Frostpunk 2 Stalwarts: Faction Guide, Perks, and Strategy

Who the Stalwarts Are

If you picked Order in the prologue, the Frostpunk 2 Stalwarts will shape your entire story campaign. With good relations, they hand you guard squads and extra prefabs. They can also be the faction that tears New London apart in Chapter 5. Their motto is "Through Order, Victory." They are the disciples of the old Captain, the people who helped him keep Order during the Great Frost and kept efficiency and control at the center of city life afterward.

The Stalwarts believe New London can thrive if it runs like a constantly optimized machine. They will accept any change that makes the city more efficient, whether it is technological or social. Anyone who disagrees with them is "backwards" at best and an "enemy of the City" at worst. That attitude creates friction, especially with the citizens who look beyond the city walls.

The Stalwarts only appear in Story Mode. In Utopia Builder, the faction with the same ideals is the Venturers.

How to Get the Stalwarts in Story Mode

Early in the prologue, the game asks you to identify an unknown symbol:

Image: Steam / 11 bit studios

• Choose Order to start Chapter 1 with the Stalwarts.
• Choose Faith to get the Faithkeepers instead.
• Don't recognize the symbol and the game picks one of the two at random.

Chapter 1 opens with two communities, the New Londoners and the Frostlanders, plus whichever faction you chose. The Stalwarts are a radicalized offshoot of the New Londoners. Their opposing faction, the Pilgrims, shows up later in the campaign.

Zeitgeist Values and the Pilgrim Rivalry

A community follows a single ideology. A faction holds one position on each of the three Cornerstones. The Stalwarts and the Pilgrims disagree on all three:

Image: Steam / 11 bit studios

Cornerstone	Stalwarts	Pilgrims
Progress vs. Adaptation	Progress	Adaptation
Merit vs. Equality	Merit	Equality
Reason vs. Tradition	Reason	Tradition
Parent community	New Londoners (Progress)	Frostlanders (Adaptation)
Active ability	Mobilise Enforcers	Deploy Guides
Good relations perk	Extra Prefabs Assembly	Volunteer Scouts

The Stalwarts favor heavy machinery and automatons. Their research options usually boost productivity a lot but come with more squalor, disease, and inequality. Pilgrim options tend to gather food and supplies with fewer side effects.

Every law, idea, and building you pick moves the city along these axes. Leaning toward Progress, Merit, and Reason improves your relations with the Stalwarts and worsens them with the Pilgrims. The Chapter 2 choice is a big step: defeating the Frost with an oil generator is the Progress path.

Faction Abilities and Buildings

Image: Steam / 11 bit studios

Mobilise Enforcers (active)

Once your relations with the Stalwarts are above Neutral, you can use Mobilise Enforcers. It gives you 5 permanent Guard Squads. Use it whenever it's available so you have as many squads as possible before the endgame riots.

Extra Prefabs Assembly (passive)

While relations stay good, the Stalwarts send their own people to assemble extra prefabs, which gives you additional prefab income.

Stalwart-Aligned Buildings

These buildings are tied to the Stalwarts and will push your Zeitgeist in their direction:

• Chemical Hothouse (Food): speeds up crop growth with chemical nutrients. Shared with the New Londoners.
• Actuated Heat Dispatcher: uses automated actuators to boost Generator output. Shared with the New Londoners.
• Automated Logistics Bay (Logistics): uses machines to make expedition gear. Shared with the New Londoners.

Managing Relations With the Stalwarts

Every faction uses the same set of tools, but here is how each one plays out with the Stalwarts:

• Promote: Publicly backing them adds members and Council seats, greatly improves relations, and lowers fervor.
• Condemn: Does the opposite. They lose members and seats, and their fervor rises.
• Fund Projects / Make Promise / Grant Agenda: Raise relations with heat stamps, a deliverable promise, or by letting them pick the next Council vote. Granting an agenda raises relations right away, even if their proposal later fails.
• Raise Funds / Demand Funds: Trade relations for heat stamps. Demand Funds pays twice as much but also costs trust.
• Deradicalize: If fervor gets out of hand, the New Londoners can deradicalize their offshoot faction. This requires gold-level relations with the New Londoners and lowers your relations with them.

Laws are a cheap way to keep the Stalwarts happy. Hover over a law before proposing it to see which groups support it.

At maximum relations the Stalwarts become devoted and hold rallies for you. Each rally lets you pick a buff, such as faster exploration, more heat stamp income, or a larger active workforce. If relations fall to the bottom, they turn hostile and can stage protests that will destroy a district if you don't respond.

The Stalwarts in the Late Campaign

As the story goes on, the conflict between Progress and Adaptation peaks around Winterhome, and whichever faction feels ignored starts to boil over.

In Chapter 5 a murder sets off civil war. You choose whether to banish the Pilgrims, enforce order, or seek reconciliation. Both the Pilgrims and the Stalwarts riot across the city. Here is how to handle it:

1. Build up a large guard force before Chapter 5, and use Mobilise Enforcers every time it's available. A single extra squad can be the difference between only containing riots and being able to arrest rioters.
2. Assign squads to protect people first and districts second.
3. Open each rioting faction and check its demands. The Stalwarts usually ask for a set of research or a set of laws. Avoid radical laws in their list if you're playing clean. Options such as Personal Responsibility and Unproductive Due Maintenance can be passed through normal negotiation.
4. Finish the open promises you already have before taking on new ones. Too many active promises blocks negotiation.
5. Once both sides are satisfied, pass the Peace Accord, using an Emergency Council Session if you need to.

Choosing Enforce Order opens another path to end the war. After you pass every Rule law, you can vote in Captain's Authority. That makes you Captain, removes the trust system, and unlocks Secure Rule. Secure Rule costs 45 Guard Squads and needs a prison, and it ends the fighting after about 2 weeks.

A few things worth knowing before you start:

• Frostpunk 2 launched on September 20, 2024, and the Stalwarts are part of the base game's Story Mode. You can get Frostpunk 2 on Steam.
• The game has 79 Steam achievements, and one challenge asks you to finish Captain difficulty without Rule laws. On that run, Captain's Authority is off the table, so you'll need reconciliation and guard squads to get through the civil war.

FAQ

Are the Stalwarts available in Utopia Builder?

No. They only appear in Story Mode. The Venturers share their Progress, Merit, and Reason values and fill the same role in Utopia Builder.

When can I use Mobilise Enforcers?

As soon as your relations with the Stalwarts rise above Neutral. Each use gives you 5 permanent Guard Squads.