I've been getting really, really into the game Against The Storm. I hadn't ever heard of it before my brother got it for me for my birthday. After finishing Dark Souls 3 I was scrolling through my Steam library, realized I hadn't checked it out yet, and made the fateful decision to fire it up. It's been a blast. The feel of the game is a lot like playing Civ or a Paradox grand strategy game: I keep muttering "Just one more minute!" as I set things up and monitor progress towards my goals.
ATS describes itself as a "city builder" game. I don't think I've played anything directly in that genre before, but it's certainly adjacent to various strategy games I've played. There are various dimensions to the gameplay, but fundamentally, you are trying to establish and grow a new frontier settlement. You primarily do this by planning your fledgling hamlet: deciding what structures should be built where, and which villager should work in each building. Your villagers will then proceed on autopilot: a person assigned to a Woodcutting Camp will seek out nearby trees to chop down, and haul that lumber back to the camp. Another person assigned to a Lumber Mill will pick up that raw wood, bring it back to the mill, and transform that into Planks. And you can then use those Planks to construct additional buildings. Similar "recipes" exist for a variety of foods, fuels, building materials, clothing, luxury items and so on. As your settlement grows, it attracts more inhabitants, who need to be fed and housed but who will help carry out a wider variety of jobs.
Thematically, the game is also described as a "dark fantasy". I was going to quibble with that description: it is definitely fantasy, with humans working alongside a variety of animals like lizards and beavers, as well as fantastical creatures like harpies. But I associate "dark fantasy" more with stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire or Warhammer or, uh, Dark Souls, with grim and cynical storylines and macabre art and scenes. In contrast, I find the experience of playing Against The Storm to be very soothing: the music is particularly charming and uplifting, the colors tend to be warm and vibrant, and the overall feel is one of progress rather than decline. That said, the lore of the game is literally apocalyptic: in this world, rain constantly falls, and after so many years it culminates in a cataclysmic Blightstorm that wipes away everything. So there is that sombreness lurking in the background. But, again, the experience of playing it is much more upbeat.
This game seems to achieve my holy grail of giving meaningful stakes and challenges without combat. There is a sense of danger and tension, but it isn't because the Zerg are about to attack and you need to kill them first. Much of the threat is ominous and eerie in atmosphere: the "hostility of the forest", which increases based on your impact on this map and causes your people to feel uneasy. Your people are fighting for survival, but that takes the form of securing food and shelter, not slaying monsters. And while you can encounter adversaries on the map, they feel more like story beats than boss battles. You might find a giant worm that is threatening to devour your settlement's food supplies; you could choose between an empathetic approach and freely offering to feed it in exchange for its cooperation, or a harsher approach and scare it off with fire in exchange for the Queen's gratitude. The older I get, the more I adore games like this that have complex systems which do not involve killing little dudes.
This game has roguelite elements to it, and overall moves a bit quicker than I would expect. Whenever you start a new settlement, various aspects will be randomized: which species are present in the settlement, what resources are laid out, which unique modifiers will apply for this run, and so on. The mechanics are the same, and over time you can come to grasp key principles (how to build a food supply chain, the relative importance of fuel versus food versus housing versus clothing), but your approach will need to modify based on your environment (Trading can be strong but is unavailable on some maps; other maps might not have any metal deposits and require you to learn alternate recipes or focus on acquiring metals through trade or rewards).
You "win" a settlement by collecting enough Reputation. Reputation can come from a variety of sources: missions from the capitol, events found on the map, or by making your villagers sufficiently happy. I usually find that I "win" a map right around the time I feel like I'm getting the hang of it. There's a part of me that wishes I could linger in each map longer to really build out the village, but I think the game is served well by keeping you moving on to something newer, fresher and more challenging.
Like all modern roguelites, ATS has both short-term resources and meta-progression resources. On a map you might collect Amber and Ancient Tablets and Insects and stuff, but those only exist to help you win that map, there's no bonus for hoarding extra supplies. When you complete a map, you get your meta-currencies, like Stockpiles of Food or Ancient Artifacts, along with XP and achievements. You then shift to the World Map. At the capitol, the Burning Citadel, you can level up and expend meta-currencies to unlock new permanent upgrades: maybe future villagers walk a little faster, future settlements start with additional supplies, you start future maps knowing how to build a Lizard House. You then examine the World Map to decide where to start your next Settlement, with a classic risk/reward tradeoff where more challenging and hostile biomes will rewards more meta-progression currencies.
I haven't quite gotten to this point yet, but my understanding is that after a certain number of years, the Blightstorm starts, and you enter the End of the Cycle. You then get a single chance to Reforge a Seal. After the Blightstorm passes, everything is reset for the next Cycle; but if you reforge the Seal, there will be benefits, like making future Cycles last longer before the next cataclysm. So, there's both an "inner loop" and an "outer loop", maybe a little like FTL or something.
I've been enjoying this game and playing it a lot so I wanted to drop in a quick post to note that. I'll almost certainly write up something more structured when I finish the game, or get as far as I'm going to get into it. Capturing a handful of random thoughts here in the meantime:
I love that this game has a community wiki. That seems to be a growing trend among less-prominent developers, and I love it. Death to Fandom!
The game was in Early Access for quite a while, so there's a fair amount of information out there on Reddit and Steam. I think that some of the mechanics have changed over time, so very old posts may be outdated. But so far everything I've checked on the Wiki seems to be up to date.
As strategy guides have suggested, an early goal should be getting Complex Food for your villagers. This has the effect of multiplying your food: 5 berries will feed 5 people, or you could turn those 5 berries into 10 pies, which will feed 10 people. So you don't need to worry as much about starvation, and can be a bit less aggressive on staffing additional raw food sources. Complex food also boosts Resolve; in some cases that might be enough to start generating Reputation, but even if not, it gives a nice buffer that may allow you to get through the Storm without needing to take as drastic of steps for your woodcutters and hearth.
That said, I'm also finding that you can't just mindlessly follow a set priority order. In one game I focused hard early on setting up complex food, only to realize that I had neglected my housing and fuel, and a whole bunch of villagers died during a violent storm. Other times I've gotten all the blueprints and raw food necessary, but don't have enough Planks or Bricks or Fabric to actually construct those food buildings. So it may make sense to, saw, prioritize a Lumber Mill or Carpenter over a Cookhouse, if you don't actually have the planks to build a Cookhouse.
Similarly, it's helpful to pay attention to what's available (and not) in your current biome. I'm currently playing in a Marshland, which has almost no Clay. That blocks me out of making a productive Pottery line. In other cases I can substitute Stone for Clay, but obviously need to focus on Stone production.
As a minor hack, if one species is within 5 points of a Resolve Threshold, and the other species each have at least 6 Resolve, it's a great idea to Favor that species. If one species has a threshold at 20, there is no difference at all between 1 Resolve and 19 Resolve, but a huge difference between 0 and 1 and between 19 and 20. So pushing over that threshold is a great move. You could alternate favored species if multiple ones are just out of reach. But keep the Storm timer in mind when fiddling with the Favor button. You can turn it off at any point, but there's a 60-second cooldown before you can favor another species. If one species is at risk of going negative due to Looming Darkness (while the other two are more comfortable), you may want to keep the Favor available for them.
Different species have a huge difference in the speed at which their Resolve decays. In particular, Harpies seem to drop very quickly, while Lizards drop very slowly. So I might let the Harpies drop into, say. -2, let their red ring tick down about halfway, then Favor them to bring it positive. That might bring the Lizards to be negative; but their high value decays so slowly that the Storm will almost certainly be over by the time it reaches that, and certainly before the ring finishes.
So far, I'm getting most of my reputation through Deeds, then Glade Events, and a few points through Resolve. From reading online, it sounds like most experienced players get most of their Reputation through Resolve. Maybe I'll get there one day!
