Greetings mayors, We realize that Kapital: Sparks of Revolution is a complex game, and it might be handy to have the basic mechanics described and at hand for reference. We have received a lot of feedback from our players already and we are working on improving the ingame tutorials as well (among many other things, such as bugfixes and improving game balance). In the meantime, we encourage anyone who runs into trouble while governing their city, to consult the following guide. Please bear in mind that this is just a description of mechanics and basic tips and tricks, by no means is it "the best strategy" - there is no such thing in the game, and we definitely look forward to hearing about your own approach to the game, please share in the comments or come chat to our Discord.

Kapital: Sparks of Revolution Quick Early Campaign Guide

Important info

This is a game about crisis. It is the games goal to scale the events in a way where the player faces the need to deal with some issue or other. It is very rare that you will be able to solve all of the problems at hand (mostly possible in the Normal difficulty campaign) and your goal is to clear your campaign objectives (quests) while ensuring enough stability to finish the Campaign or simply surviving as long as you can in Sandbox.

Early Campaign Techniques

We wanted to impart what the game tells you to control in order to build a successful city and production chains in the early campaign. All the sections of this guide are important for the overall gameplay as the players priorities are: solve hunger, then housing (migration), and then whatever else comes as you build up and scale your production and the city.

1. Food Production

Hunger and the Food economy The player needs to satisfy the hunger of the population. This is the key issue and the one that will have the largest impact on the happiness of the citizens and their willingness to give their maximum for production and the administrative work in the respective buildings. Our advice would be:

• Use the box piles and ruins that you can find at the start of the game as a cache of supplies for the first few days as you build up your food chain. But remember, your ability to stack resources is rather limited at the start, so dismantling more ruins than you need would cause a loss of precious materials
  
• The maximum priority for the player should be that grain/food isn't zero at the end of the daily work shift and that gold isn't zero at the beginning of the work shift. When they reach zero the problems begin to occur at almost exponential speed as these oversights stack up.
• Also, use the pause button in case you need to balance your budget and your buildings are costing you too much to keep running- this helps you to scale back if necessary.
  
• Have 2 working Sawmills as soon as possible- This will speed up the necessities and will allow you to upgrade the Railroad line 1 (as mentioned in Section 4, Broken Train) without having to scale up later as you need wood to ensure the smooth running of the railroad deliveries.
• Once you notice that the single Food Factory is unable to deliver enough food to the Peg Houses, Bistros etc. then it is time to scale up and build another, which is the rule of thumb for most such scale-ups in Kapital. One Peg House and one bistro counts for very little and it is important to scale-up as the population grows. Well working food production also brings in extra gold that the player needs for expansion.
• Try to maintain a healthy balance between the amount of grain going towards food and alcohol production with food production being much more important even when scaling the building of new factories in the early campaign.
• Innovations research gives you significant bonuses to the varied parts of the Food production chain- more wood produced at the sawmills, less breaking down of the sawmill, more grain carried and less need for train maintenance etc. Do not underestimate their usefulness in the Early campaign.

2. Flow of Immigration

Migration Act and Migration Service This is a very crucial piece of legislature alongside the Migration Service building. We would recommend signing it as the 2nd or 3rd Law during the campaign playthrough. It is the only tool in the game that allows you to control the influx of the immigrants, helping you to slow down or speed up the numbers you have to deal with as a player. Balanced use is key to success on higher difficulties.

• You can use the setting of the building to slow down the number of migrants coming in, however, remember that it takes time for the game to switch the setting and a larger number than expected may arrive before the setting
• Do not stifle the arrivals too much and experiment with what you think your city can take to ensure you just do not run out of people you need to run the buildings (especially after events such as epidemics, mass poisonings, mass shootings during riots etc.)
• The importance of this building for your control over the pace of growth of your city cannot be overstated.

3. Gold Economy

Gold It is essential to solve the starting gold issue as one of the earlier problems as it is connected to you being able to expand and scale-up in the mid and late game. In the beginning, you should be fine with gold from pubs and cabarets (as these are offering the biggest income from basic buildings) - but only if you have alcohol to keep them running. That is the reason why we would recommend approving Acts from the Economy branch as quickly as possible (with Migration, Medicine and Education Acts having preference over it). The final Act of the branch: Wholesale Trade can be left alone for the beginning of the campaign as it only allows you to earn gold on the Burse by selling firmly set packages of various goods which is helpful in situations where your economy needs a constant influx of extra cash and you have other, more important Acts that require your approval.

• Production and Administrative buildings- these cost gold to be run, the more upgraded the building is, the more gold you have to pour into it- make sure that the building is essential to you before you have to pay the costs for maintaining and running it.
• Marketplace- a very useful building for the beginning as it is able to plug holes in your economy rather efficiently
• Pharmacy- a useful building that both helps your populace in the matters of health but also earns a significant amount of gold. Make sure to diversify the allowed visitors (at the very least into Workers vs Noble and Burgeois groups) to satisfy both sides of the divide in this early economy.
  
• The Stalls and Boutiques- These are the most efficient building in terms of earning gold once your population is mostly served and happy in terms of food and a bit of alcohol that your economy can provide. If your food production is stable we recommend slowly scaling up the number of these commercial buildings based on your overall income.

4. Broken Train

Given how crucial the entire production chain of food is for the stability of the city it is necessary to work well with the Railroad tab and generally make sure that the train does not break down if the player has an option to repair it before the deterioration gets out of hand. It also pays off to have at least a few resources available for unforeseen events.

• Upgrade your train whenever possible
  
• Make sure to build and upgrade your warehouses to manage any unexpected train breakages as these require often unexpected amounts of wood that the player has to spend in order to maintain his flow of grain and the food production chain intact.

5. Warehouses

These allow the player to maintain some extra supplies over the starting limit and they become especially crucial when your city gets bigger and you will try to build more advanced buildings.

• Make sure to maintain at least 4 warehouses the moment you research them and have resources available for their building.
• It is useful to have two pairs with different resource type preference chosen in the buildings tab. Both Provision and Materials type are necessary for all the stages of the Campaign and Sandbox.

This guide helps to understand the games basics, but it might not provide the best strategy. We encourage you all to experiment and look for their own new strategies to achieve the best results.

[ 2022-05-02 15:40:40 CET ] [ Original post ]