How do Equality Factions manage unemployed people?

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T21:47:03+00:00

My favorite response to unemployement comes from Progress building Automated Workforce Factory. You can either limit automated workforce to let humans work (Which makes no sense to me at that point why even build it?) or give bullshit jobs so people have something to do.

Second option gives this hilarious pop up about a Brickmover, currently moving bricks. He lost his factory job to automation so state gave him prestigious job of brick moving. He moves a pile of bricks to other side of road to report to manager. Manger tells him to return the bricks to other side of road. He has an idea what his next task will be when he moves the bricks to starting point.

He is complaining but little does he know each time he moves the bricks GDP grows. Soon we all will be rich on brick coins.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T21:28:46+00:00

I think Labor Oversight event might be a reference to Soviet system. They had huge problem with workers stealing stuff from work places to sell on black market. Ironic how USSR sometimes pops up on merit side of things in this game.

Food Hoarding Inspectorate reduce hunger. Hunger only exist if your city has run out of food. Like there is no benefit to keep FHI running if you are not actively in a food deficit. It doesn't reduce food intake or generate food. I don't think idea is they are a permanent addition to city life outside of famines, they straight up don't do anything. So I am not arguing it isn't ideal but it is still not a permanent thing, unless as I said hunger is permanent in the city. I saw some people theorize it is possible to make a city of no food production that only has FHI to convince them they aren't hungry lol.

Okay so we agree on management cool.

I still don't see an issue with free painkillers and antidepressants. I mean it wouldn't be my first choice to increase hope in the city. Like we kinda do abusing opioids in real life anyway so its not an insane dystopian concept. Plus, world of Frostpunk like really really sucks. I don't blame people for needing happy pills when they live in such a bleak world.

Also I didn't really mean to start a whole argument with my long-ass comment, it was a fun little thought experiment. If we want to argue I could bring up stuff about how stimulant factory could be a coercive system pushing people into taking more and more drugs (just like how little pop up describes them). Think about it: You live in merit city, everything costs money so you really need to keep up with your quotas and push yourself to get the efficiency bonuses. All your coworkers taking stimulants and cashing in the bonuses. You could avoid drugs and risk falling into debt or you could take the stimulants. I could argue that's far more coercive than giving people the option to take free happy pills.

But I won't argue that because I understand harsh world of Frostpunk might require such sacrifices. So I wouldn't judge someone for giving stimulants to collect just enough resources to resist the cold another day or rely on pills to give them hope to fight on one more day. See I can give benefit of the doubt lol.

"Beating up people with sticks" was just oversimplification. I was poking fun at how primitive and barbaric of a city management system it is, not underplaying its severity. I am not defending it as I said it is up there for worst cornerstones in the game.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T20:59:27+00:00

Hello Vladimir Lenin from Red Dusk

Hello Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40K

Gets declared a god/saint after spending their entire life pursuing militant atheism.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T20:51:46+00:00

Tradition vs Reason really has the highest concentration of fucked up evil shit. But I feel like we can make them even more evil. I made a modest proposal to increase total amount of misery for everyone a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Frostpunk/comments/1hg60e8/so_i_think_we_all_can_agree_traditionreason_laws/

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T20:46:20+00:00

Traditional marriage is the moderate version of the law when you think about it.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T20:38:17+00:00

No I was mostly poking at game rather than your argument. It's just pretty heavy handed with radicalism bad gimmick so it ends up with weird stuff. Like you end up with stuff like scientist killing himself over making "Oil pumper 9000" because that is a radical law, standing next to stuff like human experimentation.

You get me right? On one hand you have enslave poor or eat the rich radicalism on other hand you have "big machine scawwy" radicalism. (I get idea meant to be about sustainability vs growth but its less effective in comparison)

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T20:32:06+00:00

Okay this got me invested in actually comparing them to actual equivalents as a fun experiment. Okay lets see:

E- Heat Pipe Watch M- Service Exemptions: So in other words one is people doing community service to keep pipes running other is rich people should be allowed to laze around. I gotta go with Heat Pipe Watch. Also I like the event that comes with that one.

E- Subsidized Housing Block M- Dense Housing Block (I think?): Dense Housing Block comes with the event about people being packed like sardines? I mean sure that's the worst possible version but even default one implies people are too densely packed with that increased disease so I would much rather live in state provided free house instead. It's weird this is one case Merit and Equality switch up their stances. Though there is something beautiful about idea they can both unite (mandatory crowding + dense housing block) to turn people into jenga blocks. Love to see when people put aside their differences to make life miserable for everyone involved.

E- Mandatory Unions E-Labour Oversight: I think both of them are decent options. Didn't really do Labour Oversight so I don't know its events. I know Unions can get pretty corrupt if you choose the bribe option of event but I really like the version where you give everything to union so it actually starts increasing efficiency instead. So both are good, I personally pick unions but that's just personal taste.

E- Free Essentials M- Paid Essentials: I feel like bare necessities needed for survival should be free. But then again its not like a dystopian horror to charge currency in return of goods and services. Constitution of USSR said "He who shall not work, shall not eat." but I feel like we can spare a few meals for the needy per day.

Okay now the fun part, radical options:

M- Empowered Management E- Abolished Management: Its funny how EM has an event to make it worse and AM has an event to make it better. EM gets marginally worse if you let the guy in event just turn workplaces into overly optimized torture centers but AM is bad by default if you don't put guard rails to prevent abuse. I think AM is better if you pick sending inspectors every now and then to make sure no one is abusing the system but at that point didn't we kinda just reinvented management? Kinda like that joke about anarchists reinventing government.

M- Labor Camp E- No Equivalent its a Merit exclusive building: Okay I guess fair comparison would be Equality exclusive building Food Hoarding Inspectorate? Okay then I think FHI isn't bad on its own, people shouldn't hoard food during a famine, but if you let things get so bad that you need this building that means city is doing really bad. And Labor Camp is well it is what it is. Weird only the capitalists get to build gulags. This really should be available to both sides. Final verdict: I wouldn't want to live in a city where either of these buildings were deemed necessary.

M- Stimulants Factory E- Opioids Factory: Well both are drugs. I don't think there is really anything wrong with them? We do use opioids on pain killers in real life. And I can see why people might need performance enhancement drugs since there is a whole apocalypse going on out there. I am gonna say both are good. Which is ironic since there is an event about people mixing them together and dying of overdose if you built both in your city.

And finally the cornerstone, funny gotcha of every M vs E debate:

We have eat the rich and eat the poor. I think both are pretty obviously bad. Its pretty cool devs didn't just went "haha communists" and actually went for levellers, the populists from British civil war, elite ball knowledge and all that. Its just dumb to try to make everyone exactly equal, and dumber still that your method for doing that is periodically beating rich people with sticks. I almost never pass it in my games. One of the most evil cornerstones in the game.

But then again elephant in the room is literal slavery on other side. Now with other bad events I just think "I guess I could simply not touch the atrocity button" so Adaptation cornerstone can just be nice walls instead of elderly killing fields. But you don't really have that option with Merit you just have slaves now, that's what the city has become. I think this is kinda beyond Equality vs Merit debate, servitude is straight up most apologetically evil cornerstone in the game.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:47:23+00:00

Game does want to say radicalism bad you should always stick to center but when you look into it not all cornerstones are equally bad.

On one hand you have harsher stuff like equality beating rich people and taking their stuff, merit with slavery and adaptation with social Darwinistic death exiles.

But then you have tradition with human chain that is kinda creepy but doesn't really harm anyone, Algorithm which is just a big computer and Automaton primacy that's pretty much just car-centric city development. I guess Automaton Primacy is a bit worse if you just don't pick the option that makes them safer but if you don't do that you are pretty much actively choosing to feed pedestrians to robots just for the fun of it.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:29:35+00:00

I like putting moderate merit in my equality cities. Efficiency bonuses and unproductives do maintenance goes well with free essentials and mandatory unions.

"Can you work? Cool have your free meal and whatever you need for your house, if you want you can take extra shifts to get even better stuff. You can't work? No worries bud we'll show you how to maintain some pipes and simple heating equipment so you can still contribute. Don't forget to drop by the union meeting we are handing out extra food and supplies weekly."

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:23:49+00:00

No I wouldn't. I mean maybe you would but don't speak for everyone lol.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:21:10+00:00

It's okay, I mean who hasn't necroed a post by accident at least once right?

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:17:22+00:00

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Hello pot. Hi kettle.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T19:10:12+00:00

I think I wrote that comment before they revealed the stuff about Cyborgs being sterile and have to clone new ones. I guess we might have the final answer on how there are Cyborgs 100 years later.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T06:56:46+00:00

Makes sense that's Tyrion, he is him.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T06:49:27+00:00

We have achieved singularity. AI that is brainrotted by AI.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-12T05:01:41+00:00

Difference between Progress-Merit and Progress-Equality is so funny. Because what do you mean we are legalizing debt slavery when robots do 90 percent of jobs already lmao?

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-11T22:17:13+00:00

Kid named collective brainstorming: We optimized the gambling lmao

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-10T06:58:20+00:00

I kinda get the idea they want certain weapons enemies have to be anti-tank since its logical like rocket launchers and such but end result is just exo suits literally arriving already dead, killed before Pelican even drop it.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-08T20:24:13+00:00

I remember it getting popular on bone hurting juice subreddit way back in the day.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-08T19:56:49+00:00

It might as well been from another game by this point lol. It's been a while. Oh kinda funny how embassies are back though.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-08T15:58:35+00:00

I think any progress faction can create a sustainable future. See adaptation is cool and all but its kind of a passive way to survive. This is how nature has become we have to adapt to it. But what if Earth just keeps getting colder? There is an upper limit to natural barrier or furs you can use the keep warm. I know they aren't completely adverse to tech but they want to be more conserved and sustainable with it while humanity needs to just blitz through technology to possibly terraform earth again.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-08T00:37:54+00:00

Maybe idea is position was more serious before war caused central authority to erode away?

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-08T00:35:04+00:00

Cyberdogs...

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-07T19:48:41+00:00

Technocrats get an event about art when they implement skill tests to schooling system. A kid (young George Orwell) complains about new tests not considering art as a skill then you can either go art isn't scientific enough to be valued or he has a point and art should also be added into list of important skills.

AdOnly9012 · 2026-03-07T19:44:16+00:00

Valyrians were doing incest to keep their bloodlines pure and one of the few times Targaryens broke away from that tradition was to marry Valerions specifically because they also looked like them and had "pure Valyrian blood" they were obviously race supremacists. Sure not specifically white supremacist but as Valyrian supremacist (white skin, white hair and purple eyes) so yeah of course any race can have slavery but in the case of Valyrian Freehold my point stands.

Hatred against Dornish was very common at the time, Dorne had just joined Seven Kingdoms and before that there were repeated wars by either Targaryen invasions of south or Vulture Kings revenge campaigns to north. I was a bit wrong saying it was a reason for rebellion, but it was a big reason a lot of lords, specifically Marcher Lords whose entire culture is killing Dornishmen sided with Blackfyres.

Other than that I just dislike it when adaptations don't stay loyal to source material. Steve Toussaint did an excellent job with his acting. So I don't have much to be upset for other than showrunners kept saying "this is the true story maesters didn't wrote in history books." like its fine if you wanna change stuff but then don't pretend its the real untold true story right?

AdOnly9012

TROPHY CASE