Check out our strategy guide for Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier. Westward II is an expansive game with plenty of twists and turns to keep you occupied for days on end. This sequel is not quite as linear as the first Westward game, which certainly makes writing a walkthrough more challenging. Along with the normal operation of your town, you are presented with a series of mini-quests, side quests and puzzles to solve. The game can easily become overwhelming and frustrating at …
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Check out our strategy guide for Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier.
Westward II is an expansive game with plenty of twists and turns to keep you occupied for days on end. This sequel is not quite as linear as the first Westward game, which certainly makes writing a walkthrough more challenging.
Along with the normal operation of your town, you are presented with a series of mini-quests, side quests and puzzles to solve. The game can easily become overwhelming and frustrating at times, but I found that slowing down is the real key to success. When new characters appear and demand food, gold, wood or help, let them wait until you’re ready.
Take your time to build your town slowly and carefully. It is much harder to maintain the balance between your population and your available resources in Westward II than it was in the first game so careful planning is crucial.
With the addition of the "happiness" meter, keeping all of your townsfolk fed, housed and employed is imperative. Hungry, homeless or unemployed residents will become angry, lowering the happiness rating of the town and ultimately leave if their needs are not met.
GETTING STARTED
The first decision you have to make is which hero to play as. Each character has a different bonus they bring to the game.
Marion Morrison – Choose Marion to unlock the windmill and corn at no extra cost.
Maureen Fitzsimmons – Play as Maureen to unlock banks at no extra cost.
Terrance Stevens – Pick Terrance to get the trading post unlocked.
New players might want to select Marion, as the bonuses that character gives are the most useful early on in the game.
THE BUILDINGS
A wide variety of buildings are available for your town. Each building has a purpose and affects your town differently. A small shack provides housing for one person and a log cabin can be home for two people. A farm can grow wheat or corn and a ranch can be used for livestock. Many of the buildings can be upgraded as well, making them more useful and more versatile.
A small number of buildings are unlocked when you begin the game. Others can be unlocked in several ways. First, you earn experience as you play and those points can be used in the "store" to unlock different buildings. Others will be unlocked as you complete puzzles or meet new characters.
To see what each building does, hold the mouse over the icon in the building screen. The basic use of the building as well as the gold and wood requirements for building will be displayed.
Upgrades for your buildings can be purchased through the store. You can upgrade the farm to produce corn or pumpkins. The ranch can be upgraded to raise cattle or pigs. Explore the upgrades screen to see all of the available items.
Luxury buildings and objects can also be purchased through the store. These generally increase the overall happiness rating of a town. Buildings like the barber shop and items such as gazebos and fountains are all available in the luxury tab.
When starting out, build slowly! Every time you build a shack or log cabin, more people will come to live in your town. On one hand, you need to begin populating the town to have people working in the mines, farms and lumber mills. However, too many people early on can lead to disaster!
The more people you have in your town, the more food and other resources you will need. Try to keep the population to a minimum at first as disgruntled settlers will reduce the happiness rating and may leave the town if their needs are not met.
BASIC NEEDS AND RESOURCES
Your town needs resources to survive. Food, water, shelter, gold and wood are the primary resources in Westward II.
Food
Food is gained from three main sources. First and foremost are the farms that you will build. A farm functions the best when it is fully employed with 4 settlers. The basic farms grow wheat but can be upgraded to grow corn and pumpkins as well. Build granaries and windmills to store food and increase farm productivity.
Food can be gathered from the wilds as well. Though the supply is not endless, it can be enough to get through a dry spell. Berry bushes can be found scattered around the map as well as barrels of apples. Drag a settlers to a nearby stream or pond to fish when food supplies run out. (Note – you will see fish in the water in some places. Drag your settler to the edge of the water and right-click on the fish.) Try to save these limited resource food items for emergencies and droughts.
Ranches will be available once you’ve earned enough experience to purchase the plans from the store. Although they are more expensive to build than farms, they will produce more sustainable foods. Upgrades for the ranch buildings will allow you to maintain cattle or pigs instead of chickens.
Water
Water is necessary to sustain a farm and your population. Wells are cheap and offer 8 units of water. At the beginning of the game, it is useful to have one well for each farm. Later on, once the town is more established, water towers do the job with greater efficiency.
Fires may break out from time to time and destroy your buildings. Build wells in strategic locations near groups of cabins or shacks and other important buildings. In the event of a fire, drag your settlers onto the burning building and they will fetch pails of water from the wells to extinguish the flames and hopefully save the buildings from ruin.
If you complete the fire tutorial quest, your settlers will automatically put out the fires as long as you have water available in a nearby well. You can still drag additional settlers onto the fire to help if the firefighting efforts are taking too long.
Shelter
You need people to live and work in your town and those people need homes! Shacks are available right from the beginning and are cheap to build. Each shack only houses one person and they lower the happiness rating of the town, so don’t build more than you need. Shacks can be replaced later in the game by demolishing them and building better housing. Don’t forget to re-house the settler in the new home or they will become angry, quit their jobs, lower the happiness rating and possibly even leave town.
Soon after you begin your game, you will have the opportunity to get the plans for the log cabin. Complete the quest involving Fremont Auren and he will give you the plans. Build a log cabin to house two settlers. These buildings will not adversely affect the happiness rating of the town. Although they cost a bit more in resources than the shacks, they are the mainstay of settler housing.
Wood
This resource can be gained in various ways. Build a wood shack and employ up to three settlers. The wood hut has to be built near trees and when those trees have all been used, you will need to build another wood hut in another location. Lumber mills can be unlocked in the store later in the game. You will have to build a lumber mill eventually in order to build bridges and span the various rivers that cross through the maps.
Your hero (or any other character) can also harvest wood by having them hack away at the large logs lying on the ground. Simply drag a settler onto the log and they will begin chopping it up. This is a quick way to increase your wood resources if your loggers are moving slowly. Also, be sure to have your hero wander around the map and pick up all of the piles of wood that are lying around!
Let’s Begin
In any area of the game, you will have to have all of the main resources. Food, water, gold and wood. Your first goal should be to build a well and then employ at least one person at a farm, one person at a wood hut and one person at the mine. This will ensure that the resources are coming in as you use them for building. Have your hero collect the resources on the ground, but don’t collect the food unless you absolutely need to. Save it for emergencies.
To get people to move to your town, simply build housing. A shack will bring one person and a log cabin will bring two new residents. Employ the newcomers as soon as they arrive to maintain the town’s happiness rating as well as ensure enough food and resources for everyone. Building must be done slowly and with care.
The main issue with adding more settlers to your town will be the food supply. Building a granary will increase your food storage amount by ten. Building a windmill will increase the production of the farm, allowing you to grow more food faster. Upgrading the food that the farm grows can also help keep your town in good eats! Remember, a farm will be the most productive when fully staffed. Build additional granaries if you are growing more food than you can store and build additional farms if food is short. Keep in mind that farms use water so be sure to build extra wells or water towers as needed.
THE QUESTS
There are so many different quests and side quests that it would be nearly impossible to list them all here. Many of them come up randomly and depend on your choices as the game progresses. There are however a series of basic quests in the beginning of the game that are important to master to learn the techniques you’ll need to succeed.
Food For Thought
1) Build a farm
2) Deliver 22 units of food to Logan James
Talk to Logan James for your first quest. In exchange for 22 bushels (units) of food he will give you the plans to build the granary. You must build a well first to have water for the farm, then go ahead and build the farm. Add a shack nearby to have a settler move to your town and work on the farm. Once you have 22 units of food, give them to Logan and he’ll give you the plans for the granary.
My Mine
1) Give 100 gold to Evan Wilkins
2) Build a mine on the secret gold vein
Evan Wilkins is standing to the north of your town. Talk to him and give him 100 wood and he will show you a gold vein that you can mine. AFter the quest, he’ll stick around. Have him repair the wood hut and then you can put him to work harvesting wood. You will need to build a shack for him to live in or else he will refuse to work.
Golden Opportunity
1) Talk to Fremont Auren
2) Give Fremont 100 gold
3) Build a log cabin
Talk to Fremont Auren, who is standing by the sign at the entrance to your town. He needs 100 gold to help his sister with her debts and promises to give you the plans to the log cabin in exchange for the gold. Once you’ve build the cabin, Fremont and his sister will both return to the town to live (in that cabin) and work wherever you chose to employ them.
Hope River Refugees
1) Talk to Israel Creedy
2) Deliver 50 units of food to Israel for the refugees
This quest can take some time to complete. In order to have 50 units of food, you’ll more than likely need two farms and several granaries. You don’t want to give all of your food away and leave nothing for your town, so be sure you have enough storage for 60-70 units of food. Once you collect the extra food, talk to Israel and give it to him.
Keeping the Peace
1) Unlock the Sheriff’s office from the store
2) Build a Sheriff’s office
In order to build the Sheriff’s office, you’ll need to have 15 other buildings completed first. Take your time with this quest and build up your town slowly. When you can afford it, build the Sheriff’s office and hire a few guns. This will give you credit for completing the quest as well as prevent the Copperhead bandits from attacking the town.
There are a LOT more quests and mini quests to unlock throughout the game. Here are some tips and suggestions to help you along the way.
1) Anytime you buy from the "store" you are using wood, gold and experience points. Just buy the necessary items to keep you afloat.
2) Water makes the world go round so you want the well and the water tower to support your town, your farms and to help fight fires.
3) A farm requires 4 workers so make sure you have 4 there for full production. Each worker at the farm gives 2 to 3 food each harvest so use the granary and upgrade the food. Add a ranch as soon as you can.
4) If you need extra guns build a Saloon first and hire them for $100 each (cheaper and they don’t eat).
5) Remember the hero doesn’t die so let him shoot the bandits. He will revive himself and continue fighting.
6) Let the quests sit until your farms produce enough food with a little extra in storage. Leave the bushes and fish alone except when your people need it or in the event of a drought or famine.
7) Build the mines and have them staffed. You can also go around finding the little pockets of gold to help you build up your stores.
8) You can put a wood shack and staff it at each forest area. Build a lumber mill when you can, but continue to use wood shacks I found if you staff the lumber mill you don’t get as much wood. Your hero can also go around cutting fallen logs.
9) During the side quests that involve fighting off bandits, remember that your hero may die, but he or she will regenerate and get back up to fight again. If you lose all of your hired guns, you will fail the quest. Keep at least one hired gun out of harms way. Even if your hero dies repeatedly, eventually you will take care of the bandits and solve the quest.
10) This is not a game you can rush through at all. Take your time! There are a lot of little quests involved that help you gain experience.
11) You can reach areas and items in the rivers by walking into the water at the sloping bank spots. They look like little boat launch ramps and allow your characters to enter the stream. This is important during the "cow skull" mini and to access resources hidden in the waterways.
12) Make use of the many save slots for your game. If you’re going to try something risky, save your game first so you can go back if it doesn’t work out!
13) Hire gunslingers from the saloon instead of the Sheriff’s office. They only cost 100 gold. (They also do not need homes built for them nor do they eat!)
14) Make sure you hire a Sheriff once your town is up and running to keep bandits away.
15) For the mysterious honey quest, you need to build ten flower pots that have the word "bee" in them. That will unlock the beehives for you!
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