Frostpunk 2 factions are a major part of the survival city builder, and managing them is just as important as managing your supply of food, oil, and other resources. But who are these factions? How can you gain their trust? And what's the difference between a faction and a community?
In Frostpunk 2 you will contend with factions and communities from the very first moments of the game. Your citizens aren't just working and surviving: some of them are on your council, which means they are voting on the laws you pass. Keeping their trust of you high and tension in your city low will depend on carefully managing these factions and keeping them as happy as possible—even though making everyone happy at the same time is impossible.
You won't encounter every faction or community in every game you play, but here are the factions and communities you may find in your city.
In Frostpunk 2, every person living in your city is part of a community. A community is a group of people with a common background and interest. Clicking on a community at the bottom of your screen will bring up their opinion of you and actions you can take to interact with them, like making them a promise or funding their agenda.
On the council, each community will favor a certain single direction they want to see the city follow. Frostlands and Foragers, for example, favor adaptation. Lords, on the other hand, are interested in tradition. Communities will tend to support laws that lean in their direction. The important thing to remember about community members on your council is that you can negotiate with them to vote against their favored direction.
Factions are political parties. Each faction favors three directions instead of just one—Stalwarts, for example, favor progress, merit, and reason. Factions won't vote against their worldview, and you won't be able to negotiate with them if they're opposed to the direction of the law you're trying to pass.
As you progress, make choices, and pass laws, new factions will rise in your city as community members and faction members splinter off into new groups. Steer too deeply into religion in your city by favoring the Faithkeeper faction, for example, and a new faction called Evolvers will form to oppose the direction you're headed in.
Factions also have an ability you can access by clicking on their portrait at the bottom of the screen, though each ability has a long cooldown and the faction must have at least a "favorable" view of you to activate this ability.
Faction abilities can be shaped by the laws you pass. For example, Stalwarts have a "mobilize enforcers" ability you can use to produce 5 guard squads in your city, but if you pass a law allowing automatons to be used as guards, this ability will change to become "mobilize automaton enforcers" and it will produce 10 guard squads.
Here are the factions you may encounter in your cities in Frostpunk 2 and the city directions they favor. The starting factions may be different between games and between the campaign and utopia builder modes. (This list may not be complete but we will add more factions as we discover them.)
Here are the communities you may encounter in your game. In utopia builder mode, you have a choice of which two communities you begin with.
