Story Mode Survival Guide

Spoiler Alert!
for version 1.5.2
Note: English is not my native tongue. Feel free to correct my grammar.

Picking Your Main Character

Your main character can have a starting perk that determines starting bonuses.

• Hobo +scavenging, +5 housing space, starting equipment: Backpack
• College Student +engineering, schools and bars 25% more effective, starting equipment: Calculator
• Construction Worker +building and half material costs, starting equipment: Saw
• Gang Member +defense and no happiness loss from death/injury, starting equipment: Shotgun
• Politician +leadership and one extra survivor, starting equipment: Top Hat
• Shop Clerk +scavenging and +25% better trades, starting equipment: Crowbar
• Doctor +engineering and -1 day to injury recovery, starting equipment: Doctor's Bag
• Retiree +building and +10% happiness bonus, starting equipment: Hammer
• Police Officer +defense and +1 from all guns, starting equipment: Pistol
• Priest +leadership, church, more devout survivors, starting equipment: Megaphone
  

To start with, a great choice would be a Hobo. As you can see, it instantly gives you a +5 to housing space. Since the game has a random seed map generation feature , each city will be different (unless you entered the same seed with the same settings (unconfirmed). It would be a difficult scenario if you have no nearby apartments or suburbs to increase your maximum population capacity. In addition, reclaiming buildings at the early game is very time consuming since you only have 1 low level builder at that stage. Later on, you will learn why this is very important.

So why not choose Politician?

Yes, it immediately adds one extra survivor, but it does not add max population capacity. 1 immediate survivor will not equal the 5 immediate housing space especially when you can immediately recruit two survivors in just one mission. You can, however, gain the Politician perk (And other leader perks) by completing special quests in specific cities on the Campaign

First Things First

At the start of the game you will most likely have 1 builder, 1 scavenger, 1 main character and the others are soldiers. Please, do not immediately embark on missions. Read first the list below.

• Know your surroundings. Your first goal should be to reclaim the nearest farm lands to support your population. Find the shortest route for land reclamation in achieving this goal.
• Your main character's role. Yes, he/she can be a jack-of-all-trades, however the early game suggests that he/she should become strong as soon as possible. You may not see the peril for now, but as time goes you will notice the influx of zombie hordes that will soon surround your fort. In other words, start by leveling up his/her soldier skill by clearing zombies in the immediate area.
• Check your survivors' equipment. Before you go to your fist mission, check your weapons and items, and give them to whoever needs them the most. If you picked your main character as a Hobo, give your Backpack item to your scavenger since he/she will be needing it most of the time.
• Turn-based or not? I do not prefer going for a turn-based strategy for this game, since clicking the GO icon will always advance the game to one day. Using a turn-based game style will not optimize your survivor missions because they will mostly likely finish in fractions of a day, like finishing a zombie clearing in 1.8 days or finishing a reclamation in 3.5 days or so. Skilled scavengers can complete several missions a day, in real time. I prefer the real-time set to maximum game speed. You can just press the Spacebar to pause the game while give missions to your survivors.

Early Game

Define early game?
For me, it doesn't really mean the number of days. It is the stage when your number of farms is not yet enough to sustain your survivors, and you don't have the necessary buildings yet for a thriving colony. Therefore, your goal here is very clear... I just told you. You need to have enough farms, apartments or suburbs, at least one hospital, a school , a workshop, and a laboratory. If there's a fire station, water treatment plant, disused farm, or power generator, prioritize reclaiming it!

• Soldiers and Main Character. You should start sending them to zombie clearing missions to level up their skill and protect your fort. The very first land you should clear is towards the nearest farm, or towards the nearest group of farms. To maximize zombie clearing, stack them in pairs to increase mission speed. Two low level soldiers can clear a green danger building in one day, a single low level soldier can clear it in two days (See that difference!?). Another thing in maximizing zombie clearing, after you drag-and-dropped your soldier to the spot you want to clear, point your mouse to the Gun icon and you will see how many zombies it has and the danger level of that mission. Always appoint your strongest soldier or stacks of soldier to those with lots of zombies to maximize zombie killing. For better precision, click on the square you intend to clear and select the mission that way. You can see exactly how much each additional soldier affects the time and danger, and choose precisely the needed number of soldiers. And please, going on a mission with a yellow or red danger level (I'm not talking about the color of the land or buildings in the Info Overlay, I'm talking about the color of the small triangle with the skull) should only be your last resort if it comes to that point, which I doubt will never come if you follow this guide. Unless you want to dispose those survivors. If truly necessary, send your leader. They can't die.
• Scavengers. His/her first mission is not to scavenge food since you start with a full food resource. Send him/her to scavenge materials instead. Once your food resource dropped to at least 45, you may send them to scavenge food, or better yet, send them to areas which both have food and materials. This saves you a lot of time. Scavenging missions also finish faster if not done alone. If you badly need to finish scavenging asap due to some reasons, you may partner your scavenger with your main character. Another tip, you only need a maximum of two scavengers in early game or even at the whole game if you have good survivor management skills. And one last important thing, do not send them to scavenge food if you already are full of those resources, as it will just go to waste.
• Builders. If you have nothing to reclaim or build, scout!
• Engineers. Until you have a laboratory, they are pretty useless (unless they have the MacGyver perk). Use them to scout or change their jobs in a school. however, do save some for research
• Leaders. If there aren't any survivors to recruit, scout!
• Idle Survivors. There should be no idle survivors defending your fort even without the danger of a zombie horde in the vicinity. Use them to scout lands and buildings, put them to schools to increase their skills, put them to farms or fields if you need food, put them to rest if they need to, or put them to chop wood to gather materials. However, in the early game, idle survivors are more importantly used to scout, especially those unexplored areas.
• Scavenging/Zombie Killing Trick. You are still able to issue scavenging/clearing missions to unscouted areas (Although it's safer if scouted first, this can be used to save time). You may safely do so by checking the danger level after dropping your scavenger/soldiers into that unscouted land or building. If the danger sign is green, it's safe!
• Other factions (If added). As you scout further outwards of your fort, you will find other factions that have set up fort in the same city. these factions are usually not hostile when you first meet them. You can meet with other factions every few days or trade with them at where their caravan is located (Shown by a guy holding an apple (Exept Gustav's caravan, which would have his face instead). If you haven't built a city hall yet, visiting them will do almost nothing (sometime they activate or continue a special quest in the city). So for now, focus on building your fort first

• City Hall. After you reclaim plenty of buildings (exact number determined by city size), You can build a city hall. After it's built, you need to set the basics of your city's goverment, it's ideology, priorities, how it deals with crime, etc. every choice brings a different effect to your fort (like policies). When you're done, you can meet with other factions and start making friends (or enemies)

Mid Game

By now, you should have built a city hall, have a steady supply of food, and seen other faction's fort. this section will teach you how to deal with other factions and how to win the game by befriending or destroying all factions

• Missions. If you meet with other factions (assuming that faction hasn't given you a mission or the previous mission is completed), they will give you a mission. these mission range from giving them something, doing a quest, and other things, Completing these mission will increase the faction's respect to you (and sometimes, their strength). Rejecting them will cause the faction's respect to decrease.
• Trading. After you build a city hall, you can trade with factions in their fort, instead of their caravan. The rest is the same as normal trading
• Raiders and Soldiers. You may have seen people holding guns and thieves walking around the city. These are the soldiers and raiders of other factions. What faction they represent is shown by the faction's logo on the corner of their picture. They won't do anything to you, unless their respect for you is low.
• Alliances. If a faction's respect to you is 100%, you can make an alliance with them. This mission will be done in your city hall and best done by leaders. after the mission is done, the alliance is announced and, huzzah! You have a new ally! They will give you regular shipments of items every week (exact type of item and quantity differs by factions)
• War. If you prefer destroying a faction instead, you can declare war on them and start destroying their fort, one block at a time. Of course, they will try to do the same to you so you must fight back. how hard it is to attack a building is determined by the faction's strength and whether there are soldiers or raiders in that block or not. Sucsessfully attacking a building beside your fort will add them to your fort. Destroying their HQ (shown by a building with a red flag that says "HQ" on it) will reduce their strength significantly and you'll earn some items, but it won't destroy the faction. After destroying their last block, your group emerges victorious! Making it that there's one less faction to worry about!

Well, that's the end of your city. after befriending or destroying all other factions, you've won! After this, it's time to move on. A mission will be available in the city hall to leave the city, bringing 3 other people with you. If you have found, reclaimed, and completed the quest of the disused farm, you can bring 5 people with you instead of 3. Of course, one of them must be a pilot to fly the plane.