Resolve

Foxes with high Resolve

Overview

Resolve refers to the happiness of your Villagers and is affected by both positive and negative influences.

Positive influences can be:

• Meeting their Service Needs.
• Providing Complex Food options.
• Having Complex Housing.
• Fulfilling their Clothing Needs.
• Assigning workers to Buildings that provide Comfort.
• Encountering certain Positive Forest Mysteries during the Drizzle Season.

Other Positives:

• Assigning Villagers to Buildings with Rainpunk Engines enabled.
• Lowering Hostility
• Certain Perks and Cornerstones*
• Assigning a Villager from the Lizards clan to the Ancient Hearth.

Negative Influences can be:

• Starvation
• Consumption Control of available Foods / Services
• Homelessness
• Hostility
• Negative Forest Mysteries
• The Storm Season
• Certain Effects

Resolve is represented by a number between -50 and 50, which is calculated based on the base resolve of each species and the positive and negative effects that influence it. Once resolve falls below 1, your Villagers will begin to leave.

"Current Resolve" reflects the current resolve of a specific species, while "Future Resolve" is the sum of all effects and is subject to change over time based on influencing factors.

Resilience, Demand, Decadence, and Hunger Tolerance

Species	Base Resolve	Break Interval	Resilience	Demand	Decadence	Hunger Tolerance
Humans	15	02:00	Low	30	4	6
Beavers	10	02:00	Low	30	2	6
Lizards	5	01:40	High	15	7	12
Harpies	5	01:40	Low	15	3	4
Foxes	5	02:00	Low	15	5	3

Base Resolve

This is the base level of Resolve a species starts with in each settlement, before any modifiers.

Resilience

Resilience refers to how quickly the species' Resolve drops.

Lizards are the only species in the game with high Resilience, so the rest of the species drop Resolve 3 times faster than Lizards.

Demand

Demand refers to the level of Resolve needed to reach the Resolve Threshold and start generating Reputation.

Decadence

Decadence refers to the amount of points the Resolve Threshold will increase each time a Viceroy gains a Reputation point through Resolve from a specific species.

For example, Foxes have a Decadence of 5. The minimum Resolve needed to reach the Resolve Threshold will increase from base 15 to 20 once a Viceroy gains their first Reputation point through Resolve from their Foxes, and from 20 to 25 with the second point.

Hunger Tolerance

Your Villagers have a set amount of Hunger stacks they can get before dying. Each time a Villager misses a meal (they eat every break), they get a stack of Hunger. Once they hit the Hunger Tolerance threshold, you will get a notification that they are about to die from starvation. If they don't have anything to eat by the time of their next break, they will die.

Each stack of Hunger lowers Resolve by 4, so species other than Foxes usually leave before they die from starvation. All stacks of Hunger are cleared at once when Villagers eat.

Gaining Reputation Points through Resolve

Viceroys can earn Reputation points by raising Villagers' resolve to reach the "Reputation Threshold". Once a Villager's portrait turns blue, they will start generating Reputation. The more Villagers that reach the threshold, the more Reputation is gained.

The Reputation Threshold is indicated by a thin blue line on the resolve bar, as indicated on the right.

The rate of reputation generation per species is estimated by:

 * [(population of the species)*(current resolve of the species)]/1800 for humans and beavers
 * [(population of the species)*(current resolve of the species)]/1200 for lizards, harpies and foxes

Interpreting Species Panels

These are Species Panels. To expand one, click on the arrow (Number 11) when the panel is hidden. In your Game Settings, you can enable "Species Panel Open by Default" to always have the panels expanded when starting a settlement.

In this panel, you can see what gives your Villagers Resolve, and what is taking away their Resolve.

1. Basic Shelter, +3 Resolve per Villager (Bottom right)
2. Species Specific Shelter, +3 Resolve per Villager (Top left "6" means how many empty spaces are available)
3. Complex Food Need Fulfilled, in this case  Porridge. (Bottom Right, +4 Resolve to each Villager, Top left, 770 Units of Porridge remaining.)
4. Complex Food Need Fulfilled,  Biscuits in this case. (+5 Resolve per Villager, 773 Units remaining.)
5. Complex Food Need Fulfilled,  Pies in this case.(+5 Resolve per Villager, 767 units remaining.)
6. Clothing Need Fulfilled. (+5 Resolve per Villager, 768 units of  Coats remaining.)
7. Service Need Fulfilled.  Leisure in this case. (+8 Resolve per Villager, 755 units of  Ale remaining.)
8. Service Need Fulfilled.  Religion in this case. (+8 Resolve per Villager, 750 units of  Incense remaining.)
9. +4 Resolve per Villager from other sources. Hover over this image to see from which sources.
10. -4 Resolve per Villager from other sources. Hover over this image to see from which sources.
11. Expand or Close this panel.
12. Favor this species. +5 Resolve to each Villager of this species, -5 Per Villager to all other species. Only available with more than 1 species present in the settlement.

Leaving

When your Villager resolve drops below 1, they will start to leave. The speed at which they leave can depend on how low their Resolve is, as well as how high their Resilience is. The higher their Resilience, the slower they will leave.

As per user Jhazrun, their leave rate is:

• -5 resolve -> 1.5x leave rate
• -15 resolve -> 2x leave rate
• -25 resolve -> 3x leave rate

Species Resolve Data

For more information, please see Complex Needs

Resolve Data per Species

Species	Complex Foods						Clothing	Services
	Jerky	Porridge	Skewers	Biscuits	Pie	Pickled Goods	Coats	Leisure	Brawling	Religion	Education	Luxury	Treatment
Beavers				+5		+8	+5	+8			+10	+10
Foxes		+4	+5			+8			+8			+10	+10
Harpies	+4			+5	+5		+5				+10		+10
Humans		+4		+5	+5		+5	+8		+8
Lizards	+4		+5		+5	+8			+8	+8

Transposed:

Species		Beavers	Foxes	Harpies	Humans	Lizards
Complex Foods	Jerky			+4		+4
	Porridge		+4		+4
	Skewers		+5			+5
	Biscuits	+5		+5	+5
	Pie			+5	+5	+5
	Pickled Goods	+8	+8			+8
Clothing	Coats	+5		+5	+5
Services	Leisure	+8			+8
	Brawling		+8			+8
	Religion				+8	+8
	Education	+10		+10
	Luxury	+10	+10
	Treatment		+10	+10

Strategies

• Species' Resolve is a resource to be spent or conserved, just like goods. Just like it's useful to stockpile goods by limiting consumption, it's useful to stockpile improvements to Resolve. Enabling them all at once can yield a large enough improvement to a species' Resolve to bring them above their threshold, earning you Reputation. On the other hand, letting the bonuses happen whenever without controlling them can result in bonuses not overlapping and no Reputation earned.^[1]

• Similarly, there is no advantage gained by increasing a species's Resolve if it does not bring them over their Reputation threshold. For example, there is no difference if Harpies' Resolve is 2 or 12. It is wasteful to spend resources bringing Harpies' Resolve up to 12 without spending goods on another bonus to bring them up to or above 15 (their first threshold).^[1]

• Starting with Complex Food early is vital on some missions. Getting villagers sheltered, favored, and starting to eat Complex Food can earn viceroys early Reputation and Blueprints.

• Viceroys will often choose to favor the species with the lowest Reputation Threshold from the start of the game, thus getting an early start in Reputation generation.

• In mid to late game, viceroys will focus on raising the Resolve of the most populous species in their settlement. This is because the more individuals with high Resolve, the faster Reputation point generation is. While there is no difference in the amount of Reputation earned from a species, it is earned faster when the population is higher.

References

1. u/Frozenstep, who contributed to "A compilation of tips for new players," https://www.reddit.com/r/Against_the_Storm/comments/18fnvsr/a_compilation_of_tips_for_new_players/

Thanks to Discord users BeepBoop7335 and drillboyjenkins! Thank you to kushmaster_88283 who masterfully rewrote a lot of my clumsy explanations!