Daily routine
- Chapter Quests — the main source of direction in the early days, they give a clear sense of what to build next
- Balance Herb Garden and Hospital levels against each other
- Keep the research queue busy — it should never sit idle
- Join an alliance — if you haven’t yet, this is priority #1
The main bottleneck: herbs and medicine
Keep your Herb Garden level at or above your shelter level before upgrading anything optional. A common beginner mistake is upgrading the Hospital without keeping herb production in step: medicine runs out, and progress literally freezes until you restore the balance.
Grain and population
Keep grain production at least 1.5x your camp’s consumption. Every new survivor permanently raises grain upkeep — hitting zero blocks both troop recruitment and base expansion. Only expand once production stays reliably ahead of consumption — slower, but it never forces you to roll back.
Defending against the Rat Swarm
Cluster your towers in narrow chokepoints instead of spreading them evenly across the map — concentrated damage is more effective than spread-out damage. Put your tank hero right at the chokepoint so it holds aggro under the towers for as long as possible.
Joining an alliance isn’t optional
Joining immediately gives you:
- Help timers that cut hours off construction/research
- Alliance gifts — when any member finishes off a raid boss or buys a pack, everyone gets bonus chests
- Alliance store — weekly UR hero shards for F2P players
Common beginner mistakes
- Upgrading buildings blindly instead of following chapter quests
- Growing the Hospital without growing the Herb Garden alongside it
- Playing solo instead of joining an active alliance
- Spreading defense towers evenly instead of clustering them at the entrance