There are many chapters in "IceSteam Age 2". Chapter 3 is a relatively complex chapter and very difficult. If you want to pass Chapter 3, you need to complete the main goal, which is to find and colonize the Winter Land. home, but before you can do that, you need to make sure your city can support such an effort.
How to pass the third chapter of Frostpunk 2
Taking your time in Chapter 3 is a good idea, and to some extent the game forces you to do so; read on to learn how to make the most of this moment in the calm between the storms.
This guide was developed on Archon difficulty; you may need to adjust your strategy to survive on Steward, Captain, or Survivor difficulty.
How to recover from white screen
The main goal of Chapter 3 is to find and colonize Winter Home, but before that, you need to make sure your city can support such an endeavor.
Even if you did everything right in the first two chapters, the white curtain at the end of Chapter 2 will most likely have emptied your food and oil stocks. You should prioritize restoring positive net income on these two items before doing anything else.
Reactivate any food areas that were closed during the storm and ensure that oil shipments from the old dreadnought have been restored. If there is a shortage of workers, the workforce in other areas can be temporarily reduced to get food production back on track. You can also send your ice party to harvest food at locations in the west, such as fishing villages and whale mines.
There are coal mines in the hilly areas to the southwest, which you can choose to settle as a permanent outpost or collect on a one-time basis. If you haven't done so already, research and build a coal liquefaction facility to convert coal into oil; this should keep cities warm, especially if laws like housing insulation are implemented.
During this time, the factions you rejected in Chapter 2 will begin protesting, which will cause certain areas to close. You can try to get them to stop protesting by changing the laws or giving them money and an agenda, but that's just the beginning of the subsequent escalation of tensions that will follow you through the rest of the game.
Where to find the ruins of Winter Home
The ruins of Winter Home are located in an area called the Cursed Hollow, northeast of New London. Before setting off, be sure to build and expand all three logistics zones and establish a survivor headquarters to shorten your expedition and reduce risk. Otherwise, you'll send some scouts to a dead end.
If you are negotiating to pass a law in this chapter, look for factions that want research from the Iceborne idea tree. These will all help you reach Winter Home, regardless of which faction they favor, so promising them as concessions for voting is actually a win-win.
Even if you discovered Winter Home in the previous chapter, you cannot immediately send an Iceborne team to Winter Home. You'll see on the map that the storm is still moving over the northeastern ice sheet - it will be another year or two before you'll be able to interact with that half of the map again. Since you can't actually complete the main objective, use this time to stabilize the city's economy, appease angry factions, and build up inventories.
Before the storm completely dissipates, you should have the following:
Study sky passages.
Possess at least 100 surplus production of food, oil, and materials in New London.
Have at least 2000 available laborers to send to the Winter Home (ideally 3000, since you will need to transfer more workers after the colony is established).
How to Colonize a Winter Home
Once the ruins of Winter Home are no longer blocked by storms, and you've connected it to New London via trails, you can send colonists to settle the site, just like you did with the Intrepid in Chapter One.
Trails are a minimum requirement, but you will need to transport a lot of supplies from New London to Winter Home to keep the colony alive; it is highly recommended that you accept the additional cost of building a skyway and perhaps a logistics center to keep the colony alive The player has enough food, oil and materials.
When you send out colonists, you will be faced with two important choices:
Send the leader to a winter home?
By this time, one of the factions in your city may have caused trouble and resented your choices. You have the chance to silence them by sending their leader to the Winter Home, which is pretty much an exile. Doing so would cause protests in New London to cease, but could cause additional problems for the colony.
If tensions are dangerously high in New London, it might be worth sending off the Radical Leader. This will buy you three to four months to get the situation under control while the colony is established, but you'll need to have a plan to manage the destruction of your winter home. If you haven't researched the Watchtower and Prison yet, do so now.
On the other hand, if the radical faction is small, or you already have control of the situation in New London, there is no need to send the leader away. Just�Choose to recruit equally from all the population and continue as before.
Should you save or settle your winter home?
This is one of the biggest decisions in the game and directly affects the progress of Chapter 4. Progress-oriented factions in your city want you to save the Winter Home and destroy the ruins as quickly as possible to extract steam cores, while adaptation-oriented factions want you to settle the Winter Home, seal the geothermal rifts, and create a permanent, habitable Inhabited Colony.
The faction you reject here will fully radicalize and rebel in Chapter 5, no matter what you do. All else being equal, it may be wise to choose the option with the most supporters among residents.
If you save Winter Home, you must break through quickly to extract the Steam Core's reserves to gain enough resources to build the final generator upgrade. Once you do this, the settlement will be abandoned and you will not be able to return or otherwise interact with Winter Home for the remainder of the campaign.
If you choose to settle Winter Home, you will be tasked with transforming the ruins into a permanent colony, which you can continue to expand and develop in Chapter Five. This process will take longer and require more resources, but ultimately has the potential to better support the New London finale.
Once the decision is made, Chapter 4 will begin and you can begin the project of your choice.
