Perfect City Management on Extreme Difficulty

The planning and layout was tested to work well in Endless Endurance, Winterhome, and New Home on Extreme difficulty. The sections guarantee max production, content populace, and no amputations/deaths!

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I enjoy helping others by writing about technical topics to a higher standard and provide key findings for a higher chance of success! The guide is for everyone, but much friendlier to new players. Everything will be explained to be on the same level as those who are the most experienced. The writing will be easy to follow with plenty of screenshots for those who are too lazy to read everything!

The layout can be used for anything that resembles a Crater map.
The finished city will pack in as much buildings without wasting a tile of space.

The first four rings are reserved for homes that are mixed in with other boosting buildings.

3-4. Fighting Arenas and 6 Guard Towers. Two Workshops are normally built on the 3rd ring before being moved out further beyond the 5th ring. After completing essential research, all Workshops will be dismantled to create more space.
5. Hunter Hangars, 2-3 Cookhouses on each side (reduce travel time), and Charcoal Kilns.
6+. Medical Care, Resource Depots, Purpose Buildings (Temple), and Energy (Coal Mine).

The step-by-step procedure starts inside the 3rd ring because of the maximum home coverage with the exception of the area behind the stockpile.


1. Build the first tower that barely covers the home on the first ring next to the stockpile. Before placing the next tower, build a Fighting Arena and 2 Homes in-between. Repeat the pattern until completing the full ring.
2. Use temporary tents as a template to find exact locations, if resources are low.
3. For homes behind the stockpile (2nd-4th ring), build the Tower and Fighting Arena on 4th ring instead of the 3rd to cover all the homes.
The same can be done with Houses of Prayer but will ruin the 4th-5th rings with their larger dimensions.

Buildings are automatically stretched for aesthetic reasons but wastes valuable space.
The solution is to use streets on both sides to squeeze in to keep the original building dimensions.
Resource depots need to be placed in the outermost ring where the space is too small.

One perfectly placed building is needed to start a perfect 5th ring.
A sawmill with the same dimensions can be hovered over to check for any wasted space.
Repeat the process in the direction where there are no obstacles.

The Steelworks can avoid wasting space by placing temporary streets shown in red circles.
This forces the two buildings to be together instead.

Regular resource depots are more flexible in saving more space per ring despite having the same capacity efficiency as their larger counterpart.

The latter is too bulky and cumbersome to be squeezed in further. Such building also requires research that waste both resources and time.

The three best rules to maximize work efficiency are:

1. Partially staff Medical Post or Infirmary during daytime.
Engineers can still work elsewhere but treatments take longer..

2. Separate the Sick from the Healthy!

Those who are being treated will not work anyways and need to be removed through dismissal. If available, the Healthy can take over by restaffing.

3. Pause construction before work shift starts unless they are needed immediately!

Note: Work Efficiency will not always be at 100% because of building, eating, or being treated.

Hunting starts at 18:00 and can be started with any capable worker. The partial staffing allows the others to finish their daily work until 20:00.
The remaining hunters can join later before 06:00 to get the maximum food, as long as they can work.

Employment during the starting days must focus in a small area to utilize the full potential of Gathering Posts.
They work best on fresh clusters of resources with at least 2 in its range and avoids the risk of being depleted too quickly.

Coal Thumpers and Gathering Posts provide most of the early coal until Mines become available.
The layout consists of a triangular trapezoid made from two rows of Gathering Posts.
The full design adds two additional Posts on the extreme ends with 1 more Thumper.

The Foreman and Agitator significantly boosts work efficiency to 160%!

Note: They are still very useful in the late game, especially New Home when Mines fail.

The mechanics for hunger work very differently because starvation causes instant consumption of any type of food without traveling. A split-second dismantle of all Cookhouse(s) ensure that no work is interrupted.

Any other food laws beside Moonshine cause illness and discontent. The latter is needed for additional Emergency Shifts on Hothouses when there is a food shortage.

Infirmaries provides the fastest healing rate of all the healthcare buildings.

The "Extra Food Rations for the Ill" law further enhances efficiency by additional 50-70%, depending on the base amount.

Note: Normal sickness is treated within 4 hours or less.

1. Reject All Heating Homes & Regular Work Shift quests!

These quests waste coal and denies extra production when the starting days mean everything. Faith Keepers and Guards can remove discontent penalty when rejecting the regular work shift quest. Hope is only a problem for deaths (none in this guide).

2. Never use the Gravely Ill as Scouts!

There is a time limit to treat them after being disbanded. If they are too ill, they need to remain as permanent scouts.

3. Avoid wasting coal!

The overdrive feature can save coal when more generator power is needed instead of using more coal. Just keep an eye out to not overdo it beyond 95% stress.

4. Keep everyone healthy!

People are less likely to get sick if their homes are at least in Liveable conditions before sleeping hours (23:59). The generator takes about 3/4 of a hour to heat up one level and overdrive can be turned on when needed.

Note: Hunters need sleep during the day and need their homes heated.

The existence of storms depend on the scenario and complicates scouting by killing all in its path. Careful planning is needed to create scouting paths and when to recall them back home. Their purpose is to gain more Survivors for population growth and Steam Cores for late-tier infrastructure.

If storms are encountered, basic Scouts cannot outrun them. The Storm can travel from all sides instead of just from the North. An exact calculation is needed by creating a save first then fast-forwarding to determine if they can come back home safely.

Note: Please refer to the Wiki website to know the rewards for each scouting location.

Each team needs to focus on a different general direction (North, South, East, and West) to cover more ground for the most rewards.
They can be diverted to desirable locations that have Steam Cores once found.

The Scouts can reach a location if it is in the same general direction as going home. They need to head home first and move much faster( skating icon), then switch direction to the desired location.
The maneuver saves several hours but does not work if the location is in the opposite direction.

Survivors can be sent home alone first before Scouts rejoin them later.
They can explore other areas in the meantime and preferably with upgraded movement speed.

The key to perfection is to not trigger the Final Warning (revolt) event when discontent or hope (deaths only) is at its brink. The early game demands non-stop research and production for city survival. The caveats of using Emergency Shifts and Foreman are in the hidden cost of additional discontent and food.

A revolt is most likely to occur from high discontent and cannot occur twice on the same day. The max limit is roughly 120% before discontent becomes unmanageable. Immediate reductions are done through removing extended work hours and heating cold homes. Purpose abilities can further reduce below 100% but need to be timed right.

Note: Another Emergency Shift can be activated after resolving the revolt on the same day!

Only Workshops need 24/7 operation to expedite important research in the early stages of the game. The Emergency Shift should be used on at least one workshop every night and use together with the Foreman ability to fully use the 24-hr efficiency boost duration.

No one else has figured out the trick to do 24/7 work without interruptions and deaths.

A few hours after activation, there will be a notification that an employee has overworked to death. The solution is: Load an earlier save and remove all the staff before the recorded time of death. Work can be safely resumed after at least half a hour has passed.

Note: Multiple saves make such task easier and limit to 2 Emergency Shifts at a time.

These robots should only be constructed with a surplus of steam cores. They are best used for essential buildings during the after-hours and dangerously cold workplaces like during the storm.

In certain scenarios, population will grow so much that unemployment becomes untenable. Automatons will further exacerbate the problem and must only match the number of essential workplaces.

The early laws focus on maximizing production and reducing discontent for more Emergency Shifts. The Order strongly boosts production and works well for the long run. New Faith is meant for scenarios that have major Hope problems.

1. Emergency Shift
2. Extended Work Hours
3. Child Safe Job (Don't need All Jobs)
4. Neighborhood Watch
5. Guard Towers
6. Sustain Life (Buys more time for Infirmary)
7. Morning Gathering
8. Foreman (24 Hour Efficiency Boost)
9. Extra Ration for Ill (Massive Healing Boost)
10. Fighting Arena
11. Patrol
12. Public House
13. Corpse Disposal (Unused)
14. Organ Transplants (Faster Healing)
15. Propaganda (Unemployed or dismantled to avoid scripted death)
16. Agitator (Further Efficiency Boost)
17. Moonshine
18. House of Pleasure

Most scenarios need only 2-3 Workshops that completes ~1.5-1.7 projects per day with rotating Emergency Shifts.

Later on, work efficiency boosters can be added like the Foreman and Agitator to increase the rate to 3 projects per day!

Note: More Workshops can be added if there are more engineers but research bonus drops to a mere 10% per building.

The research order includes only important projects that start from scratch:

1. Sawmill
   
2. Beacon
   
3. Drawing Board (Tier 1)
   
4. Hothouse
   
5. Heaters
   
6. Drafting Machines (Tier 2)
   
7. More Scouts
   
8. Lighter Scout Sled
   
9. Steelworks
   
10. Steam Steelworks
    
11. Med Post Upgrade
    
12. Infirmary
    
13. Mech Calculators (Tier 3)
    
14. Bunkhouse
    
15. Coal Thumper
    
16. Hunter Gear
    
17. Hunter Hangar
    
18. Improved Heaters
    
19. Steam Coal Thumper
    
20. House
    
21. Faster Gathering
    
22. Gathering Post Insulation
    
23. Efficient Gathering
    
24. Generator Power Upgrade
    
25. Steam Hub
    
26. Generator Range Upgrade
    
27. Generator Power Upgrade II
    
28. Steam Hub Range
    
29. Difference Engine (Tier 4)
    
30. Additional Scouts
    
31. Automatic Prototyping (Tier 5)
    
32. Boosted Scout
    
33. Flying Hunter Gear
    
34. Generator Power Upgrade III
    
35. Hunting Tactics
    
36. Coal Thumper Injectors
    
37. House Insulation
    
38. Advanced Heaters
    
39. Infirmary Checklists
    
40. Resource Depot Upgrade
    
41. Overdrive Couplings
    
42. Generator Safety Bypass
    
43. Coal Mining
    
44. Steam Coal Mine
    
45. Advanced Coal Mine
    
46. Generator Range Upgrade II
    
47. Wall Drill
    
48. Steam Wall Drill
    
49. Generator Range Upgrade III
    
50. Charcoal Kiln
    
51. Advanced Wall Drill
    
52. Charcoal Kiln Thermostat
    
53. Charcoal Kiln Bellows

The survival mode of the city ends once storage can no longer keep up with production. Full attention can now focus on completing scenario's objectives.

Timeline will vary with each scenario due to different hardships. The estimated time for Extreme Endurance was about 3.5 weeks.

The most valuable advice is to be constantly vigilant with city management. Any careless mistake on extreme difficulty can permanently spiral into a complete disarray!

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