The ultimate goal for each cycle in Against the Storm is to reach the seal and, well, seal it. You seal the seal. It's basically the boss of each of your runs. I wasn't sure what to expect from this map so I decided to just dive right into it and give it a go, without reading up on any tips or spoilers beforehand. The way I like to do it.
What is a Seal in Against the Storm?
As I mentioned in the introduction the Seal is basically the ultimate goal of each cycle. A cycle is the length of each of your games. You start from scratch, with whatever upgrades you've managed to get along the way, each time you finish a cycle. When a cycle starts you have a certain amount of years to build settlements outwards from your main city. When you reach year 0 the cycle ends and the map will be wiped. You get to keep your meta-upgrade resources and all your meta-upgrades. This will make subsequent cycles easier.
The ultimate goal is to get to the Seal and Seal it. You'll need to collect Seal Fragments along the way. You get these simply from completing settlements, so they are gained passively along the way, for the most part. You can be lucky and find extra from random events around the map.
The map where the Seal is will be a harder map than you're used to, and this was very noticeable for me early on. The hostility modifier is higher, there's more hostility to be gained and a lot more negative effects on this map. You also have to complete some really tough quests on the map to be able to win.
My attempt at the Seal
As I said I was going in blind for this challenge. I quickly understood that this was going to be harder than I was used to. There were a lot more negative effects from the start as I was used to, and they were just ramping up as the game went on.
The game started out rather well. During the mid-game I felt like I was about to give up. The quests needed to complete the seal just seemed really out of reach. I then managed to make some good decisions and the game quickly turned around. Against what felt like all odds I was able to clutch the game and complete my first Seal on my first ever cycle. Even when messing up that cycle early on.
I did stream this game as well so feel free to check out the VOD down below. It has my full game along all of my frustration and roller coasters of emotions that came with this game.
https://youtube.com/live/BXBIEFjyx98?feature=share
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.