Frostpunk 2 is a game that is full of choice and consequence and during your many trials and tribulations during Chapter 2: Ambitions, you’ll find that the site of your new Oil source, the Old Dreadnought, has had some visitors that are looking for a cut of your Oil. You’re up against the time here and the Whiteout is fast approaching New London, so what should you do? Keep reading to find out!

The Intruders¶

As you continue your frantic stockpiling in preparation of the impending Whiteout, you’ll get a notification over at the Old Dreadnought Colony that a group of strangers have turned up calling themselves The Wanderers (which may sound familiar from the Prologue!). As you most likely will have destroyed their tombs when you first uncovered the Old Dreadnought, they’re rightfully incensed and demand a stockpile of your Oil before the Whiteout hits so that they can survive.

This is a bothersome complication at a critical time during your role as the Steward, the Whiteout demands your full attention but if you ignore this problem, they could be a threat and cut off your main fuel supply just before the demand skyrockets due to the Whiteout. You’ll be given two choices here and you’ll have no choice but to see one of them through.

Promise to Deliver them Oil¶

As they say, the path of least resistance is usually the best, and you may decide that that may be the course of action to take here. This is no mean feat though, as it’s going to cut into your Oil reserves over at New London when you should be Stockpiling as much as you can and you’ll have to amass 30,000 Oil within the Old Dreadnought in 48 weeks, which is a fair bit considering you can’t stop your Stockpile for New London.

Increasing Oil Extraction¶

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you’re extracting as much Oil as you can from the Old Dreadnought. To begin with, make sure you’ve used Frostbreaking to reach all three Oil deposits in this area and as soon as one’s available, drop an Extraction District on it. You’ll most likely have to transfer a hefty Workforce over from New London for this endeavor, so increasing your Workforce via Laws or turning down the demand/output at various Districts will be to your benefit.

You’ll want to next expand each District to increase that output further (at the cost of Heat Demand and Workforce) and then take a look into the Idea Tree. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to Research the various Pumpjack Extraction buildings (that suits the ideology you’re aiming for) and place them in as many of the Extraction Districts that you can. Of course, this will increase the demands across the Colony, so be sure to distribute relief from New London to help with this, remember, you’re up against the clock here.

Now that you have enough Oil flowing, the final step is to make sure you have enough room to Stockpile it all. Hover over the Fuel at the top of your screen and you’ll have a Stockpile limit of 10,000 by default which obviously, will not meed the demand of The Wanderers. Head on over to the Hubs section of the interface and build several Fuel Stockpile Hubs so that you have enough to store at least 30,000 (but preferably more for New London). Remember, building these close to your Extraction Districts will decrease the Workforce demand.

With all of this setup, you should be well on your way to meeting the demand from The Wanderers, once the preparation is done early on, 42 Weeks is a lot more time than you may expect.

Defend Our Oil¶

If you instead decide that The Wanderers are more of a nuisance to be dealt with, rather than aiding their survival, you can choose to instead defend the Old Dreadnought with Guard Squads. If your resources in New London aren’t so hot and you’re worried about surviving the impending Whiteout, this is the choice for you and is arguably, a much easier one to complete.

There are two ways to achieve this rather simple task, but you’ll need to do a bit of legwork first. The first is to set up defenses in the Old Dreadnought itself, which is something that will aid the Colony long-term as it continues to grow in population. You can increase your Guard Squads by Researching and building Watchtowers in the Idea Tree.

You only need the basic Watchtower, as placing one of them down will grant 12 Guard Squads, the number needed to pass this objective. Of course, you’ll need to make sure you actually have a Housing District at the Old Dreadnought Colony, and to expand it so you can place a building on there. Once again, you may need to send over some Workforce from New London to deal with setting them up.

The second, and arguably easier method of dealing with The Wanderers without giving them Oil is to make use of your Frostland Teams, should you have been diligent in setting up Logistics Districts throughout New London. If you take a look at the Frostland map, you’ll see a new event just to the right of where the Old Dreadnought is and if you select it, you’ll see that you can send 12 Guard Squads along with some Frostland Teams to go and deal with the threat, this will use it from your pool of resources at New London, rather than the Old Dreadnought where you should already have Guard Squads.

There you have it; you now know how to deal with the threat of losing access to your main Oil source before the Whiteout hits New London in Chapter 2. Whether you decide to treat with The Wanderers or not, you’ll be able to ensure that New London doesn’t suffer as a result.