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Kaiserpunkisn’t a game that lets you rest, even for a moment. From the moment you start a new game, you’ll be planning, organizing, and optimizing. Just because you have limited options at the beginning of the campaign doesn’t mean that you can’t make smart plays that will set the rest of your run up for success.
We’ve developed our favorite opening build order for Kaiserpunk over several games. The details might change slightly depending on which region of the world you’re in, but overall this build order will get you up and running quickly and efficiently.
Getting Started
As soon as the game begins,pause and take a look at the overal layout of the map.In particular, you should pay attention to:
Once you’ve gotten the lay of the land,place some Dirt Roads; nothing major, just an intersection connected to your town center that lets you expand in all four directions if you want.
Housing And Wood Production
When you’ve settled on a location, buildfour Laborer Houses, one Forester, and two Lumberyards either adjacent to or across the street from the Forester.Place a Depot within easy reach of the production buildings.
The extra housing will help you get to your first story objective, which isalmost always to reach a population of 120, and havingtwo Lumberyards instead of onewill speed up your production of Plywood, letting you expand faster.
While extra Laborers are waiting for jobs,have them salvage ruined buildings around the mapto build up your stockpiles.
Food Production
Now,unpause the gameand buildtwo Farms and a Grain Field.Ideally, they’ll all be within range of your existing Depot, but if you want to keep agriculture and industry separate and have two Depots that’s fine too, and can give you some useful options later; it will just be a bit more expensive.
On the other hand,moving buildings after the fact is free, so you can always just shuffle your placements around when the time comes.
You only technically need one Vegetable Farm to feed people at this stage, but building more than you need serves two purposes; itbuilds up a surplusthat you may use as trade stock later, and itspeeds up your Agriculture Development, letting you unlock the criticalFlour Mills and Bakeriesmuch quicker.
Needs And Luxuries
Your next step is toensure that your Laborer population’s Morale is as high as possibleso that they’ll continue paying their full share of taxes. While you’re waiting for your Agriculture Development to level up,build another Lumberyardto get even more Plywood, expanding your housing for additional Laborers as needed.
As soon as you unlockWindmills and Power Substations, which will be in the first few days,build at least one of each.Be sure that the Substations' coverage includes areas near the Forester and the Grain Field, as your next set of production buildingsneed access to electricity.
Bread
As soon as you unlock them,build a Flour Mill and two Bakeriesnext to the Grain Field. By this point, your population will likely be at the point where you’ll need the second bakery sooner rather than later anyway, so you may as well build it now and get the extra Development points.
Leave room for at least one Factorywithin range of both a Vegetable Farm and a Bakery; that way, it will be able to easily produce Food Rations when the time comes.
Newspapers
With three Lumberyards running, you’ll still have enough Wood being produced at your Forester to supply aCellulose Factory. In fact, by this point you’ll probably be able toupgrade your Forester and Lumberyardsto increase their outputs, which you should definitely do. When the Cellulose Factory is done,build a Paper Mill and at least two Printing Pressesnext door.
While you’re waiting for the next level of Utilities Development to come in, get a head start on your mining industry in the meantime bybuilding roads out to the nearest iron deposits and placing an Iron Mine with a Depot.Do the same with Coal if you can.
Fire Stations And Markets
Fire Stations are expensive for the early game, costing60 Plywood each, but now that you have electricity you should at least have one covering your residential areas, and maybe another near outlying mines. Fires will break out - it’s not a question of if, but of when - so you need to be prepared.
Another key building to add to your city now that the lights are on is aMarket.Even if you don’t need tobuy anything from the smuggler, having a Market will help youmeet other world leaders. As soon as you do,trade 20-50 Transport Development for Military Development in a 30-day deal.This will ensure that by the time you are ready to start expanding on the World Map you have access to ships, airplanes, and maybe even Light Infantry.
Clothes
Once you can build Water Pumps, find a nearby groundwater deposit and build one. You can now useWater Towersto supply your buildings. Build one to start production from a Cotton Field, either one that you build yourself or one that yourrepair from ruins and move to your city.
With the Cotton Field operational,make sure the area has electricity from a Substationand build a Weaver, thenas many Clothiers as you can reasonably afford.Keeping ahead of Clothing demand is one of Kaiserpunk’s endless tasks, and Clothiers don’t get an output upgrade for a while, so building three, four, or even five of them right off the bat isn’t an outlandish idea.
Build a fourth Lumberyard at this point, producing Lumber instead of Plywood, now if you haven’t already. If you need to build a second Forester to supply it, it could even be worth adding more Plywood Lumberyards as well.
Industry And Military
The final step of the early game isestablishing a basic military presence.If you haven’t already done so,build Iron and Coal Mines, then a Smelter or two to start producing Steel. As always, one is enough but two is better since you’ll need more later.
At this point, you’re going to start needingManufacturers.If you’ve leveled up your Agriculture Development to the point where you can buildRanches and Fisheries, great - if not,build extra Farms and Bakeries to speed up the process, and attempt to build Copper and Zinc Mines to supply a Smelter for Brass in the meantime.
Once you have Fisheries producing Fish and Ranches producing Meat,start building Manufacturer Houses.Four to six is a good starting number, butthey’ll take a while to fillsince your initial immigration rate for Manufacturers isonly one-third that of Laborers.
Supplying The Troops
Once you’re producingSteel, Brass, Lumber, and a surplus ofVegetables, Bread, and Cellulose, build at leasttwo Factories and one Munitions Factory. You may need to stagger them with your Manufacturer growth. One Factory should be near your Farms, and produce Food Rations, while the other should be near a Steel Smelter to produce Handguns. The Munitions Factory should be near either a Cellulose Factory or a Brass Smelter (or both, if you can swing it) to produce Ammunition.
Thanks to your Science Deal, you might even be able to produce Artillery and Tanks, but those will require Shells and Diesel to upkeep, not to mention extra Steel to produce. If it’s your first game, save those for after the Militia are deployed.
Deploying The Army
You now have everything you need to deploy a basic army comprised of Militia units.Build a Military Basenear any Depot (or place a new Depot near it). You’ll want a minimum ofthree Militiato handle the neutral armies surrounding your start region. Each unit takes50 Handguns to trainand requires2 Rations and 2 Ammunition per day.Once they’re in the field, you can begin expanding toward world conquest!
