Frostpunk 2: Chapter 5 Guide

The last chapter of Frostpunk 2’s Story Mode is where tensions between your Factions reach a breaking point. Even if you’ve managed to keep all the communities in New London happy up to this point, it just takes one major event to throw the whole city into disarray.

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In Chapter 4, you chose to either Settle or Salvage Winterhome, angering the Faction you sided against in making this decision. Chapter 5 opens with a member of that spurned Faction murdering a member of the Faction you aligned with in the Council Hall, sparking a civil war that you now have to quell.

This guide was developed by playing on Citizen difficulty. You may need to adapt or streamline your strategy to succeed on higher settings.

How To Stop New London’s Civil War

The game offers you three options:

• Banish the Faction that organised the assassination
• Seek reconciliation between both Factions
• Enforce order through laws

While you can freely choose between any of these options, the game will warn you if you’re likely to struggle with a specific choice.

Reconciliation will require good relations with both communities, and if you have low relations with either, you have a much higher chance of failure. Enforcing order will require strong relations and Guard Squads as you’ll have to pass authoritarian laws in the Council.

Banishment will be the most accessible choice, but you will need to set up a new colony and get all the Faction’s members to relocate.

Each of these three paths will give you very different objectives in Chapter 5. We’ve laid out each path below. Once you make a choice, you can’t change your mind.

Managing Fighting

Regardless of which option you choose, you will likely have to deal with fighting in different Districts while you’re working towards completing your objectives. There are a number of District Abilities you can use, including ‘Protect’ and ‘Quell Fighting’. Each will have different requirements, affect relations differently, and have differing levels of casualties.

Once you deal with all outbreaks of fighting, you will have a brief, peaceful respite. But as long as Faction Fervour is high, fighting can begin again.

Be sure to keep an eye on resource demand in New London, as District shutdowns can throw your economy out of whack.

How To Banish The Offending Faction

You can banish the Faction from New London, but to do so, you’ll have to set up a new home for them at Windward Moor. Windward Moor is in the Frostlands near the IEC Smelter – once you find it, click Establish Colony on it, connect a path to New London, and Send Colonists.

If you don’t have enough Frostland Teams, deactivate some Settlements or Outposts.

While the Colonists are on their way, you’ll need to Rid the City of the Faction. You can do this by:

• Emigration: They move to the colony.
• Abandoned Cause: Deradicalise them. There are also events that may trigger that allow you to convince Faction members to abandon their Faction.
• Detained: Detain them with District Abilities. You will need an active Prison building.
• Killed: They will die when fighting, or your Guard Squads can kill them while quelling fights.

When the colony has been built, shift focus to it and build the appropriate Districts over the resources there. As you’re building, you’ll be given the option to Transfer Control to the Faction and let it finish building the colony, or to Improve Conditions First, allowing you to set it up for success as much as possible.

Even if you choose to Improve Conditions, you can transfer Control to the Faction whenever you want.

If you choose to keep improving Windward Moor, the Faction will ask you to help improve conditions there. This might mean building structures to protect the colony from the winds, or giving it a stockpile of resources to tide it over. If you refuse, the remaining Faction members in New London will not leave voluntarily.

If you have active Outposts for the Resources you promise, you can redirect those Resources to Windward Moor to grow the Stockpile more quickly. Make sure to build Resource Hubs!

When you’re done, you can Transfer Control to the Faction. You will then have to decide the fate of your detainees. Return to New London and click the Detainee Faction, then select the Decide Detainees’ Fate action.

You can then decide whether to deport the detainees or exile them into the cold.

If you want to escort the remaining detainees to Windward Moor, you will need 20 Frostland Teams. Ensure you have enough before selecting the action.

Whichever you choose, the game will end here.

How To Seek Reconciliation Between Factions

In order to succeed with this choice, you’ll need to pass Peace Accords, but neither side will vote until both sides renounce violence. You’ll also need to take care not to alienate either side too much, as you will need two-thirds of all votes to pass the Accords.

In order to even start negotiations, you will have to get rid of all radical laws and buildings. You’ll recognise these because they are fringed with red in the Idea Tree. Factions will not negotiate with you as long as radical laws against their beliefs are in place.

You will have to repeal radical laws in the Council and demolish radical Buildings in order to begin negotiations. One of your Factions may not be in opposition to any radical laws as they are in its interest, so you can begin negotiating with it first.

To negotiate a peace agreement, click on one of the extremist Factions and use the Negotiate Peace Agreement action in the first tab. The Faction will ask you to choose a part of their agenda to further, with three measures contained in each option.

As long as a Faction refuses to negotiate, the Negotiate Peace Agreement option will be greyed out. You can mouse over it to see which radical measures it is opposed to are still in place.

Once you choose an option, you will have to choose two out of the three measures to promise them. Once you fulfil all your promises, the Faction will lose all its Fervour.

When you have fulfilled your promises to both sides, you can sign the Peace Accords. Do this by navigating to the Council’s Law Explorer and going to the Rule tab. You’ll find the Peace Accords in the center near the top of the screen.

Propose the law, and remember you will need 67 votes for it to pass. When the Accords are passed, you will have secured an end to the civil war and finished the game’s Story Mode.

How To Enforce Order In New London

The first objectives for this path are simple:

• Pass Captain’s Authority
• Use ‘Secure Rule’ City Ability

To unlock Captain’s Authority, you’ll have to pass all of the laws in the Rule tab of the Law Explorer. If you’ve taken a more authoritarian strategy to the game, you likely already have many of these laws already signed.

If you haven’t signed these laws, take note that these laws require 67 votes to pass instead of the usual 51.

Once you pass Captain’s Authority, Trust will never decrease and the Council will vote in line with your wishes. You will be able to activate the Ability from the Central District.

You will need 45 Guard Squads to activate it and an active Prison. The ability will end all active conflicts, greatly decrease all Factions’ Fervour, and detain many fighters.

You will have to wait three weeks for your rule to be secured. Once this is done, you will be asked to build Containment Districts – you can choose to contain just the Faction that carried out the assassination, or contain both Factions. Your relations with contained Factions will significantly decrease.

For each Faction you decide to contain, you will have to build a Containment District and place a Watchtower in it. Once that is done, click on the District and use the ‘Begin Enclave Relocation’ Ability to move Faction members into it.

Your last decision will be whether to create High-Security Enclaves, increasing your relations with Frostlanders, or to create Comfortable Enclaves, which will slightly worsen your relations with Frostlanders. Regardless of your choice, the game will end.

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