Welcome. This Against the Storm High prestige guide was written to be of use to you, and we hope you will find that to be the case.

Easy gameplay at the highest difficulty levels

Introduction

To get the snowball rolling, you start this game by choosing the nice blueprints for building material. Next, you will start creating recipes to help grow your sprawling colony of luxury goods, tools, and food. Then you add the expensive service buildings.

It’s not this game. This is not for settlers, anno, or sim cities. Many people mistakenly believe that it is, and are disappointed when there are no buildings. It is a sure way of failing to build everything at higher levels. The forest is angry when you are trying to build a city. The queen gets impatient and waits for you to finish. In this game, less equals more.

Overview

This is not a game of building, as you might expect. It’s a survival game. Your primary goal should be to survive for as long as possible. You do this by providing food for your people and keeping forest hostility low by opening fewer glades than necessary. You also avoid the queen’s wrath by focusing on the task at hand, which is to fulfill her orders.

After all, that is under control comes the secondary task of gathering the required reputation points to win. Don’t try to do everything at once. Instead, focus on one thing. Either you create tools to open a dozen money machines or produce 1 to 2 advanced foods to gain reputation through resolve. You also build and supply service buildings or ma*s-produce something profitable to purchase your way to victory.

While you can mix and match some things early in the game, you may not have the blueprints and manpower to complete multiple production chains efficiently. You choose the best option for you and go for it. You don’t have to be afraid of building multiple production plants for your product.

Later in the game, you can add more production chains and get the people to work them. But it doesn’t matter. It isn’t tough, but it takes time to set everything up. By the time you have your multiple chains up and running, you will probably be victorious.

While I am encouraging you to focus like this, you may feel like you are in a hurry and fighting against the clock. It’s easy to feel like this with the increasing hostility and impatience each year. However, this is not true. The game has its own pace. You start with a pitiful quantity of workers, even fewer blueprints, and just one cornerstone. The forest gets more hostile each year, but it also throws lots of goodies at you, which far outweighs the hostility. The longer you play, the easier it becomes, the more options available, etc. With this in mind, let’s get back on track to the main point. Survival is enough once you have started your game. Maybe you will find something amazing right from the beginning. If not, don’t worry; it will.

The first year

A plan is what we need. We need the information to make a plan. We won’t grab everything available to us like a child at the candy shop. Instead, we’ll wait until we have enough information to make better decisions. This is our setup year. We don’t even consider cornerstones or orders because some of the most important decisions require us to make them before the game is paused.

We may look at the first blueprint, but we most likely don’t take it. If the other options are not crucial (farms/camps to provide food supply), we might only take the first blueprint if we see a carpenter or workshop. A lumber mill might be an option if none of the other options seem viable. However, thinking this way about anything often means you don’t yet know how it works.

We begin planning our town while we are still on pause. Mark 3 paths to dangerous glades (except the last one) (use the CTRL key). Place a camp of woodcutter workers at each path. For them, set building priority to 5 and select the “avoid Glades unless Highlighted” setting.

A road should be planned in front of your storehouse. All your industry will be built along this road. This is your prime reality. You can build a simple workstation there and give it a priority of 4. It’s mobile so you can place it as close to your storehouse as possible.

Housing plans for 8 villagers, 1 park. A mixture of general and specific houses is best. The race-specific houses can give a race with fewer members an easy way to gain more resolve. Keep in mind you can favor the race that has the lowest resolve. So even if you have 8 beavers and 2 harpies, it is still a good idea to put them in a house with beavers and give them general housing. These houses can be set up and parked, given priority for building.

Plan a trading station. It should have a priority of 2. Your people won’t visit both the trading posts or the houses. It doesn’t take roads to get to it, and they don’t have to be very close to anything. Therefore, build them somewhere far from the main road.

With priority 1, build 2 or 3 makeshift posts. We’ll come back to this later.

It would be best if you planned to gather camps to use the resources in your starting glade. Unless you can embark without stones/clay/reed/leather/fiber, put their build priority on 0. (And make sure they are mended when they are finished.

The hearth should reduce its oil and coal consumption. Now, we pause the game. We fill the woodcutters when they are done. This leaves 1 man to build.

After letting the process run for a while, we moved 2 woodcutters to our crude workstation, where they produced the materials needed for our current projects. We then started working on a sizable stack (20-30) for glade events. While our sole builder works on the houses, trade posts, and camps, he also builds roads, even though he doesn’t have any building materials. If you don’t have Fabric and Bricks or the materials to make them, you might need to move a few men to farm them. As i said, in that case, set the building priorities at 4 so they are ready.

We want everything to be ready by the first storm. So, if necessary, have more builders on hand. A large stack of wood is a goal for year 1, as your people are too busy to do much woodcutting in year 2.

The second year

To open a large clearing, highlight a tree just before the first storm ends. Unless we have storm modifiers, we aim for the glade to be opened 30 minutes before the storm ends. Once the glade is open, pause. Take a look at what is happening in the glade. Some glade events are expensive to solve. Others will decrease our resolve while we solve them. Some do both, while others do neither. If that is the case, or if we feel we can deal with it and still be prepared, we open another glade as soon as possible. You might even want to open another if the first one was difficult.

Opening multiple glades is about gaining as much information as possible. We need to know the available resources. We hope to find fertile soil and/or large food nodes to feed our people. Beautiful ruins are a plus. If we have two large glades and food or fuel, there is no reason not to open a third.

As the storm pa*ses, everything falls into place. We now have a lot of things going at once, and that is precisely what we were hoping for. We have opened one or more glades, a trader has arrived, and we have 3 to 5 orders (depending on our prestige level), 2 cornerstones, and a bunch of blueprints. This information is available to make the best possible decisions about each order.

Start looking at your orders right away. The first order is often the most insignificant. These are often insignificant choices. Once you get past them, you will find one that is significant.

Look carefully at all the options before you decide on anything. Keep in mind the blueprints and cornerstones offered by the trader.

Finding a way to feed your people is the first priority. A gathering camp with a few large nodes is acceptable.

Next, consider your fuel and wood situation. Pay attention to your wood production. Some biomes have a 60% bonus to wood production, and others have double wood output. Cornerstones can also give you +1 to your woodcutting. Your woodcutting cost will be between 1.0 and 3.0 per cut. If it is 3.0 you don’t need any fuel, and wood can be considered an unlimited resource. If it’s 1.6 or 2.0 you should search for another fuel. However, there isn’t much pressure to limit your wood consumption. If it is less than 1.0, this is a concern. It’s going to be difficult to make tools. If the map contains coal or marrow, we will hopefully have it in our glades. If none of this is true, we might be able produce some oil.

What about a timed ordering system? Can we do this? Perhaps we can immediately complete other orders and reap the rewards.

Finally, we see what we have to win and any potential synergies. You can find out our primary food source to see if that can be turned into an advanced food. You might have cornerstone bonuses that you can use to make something you produce. Perhaps you can create tools. Open-mindedness is key here. Just because there are things that you haven’t done before doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t possible to build your next game around them.

I mentioned it last because you had already paid attention to it while opening glades. What resources are you going to use to run glade events? This is where the 2-3 makeshift positions come in. You’ll need to manage micro-everything if you have any living matter. Turn on all the ingredients in the pack. Set 2 men in each makeshift position and watch them carry your food. Once they are out and about with the food, deselect the item from the ingredient menu so they can continue to get more food. You can cancel their production by clicking the mouse, and the resources will be returned to the building’s store. Once you’ve completed the living matter, click each resource, and they will instantly be returned to the storehouse.

Now is the time for you to make some decisions. Start with what you are most sure about (blueprint or cornerstone, order), then move on to the next option. To see the next cornerstone, pause, and repause for one second. You can always reexamine the situation if you make a choice. Keep doing this until all of your options are exhausted. However, not all options are available. You won’t get any new information if the last choice you make is the one you choose. You can always leave it there until your use it. You never know what new information may cause you to alter your plans.

With a little luck, your people will be fed, and you can control your fuel situation. A bonus is if you have a victory condition, a complete production chain ready to be executed.

If you don’t have luck, you might not have the means to feed your family. Don’t worry; there may be another batch next year. You can also call a trader early to buy farm or camp blueprints. If you think you are going out of food, then you’ll need to open small glades to be able to farm with small campers. In this instance, you might want to wait a little longer for new incomers. (Especially order rewards, which can wait and still exist for you after you have solved the food situation).

Wrap it up

From here, it should be easy. The second year is the most essential part of the game. If you don’t have a victory situation yet, keep going. You can be reluctant to make choices and instead try to make multiple coincidences. There will be a victory condition at some point. Keep going until then. You can win without ever seeing a victory condition. A few hearths, perhaps some cornerstones, and a Tavern / Guild House can help you achieve game-winning levels without the luxury goods or food.

Embarkation

Yes, the first is the hardest part. First, you need to know your goal before selecting the tools you will use. Our embark caravan’s goal is to solve glade events reliably.

High numbers of citizens are a top priority. Although I often stop accepting more people when I’m in my 30s’, I value the addition of citizens early on. (also in order options).

Next on the list is your ability to complete glade activities. This requires oil and/or Amber. If you haven’t unlocked it, Amber is a must for the most prestigious levels of prestige. Each opened glade will cost you at least $50

If you have two points, you can use them to purchase fabric, bricks, or the materials to make them.

If your biome has 10% of fiber, you can count on that. 5% is not enough. This is not a problem, as we only need them for our 1 special house. You will almost certainly have access to the required materials by year 2.

If you only have one point left, you can take any food source that provides 42 points for 1 point. It is best to choose one that you don’t yet have. You can also take the Plantation, but it’s quite costly at 5-6 Points, and you usually have to choose nothing for your Glade events.

Random thoughts and tips

Be careful with your purging fire production. It can quickly drain your fuel. Blight can give you a boost if you have low prestige. You can leave as many as 4! Each building with 3 cysts receives a 25% increase in production. Prestige 10 and higher allows you to build a maximum of 2 buildings. Everything must be destroyed as soon as possible after prestige 15 and higher. (You will need one light post to cover 10 cysts roughly)

You can go “tall”, or “wide” with hearths. You should aim for level 3 heaths to receive the 10% production bonus if you want to build a profit-driven economy. These may be the final two of your game. For 2 global resolve, combine advanced foods you have found with level 1 hearths if you manage to make them. (and -30 hostility). 4 hearths is a lot.

Remember that you are entitled to a full refund if you destroy a building. Do not hesitate to destroy the trapper’s camp if you run out of eggs. You can always swap back later if something better comes along. You can also demolish and rebuild small storehouses. Walking time is only half of the equation to increase your village’s productivity. (Farms, mines have a permanent storage facility right next to them.

Those glades from year 2 are likely the last glades to be opened. If tools prove to be your victory condition, then stack up the tools and then open a bunch of large glades to grab all cash before events trigger quickly.

There are no rerolls of your blueprints and cornerstones. There are too many options to choose from that you won’t find what you need. They can be used to refresh you if you can’t find the right way to use any of your options.

I a*sume you have some knowledge of the game. I would like you to be able to relieve your woodcutters from their work during a storm.

Low prestige levels allow you to ignore everything I said above. There are many ways to play and win. But it won’t continue to work.

This Against the Storm High prestige guide has come to an end. Please contact us and let us know if you have any concerns, questions, or suggestions about how we can improve this topic. Thank you very much for your thoughtfulness, and I hope you have a lovely day! The inspiration for this guide comes from a post that arjensmit79 wrote, so a big thank you to him!