There are five distinct phases of the game, in terms of HQ growth. As a new player, getting to HQ level 6 gets you started, and earns you basic privileges such as being able to use chat features, and see the leaderboard.
This guide focuses on the next major milestone, which is to get to HQ level 16 where you gain the use of the pit to mine rare earth. Along the way, you get gear and chips, unlock the ruins, and getting your gear factory to level 16 allows you to equip modules. In addition, you don’t get to gather or use steel until HQ level 10, and gas until HQ level 15.
This is also a good guide for getting your farm up to HQ level 15 so that it can fly to the same state as your main character.
Tip: If you are making a farm, just ignore all of the Story Chapters.
Later, you need to get to HQ level 20 in order to participate in most events, and then HQ level 26 in order to get cubes (Gear Factory level 25) and train T9 troops. These will be covered in the next guide.
The final growth phase is to get to HQ level 30, and start producing T10 troops.
This guide assumes that you are starting at HQ level 6, and have completed story chapter 4 as well as puzzle (campaign) chapter 5. If not, please start here.
The other thing we will cover in this guide are the game mechanics around various buildings, the Ruins, the Pit, heroes, Nova skills, and most of the power-ups.
Status Check
This is a much longer sprint than the previous one, so before we move forward, let’s do a quick status check.
- If you haven’t built a Vehicle Depot yet, go build one. It goes just below your shooter camp, between your Fighter Camp and Rider Camp.
- You should have 2 Infirmaries and 2 Boot Camps.
- You should have an Alliance Hall, Hall of War, and Trap Factory. If not, go ahead and build them.
As you progress past HQ level 6, the process becomes less guided.
The path we will follow is to complete the story chapters. At the end of story chapter 10, nova is healed, and you can start researching Nova tech. You can beat story chapter 10 as early as HQ level 10, but you will need to significantly level up your heroes. Realistically, you’ll be at HQ level 14 or 15 when you beat it.
Once you get to HQ level 13, things might start to get a little bit difficult. If you are in an active alliance with lots of lairs, you will have no problem with resources and antiserum. However, if you are out on your own, or stuck in a dead alliance, you will need to hunt zombies or other players in order to obtain resources.
The two biggest grinds in this sprint are 14 to 15 and 15 to 16.
I’ve done the sprint to 15 many times, and I can do it without buying resources nor speedups in about a week. Although I watched someone sprint their farm up to level 15 in one day, this required spending $$$.
Do’s and Don’ts
Wait to specialize until you are above HQ 20.
A lot of people say you should specialize in one troop type – fighter, rider, or shooter.
The better strategy at this point in the game is to just upgrade whatever you can, wherever you can, and build troops equally among the 4 types (shooter, rider, fighter, vehicles).
In order to get from HQ 13 to 14, one of the dependencies is to get your shooter camp to level 13. As you equip and upgrade gear and chips, do shooters first. That way, when you get to HQ 13 with shooter camp 13, you can build a decent march without having to invest in fighter / rider camps.
When you get to around HQ level 20, you will start to have a decent collection of heroes, a decent march size, and can start to focus on a specialty. If you do it early, you could hinder your own development. For example, if you decide to specialize in riders early, you might end up with a good collection of fighter heroes, but weak rider heroes.
Upgrade your top 5 heroes as evenly as possible
You will need five really strong heroes to beat story mission 10. As you get new heroes, prioritize 5* and 4* heroes, and get them upgraded until they are in your top 5.
There are 4 ways to improve your heroes:
- Upgrade: Use antiserum to improve ATK, DEF, and HP. This makes your heroes more powerful, and helps in two ways:
- During puzzle campaigns, stronger heroes can beat stronger foes and harder levels
- Stronger heroes can be used to attack stronger zombies, lairs, and other foes, which means better hero frags, and more antiserum and resources
- Evolve: Heroes can only be upgraded to specific levels unless you evolve them. Evolving requires certain types of books (Combat Manuals). Evolving also unlocks troop skills at specific levels.
| Hero Evolution Level | Combat Manuals Required |
|---|---|
| 10 to 11 | I (brown): 30 |
| 30 to 31 | I (brown): 30 II (green): 60 |
| 70 to 71 | I (brown): 30 II (green): 60 III (blue): 95 |
| 130 to 131 | I (brown): 30 II (green): 60 III (blue): 95 IV (purple): 120 |
| 210 to 211 | I (brown): 30 II (green): 60 III (blue): 95 IV (purple): 120 V (orange): 200 |
| 310 to 311 | I (brown): 30 II (green): 60 III (blue): 190 IV (purple): 240 V (orange): 400 |
| 350 to 351 (Max: 400) |
VII (red): 3,000 |
- Enhance: Once you have 10 “frags” (fragments) for a specific hero, you unlock that hero. From there, you can enhance that hero with more frags of the same hero. Enhancing boosts ATK, DEF, and HP, but also improves their Troop Skills, and most heroes can be enhanced to +5.
- Promote: A 5-star hero can normally be enhanced to +5. However, at level 310, enhanced to +5, a hero can be “promoted” using 2,000 yellow (Combat Manual VI) books, which allows it to be further enhanced to +8.
Yellow (Combat Manual VI) books can be obtained by beating puzzle Campaign Chapter 24, which unlocks “Hard” Campaign mode. Red (Combat Manual VII) books can be obtained by beating puzzle “Hard” Campaign Chapter 24, which unlocks “Master” mode.
The star level of each hero determines when their troop skills unlock, and how far they can be upgraded.
| Star Level | Tactical Skill | First Troop Skill | Second Troop Skill | Third Troop Skill | Max Upgrade Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 31 | 70 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 71 | 130 |
| 4 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 131 | 210 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 31 | 131 | 350* |
At first, just try to get all of your heroes up to level 30.
To complete story chapter 5, you must upgrade one of your heroes to level 31 – Look at all of your heroes’ troop skills to see which one you can use the most. For example, level 31 Chester +2 reduces your building steel cost by 20,000!
On a final note, 5-star heroes above 210 can use nanoweapons, once your gear factory is at or above level 20 and can produce them. Each 5-star hero has a specific signature nanoweapon, such as Requiem’s Ice Katana. Although any 5-star 211+ hero can use any nanoweapon, they each get extra boosts if they are assigned their signature weapon.
Don’t worry about unnecessary buildings and research – conserve resources
Although upgrading your camps (fighter, rider, shooter) allows you to build more powerful troops, you should focus on conserving resources until you get to HQ level 16. Certain upgrades are required, such as upgrading your vehicle depot to level 11 and your shooter camp to level 13, but upgrading your other camps can wait until later.
Although you are eventually required to upgrade your vehicle depot, just focus on making T1 vehicles (taxis). They are cheap and fast to produce, absorb a lot of damage, and have an excellent carrying capacity. Always send your taxis out first whenever you gather.
Don’t upgrade your resource buildings, nor build unnecessary resource buildings yet until you need them.
Likewise, don’t do any more research than you need to yet, as higher levels of research consume ever-increasing amounts of resources.
Once you get to HQ level 16, you can buy resources using rare earth from the Pit, and you can use them to build troops, back-fill your research and upgrade all the rest of your buildings.
Don’t bother building Traps yet
Building traps wastes resources, as traps have very little benefit. Once you get your trap factory high enough, you can build better traps, so this is one of the tasks you can perform later, as you start to even out.
Use Speedups Judiciously
You will need more speedups later, so don’t burn them on building, training, or research that only takes a few minutes.
Also, if you are in an active alliance, you’ll be able to get speedups more easily by doing lairs and through other activities. If you are on your own, or your alliance isn’t active, you’ll need to save your speedups for large builds.
Always ask for help, then wait a bit before you start using speedups. Each help from an alliance member reduces your build time by a few minutes, which means you could easily knock off half an hour or more.
Tip: Upgrading your Alliance Hall increases the number of “Help” attempts others can provide, and increases the effect of each “Help” received.
Never speed up your wall until after your other build dependencies are complete – this gives your wall more time to build at the regular speed, and reduces the number of speedups you require.
Protect Resources by Keeping Them in your Bag
Always try to use up resources that exceed your warehouse limit, so that you won’t lose resources if another player attacks you. You can check by clicking on Warehouse, then “Storage Details”.
Resources that are in your bag are always protected, so leave them in your bag until you need them.
Resource Boxes and Lesser Resource Boxes can be traded for food, wood, steel or gas, so use these last – save them for when you really need them. Here is a Resource Conversion Calculator, to help you figure out how much can be converted by using them.
Once your Headquarters reaches level 12, you will have access to the Mystery shop, where you can trade unprotected resources
Keep up with Wall Fortification
As you progress, make sure you assign your best heroes to your wall by clicking on Wall…Fortification Overview.
Avoid “Economy” (book) type heroes, and try to assign heroes whose Troop Skills include Troop-wide boosts. For example, Chae Seoyun at level 131 or higher provides troop-level boosts (all troop types) for HP, DEF, and ATK.
Set a recurring reminder to check your wall fortification – you should review it every week or every other week.
Make sure both build queues are always full
You have one build queue, but you can pay for a 2nd one with diamonds. For example, a 2-day queue is 250 diamonds.
Both queues should always be in use. If you are waiting on a large build like an HQ upgrade or Wall upgrade, read ahead and start working on dependencies for the next HQ level or Story mission.
If you need to fill a small time window, upgrade one of your Bootcamps, Infirmaries, or resource buildings (in that order), with the caveat not to burn resources unnecessarily.
If this is a farm, start saving Alliance Coins for an Immigration Flight
If you already know that you will be flying to another state, start saving up Alliance Coins NOW by giving helps and donating to alliance tech. That way, you can leave as soon as you hit HQ level 15.
An immigration flight costs 500,000 coins and can usually be found in the Alliance Shop under “Weekly Specials”.
Story Chapter 5
- Your headquarters needs to be at level 5, but should already be at 6.
- Build a Research Center, and upgrade it to level 3
- Research the following two techs:
- Under Military, March Speed I
- Under Military, Fighter HP I
- Go to the puzzle campaign, and grind for brown (Combat Manual I) and green (Combat Manual II) books until you have 30 brown and 60 green.
- If you are having difficulty beating the next puzzle campaign level, you can replay ones that you have already beaten until you get enough books.
- Once you have enough books and enough antiserum, evolve one of your heroes to level 31
- Train 1,000 troops and then go kill a level 5 zombie, which will unlock Chester.
Story Chapter 6 / HQ Level 7
- Your headquarters needs to be at level 6, but should already be at 6
- You should already have a Hall of War, but if not, go ahead and build it
- If you have not already done so, reclaim Construction Site 4 (glowing skull)
- Upgrade both Bootcamps to level 6
*tip: Always use the second build queue for 250 diamonds whenever you can - Clear (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 6. This one can be kind of a grind until you get some decent heroes, but focus on getting enough books to level up a second hero to 31 (also a requirement). If needed, hunt level 5 and 6 zombies or join lairs for antiserum.
- Continue to train troops, but also try to get extra Chester frags, as Chester will increase your training capacity. Once you have trained 2000 troops, go hunt a level 6 zombie.
While you are working on Story Chapter 6, work on the build dependencies for HQ level 7.
Dependencies:
- Shooter Camp, level 6 (Depends on Infirmary, level 6)
- Rider Camp, level 6 (Depends on Warehouse, level 6)
Upgrade your Infirmary and Warehouse first, then your Shooter Camp and Rider Camp.
Start your HQ level 7 upgrade.
From this point on, HQ upgrades will require your wall to be upgraded first – go ahead and start the Wall upgrade to level 7 since it takes a long time. While your wall is upgrading, you can work on the other build dependencies as well as Story Chapter 7.
HQ Level 8 / Gear
While you are working on story objectives, be sure to keep upgrading build dependencies for HQ 8.
- Wall, level 7
- Research Center, level 7
Also, depending on your situation, if you are in a hostile state, you need to keep using resources so that you don’t lose them when you get hit.
Once your wall and research center are upgraded, upgrade your HQ to level 8. You should still have plenty of resources in your bag for all of these upgrades.
Equip your Gear
As soon as your HQ gets to level 8, you will be able to equip gear for the first time.
The game will guide you through the process. There are two ways to improve your gear:
- Promote: The gear you start with are 2*. Promoting increases the “star” level, and makes each type more powerful. For example, you start with a 2* frying pan +1. If you promote this, the frying pan becomes a 3* Axe +1. If you are able to promote a piece of gear, a small green “up” arrow will appear next to it.
- Enhance: Just as you can “enhance” heroes, you can enhance gear. Each enhancement level boosts your stats, and enhancement is limited by the “star” level. For example, a 2* piece of gear can only be enhanced to +3.
Always promote first, then enhance. Until you reach HQ 20, just promote and enhance everything evenly.
Build two more Bootcamps and two more Infirmaries
Reclaim construction site 5, near your boot camps (southwest / lower-left corner) and build two more bootcamps, and two more infirmaries. You don’t have to upgrade them past level 4 each for now, which should be very fast, and nearly free.
This will add training capacity, which helps you get to the 4,000 troop goal needed for the story mission goal, and you’ll need troops to defeat the level 7 zombie. The infirmary capacity will help prevent your troops from being killed, in case you get attacked.
Each bootcamp upgrade adds 5 units to your training capacity – if you upgrade the two new bootcamps to level 4, you have increased your training capacity by 40.
Likewise, each infirmary level increases your infirmary cap by 500, so adding two more level 4 infirmaries increases your cap by 4,000.
Build a Gear Factory and Supply Depot
A level 6 gear factory is one of the dependencies. Build a gear factory near the Vehicle Depot and Mystery Shop.
Build a Supply Depot next to the Parade Ground (looks like a flagpole)
Upgrade your Alliance Hall
The level of your Alliance Hall determines the number of “Help” attempts that you can receive when you ask for help building or researching. It also increases the effect of each “Help” you receive.
If you are in an active alliance where you will receive helps, go ahead and upgrade your Alliance Hall to level 7 or 8, and keep upgrading it as you go. If not, then don’t waste the resources.
| Alliance Hall Level | Helps | Help Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 30 |
| 2 | 2 | 33 |
| 3 | 2 | 36 |
| 4 | 2 | 39 |
| 5 | 4 | 42 |
| 6 | 5 | 45 |
| 7 | 6 | 48 |
| 8 | 8 | 51 |
| 9 | 10 | 54 |
| 10 | 12 | 57 |
| 11 | 14 | 60 |
| 12 | 15 | 63 |
| 13 | 16 | 66 |
| 14 | 17 | 69 |
| 15 | 18 | 72 |
| 16 | 19 | 75 |
(Levels go up to 40)
Story Chapter 7
Once you have completed the upgrade to HQ8, you should be able to complete story chapter 7 fairly easily.
Here are the objectives:
- Build level 6 infirmary x2. You should already have at least two, with one at level 6. Just upgrade the other one.
- Defeat a zombie lair. This could get tricky, unless you are in an active alliance. You can join someone else’s rally, but just send 1 taxi. If you lead off, try a level 5 lair.
- Build level 6 virology lab x4. You should have at least 3, build a 4th if needed, and then get them all to level 6.
- Research March Queue I. This gives you a second march queue. However, to get there, you will need to upgrade your research center to level 7, and research one level each of:
- Military / Fighter HP I
- Military / Fighter ATK I
- Military / Fighter DEF I
- Military / Hunt March I
- Military / Vehicle ATK I
- Military / Rider ATK I
- Military / Shooter ATK I
- Military / March Queue I
- Upgrade 3 heroes to level 31. You should already have two at 31 or greater. Keep beating puzzle levels and hunting zombies to get books and antiserum. If needed, go back and replay lower puzzle levels that you have already beaten.
*Tip: If you have blitz tokens, you can use these to instantly beat levels you have already beaten by hitting the “Blitz” button. - Clear (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 7. You will need to up some of your stronger heroes. You should have 4* and possibly even 5* heroes by now. Make sure all of your top 5 are at level 30 or above in order to beat Ch 7-9.
- Train 4,000 units and hunt a level 7 zombie. With 4 bootcamps plus the boost from Chester, you should have a training capacity of around 240, and getting to 4,000 troops should only take a couple of rounds of training (full batch of each type).
As soon as you beat (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 7, this unlocks Ultimate Challenge, where you can beat levels to earn Gear / Chip enhancers and other rewards. Unlike other puzzle levels, this doesn’t cost you AP – you can try as many times as you want. However, each level gets harder, and eventually you will need to significantly level up your heroes in order to beat higher levels.
The levels in Ultimate are grouped by 10 – there is a reward for each level, but at levels ending in 5, you usually get diamonds, and then there is a major reward. This can be a good way to get diamonds and promoters that are otherwise harder to obtain. Ultimate is also one of your daily quests.
HQ Level 9 / Chips
Dependencies:
- Wall, level 8
- Gear Factory, level 8
While you are working through the story objectives, upgrade your Wall and Gear Factory to level 8.
Once you upgrade your Gear Factory to level 8, you will be able to equip Chips. The game will guide you through how to do this. There are 18 chips total, and the remaining ones can be purchased through the Ruins shop once you reach HQ level 10.
Just as with Gear, you can Promote and Enhance your chips. Promoting increases the star level, and enhancing increases the boost levels. Always promote before you enhance.
At this point, you should be able to start your upgrade to HQ level 9.
While you wait for your HQ to build, upgrade your Research Center to level 8, and do the following research:
- Development / Construction I (2 levels / 5)
- Development / Research Speed I (2 levels / 5)
- Development / Storage I (1 level / 5)
- Development / Troop Load I (1 level / 5)
- Development / Infirmary Cap I (1 level)
- Fortification / Wall DEF I (4 levels / 10)
- Military / Vehicle DEF I (1 level / 3)
- Military / Rider DEF I (1 level / 3)
- Military / Shooter DEF I (1 level / 3)
- Military / Troop Size I (1 level / 5)
If you are in a hostile state, do multiple levels of Storage I (ups the warehouse limit) and Infirmary Cap I (helps prevent your troops from being killed, but requires Research Center level 9).
Pay 250 diamonds for the extra build queue, and try to keep both build queues full. Keep upgrading your headquarters, even if you haven’t completed the story missions yet.
Tip: If you are waiting on a long build to finish, upgrade your resource buildings, boot camps, and infirmaries.
Also, build as many taxis (T1 Vehicle) as you can, so that you have a full march of taxis to send out gathering.
Don’t worry about raising your training camps (fighter / rider / shooter) above level 7 for now, which allows you to train T3 troops. Once you get to HQ16, you can train T6 troops, so don’t waste time on training more than you need to hit zombies and gather resources.
Build a Trading Post above the Hall of War, between the Gear Factory and Parade Ground. The trading post allows you to transport resources to other alliance members. The higher the Trading Post level, the fewer taxes you pay when transporting resources. For now, you should be able to upgrade it to at least level 3 without having to use speedups.
At this point, all of your major buildings should be built.
Story Chapter 8
Objectives (Easy Stuff):
- Reclaim construction site 5 (if you haven’t already)
- Upgrade HQ to level 8 (if you haven’t already)
- Hunt 5 zombies (if you haven’t already)
- Build Gear Factor (if you haven’t already)
- Challenge 5x in Arena. Just challenge someone at random. You won’t win, so it doesn’t matter who you challenge. You should already have 1 completed from story mission 4, so just complete 4 more.
Other Objectives:
- Upgrade 4 heroes to Level 31. You should already have 3.
- First, grind for books. Rather than replay (puzzle) Campaign chapter 7, it’s easier to beat 8-1, and then you can replay 8-1 as many times as you need to in order to get enough books.
- Get antiserum from lairs or zombies.
- Build Level 7 Bootcamp x3. You should already have two at Level 6, which you can now upgrade to level 7, and if you haven’t yet, build two more, then get one of those up to level 7.
- Total Units Reach 10,000. Keep building all 4 troop types, but build as many taxis as you can – T1 troops build two to three times faster than T2 / T3, and you can use a large taxi fleet later to gather. Also, T1 troops ONLY require food, which is the easiest resource to obtain.
- Clear (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 8. Keep hunting Zombies and doing Zombie lairs until you have your 4 main heroes (should now be at 31 or higher) up to at least level 35.
This is the point where you want to start focusing more on building than on beating story missions.
HQ Level 10 / Ruins
HQ Level 10 requires the following:
- Wall, level 9
- Warehouse, level 9
The wall only needs to go up 1 level, but your warehouse needs to go up 3. Consider using speedups for your warehouse as well as story objectives (bootcamps and infirmaries).
As you upgrade to HQ 10, you get a message that “Sheild will expire at Lv 10 Headquarters. You won’t be protected from attacks!”. As far as I can tell, this is meaningless. However, most states don’t allow HQ hits under level 10.
The Ruins
As your build completes, you will be introduced to the Ruins, where you earn Ruins Medals, that you can exchange in the Ruins Shop. Each day has a specific set of challenges:
| Day of Week | Ruins Challenge(s) |
|---|---|
| Mondays |
|
| Tuesdays |
|
| Wednesdays |
|
| Thursdays |
|
| Fridays |
|
| Saturdays |
|
| Sundays |
|
Each floor you defeat gives you ruins medals, plus you earn Ruins Medals daily based on how many floors you have previously beaten.
Ruins Medals are like coins for the Ruins Shop. There are two sections, and what you can buy in each section is based on the total number of floors you have beaten.
In the main “Normal Items” section, you can purchase Varvara frags, along with chips, chip enhancers, chip promoters, and a few other miscellaneous items. This is also a great place to purchase 60-minute speedups.
In the “1st Victory Items” section, there are various one-time purchase items, which are usually speedups or resources, but later on, includes Eve frags!
If you don’t have Varvara yet, you should definitely purchase 10 frags here to unlock her. Also, unlock Eve as soon as you can, and keep getting Eve frags as they become available.
Chips cost 100 ruins medals each, and there are 18 total chips that you can equip – 6 each of fighter / rider / shooter. Of those, the game gave you 1 fighter chip, which means you need:
- 5 fighter chips
- 6 shooter chips
- 6 rider chips
Although 1,700 ruins medals seems like a lot, you get ruins medals for all of the floors you’ve already beaten. For example, if you have already beaten 3 floors on Gear Challenge, you will get about 15 ruins medals every Wednesday. Try to get as many floors done for all of the challenges that you can, but it might take a couple of weeks to save up, in order to buy all of your chips.
Story Chapter 9
Objectives:
- Build level 8 Bootcamp x2. You should already have two at level 7 – upgrade them.
- Build level 8 Infirmary x2. You should already have two at level 6 – upgrade each of them twice.
- Hunt 5 zombies. (If you haven’t already)
- Defeat two Zombie Lairs. This is going to be really difficult unless you are in an active alliance. All you can really do is try to go from alliance to alliance until you find someone who is running lairs. You will need 3 total in order to beat Story Chapter 10, so keep that in mind.
- Enhance Gear 1x. By running lairs and hunting zombies, you should have enough material to promote and enhance your gear. Do so, if you haven’t already.
- Upgrade 5 heroes to level 31. Just as you did before, grind for books, then grind for antiserum.
- Clear (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 9.
- By now, you should have at least a couple of decent heroes – be sure to upgrade any 5* heroes first, then 4*, then the rest. The higher the star level, the stronger they are, and the more damage they can take.
- You’ll need 3 of your top 5 heroes at level 60, with the other two at level 55 or higher. If you have really strong 4* and 5* heroes, you might be able to beat 9-9 with all of your heroes at level 50.
- Chapter 9-4 is the hardest – once you pass it, the rest of the levels up to 9-9 should be about the same difficulty.
- Depending on your heroes, you might need to buff up just a little bit more to beat 9-9. As of this writing, the character I’m playing still only has 3* heroes, which made beating 9-4 very difficult. I had to get all of my top 5 up almost all the way up to 60.
- This is going to take a while – go on with HQ 11 through 13 while you build up your heroes.
- Total units reach 15,000. Keep training all three main troop types (Fighters / Shooters / Riders), and also train as many T1 Taxis as you can.
You might want to consider using speedups for the Bootcamps and Infirmaries so that your build queues are clear for larger buildings.
HQ Levels 11 – 13
At this point, you are probably still stuck on (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 9, which is one of the objectives for beating Story Chapter 9.
While you upgrade buildings, make sure you hunt zombies or run lairs in order to build your heroes up to level 60.
Also, build times will start getting longer, so be sure to read ahead. While you are upgrading your HQ to the next level, start on the next sets of dependencies. For example, while your HQ 11 is building, start upgrading your Vehicle Depot, Watchtower, Shooter Camp, Infirmary, Research Lab (Nova), and Gas Field.
HQ Level 11 dependencies are:
- Wall, level 10
- Infirmary, level 10
Start on your wall first, then upgrade your infirmary in stages. To beat story chapter 9, you have to upgrade two infirmaries to level 8, which is a good starting point.
Although each build is costing more resources, you should still have plenty in your bag at this point to complete HQ Level 11.
For HQ Level 12, the dependencies are:
- Wall, level 11
- Vehicle Depot, level 11
Again, start on the wall first while you upgrade the Vehicle Depot.
The upgrade to HQ Level 12 should still be within the resources you already have in your bag.
Although your Vehicle Depot is capable of making T4 Vehicles (“Wrangler”), stick to building T1 Taxis. These are cheap and fast to produce and heal. Stronger vehicles require significantly more resources with very little benefit.
At HQ Level 12, the Mystery Shop is unlocked, where you can trade resources for other types of resources or speedups. The Mystery Shop is a great way to stash resources if you need to. For example, if you exchange unprotected food for wood, the wood goes in to your bag where it’s protected.
For HQ Level 13, the dependencies are:
- Wall, level 12
- Watchtower, level 12 (Requires Farm, level 12)
Since the Watchtower depends on a farm, start your wall first, then upgrade your highest farm to level 12. Then, upgrade your Watchtower while you wait for your Wall to build.
Start your HQ Level 13 build.
By now, you should be close to being able to beat (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 9, in order to beat Story Chapter 9.
You are also probably starting to run low on resources, or speedups or both.
- The Ruins and the Arena are good places to get speedups. Even if you lose, you might get speedups as a reward for challenging someone in the arena, and then arena boxes also contain random speedups. Both the Ruins and Arena shops have speedups available.
- Do Radio Quizzes for resources, diamonds, and speedups. Every little bit counts!
- Do your daily quests, which gives you points toward “Supply Kit” (sometime’s called Fox’s Supply Kit, Ulrik’s Supply Kit, Barbie’s Supply Kit, or Ephraim’s Supply Kit). You can get food, wood, or lesser resource boxes there, and the Basic supply kit is free.
- Resource Boxes and Lesser Resource Boxes give you your choice of food, wood, steel, or gas. You can get these from Supply Kits, or various events. A “Resource” box gives the equivalent of 10 times that of a “Lesser” resource box in the following quantities:
| Resource | Lesser Resource Box | Resource Box |
|---|---|---|
| Food | 150k | 1.5m |
| Wood | 150k | 1.5m |
| Steel | 30k | 300k |
| Gas | 7,500 | 75k |
- When a red triangle appears in your Sanctuary, this indicates a Special Incident. These consist of quiz questions, puzzles, or attacking zombies, and you get a small reward which usually includes resources and speedups.
- Always check the Mystery Shop. Many of the deals within the Mystery shop allow you to trade upward. Here are fair exchange rates for resources:
| Trade Resource | For Resource | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food | Wood | Steel | Gas | |
| Food | – | 1:1 | 5:1 | 20:1 |
| Wood | 1:1 | – | 5:1 | 20:1 |
| Steel | 1:5 | 1:5 | – | 4:1 |
| Gas | 1:20 | 1:20 | 1:4 | – |
- Events and Holiday Events can be a great way to get resources as well. For example, you can get resources from “Ace Commander” events, and Lesser Resource Boxes from “Break Loose” events. Holiday events are often a treasure trove as well.
- Alliance Shop is a good place to buy speedups, but don’t buy anything from Alliance Shop until after you have saved up 500,000 coins and purchased an Immigration Flight (“ticket”). You should always be “flight-ready”.
- Noah’s Tavern sometimes gives you speedups. If you can, wait until you have 9 tokens, and use them all at once, as you get 10 recruitment attempts. Usually, you will get at least a couple of speedups. You get Noah tokens by beating (puzzle) Campaign levels.
- Pay diamonds. If you are missing resources, in most cases there is an “Upgrade Now” button that lets you use diamonds to perform the upgrade. Likewise, if something is in the process of upgrading and you don’t have any speedups, there is a “Build Now” button. I don’t recommend using diamonds unless you have no other option. Diamonds are hard to get, and you need them for things like shields and relocates.
- Congratulate. Each day after reset, you can congratulate the top-ranked player on the might leaderboard, and get a couple of speedups as a reward. Also, after Wasteland Conquest, you can go to the “Wasteland Conquest” building (orange building with an orange globe on top, south of the V-22 aircraft) and congratulate the iconic and foothold champions in order to get a couple of speedups.
HQ Level 14 / VIP Level
Dependencies:
- Wall, level 13
- Shooter Camp, level 13 (Requires Infirmary, level 13)
Start your Wall first. Then, get your Infirmary up to level 13 – you should already be at 10, which means you only need 3 upgrades. Finally, upgrade your Shooter Camp.
At this point, go ahead and start your HQ upgrade to Level 14.
Since your shooter camp is now at level 13, promote all of your shooters to T5. There is a yellow “up” arrow that will appear next to troop types that can be promoted. If you view your T1 shooters, for example, and click the “up” arrow, it will prompt you to promote a batch of them to T5.
T5 troops have a base might of 15, where T2 and T1 have a base might of 6 and 4 respectively. T5 are more than twice as powerful as a T2. This will help you hunt higher-level zombies and lairs, so that you can get better resources and more antiserum.
Keep trying to upgrade equally, but if you haven’t already, equip some shooter chips to give your shooter troops a boost.
Also, at this point, you should be looking at your VIP level. You get VIP points for logging in every day, and for certain events, and VIP level gives you extra capabilities. Here are some of the more important VIP milestones:
| VIP Level | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| 5 | Automatically use speedups. |
| 7 | Automatically occupy in the Pit (HQ Level 16+). |
| 8 | Extra March Queue. |
| 10 | Three talent sets / switch for free. |
You can also buy VIP points using diamonds, or in the alliance shop using alliance coins.
I recommend not buying VIP points unless you are really close to one of the levels above.
Each VIP level also gives you a slight boost in build speed, resource output, hunt march speed, or AP item usage limit. At VIP 9+, you also get Troop boosts and at VIP 11+, infirmary cap boosts.
HQ Level 15 / Marks of Glory / Immigration Flights
Dependencies:
- Wall, level 14
- Research Lab, level 14
Start your Wall first.
You can’t click on the Research Lab (not Research Center) to upgrade it, unless you have unlocked Nova. If you haven’t beaten Story Chapter 10 yet, click on your HQ, click on Upgrade, then click on Research Lab, then Upgrade.
[Edit, 1/6/2024] Here is a more detailed description of the “Nova Trick” with screen shots.
Once your Wall and Research Lab are upgraded, start your Headquarters 15 upgrade.
Once your HQ is at level 15, you unlock the following:
- Ability to build Gas Fields and gather Gas resources.
- Marks of Glory, which gives you additional troop (general), and specific troop type boosts.
- Ability to use Immigration Flights (“tickets”).
Go ahead and build one Gas Field near your other resources, and you should be able to upgrade it to level 3 or 4 instantly. You’ll need to get it to level 15 in order to upgrade your HQ to level 16, so keep upgrading while you work on other things.
Marks of Glory give you general troop boosts as well as specific troop type boosts. Different buildings give you different boosts. For example, adding Marks of Glory to your Shooter Camp gives you Shooter boosts.
Only your major buildings can receive Glory, and must be upgraded to at least level 15. At first, only your Headquarters will be eligible, but as you upgrade other buildings to level 15, they will be eligible as well.
Increasing your Glory Refinement also gives you general troop boosts. Glory refinement requires a minimum Glory level across the board. The first level (Glory Refinement level 1) requires 10 buildings at Level 5.
The other, major thing that unlocks at HQ 15 is the ability to use immigration flights to fly to another state. If you have two characters on the same account, this is the only way to have them in the same state. You only need one flight “ticket” for headquarters levels 15 through 20. Above 20, you need an increasing number of tickets.
Story Chapter 10 (Healing Nova)
Objectives:
- Upgrade HQ to level 10. This should already be complete.
- Defeat Zombie Lair 3x. If you are not in an active alliance, this can be a huge challenge. I was once stuck in a state where I was never able to run a lair, and therefore I wasn’t able to unlock Nova until I left the state. Your mileage may vary.
- Challenge 5x in Arena. This should already be complete from Story Chapter 8.
- Heal 10 wounded units. This should already be complete. If not, go hit a zombie and then heal.
- Upgrade 2 heroes to Lv. 71.
- Evolving from level 70 to 71 requires 95 blue (Combat Manual III) books, and the recurring theme in this game is that blue and purple books are the hardest to get.
- Get through the early levels of puzzle campaign 10, then use blitz tokens to replay the ones you have completed until you have enough books.
- Make sure you evolve 5* heroes first, then 4*, then the rest.
- Clear (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 10. You will need 3 heroes at level 70, and two that are level 90 or above.
- Total units reach 20,000. Make sure your bootcamps are upgraded, which will allow you to train faster. Also, hunt zombies for Chester frags – zombies between 5 and 10 may drop them. Each time you enhance Chester, you add to your training capacity.
| Chester | Training Cap |
|---|---|
| +0 | +100 |
| +1 | +150 |
| +2 | +200 |
| +3 | +300 |
| +4 | +400 |
| +5 | +500 |
Once you complete Story Chapter 10, you will unlock Nova using the final dose of virusine. You will get a brief cut scene, explaining about the Zenith Tech Hub.
Nova
Nova can research certain skills in order to give you military and economy boosts.
Upgrade Nova with Nova Exp. that you can obtain by hunting zombies, running lairs, or using the “Affinity” interaction attempt. Upgrading Nova to specific levels unlocks new abilities, such as new skills.
Use Nova Military or Economy Points to upgrade the respective types of skills. You can obtain Nova Points by hunting zombies, running lairs, or using the “Praise” interaction attempt.
- Under Military, upgrade “Troop Size” as high as you can. Then, focus on troop-specific skills such as “Fighter ATK”. Later, when you unlock Troop skills, focus on those.
- Under Economy, focus on “Build Speed” and “Research Speed”, and later, “Troop Load” and resource-specific gathering such as “Steel Gathering”.
When you visit Nova, you can interact with her, and there are three types of Interactions. The number of interaction attempts you can have per day is limited based on the level of the Research Lab, and upgrading the research lab grants more attempts. When you interact with Nova she will give you a gift based on the type of interaction:
| Interaction | Nova Gives You |
|---|---|
| Affinity | Nova Exp (random quantity) |
| Praise | Nova Points (random type and quantity) |
| Gift | Resources / Speedups (random) |
Unless you are really strapped for resources, use “Affinity” in order to more rapidly upgrade Nova. Ultimately, you want to reach Nova level 30 so that you can equip bioenhancers, and then level 50 in order to unlock the last two types of bioenhancers (nerves at 40, bones at 50).
Tip: If you are in an active alliance with larger players, you have probably been accumulating Nova Exp, Economy Points, and Military Points. Once you unlock Nova, go in to your bag under “Gadgets” to look for unused Points, and “Other” to look for unused Nova Exp.
HQ Level 16 / The Pit
- Wall, level 15
- Gas Field, level 15
Start your Wall first.
If you haven’t already built one, build a Gas Field, then upgrade it to level 15.
By now, you may be really strapped for resources. Look in your bag for “Lesser Resource Boxes” or “Resource Boxes” and use them if needed. Check to see which type of resource you are missing (usually wood or steel) and then use them in bulk.
If you don’t have any, you might be stuck for a while until you can gather.
Once they are both complete, upgrade your HQ to level 16.
The Pit
Once your HQ reaches level 16, you get access to the Pit, where you can mine Rare Earth, which can be traded for modules, module enhancers, module promoters, McCarty frags, and other miscellaneous items. However, you can also use Rare Earth to buy resources!
| Resource | Rare Earth | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| Food | 5,000 | 50,000 (10:1) |
| Wood | 5,000 | 50,000 (10:1) |
| Steel | 5,000 | 10,000 (2:1) |
| Gas | 5,000 | 2,500 (1:2) |
Considering that you can get 86,000 Rare Earth on level 1 of the Pit on a 6-hour gather, this far exceeds what you can do with 2 or 3 march queues and a few thousand troops. That’s 860,000 wood or food, 174,000 steel, or 43,000 gas!
Here is how the Pit works:
- There are 9 levels. To get to the next level, you must beat the previous one.
- To advance, you must “attack” the next level, but you can choose to enter any level that you have previously beaten. So if you attack and beat level 2, you can enter either level 1 or 2.
- When you first start, you must “attack” level 1, which is a guaranteed win. The levels beyond 1 get significantly harder.
- Each level is split in to pages called “sections”, and each section has several pits.
- Higher levels afford faster gathering rates, but there are fewer pits, which means more competition.
- If you have VIP level 7, you can use the purple search icon to automatically find a free pit. If not, you will have to look through each section until you find one that isn’t occupied (no flag above it).
- Once you find a free pit, dispatch your troops and heroes. The troops and heroes you use are like a copy of your real ones – they don’t affect your ability to hunt, attack, or gather outside of the pit.
- On levels above 1, you can attack other players in an occupied pit, and they can attack you. If you get attacked and lose, you will lose some portion of your Rare Earth. If you attack and win, you get to take a portion of the other player’s Rare Earth.
Use the Pit to buy resources that you need to use to level out. Then save up for McCarty.
Modules / Gear Factory level 16
Upgrade your Gear Factory to level 16 so that you can equip Modules, which are another form of power-up that gives you general and troop-specific boosts, similar to chips.
When your Gear Factory upgrade is complete, the game will walk you through equiping your first module. Purchase the other two modules in the Rare Earth shop, along with Module Enhancers and Module Promoters (similar to chips).
Upgrade one Camp to level 16
At camp level 16, you can train T6 troops.
It will take a while to level out, so start by upgrading one of your camps to 16. To find out which troop type to upgrade, click on your avatar to get to your profile, click on “Boost Info” at the bottom, then look at the “Troop Boosts” section. Compare Fighter, Shooter, and Rider boosts, to see which one is your strongest type (highest boosts).
Upgrade your strongest camp to level 16, then go back and promote all of your troops of that type to level 6. If you are still trying to beat Story Chapter 10, just train new troops instead, until you get to 20,000, and then promote. T6 troops have a base might of 20, and are much stronger than all of your lower troops.
Leveling Out
Congratulations! You made it to HQ level 16, and you healed Nova!
However, you’re still a long way from being done. Now is a good time to pause the headquarters upgrades, and focus on making sure you are strong and solid.
Note: Leveling out is completely optional, but takes about 2 weeks.
As you need resources, mine Rare Earth from the pit, and use the Rare Earth shop to buy them. This strategy works quite well, until you unlock 4 or 5 marches and build enough troops to fill them.
If you haven’t reclaimed all of the construction sites within your sanctuary, do so now – look for blue, glowing skulls.
If you haven’t already, the first thing you need to do is get your Gear Factory to level 16 so that you can equip modules.
Also, if you haven’t already, get one of your Camps (Fighter, Rider, Shooter) to level 16 so that you can produce T6 troops.
Infirmaries and Bootcamps
You should have at least 4 Infirmaries, and 4 Bootcamps. If not, build them now, and get them all to at least level 10.
Also, if Chester isn’t at least +2, try to get Chester frags by hunting level 5 through 10 zombies and lairs.
With Chester at +2 and 4 Bootcamps all at level 10, you should have a training cap (size) of at least 400.
The trick to building might is to build a large army, and the trick to building a large army is to raise your training cap as high as possible.
Likewise, Infirmaries protect your troops when they are wounded. If the number of wounded troops exceeds your Infirmary capacity, they will get killed, which is an expensive mistake to make.
Resource Buildings
If you haven’t already, build 4 of each type of resource building, and get them up to at least level 10.
- Farm
- Lumber Mill
- Steel Plant
- Gas Field
Build 6 Virology Labs and get them all up to at least level 10.
Build a Small Army
If you left off where Story Chapter 10 ends, you have at least 20,000 troops, and 2 or 3 march queues.
To hit as hard as possible, you need to fill a complete march with your strongest troop type, and you need to have 2 complete marches (for now).
Also, you should have as many T1 vehicles (“Taxis”) as possible – you should have at least 2 full marches for now, and later, you should have enough so that if your sanctuary gets hit, they will completely defend it.
- To find out which type of troops you need to be building, if you haven’t done so already, go to your profile (click on your avatar), then Boost Info at the bottom, and look at the “Troop Boosts” section.
- For now, you should be focusing on whichever troop type has the highest boosts (Fighter, Shooter, or Rider).
- Continue to build other troop types, because you are still growing, and gaining new Heroes. Everything you do right now could shift your boosts.
- Also in Boost Info, look at the “March Boosts” section. This gives you your Troop Size, and Rally Size, and March Limit.
- Troop Size is the number of troops you can send out together. You want to have 2 times this number of your strongest type. Certain heroes, such as Varvara can increase your Troop Size, but there is also research, Nova skills, and talents that can increase this as well. Ultimately, your Troop Size governs how hard you can hit a zombie, a lair, or another player, so you want this to be as high as possible.
- Rally Size is the total number of troops that can join you in a rally, or help you reinforce a building. Like Troop size, you want this to be as high as possible, and heroes, research, Nova skills, and talents can increase it.
- March Limit (or March Queues) is the number of simultaneous marches you can have. For example, if you have 2 March Queues and they are both out gathering, you won’t be able to join someone’s rally until one of your March Queues returns. There are up to five March Queues, and we will review them later. At HQ level 16, you can access up to 4 of them, but most likely you will have 2 or 3.
You should constantly be training troops. Your camps should never be idle. If you are out of resources, pull some from the pit.
As the size of your army grows, you will notice that when you autoselect troops, the behavior starts to change:
- Your strongest troop type will be listed first, down to your weakest troops that will be listed last.
- When you do something aggressive, such as hunting zombies, rallying a lair, or attacking another player’s sanctuary, your strongest troops and troop type will be selected first. Likewise, the game will try to pick heroes that match your troop type, or provide generic (all troop types) boosts.
- Eventually, when you have enough troops, the game will only select your strongest troop type. For example, if you have T6 Fighters, Shooters, and Riders, but Fighters are your strongest, the game will try to select only your T6 Fighters, ignoring T5 Fighters as well as Riders and Shooters completely.
- If you can’t fill a march yet with one troop type, the game will pick as many of your strongest troop type as possible, then try to fill the march by adding the next strongest, and so on.
- When you autoselect for gathering, the game will prioritize your weakest vehicles first (T1 Taxis), then other vehicles, then other troop types starting with your weakest troops. For example, it will start with T1 Taxis, then other Vehicles. If additional troops are needed, it would move on to T1 Fighters, Shooters, or Riders (whichever is weakest). Then it would move on to T2, etc.
To recap, your first “good” army should consist of:
- Two full marches of your strongest troop type that you use to hunt and attack
- Two full marches of T1 Vehicles or other T1 units that gather and protect your sanctuary
- A full march of the other troop types that you can use to back-fill your main marches as needed
If your sanctuary is attacked, or if you attack a lair or another player’s sanctuary, T1 vehicles are prioritized for damage. After that, other T1 troop types are prioritized, and if you have multiple troops at the same level, damage goes to fighters, then riders, then shooters.
As you progress, you should continue to build as many Taxis as you can:
- T1 troops, including Taxis, only cost food to train and heal
- Vehicles have the highest training capacity
- If someone hits your sanctuary, Taxis are prioritized first for damage
Upgrade All Major Buildings to Level 15
To increase the Glory Level (Marks of Glory) for a building, that building must be at construction level 15 or higher.
To increase your Glory Refinement level (troop boosts), you must get ALL 15 major buildings up to specific glory levels, which means that they first need to be upgraded to at least construction level 15:
| Building | Upgrade Benefit |
|---|---|
| Headquarters (Already at 16) |
Unlock new features, skills, and abilities |
| Wall (Already at 15) |
Defend your Sanctuary against attacks |
| Warehouse | Protects resources from being stolen from other players who attack your sanctuary |
| Watch Tower | Provide more information when scouting, or when being attacked |
| Research Center (NOT Nova) |
Unlocks more advanced research |
| Gear Factory | Unlocks new types of power-ups |
| Trading Post | Reduce taxes when transporting goods |
| Alliance Hall | When you request help, more people can help you, and each help attempt has more benefit |
| Hall of War | Increases Rally Size |
| Fighter Camp | Produce more powerful troops |
| Rider Camp | Produce more powerful troops |
| Shooter Camp | Produce more powerful troops |
| Vehicle Depot | Produce more powerful vehicles |
| Supply Depot | Provide more free supply drops |
| Trap Factory | Build stronger traps |
The first Glory Refinement level is available when all of your major buildings are at Glory Level 5.
Note: To upgrade your Hall of War, you need to use diamonds to buy Building Engineering (5 diamonds each) in increasing quantities. Hit the plus sign above the Upgrade button, and buy the appropriate quantity.
Get your Camps, Vehicle Depot, and Hall of War up to level 16
At level 16, your camps can produce T6 troops.
In order to even out, you need to get all of your troops (except T1) up to T6.
As you acquire new, more powerful heroes and then upgrade them, your troop-specific boosts are going to change. You don’t want to find yourself having only one troop type, and weak boosts for it.
Therefore, part of evening out includes training plenty of T6 troops of all three types (Fighter, Shooter, Rider), which means that you need all of your Camps (Fighter, Shooter, Rider) up to 16.
Technically, you don’t need to upgrade your Vehicle Depot if all you are going to produce are Taxis. However, part of evening out is making sure you have the ability to produce T6 Vehicles (Wolverines) or any of the lower Vehicles gives you options for situations like optimizing your gather, or where you need to optimize damage taken in a rally.
- Get all three camps (Fighter, Shooter, Rider) and Vehicle Depot up to level 16. Each one has a different dependency:
- Fighter Camp -> Boot Camp
- Shooter Camp -> Infirmary
- Rider Camp -> Warehouse
- Vehicle Depot
- Train a full T6 march of teach troop type except Vehicles, and two full T6 marches of your strongest troop type (for now).
Upgrading your Hall of War to level 16 gives you a rally size of 340,000, so be sure to upgrade it as high as you can for now.
Upgrade Gear, Chips, Mods
By now, you should have killed enough zombies and lairs to have upgraded your gear, but check your bag to make sure you haven’t missed any gear enhance / promote opportunities. Look for promote choice and enhance choice boxes.
Gear promoters / enhancers are the hardest to get. Look for events and special event shops.
As you upgrade your gear, don’t forget to upgrade your Gear Refinement level as well. Each level has special requirements that must be met, such as equipping all 4* gear.
By now, you should have beaten enough Ruins floors that you have a daily supply (or at least a weekly supply) of Ruins medals. Make sure you buy and equip all 18 chips, promote your chips up to 5*, and enhance all of them as high as possible by using Ruins Medals in the Ruins Shop. Also, be sure to upgrade your Chip Refinement level.
Use Rare Earth to buy any missing Modules, along with the material to Promote them up to 5*, and Enhance as high as possible. Also be sure to upgrade your Module Refinement level as you go.
There are 5 sets of modules that unlock as you upgrade your Gear Factory. The other sets unlock at levels 20, 22, 30, 33, so for now, you can only equip the first 3.
Some items have a daily limit. For example, the Rare Earth shop has a daily limit of 200 for Chip Promoters, so be sure to buy them when you can, even if you don’t need them immediately.
Do your Research
As you are doing other things, be sure to back-fill research that you have skipped, upgrade your Research Center, and perform all of your new research.
At each upgrade level, new research items are unlocked in the Research Center. And, some research items can only be researched 1 or 2 levels until the Research Center is upgraded to the next level.
Eventually, research takes as much resources as buildings, but make sure you get all of it done that you can.
You should have two March Queues already, but there are two more that can be unlocked with Research (3 total):
- Military / March Queue I
- Military / March Queue II (Research Center level 12)
- Military / March Queue III (Research Center level 20)
There are a maximum of 5 March Queues. You start with 1, you can get 3 more through research, and the 5th one unlocks at VIP level 8.
The other major areas of research that affect your marches are Troop Size and March Speed:
- Military / March Speed I
- Military / March Speed II (Research Center level 10)
- Military / March Speed III (Research Center level 27)
- Military / Troop Size I (Research Center level 8/9)
- Military / Troop Size II (Research Center level 18)
- Military / Troop Size III (Research Center level 23)
Hunt March increases your march speed when hunting zombies or lairs:
- Military / Hunt March I
- Military / Hunt March II (Research Center level 16)
- Military / Hunt March III (Research Center level 25)
Along the way, you will have to research at one level each of the various troop-specific ATK / DEF / HP, but try to get two or three of each. Again, at this point, try not to specialize, and to research everything evenly.
At Research Center level 16, you will be able to research all Military down to level 1 of Hunt March II.
Likewise, research all Development down to Troop Load II / Construction II. There are a few to be sure you focus on:
- Development / Upkeep Down I reduces the amount of food your dudes eat
- Development / Stamina Repln. I helps your stamina regenerate faster, so research as many levels of that as you can.
- Development / Miraculous Survival I reduces casualties
Under Economy, research at least one level of everything down to Gas Output I.
Under Fortification, research everything down to Trap HP II / Defender HP II. Although traps are pretty much useless, you need to research trap skills in order to progress down the tech tree. Defender ATK / DEF / HP, however, kick in when your sanctuary gets hit by another player, so you want these as high as possible.
Also at Research Center level 16, Unit Tactics unlocks. Be sure to do all of your T6 Unit Tactics research. Fighter / Shooter / Rider Revenge does additional enemy damage when one of your units dies.
Get your Heroes Up
By now, you should have beaten (puzzle) Campaign Chapter 10, and you should have two heroes above 70, which requires brown, green, and blue books (Combat Manuals I, II, and III respectively).
- You should have all of the 2* heroes by now. Get them all up to level 31 in order to unlock their 3rd Troop Skill – this only requires brown and green books, which are easy to get. You can replay lower Campaign levels which take up less AP if you need more books.
- You start with Amber, Queenie, and Maverick
- You should have Kento and Xavis by now. If not, you can get them in the Tavern.
- You should have all of the 3* heroes by now. Get them all up to level 71 in order to unlock their 3rd Troop Skill, but requires all three types of books.
- You start with Doc and Malcolm, and you get Barbie at the end of Campaign Ch 2.
- You get Chester when you beat a level 5 zombie
- If you don’t have them yet, the rest can be obtained in the Tavern: Noct, Bard, Marshall, Percival, Anahita, and Flint.
- 4* and 5* heroes 3rd Troop Skill unlocks at 131. You should have a few of each by now, but you will need purple (Combat Manual IV) books to go above 130, which you can obtain on (puzzle) Campaign Chapters 16 and above.
- 5* heroes can equip nanoweapons at level 211 or higher, which you can start crafting once your Gear Factory is up to level 20. Start preparing for this by getting all of your 5* heroes up as high as possible. To evolve past level 210, you will need orange (Combat Manual V) books, which you can start collecting at puzzle Campaign Chapter 20.
If you have a few decent heroes, it might be tempting to ignore the lower-level ones, but there are some nice benefits that you get by unlocking their Troop Skills:
| Hero | Troop Skills |
|---|---|
| Xavis | Reduced Construction Cost |
| Kento | Reduced Research Cost |
| Flint | Gathering Boosts |
| Anahita | Reduced Construction Costs |
| Marshall | Hunting Boosts |
| Chester | Increase Training Cap
Reduced Research Costs |
Get Heroes from the Pit and Ruins
Get these heroes:
- McCarty: [Rare Earth Shop] At 350,000 Rare Earth per frag, you will need at most 3,500,000 Rare Earth to unlock him. You can get him through Noah’s Tavern, but all 5* heroes are rare. In addition to being a very powerful hero, McCarty reduces your stam cost starting at level 31 when you unlock his 2nd troop skill.
- Varvara: [Ruins Shop] At 50 Ruins Medals per frag, she can be yours for 500 Ruins Medals. In addition to being a strong 4* hero, Varvara improves research speed, and at level 131, she improves troop size.
- Eve: [Ruins Shop] Eve Frags are available as a “First Victory” item once you beat 50 total floors. You get more frags at 100 floors, and every 100 after that. In arena, Eve is almost unbeatable, but she also improves Gathering Speed (level 1), Infirmary Healing Speed (level 31) and Troop Size (level 131).
It might take a while to save up for them, but all of them are worth it.
Start building Traps
Unlike Troops that have 12 levels (T1 to T12), traps have only 4 (T1 to T4). However, they come in 3 varieties – one for each of the three main troop types.
| Trap Level | Rider | Shooter | Fighter |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | Landmine Might: 2 Factory level: 1 |
Security Camera Might: 2 Factory level: 3 |
Barricade Might: 2 Factory level: 5 |
| T2 | Electric Mine Might: 3 Factory level: 7 |
Infrared Device Might: 3 Factory level: 9 |
Pitfall Might: 3 Factory level: 11 |
| T3 | Sonic Mine Might: 4 Factory level: 14 |
Mech Hound Might: 4 Factory level: 17 |
Electric Fence Might: 4 Factory Level: 20 |
| T4 | Proximity Mine Might: 5 Factory level: 23 |
Anti-sniper Detector Might: 5 Factory level: 26 |
Smart Barricade Might: 5 Factory Level: 29 |
Traps don’t have a great effect, so you shouldn’t make this your first priority. However, they do help a little bit, and sometimes, every little bit helps.
Check your Wall Fortification!
I’ve seen many new players make this mistake – they put Doc, Maverick, and Malcolm on their wall, and never touch it again.
As you acquire and level up new heroes, you need to continuously check and update which heroes are assigned to your wall.
Click on Wall…Fortification Overview, and then select the heroes you want on your wall.
Try to focus on heroes that provide troop-wide (generic) boosts, because these apply to ALL of the troops in your sanctuary, which will help defend it.
Conclusion
If you have followed this guide, you have completed the second major phase of development, and you should have a small but fairly solid T6 army at this point.
The next sprint is to get to HQ level 20, which gives you access to most events, such as Reservoir War, Alliance Clash, and Feast. And, you will get Bioenhancer power-ups, and the ability for your heroes to equip nanoweapons.
The final sprint is to get to HQ level 26, where you can begin training T9 troops, and seriously building your might. Along the way, you will pick up the ability to equip cubes and more modules, and HQ 26 is the minimum level allowed to enter Wasteland Conquest where you can earn Troop Chips.
The next Sprint guide will cover both of these.
Revision History
| Date | Author | Revision |
|---|---|---|
| 9/20/2023 | Zombie BBQ |
|
| 9/18/2023 | Zombie BBQ |
|
| 9/16/2023 | Zombie BBQ |
|
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