The Best Smoldering City Upgrades To Get In Against The Storm

Against the Storm is a roguelite city builder in which you’re tasked with making successful settlements in a rain-soaked world. Each settlement is a race between gaining Reputation from the satisfaction of your villagers before the Queen’s Impatience ends your attempt. In between settlements, you can buy upgrades at the Smoldering Citadel, where your roguelite permanent upgrades are purchased.

The skill tree is made up of distinct branches representing different buildings in the Smoldering Citadel, each giving unique upgrades. Though they all have valuable boons, some of them edge out the others as simply better. While you might get them all eventually, it’s better to focus on the ones that help you the most, so here are all the Smoldering City upgrades, ranked.

7 Dim Square

Perfect For Trading

If your playstyle revolves around making money through trading, you’ll want to upgrade the Dim Square early and often. Every rank makes traders arrive at your settlement faster, capping out at 33 percent at max level.

Almost all the Dim Square upgrades are strictly about trading or getting the most out of traders. These include giving you an extra active trade route, Amber and Provisions as necessary trading resources, better rates, or more options when buying from traders.

Why is it ranked so low then? It’s too hyper-specific, mostly just helping boost your trading ability and little else, which is fine but not vital. The other Smoldering City upgrades tend to either cover the spread of your needs or give you more directly useful boons.

You only need to unlock the first upgrade for the Dim Square to trade with other settlements.

6 Brass Forge

Improves Villater Efficiency

The Brass Forge generally improves the efficiency of your villagers and gives both your Mines and Hearths extra utility. Every level makes your production speed faster, maxing at 22 percent when the Brass Forge is fully upgraded.

While useful early for getting more use out of your Mines and upgrading Hearths to Neighborhood level, higher-level upgrades in this branch are only so-so or situationally advantageous. The Brass Forge favors both the Brass Order (unlocks their trade routes) and Beavers (unlocks their house upgrade and starting ability).

5 First Dawn Headquarters

Embarkation Bonuses Make Settlements Easier

Though the First Dawn Headquarters has a somewhat unreliable stat gain, boosting the chance for double yields (max 12 percent), it makes up for it by having a nice selection of Embarkation Bonuses. Early on, you can unlock the Embarkation Bonuses for Villagers, Meat, and Vegetables, guaranteeing a robust start for any settlement.

As indicated by their name, this upgrade is affiliated with the First Dawn Company and unlocks their trade routes when you progress far enough with it.

Farming (a reliable source of stuff) is well covered in the higher tier upgrades, as you unlock various farm buildings as Embarkation Bonuses, as well as an increase to the range of farm buildings. This makes sense since this branch also favors Humans (unlocks their Starting Ability and House Upgrade), the most farm-centric of the species.

4 Pioneer’s Gate

See More Settlement Options

The Pioneer’s Gate favors bolstering your options before you even start a settlement by giving you more options on the world map, first by letting you see more of it and then by letting you venture out one field further.

It also gives you Embarkation Points, the resource you use to purchase Embarkation Bonuses, and improves the amount you get from those bonuses. This branch also favors the enigmatic Foxes, granting them their Starting Ability and House Upgrade.

3 Obsidian Archive

Help Decrease The Queen’s Impatience

As a matter of course, your first few Citadel upgrades are going to be for the Obsidian Archive since it’s the only available one for your first few levels, and it unlocks some basic functions of the game like Deeds (in-game achievements that give bonus resources) and Consumption Control.

Even when other options start popping up, other game staples are still locked behind Obsidian Archive upgrades. Staples aside, the Obsidian Archive is still wise to invest in since every level decreases the Queen’s Impatience by two percent (max 30 percent). Also, this branch has upgrades that give you more Citadel Resources after a win.

Near the end of the branch, you unlock ranks for the Last Stand ability, which delays the game over by 30 seconds (max 90) even after the Queen’s Impatience is full.

The other gameplay staples are Rainpunk Engines, Blueprint Rerolls, Timed Orders, Daily Expeditions, and Training Mode.

2 Monastery Of The Vigilant

Lower Your Fuel Consumption

While running up the Queen’s Impatience is pretty much a game over, what’s far more likely to happen first is running low on fuel, and if you don’t deal with that quickly, the whole operation falls apart. That’s what makes the Monastery of the Vigilant such a great upgrade since every level it gains lowers your fuel consumption by two percent (max 24 percent). At higher levels, it even makes your Sacrificed fuel last longer.

This branch also gives you more choices for your Cornerstones, the game’s perks, and even an extra reroll for them. Fitting, then, that this branch favors the fire specialist Lizards, giving them their starting ability and House Upgrade.

1 Vanguard Spire

Housing Is Always Necessary

The Vanguard Spire isn’t as flashy as the upgrades ranked right below it, but let’s face it: everyone needs somewhere to live. So the fact that all Species-specific housing is unlocked in this branch means that it’s already worth the price of admission. Not only is housing a good need to match early on and a source of easy resolve, but its value never really falls off as you get more Villagers.

The Vanguard Spire favors the Harpies, giving them their Starting Ability and House Upgrade.

But past the first few ranks, the Vanguard Spire is still impressive since it gives you Delivery Line perks as Embarkation Bonuses for resources used in high-end Needs, namely Ale, Wine, Tea, and Training Gear. This allows you to build them up passively early on, saving you the hassle of amassing them yourself.

Even its stat upgrade giving all resource nodes extra charges per level (Max 24) is quite strong, making it so you don’t have to hunt into new Glades for new resource nodes as often.