Frostpunk 2 gets broader and more political, but retains the raw, nerve-racking joy.

I can't remember every interaction I had with the advisors at Civilization games, but I don't think I've ever had to send my guards to quell a protest one of them organized at a new settlement.

I also couldn't ask them for “favors” to get a few more heat stamps needed for a new food district, putting myself in debt to them at some future point when they decide they've had enough of some other faction's people and ideas. Frostpunk 2 (Today, the people who show up to tell you how they feel aren't just helpful indicators, they're a vital part of strategy. To keep these people going, you have to make some angry, some happy, and balance a ledger of everything you've earned and demanded from them.

That's the biggest difference you'll notice in Punk Glacier 2 If you're coming from the original, in the original you made decisions that affected people, but you were the captain and you had complete control of your people, at least until you made them angry enough to rebel. Punk Glacier 2You manage factions and communities rather than groups of survivors. You place districts, not hospitals. Time passes in days and weeks, not hours. You play several chapters in a landscape of a world that is 30 years removed from its initial danger.

The challenge of Punk Glacier 2 It's no longer just about helping everyone through this winter. It's now about what kind of people we want to be once we have enough fuel, food and children. Are we in a controlled decline or can we build something better, despite the world trying to kill us?

A beautiful grid with brutal choices.

These are the general changes that are going to occur. Punk Glacier 2On the ground level, the overall feel is pretty familiar. It’s cold, sometimes it’s colder, and there’s a furnace to stoke. This time around, you have to “Break the Ice” to unlock tiles for development, but you don’t have to worry as much about the exact placement of individual pieces. Your colony or city will connect itself and look beautiful in the game’s grim Victorian cryo-future style. You have to figure out how to save up resources to put up an extraction district on oil reserves, generating enough heat to stop residents getting sick so you can then send them out to retrieve goods from a decimated wagon and then break the ice some more toward a food source, all while planning to build a research center and a council building.

The research and political trees you climb are more varied and even harder to choose from in this sequel. Punk Glacier 2Your explorers find a body in the ice with the city insignia from the first game on its jacket, and ask you if it represents Order or Faith. Whatever your answer, you'll have more than two ideas to choose from. At the base level there are two communities, the Progress-focused New Londoners and the Adaptation-minded Frostlanders. Then you have the Order-obsessed Stalwarts, the Faithkeepers and their respective opposition, the Pilgrims and the Evolveders. Playing the game's “Utopia Builder” mode after the chapter-based story mode brings a batch More communities and factions. You know, for that fun activity you do in your spare time.

In the Council Hall, you'll have to negotiate with these factions to get votes from the 100 members, divided according to each faction's influence. Most votes need 51, but votes that change your power require 66. If a faction is undecided, you can promise them something, such as future research projects or other changes to the laws. If you break that promise, they'll work against you in the future. Radicals will appear within each faction, and you'll have to appease them or seek support elsewhere. You can see all the players and the “Cornerstones” (ideologies) in play on one of the game's beautiful information screens. You can reflect on this while, all around you, basic needs like fuel, materials, food, and shelter still need to be taken care of.