite buggy.

# CHAPTER 5 - *Thank you for your service Evolvers!*

In the last Chapter, you have to **wait for the tension to rise**, then you can easily enact the Captain's authority (you might want to use Guided voting). Then secure your rule, build enclaves only for the Evolvers, build a watchtower on it, and begin the relocation. The type of enclaves doesn't matter, just click one of them as fast as possible, and congratulations, the city stands!

*This guide has been written for patch 1.2.2 and might not be viable in future updates.*

FM_Griston

DQAzazel

Frostpunk 2

Lidwich

Citizen

Officer 

Steward 

Captain 

Colonise the frostland

Develop a metropolis

Build a prosperous future

Xbox Series X

Captain Ending

 Banishing a Faction Ending

Peace Deal Ending

Difficulty 

Win Condition 

Console 

Ending 

Going forward all runs are going to be timed without the milliseconds. So it's now just 00:00

The milliseconds aren't needed for this kind of game and were only on due to my inexperience.

It doesn't change anything but i thought i'd throw this post out so everyone knows. 

Name	Author
Azazel's guide to Any%	DQAzazel 6 months ago
Evolvers are OP - Griston's guide to Any%	FM_Griston 5 months ago