Much time has passed since your people entered the wilderness of the Farthest Frontier with just a wagon and some supplies. A small settlement has prospered into a proper city of hundreds. Needs have been provided for. Raiders have been kept at bay. Even disease did not halt progress. The frontier is slowly proving to be the haven your people hoped it could become after years of labor and hardship. Their continued safety, happiness and growth is now the top priority.
Last time, we delved into the art process and how all of Farthest Frontier’s buildings come to exist. We ended that with a tantalizing preview of our upcoming tier 5 Housing. But how does one get to this prestigious tier? That is where our Desirability system comes into play.
Desirability is Farthest Frontier’s measure of how, um, desirable an area is to live in for your people. Shelters that are built in highly desirable areas are more likely to upgrade to higher tiers, which has the benefit of not only housing more villagers but also generating tax revenue.
(Un)Desirable Buildings
Many buildings in Farthest Frontier impact the desirability of an area. Smokehouses may preserve raw meats to aid in delaying spoilage, but living downwind of all that smoke does not make for ideal housing. Likewise, treating hides into leather for coats is a messy business. And let’s not get started on the Compost Yard’s…aura!
In contrast, some buildings make areas more desirable. Parks and shrines, gardens and shrubs beautify an area and make it more appealing for villagers to settle nearby.
Because of this, how you lay out your town will have important ramifications down the line.
Service Buildings
Beyond the features they provide for your town, many service buildings also have a substantial desirability bonus to the surrounding area. Every neighborhood will benefit from a bustling Market to deliver goods to homes and generate revenue for the settlement.
Similarly, a school near homes not only ensures future children grow up with a basic education, which increases productivity, but also improves the desirability of the area.
A Theater is a grand structure that is sure to make your settlement a jewel among the wilderness. It provides both entertainment and desirability in a massive area.
The benefits to desirability do not stack from duplicate structures, so no need to try creating the most educated house in the frontier by surrounding it with schools!
Decorations
There is a wide variety of decorations to place in your settlement, but they are more than just aesthetic accents!
Decorations offer more than just a pleasing aesthetic for the town. Proximity to decorations can have a significant impact on a home’s desirability.
It helps to plan ahead when building your neighborhoods to make room for future décor as these improvements not only beautify your village but also ensure rising desirability, which in turn leads to your shelters upgrading.
Production
On the other side of the coin are production buildings. While some are innocuous, such as a fletcher building, many generate noise and unwanted smells that make an area undesirable for your citizens. This does not mean villagers cannot live near them, but if you hope to upgrade your shelters to higher tiers, you will want to keep that under consideration when designing your town’s layout.
The only exceptions to this rule are wells and bakeries. These production buildings have a positive impact on desirability. Something about the smell of fresh bread and water not teeming with parasites has that effect on people I guess!
Abandonment
As homes upgrade, their standards of living increase. In addition to increased tax revenue, the goods they consume from the Market also generate additional gold income. This makes upgrading homes and maintaining their needs very appealing for your coffers.
If, for any reason, the desirability in an area decreases too drastically, it may no longer be suitable for the homes settled within it. These homes are then in danger of becoming abandoned.
Homes do not become abandoned immediately. You will have several months to rectify the problem. If you do not manage to address the issue though, the homes will become unlivable and the villagers inside will move elsewhere (if possible). If no other shelters are available, this could prove deadly in the winter months.
A home abandoned for a long period of time becomes condemned and will eventually collapse. If desirability is restored before this occurs though, the Shelter will once again be inhabitable.
Starting shelters have no desirability requirements and will never become abandoned, so if your goal is to create the most undesirable and miserable place to live, you still can!
Happy Little Villagers
Speaking of misery, your people’s happiness is an important measure of success. Happy villagers are more productive, more eager to fight for their home and more willing to settle down and have a family. A happy settlement is also more likely to attract immigrants.
Demoralized villagers not only work slower, but they have a chance of giving up altogether and deserting the settlement. This can be costly if a soldier decides to leave along with all of their expensive gear, so be sure to look out for your town’s needs!
And there it is, many of Farthest Frontier’s systems laid bare for you ahead of our Early Access debut! There’s still more to uncover and experience for yourselves when the game releases on August 9th! We are beyond excited for all of you to join us on this journey and we can’t wait to see where we go from here!
If you absolutely cannot wait, the Game Guide has a wealth of information not covered in our Journey Logs. We also have a growing number of streamers and Youtubers that are offering previews.
Be sure to stop by Steam and wishlist the game so you’ll be notified as soon as it becomes available!
We’ll see you on the frontier!