'The game gets… weird': Frostpunk 2 player figures out that the apocalypse is easier without the annoying implications of fostering a democracy
Early on in Frostpunk 2, the narrator suggests that you should build a council to vote on and hopefully pass laws, and a research center in which you can research ideas affiliated with certain factions. This, predictably, opens up a whole can of worms, except for one brave player who decided that the apocalypse would be easier without any external input.
"If you never build the council and never make any research affiliated with either faction, radicals just never spawn," Master_Cricket_1265 explains. "Week 391, no radicals spawned yet." It turns out that preventing democracy from ever starting also means that there'll be no one around to try to take it all down.
I'm around 200 weeks into my journey leading New London in Frostpunk 2, and so far, everyone who hasn't turned into a meat popsicle hates me. There never seems to be enough fuel, food, or heating, and every time I try to appease a faction by passing a law, it'll only end up pissing off someone else—keeping up a happy and healthy democracy when we're all freezing to death at the end of the world isn't as easy as it sounds.
While life would certainly be easier without the bureaucratic headaches that the council provides, passing laws and conducting research is fairly important to progressing in Frostpunk 2. With that being said, Master_Cricket_1265's time in Frostpunk 2 hasn't been entirely straightforward because of this.
"The game gets… weird," Master_Cricket_1265 says. "The narrator (or what you call the voiceover) is very quiet, because he has no voicelines regarding the laws and actions you made, because you passed none, just the generic ones about frostbite. At some point, you just lose due to having no trust. The only tool for that is a communication hub, but the unresolved laws, such as no law for children and no law for outsiders, just constantly drains [trust]."
No council or faction-specific research also means you'll have to make do with just coal and pretty much all your buildings suck because you can't upgrade them. The cold will definitely hit your citizens harder, but on the bright side, there won't be increased amounts of disease and squalor.
But before you start a new autocratic save, it's important to note that you can only get away with not building a council if you're playing in Utopia mode. In the story mode, it forces you to build it rather quickly so you can hold the vote of no confidence, if you try to hold out, then you'll be met with a game over. Still, if you have a chance to try out the dictatorship setting in Frostpunk 2, I'd go for it, no one needs all the factions in the council telling you what to do and slowing you down.