Against the Storm is a roguelite city-builder by Eremite Games, available now on PC. Unlike a traditional sim where you build one permanent settlement, every run is a finite settlement — you win by hitting a Reputation goal before the Queen’s Impatience bar fills, then you move on to the next node on a world map and do it again with different conditions. The skill ceiling is high, but the early decisions you make in the first few minutes of a settlement are where most runs are won or lost.

This primer covers the core loop, biome variance, the order system, and the first ten decisions to make in every new settlement.

What it covers: The roguelite city-builder loop — Reputation versus Impatience, biome variance, orders, and ten early decisions. Why it matters: Runs are won or lost in the first minutes; biome and order choices gate everything after. Who should pick this: New viceroys starting their first settlements.

The Core Loop

Each settlement follows the same rhythm:

  1. Found the settlement. You arrive with a handful of villagers, some starting resources, and a warehouse.
  2. Open glades. The map is covered in trees. Cutting into them reveals glades — small and large — that contain resource caches, abandoned buildings, or events. Each glade you open raises Forest Hostility.
  3. Assign workers to production chains. Raw materials (wood, stone, reeds, clay, grain, meat, etc.) flow through intermediate goods (planks, bricks, fabric, flour) into finished goods (tools, coats, ale, luxury goods) that villagers consume or that fulfill orders.
  4. Fulfill Orders. Orders are quests — “produce 20 planks,” “have 3 villagers with high Resolve,” “open 5 glades.” Completing them grants Reputation points.
  5. Reach the Reputation goal. Each Reputation point chips away at the settlement’s required score. Hit the goal and you win the run.
  6. Race the Queen’s Impatience. A second bar fills over time and faster when villagers leave. If it fills before you reach the Reputation goal, you fail and the settlement is abandoned.

The tension is always between expansion (opening glades for resources and events, which raises Hostility and threatens villager Resolve) and stability (keeping everyone fed, housed, and happy). The best players manage both simultaneously rather than sequencing them.

Villager Species and Resolve

Villagers come in several species — Humans, Beavers, Foxes, Lizards, Harpies — and each has distinct needs, housing preferences, and workplace bonuses.

  • Humans are generalists with strong housing needs and good service-building preference.
  • Beavers excel in wood and engineering work, thrive in rain, and are easier to keep happy in wet biomes.
  • Foxes are scouts and foragers; they reduce glade-event penalties and favor meat-based food.
  • Lizards are miners and metalworkers who prefer heat and produce efficiently in smelting and crafting chains.
  • Harpies are traders and crafters who benefit from trade routes and luxury production.

Every villager has a Resolve score. Resolve is the pressure stat of the game. If it drops below zero, the villager leaves — and departures accelerate the Queen’s Impatience. Resolve is affected by housing quality, food variety, service buildings (like pubs, temples, bathhouses), luxury consumption, and Forest Hostility. High Hostility applies a negative modifier to everyone’s Resolve, which is why glade-spamming without a plan kills settlements.

Biomes

Biomes determine available raw resources, starting hostility behavior, weather events, and which species feel comfortable. Choosing a biome (or being assigned one by the world map) changes your opening strategy materially.

BiomeKey CharacteristicsSpecies AdvantageOpening Priority
Royal ForestThe default balanced biome; familiar resource mix, moderate hostility curveHumans, BeaversStandard food + housing
MarshlandsWet, reed-heavy, limited fertile soil; rain effects are strongBeavers, FoxesReeds → fabric early, drainage
Scarlet OrchardHarvest-focused, berry and plant matter abundance, variable terrainFoxes, HumansForaging + gathering chains
Coral ForestCoastal, fishing and marine resources, unusual production chainsHarpies, BeaversFishing huts + water trade
HighlandsRugged, mining-heavy, harsh hostility and temperature swingsLizards, HumansMining + fuel for heating

Biome count and exact species bonuses may shift with patches; Eremite has continued adding content since the 1.0 launch. Treat the table above as a starting overview rather than a definitive roster.

The Order System

Orders are the primary Reputation engine. At any time you have a limited number of active order slots (typically three), and you draw from a deck. You can hold an order without completing it, but you can’t cancel it — so choose carefully.

Orders fall into rough categories:

  • Production orders — produce or deliver a quantity of a good. Predictable and plan-able.
  • Population orders — have a number of villagers with high Resolve, or reach a population threshold.
  • Exploration orders — open a number of glades, complete glade events, or discover caches.
  • Construction orders — build specific buildings or a number of a category.
  • Trade orders — buy or sell a quantity of goods via visiting traders.

Two strategic principles govern order play:

  1. Don’t accept an order you can’t realistically complete. An unfillable order occupies a slot you need for a completable one.
  2. Sequence orders around your build. If you’re already heading toward a plank-heavy economy, accept the plank production order. Don’t force your economy to bend to an order unless the reward justifies it.

Completing orders also sometimes grants cornerstones — persistent passive bonuses for the rest of that settlement — and the choice of which cornerstone to take from an order reward is often as important as the order itself.

Cornerstones and Embarkation

Embarkation bonuses are pre-run purchases made with meta-currency on the world map. You spend points on starting resources, extra villagers, blueprints, or passive modifiers. Early on, invest in economy bonuses (extra starting planks, a free blueprint, bonus production) rather than niche modifiers — you’ll learn which bonuses pair with which biomes over time.

Cornerstones are chosen each in-game year from a draft of options. They’re settlement-wide passive effects: “+1 to all production buildings,” “villagers consume less food,” “trade routes are cheaper,” and so on. Because they compound over the run, picking cornerstones that reinforce your existing economy is almost always better than picking a flashy cornerstone that pulls you in a new direction.

The First 10 Decisions

These are the decisions that shape the first five to ten in-game minutes and, more often than not, determine whether you stabilize or spiral.

1. Choose Your Embarkation Bonuses

Match bonuses to the biome. Marshlands benefits from extra reeds or fabric. Highlands benefits from extra fuel and mining tools. A generic safe bundle: extra planks, one extra villager, and a wildcard blueprint. Don’t spend all your points on luxuries you can produce yourself.

2. Assess Your Starting Species

You don’t always control your starting composition, but when you do, aim for at least one generalist (Humans) and one specialist whose biome matches. A Marshlands start with no Beavers is harder than one with two. If you’re stuck with a mismatched roster, plan your economy around the species you have rather than the biome’s textbook chain.

3. Decide Which Glade to Open First

The first glade should be a small glade near your warehouse — cheap to open, modest Hostility increase, and it reveals resources or a low-risk event. Opening a large glade first is a common beginner mistake: the Hostility jump and the event difficulty can outpace your ability to respond. Read the event before you commit workers to it.

4. Assign Initial Workers

At founding, assign workers to the basics: woodcutting (to open glades and feed planks), a food source, and one production chain toward your first order. Don’t over-assign to wood — cutting too fast opens glades too fast and spikes Hostility before you have the Resolve infrastructure to absorb it.

5. Pick Your First Blueprints

You draft blueprints from a selection. Choose buildings that complete a chain you already have raw materials for. If you have grain, pick the mill and bakery chain. If you have reeds, pick the weaver. Resist drafting a building whose inputs you can’t yet supply — an idle building is wasted.

6. Stabilize Food Before Anything Else

Food failure is the most common cause of early collapse. Identify your primary food source (foraging, hunting, farming, fishing) and make sure it’s staffed and producing before you invest in luxuries. A second food source for variety is worth more than a single high-yield source, because food variety boosts Resolve.

7. Build Housing Early

Unhoused villagers take a Resolve penalty and have reduced workplace output. Build basic housing for everyone within the first year. Upgraded housing comes later, but the baseline shelter should not wait.

8. Manage Hostility Intentionally

Every glade you open raises Hostility. Hostility applies a flat Resolve penalty and unlocks escalating negative forest effects. Decide at the outset whether you’re playing a wide strategy (open many glades, absorb Hostility through service buildings and cornerstones) or a tall strategy (open few glades, lean on efficient production and trade). Don’t drift between the two — that’s how Hostility gets away from you.

9. Hold Orders Until You Have a Plan

You start with order slots available. Don’t immediately accept orders. Read what’s on offer, identify which two or three you can realistically complete with your planned economy, and accept those. Accepting an exploration order on a tall strategy or a production order for a chain you can’t build is a self-inflicted wound.

10. Choose Your First Cornerstone to Reinforce, Not Pivot

When your first cornerstone draft arrives, pick the option that makes your current economy stronger. If you’re plank-heavy, take the plank bonus. If you’re trade-curious with a Harpy population, take the trade bonus. The temptation is always the exotic cornerstone that promises a new direction — resist it unless your current direction is clearly failing.

Common Beginner Pitfalls

  • Opening glades too fast. Hostility snowballs. Pace your expansion to your Resolve infrastructure.
  • Ignoring food variety. A single food source keeps villagers alive but doesn’t boost Resolve. Two sources is the real minimum.
  • Accepting every order. Slots are scarce. Hold bad orders out of your deck by not accepting them.
  • Drafting buildings without inputs. A building you can’t feed is dead weight.
  • Letting Impatience creep. Watch the bar. If it’s climbing and your Reputation is stalling, prioritize a completable order immediately, even if it’s not the optimal one.

Glossary

  • Reputation — the positive score you accumulate to win a settlement.
  • Queen’s Impatience — the negative timer; if it fills first, you lose.
  • Resolve — per-villager happiness; below zero, they leave.
  • Forest Hostility — the settlement’s danger level, raised by opening glades.
  • Glade — a cleared area on the map, small or large, containing resources or events.
  • Cornerstone — a settlement-wide passive bonus chosen each year.
  • Embarkation — the pre-run phase where you spend meta-currency on starting bonuses.
  • Blueprint — a building draft; you choose which buildings to unlock from a selection.
  • Order — a completable quest that grants Reputation and sometimes cornerstones.

Against the Storm rewards repeat play. Each run teaches you which decisions match which biomes, which cornerstones compound, and which orders are traps. Get the first ten decisions right and the rest of the settlement becomes a matter of execution rather than recovery.

Sources & further reading

Next read