Rebuild cities are made up of up to 1000 buildings of 50 different types. Each type has different properties and functions, and holds different amounts of food and other supplies that you can scavenge. Some types are more likely than others to contain survivors.
Building Defense
Once it's been reclaimed, most buildings have a natural defense value of 0, which means it can repel 0 zombies before they might get through. Some perks and tech can increase this. Posting survivors on guard duty on or beside a building increases this defense. If more zombies mass beside a building than the building has defense, they may break through the walls during an attack and you'll either lose the building, or someone may die. Dying is bad--Hfijgo (talk) 04:57, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Useful Building Types
Apartment
Game Description: Home sweet home for 2 survivors, if they don't mind the 70's decor and olive-green appliances.
Bank
Game Description: Thick bank walls can hold out zombies for a long time.
It adds +10 defense, and +5 to the buildings surrounding it.
Big Farm
Game Description: Big farms produce 4.5 rations every day of healthy crops like chard and turnip.
Posting full-time farmers here increases the yield.
Big Suburbs
Game Description: Subdivisions were named after the thing that was destroyed to make room for it. "Pinewood Grove" has homes for 3 survivors.
Church
Game Description: Our churches are multi-faith spiritual centers. Now offering over two dozen afterlives to go to when you die.
Increases happiness when a leader preaches, which has increased effect on survivors with the devout perk.
City Hall
The glorious center of our new government. Civic pride.
This is the place your character and up to 3 other survivors can embark to rebuild a new city from once all victory conditions are met.
Farm
Game Description: Farms produce 3 rations a day and provide valuable vitamins you can't get from canned SPAM.
Farming here increases the yield.
Hospital
Game Description: Survivors heal faster in hospitals, either due to the placebo effect or because once in one you'll do anything to get out.
Having a hospital reduces negative random events and brings them to neutral outcomes.
Huge Farm
Game Description: Huge farms produce 6 food rations every day, and make quite an impressive corn maze in the autumn.
Laboratory
Game Description: Here our engineers can research everything from zombie behavior to how they used to get the caramel into all those Caramilk bars.
Laboratories in this game never cease to be useful, as the top-tier research is repeatable.
Motel
Game Description: I've heard bed bugs can survive for ages without food but I wonder just how long? 2 lucky survivors can live here and find out.
Police Station
Game Description: Police stations are the heart of our protection against the outside world.
They have +10 defense, and +5 to neighboring buildings.
Suburbs
Game Description: Cookie cutter houses for 2 survivors to live in, assuming you can tell them apart to know which one is yours.
Trailer Park
Game Description: This place looked like a disaster zone even before the disease hit. There's room for 2 survivors to live here.
Huge Park
Game Description: The pond's covered with scum now that the filtration stopped working, but the fish are fatter and happier than ever.
Survivors can cut trees to obtain materials or catch fish.
Warehouse
Game Description: You never know what you'll find here. Boxes of PVC pipes? A room filled with pillows? Or my best find: five tons of recalled dog food.
Adds 50 max food storage
Water Treatment Plant
Game Description: The city's running water is dependent on this plant. Important for health and happiness.
Provides a side-mission to return functionality, which eliminates some negative events from occurring.
Power Plant
Game Description: A small natural gas plant that might be simple enough for a few engineers to operate.
Provides a side-mission to return functionality, which eliminates some negative events from occurring.
Workshop
Game Description: A place to make things, fix things, and take things apart.
Pig Farm
Game Description: I haven't seen a pig in years, but chickens survived and like all birds they're immune to the disease. Produces 4.5 rations per day.
School
Game Description: Survivors can train here to increase their skills. It's faster and much safer than the usual way.
Bar
Game Description: Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Or settle for any place with alcohol left. Increases happiness when a leader bar tends here.
Park
Game Description: The squirrels, pigeons and rabbits have been multiplying like crazy. Good eating if you know how to trap them.
Survivors can cut trees in the park to obtain materials.
Field
Game Description: The deer are thriving in the city's green spaces. They may be faster than the zombies, but they can't outrun a hunter's bullet.
Fire Department
Game Description: Well I'm not on fire so it must be working. Eliminates a number of negative events.
Useless Building Types
Radio Station
Game Description: A tower like this could broadcast our message a hundred miles away. What should it be: easy listening, or golden oldies?
Disused Farm
Game Description: There's an antique biplane on this old farm, I wonder if we could get it flying again.
When a disused farm is reclaimed. There will be a quest to repair a biplane, find a pilot, and you can then leave the city. Up to 6 survivors (including the main character) can move to the next city using a plane instead of 4 survivors allows when leaving the city via a city hall. One seat will be for a pilot, one seat will be for your main character. The remaining 4 seats can be chosen freely by the player. There will be events that some survivors want to get onto the plane; some survivors even have an item. If you decline their offers, their happiness will drop, but if you allow them to get on a plane, they might take some seat when leaving the city, making some survivors you select not be able to get on the plane.
Mall, Mega Mall
Game Description: People used to spend hours aimlessly shuffling around these temples of commerce. Nothing's changed, eh?
An unclaimed mall (or mega mall) with resources can be scavanged to trigger an event as a prerequisite for obtaining a good ending of the game.
Allmart
Game Description: Everything you could want from guns to decorative candles. Gardening shears big enough to cut a head off? They got 'em.
8-12 mart
Game Description: A convenient place to buy smokes, junk food, and cola by the bucket. How did we ever survive?
When reclaimed, there is a chance for an event to obtain a cricket bat, which can be traded to Gustav as one of the prerequisite event for a good ending.
Xxor gas
Game Description: Cities ran out of fuel during the early days of the big panic, but you can still find cars with gas in their tanks.
McNoodles
Game Description: What was that jingle? "You deserve a break today, have some noodles made your way". Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
Office
Game Description: We used to spend our lives in offices, chained to desks, drinking cheap stale coffee to keep from falling into a boredom coma.
Graveyard
Game Description: The dead never crawled out of their graves like in the movies, but zombies do seem strangely drawn to this horrible place.
When a graveyard is reclaimed and something else is built on it, survivors in the building might be haunted and injured for a few days.
Rubble
Game Description: An ex-building. It probably burned down during the early days of panic and mayhem.
Parking Lot
Game Description: Other than siphoning fuel from the car's tanks, this parking lot is as useless as it is ugly.
Pawn Shop
Game Description: They've got enough used instruments here to start an orchestra. I call trombone!
Grocery
Game Description: I never appreciated how we used to get strawberries all year round from markets like this.
Drive-in
Game Description: I wonder if the new Batman is out yet? Oh wait... right. Increases happiness if we have electricity to run it.
Subway
Game Description: If you can stand the darkness, it's actually safer to travel underground these days. Zed don't seem to like it down there.
Bridge
Game Description: This is the only place zombies can cross the river. Or humans for that matter.
Dojo
Game Description: Karate skills aren't as useful post-apocalypse as you'd think. Going hand-to-hand with Zed is only for the desperate and mad.
Pharmacy
Game Description: Land-o-drugs. Also post office, photo services, consumer electronics, groceries, home & garden and so much more.
Office Tower
Game Description: Looks like a branch of Incredicorp, that old video game empire. I used to have all their games.
Restaurant
Game Description: Another one of those hipster eateries whose decor says greasy spoon, and prices say you're better off just eating your money.
Clothing Store
Game Description: Trashy, revealing clothing for your darling angel teenage daughter.
Games Store
Game Description: This store went out of business long before the zombies came. Replaced by digital markets, just like all the book and music stores.
Un-reclaimable types
These can't be made a part of your fort.
Hills
Game Description: The beginning of impassible mountains at the edge of the city. There's nothing out here, not even Zed.
Woods
Game Description: Impassible deep forest at the edge of the city. Few zombies come through here so we can safetly keep our backs to it.
River
Game Description: Zombies mill on the banks here but rarely enter the water. We can't reclaim the river but it makes a great natural barrier.
Ocean
Game Description: Zed can't swim, they just sort of bob helplessly in place. They can't dance either, but that doesn't come up as often.