Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier
The sequel to Sandlot's Virtual Villagers-esque hit sim Westward has finally arrived! Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier continues the old west drama with a whole new batch of improvements, including 3D visuals, new buildings to construct, more scenarios to complete, and a brand new sandbox mode. Keep your townspeople happy, fed, and busy gathering resources as you expand across the uncharted territory in search of the elusive Copperhead Gang.
For those of you unfamiliar with Westward (hi, both of you), it's a casual strategy game in a similar vein to Starcraft or Age of Empires. Unlock buildings and skills, recruit workers and fighters, and battle natural disasters and bad guys in the wild west. You elect to play as one of three heroes who have the same abilities but different bonuses. For instance, if you play as Marion Morrison you get free farm upgrades, as Maureen Fitzsimmons you get access to a bank you can use to raise taxes, and as Terence Stevens you can build a trading post to trade gold, food and wood.
Once you've set up a profile, selected a hero and completed the tutorial, the main adventure begins. You only have access to a few buildings at this stage — as you gain experience, you unlock new buildings, such as a windmill to make your farm more efficient. To complete the adventures you need to complete the quests you are given, simply talk to the characters with a big exclamation mark over their head. You don't have to accept the quest until you have enough gold, wood, experience or whatever is needed to complete it successfully.
If taking on the challenge of quest after quest isn't your cup of tea, you can exit the main game and play in Sandbox Open Range mode to get a feel for how the citizens behave, what makes them happy, and what the buildings do. Open Range starts with all buildings unlocked, so you only need pay to build them, not to unlock them. If you've already beaten the game and want a greater challenge, or you want the challenge without specific quests, try Sandbox Natural Disasters. Buildings are locked as normal, plus as you gain experience, the likelihood of an earthquake, fire, typhoon or bandit attack is steadily increased.
Analysis: As we would expect, the artwork in this game is gorgeous. You can now zoom in to walk amongst the townspeople, the happiness-boosting fountains and the flowers. Characters change clothes to fit their jobs, so you can sack a gold miner, make them mayor, and they'll dress up and walk around in a top hat collecting taxes. Interactively speaking, the designers have heard our complaints about the click and drag method of moving characters. The method still exists, but you can now right click to get the character to go where you want them to. There's also trophies — some are clearly labeled, like the ability to ranch three different kinds of animals at once, but there's also several hidden trophies. Personally, I've been enjoying spotting the pop culture references contained in the dialogue and building names — that's another game in itself.
On the down side, Westward II can be mighty slow going, especially if you're new to the series. You may like to intersperse gameplay with real-life housework or tinkering, although this could expose you to unexpected catastrophes. The right-click method of movement generally works extremely well, but I managed to get Marion Morrison stuck outside a mine. He isn't even surrounded by anything — characters can walk around him, but he won't move! And if the soundtrack gets stuck, you can end up having to listen to a character saying "That's a blue-chip idea!" over and over and over. These technical quibbles are pretty minor, though — Westward II is challenging, gorgeous, funny, and a bargain.
When you consider the amount of artistry, humor and depth of gameplay that has gone into the Westward games, I'm amazed that they're so cheap. Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier offers gameplay rich as blockbuster titles costing four times as much.
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Westward II is available to download from these affiliates:
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
Westward 2 walkthrough/strategy guide!
General Strategies and Tips
You can get a good overview of how your town is doing in the "Town" tab. Here you can monitor how much food and water you are using versus how much you have coming in. There is a lot of other useful information on this page as well.
Always make sure you have more food and water coming in than you do being used. If not your town will be in big trouble really fast.
Your Hero can not fall in combat. If he or she runs out of health they will get back up shortly ready to fight again. Keep this in mind during missions that where you would otherwise be using a lot of gunslingers.
Honey pots are a great way to get an additional food source that doesn't require any man power. Build 10 flower pots to unlock the beehive. You also need a general store to supply the honey to the town.
There are tons of resources scattered through out the different towns that you can use your hero to collect when they would otherwise be idle.
If a building is damaged due to bandits or tornados, repair it as fast as you can. It is always cheaper to repair a building than to build a new one.
If you can't repair a building faster than it is being damaged then demolish it. This way you will at least get back some of the resources used to build it.
As you progress through the game you will come to realise that there are specific buildings you need to have unlocked in order to progress any further. Because of this I suggest you try to save up some experience points, 30 at least, so that you will always have enough to unlock a building you might need in a pinch so you don't get stuck.
Building ten flower pots will not only give you 9 happiness points, after the 10 mark you get to build 3 beehives, which produce honey.
You can only hire 3 deputies and a Sheriff per Sheriff's office and 3 gunslingers per Saloon. If you build more Saloons, which are cheaper, you can hire more gun slingers to put at key places of the town or have with you. If you hire the mean Sheriff or gunslinger, the people get angry at you.
Since this game is not in auto save mode, save after you do something you are happy with. If something bad happens, you can go back and try again at the point you were happy about.
The healing boxes you can buy from the general store, VITAL. You can carry 10 at a time and I make sure I am stocked when using my hired help in gun battles. Saves me from having to go to another spot and rehire, losing important fight time.
Keeping bandits from attacking the town:Look around the edges of your town (this is not in all the towns BTW) and see if there is a gathering of bandits- they are usually near a road going off screen. Build several saloons and get as many gunslingers as you can and gather them near that part of the road, so they can outnumber any bandits that show up and have one collect the gold once in a while. You lose very little men (none if you heal them), and collect a bunch of little gold bags!
Quests
Food for Thought
Goals
Build a farm
Gather 22 units of food for Logan James
Rewards
Unlock the Grainary Building
Tips
First you will need to build a well, and then the farm. Once the farm is built, build a shack so there will be someone to operate the farm.
Before you give away the 22 units of food, make sure you will have some extra food afterwards so that your town doesn't starve.
A Golden Oppertunity
Goals
Give Freemont Auren 100 gold
Rewards
Unlock the Log Cabin Building
Tips
Simply give him the gold. You should still have plenty at this point.
My Mine
Goals
Give Evan 100 units of wood
Find the secret mine
Rewards
Discover the secret mine, and gain access to Evan's lumber shack
Tips
Evan will stick around in your town after you give him the 100 wood, so make sure you have enough wood ontop of that 100 to build him a house.
Hope River Refugees
Goals
Gather 50 food, and give it to the refugees
Rewards
15 EXP
Tips
Make sure you have enough food after giving away the 50 to support your town so your villagers don't starve and leave.
Evans Dream Job
To get Evan whoever his name is to move into a house, have him build it himself. I just have him build a hovel and he is happy. He will only work on a ranch however, so if you have not unlocked it, don't bother trying or he will move away, and you need those experience points and the wood and money he offers to complete other quests down the road.
Bad Seed
Right away, build a wood hut. Put two people on wood cutting and one on farming. You need to collect as much wood as possible before Mr. Jasper takes your wood hut.
Build a couple of shacks. (NEVER build houses, because if Mr. Jasper takes that building, you're out -2 housing. Whereas if he takes a shack, it still counts as a whole building, you're only -1 housing, and they're cheaper to replace. Town Happiness doesn't matter on a Quest!) Put those new people on woodcutting first, or one on the farm if you need.
Build a saloon while you still have some of the initial gold and wood. Move a farmer or woodcutter to work the saloon. Hire a gunslinger. Move the bartender back to the farm. Demolish the saloon**.
Take the gunslinger and hero out to the west of the town. Confront the two bandits there. Collect the gold all around the area. At this point, you don't need the gunslinger again until the end of the quest... but they can always collect gold sacks, berries, wood stacks and crates, if you need a hand.
At this point, if you've got the resources, build a couple more shacks. Assign the people to the woodcutting, then the farm, then the gold as needed.
Build a lumber mill. Don't assign anyone to work it... you just need it in order to build the bridge.
Build a bridge across to the island to the south.
Collect all the crates, gold and wood from the island. This is good work for a hero or gunslinger.
By now, Mr. Jasper has started reclaiming your buildings. Hopefully, he started with shacks. But if he takes your farm, rebuild it right away. (You can stretch out food with the fruit and fish in the pond to the south of town.)
If Jasper hasn't taken any "valuable" buildings that need replacing (farm, well... in my experience he never takes the mine), and you've got a surplus, build a new gold mine on the vein to the west, and a second farm for insurance. You don't have to assign anyone to them yet. You can even build a second well for insurance if you've got the resources.
Now, fill one farm, and move everyone else onto gold mining. Put your hero onto the small veins. When he/she has drained those, put him onto panning for gold in the river.
When you get to 1200:
You'll talk to Jasper, and he'll go away mad. P.S. He's sending bandits.
A banker will appear and ask if you're ready to pay the 1200 to get the deeds. Say no. Instead, build a second saloon, hire a second gunslinger, and then demolish the saloon. Continue to collect gold.
Two new bandits will appear at the original mine. Use your three guns to dispatch them.
When you're back up to 1200, pay the banker.
Why not leave the saloon, you might ask.
Every time I tried this quest, it seemed that Jasper took a job or home that I couldn't replace quickly enough—and that person turned into a drunk right away. Drunks don't work and they just use up food! ...but, the only way to correct drunks is with a sheriff—which requires too much expense and time. Easier and cheaper to just rebuild the saloon later when you need it.
Outpost explination
Is usually called platform 9 3/4 (from harry potter strangely enough) or something like that and it is usually along a dirt path (wagon tracks) that spans all the way across your area of land from east to west or whatever. It is just a run down square of wood and when you click on it if you have enough resources you can make it into a wagon station. I think the first time you come across it there will be a person and if you walk one of your characters near he will ! and explain. If you have the resources to build the station a picture will appear of it when you click on the platform. It is NOT something you build from the build menu, I think that is why people have been confused. And then once you have the station it will have 3 options, for mining, lumber, and food. You can choose to do whichever you want first and it will take you to a seperate place where you will need to build another small town (6-8 people is usually enough to get things going) and more tasks like build 3 farms or build three wood shed and a lumber mill etc. The task for find an alternate source of food or alternate source of lumber etc. is completed once you have finished all of the tasks because the alternate source IS the place you have just created. The idea of it is that the new place you have just set up is on your wagon trail and once you get back to your original location you can choose the station and choose what to import from your outposts. Its kind of a dumb feature of the game and you get to do it in sandbox mode also which is a little annoying.
Outpost Quest - Mining Settlement
You need three gold mines. Two large veins are easy to find and access -- but the third, you'll have to work harder for.
You have three choices:
1. Build a bridge across the river to the east (which means building a wood hut, so you can build the lumber mill, so you can build the bridge)
2. Blow up the rock-covered vein on the island to the north (which means building a general store so you can get dynamite)
3. Confront the bandits to the northwest (which means building a saloon and saving up the gold to hire a gunslinger)
I went with #1, simply because I needed the wood hut anyway and it seemed like the easiest option.
Also, it's not enough to build the mines -- afterward, you then have to save up some gold too. So plan to build a couple of shacks for workers.
I didn't bother with a farm; I just let the hero collect food from the ground as needed.
Outpost Quest - Food Settlement
I played this several times, and the least frustrating path to success was to basically not build anything or bring in any people until I absolutely had to. Every time, I had both a famine and a fire, which drained resources and set me back. What finally worked the best was this:
1. Send your hero around to gather as much wood and gold from the ground as possible. I got to well over 500 each just from roaming around. Have him feed from berries and apple baskets as he goes around -- but only as much as needed to keep from going hungry. Do not just pick up every food source you see, if you do not have the storage for it. You might need it later.
2. Build two shacks. Have the new citizens build a well and a wood hut. Put them to work in the wood hut.
3. Meanwhile, have your hero collect gold from small veins and the river, and food as needed. Once you've exhausted the small veins, it's super-easy to drop hero into the lake and just let him switch back and forth from panning to fishing as needed.
4. Don't build ranches; only build farms, which are cheaper. You don't need to have anyone working on the farms for them to qualify for the Quest. Keep your citizens on the wood hut as long as you can.
5. After the farms, build the granaries.
There are two more parts of the Quest still to come after the 3 farms / 2 granaries:
you have to rebuild the platform (140 gold and 140 wood),
and you have to collect 50 food. As soon as you complete the platform, move all your workers onto the farms.
The town that always seems to starve:
Boy was this tough until I figured it out! The farms and ranches need lots of WATER to thrive- build at least three water towers for each well, and make sure there is a water tower or well in the remote spots (where you get resources like wood and gold), so if there is a fire, you have water to put it out right next to the buildings. Check the water levels and if they go to the max, then add a water tower until the max amount of water stored is just below the max level. Your town should thrive then!
A Note on the Tornado Alley scenario:
It is almost impossible to make a big town here and maintain it. You will not be able to collect resources fast enough to make repairs, especially once you run out of wood. This is where the "minimal population" strategy worked well. Build a mine, a lumber shack, a farm, and a few houses. Put 1-2 workers at each and then be patient while you stockpile resources! Keep your population to 8 people. Use your people to repair things while your hero stands guard. When you can, build a trading post and a sheriff's office. Make sure you have enough lumber at all times to replace your trading post if need be (or save often!) so that you don't get stuck without access to wood. Don't build buildings RIGHT next to each other - a little space between will prevent fires from spreading and minimize the possibility of one tornado taking out EVERYTHING. Also make sure you have ample wells spread around for fighting fires and in case of drought. Build only small buildings for luxury if you need them (a gazebo or some flower pots make small targets for a tornado!). Use your townspeople to make repairs or build new wells, etc. Use deputies, your hero, and/or a bear to guard the gate (to the east) and build everything but your one wood shack inside the gated area. (If you keep your population small, you can complete the scenario without touching the two large gold deposits to the north and east of the compound.) Once you have about 1000 gold and 1000 wood saved up (or traded for), then go on a building spree and build as quickly as possible to meet the quest goals. It's a boring way to win, but it works!
Quest for a blacksmith:
PLEASE make sure you have the bank bought before you do this! I didn't and had no XP to get one, so I had to start back at a previous save.
The Four Wells
The solve for the well is that there are 4 wells to solve and not just 3. The gravel goes in the Sulfer well, the Net goes in the garbage well, and just be sure you don't put the same thing in either of the other two wells (they didn't hide anything next to the well it would fix) which gives you exactly what you need to fix those two.
To aquire sheep
you need to wait until the horse shows up in your town (this is at the final level). The hero says something like "he looks thirsty". Take the horse to the well, the horse will drink (although it looks more like it's just standing there) its owner will thank you, and then you will be lead to another task which will be explained below (it's called the animal roundup task)
Animal roundup
if you don't know how to get to that task read the spoiler above...once you get to that task, you need to get each animal (one of them looks like bigfoot) into seperate pins. Sometimes the gate doesn't close right away and they end up chasing you in and out of the pins, just make sure you go in the pin and out the oppisite way you came in. ALSO keep your people moving, otherwise they will shoot and kill the animal and you will have to go back and get it.
Cakey Makey
IMMEDIATLY create a ranch...employ both people at the ranch. Take your hero and have him create a wood hut and a cabin, and employ one person at the wood hut and the other person back at the ranch. Create as many graneries as possible and have your hero roam around looking for food. Also don't bother buidling a mine, just get money from the small mines that anyone can get money out of just drag them on top of the mine when your curser turns to a hand with a bag over it (just like it does when you pick up food) the person will start hacking at it. Just a tip the "mines" in the water produce more gold then the mines on land. Also have your hero fish AND BE SURE not to produce more food than you can hold because it's a waste. The MINUTE you get enough money buy another graniery. When the three new people arrive in town, only build a log cabin, and employ both at the ranch if the ranch still needs people, if not employ one at the wood shack. The person who has no home and no job will leave eventually, but it's expenesive to try to hold all of them. Make sure that you have your hero fish it's an excellent source of food...if i remember correctly eventually you need 55 sacks of food WHICH MEANS that you need at least 60 storage. Because it wont take you down to zero.
The Mad Russian Scramble
If you cannot let the game let you upgrade the platform in order to build train tracks needed to complete the level.
Have your hero walk to the platform, click on the hero and drag to the platform or click the hero and right click the platform. then try clicking on the platform to see if it gives you the option to upgrade.
Go along the sw corner of the circle of your town and make sure you have defeated all of the bandits down there, INCLUDING the watchtower guy. Get as close as you can and have your hero or someone else with a gun shoot at the tower until it collapses.
Go along the river in your town. On the north side of the river on a part of that side of town that you can't get to without crossing the river and then building a bridge there are 2 or 3 bandits next to a tent and maybe a crate or sack of gold or two. make sure you have defeated these bandits. You can try walking to the platform at this point and see if it will let you upgrade, if not:
(This part might not be necessary, it's just what I did and afterwards it let me upgrade my outpost.) Get some dynamite. There is a fence alongside where the train tracks would be in that area where the previously mentioned bandits were (the track that runs along where the platform is) Blow up the fence and then try walking your hero over to the platform.
This guide was put together using comments from: freemommy, Aurabella.ella, Lisa, SillyPoet, JJ, Rose, Pineapple, and Myself. Also a big thanks to everyone who helped out in the comments!
Posted by: Kero
|
June 21, 2008 1:19 AM