Stategery...

[JTBeowulf]

Wondering what other people do with their games.

Generally, I clear the buildings with as few people as possible. Then search for as many people as possible and not garrison throughout the first day.  Then try and get a shotgun for my veterans and put them in each building (focus on Factory, warehouse, store, then hospital in that order) and keep my weaker weapons out on the streets at night.  Sometimes they make it, sometimes not, but if the Mansion holds, I can pump newbies through there until the next day, arm up asap and keep a team on the street.

I'm also really machiavellian by the end of the game with newbies, sending them easily on suicide missions because they haven't "earned their keep" like the people who have been there since 0 Hour.  Typically hours in town determines who gets the stronger weapon.

[LoganB]

If the online scoreboard is any indication, I'm fairly bad at my own game. :P

However,

Any strategy that involves keeping veterans alive over newbies is a good one. Someone who has lasted 5 hours is worth 10 points while a guy who's weathered the entire 60 is 120. So don't feel so bad about throwing away the less experienced.

Each building held is 100 points. It should be noted that the more buildings you hold, the smaller the massive zombie wave is during the final hour.

I think what catches a lot of people out is that your raiding party is better off with mostly melee weapons. A machete does as much damage as a rifle. Seeing as your raiding party always attacks first, a large party with machetes and the damage perk can wipe out some fairly massive hordes. This also leaves plenty of ammo for your guys defending buildings, and means the ammo itself is less of a priority.

Ultimately, it's survivors that get you points - 50 per dude. Your first few games you'll try to keep only as many survivors as you have spaces in buildings, but about six games in you'll leave the minimum you can to defend and just have a giant raiding party.

[JTBeowulf]

I think what catches a lot of people out is that your raiding party is better off with mostly melee weapons. A machete does as much damage as a rifle. Seeing as your raiding party always attacks first, a large party with machetes and the damage perk can wipe out some fairly massive hordes. This also leaves plenty of ammo for your guys defending buildings, and means the ammo itself is less of a priority.

Ultimately, it's survivors that get you points - 50 per dude. Your first few games you'll try to keep only as many survivors as you have spaces in buildings, but about six games in you'll leave the minimum you can to defend and just have a giant raiding party.

I was leaning toward that strategy without really knowing it, actually.  I was putting Machette's with Grizzled out and had really good results cause I figure they gotta get in closer so I'll spread the skills around and put pistols in the hands of the sharp-eyed people to get more out of raids.  But almost every time I put a rifle out on the street they get jumped.

It gets tough though when you have 20 or so people and you can't remember who needs to get what skill near the end cause they are all spread across the buildings. 

[Coded One]

Well my "Strategery" is to get buildings ASAP. They give you more supplies than raiding and are much more difficult to take later in the game. For me, ammo conservation isn't a very high priority. Generally, my only characters with ammo are inside, or have the careful perk.

Also, fortifications are key to survival. Here's my perks strategy:

GCH for defenders (inside buildings with a shotgun).

1/2E and 1/2G,SL for Raiders (Outside with melee weapons). The reason that I have half with Sharp Eyes and half with Grizzled is because while keeping your raiders alive is important, geting 100% raid chances is better. Also, Sharp eye is a 2% perk, I don't know what the base raiding chances are for each person in the raid, but you have a guaranteed 100% of getting something form raiding. I usually stop at 25 raiders with Sharp Eyes and then go all Grizzled.

Another strategy of mine I have coined "Fists of Fury". It essentially goes by the thought that there is safety in numbers. So I get weapons for all the people that I'll have space for in the buildings at night, then I search for survivors first, then water. The survivors will simply be cannon fodder with fists to take damage. They are expendable so I never use medkits on them.

The only problem with this strategy is that it consumes a LOT of water, so be sure that you have taken the store and have water 2nd on your raid list.

[LoganB]

One of my personal gripes with the game is that survivor management is very basic, so when you have 20+ of them its hard to remember who has what. It was one of the first things I addressed with Deadshed - you only have six characters and they are always visible regardless of the situation.

There's potential for a v2.0 with a moderate revamp of the game, but it's on the bottom of my list of projects at the moment. But keep making suggestions - with the changed scope of Deadshed, Zafehouse is looking like a good place to implement some of the cut-away ideas.

[JTBeowulf]

One of my personal gripes with the game is that survivor management is very basic, so when you have 20+ of them its hard to remember who has what.

I end up with that too.  Generally what I've done is think of it in terms of what "wave" of people need what skills?  Cause by the second night, anyone outside is probably going to get a lot of Strength and no Careful, or newbies get Grizzled automatically after day 1 because I won't be changing my inside roster (which are my veterans with E/C/H). 
So I'd usually end up first gourp is 4-E's, then I'd need at least 12-C's for garrisons (2 per building), then just G's to stay out all night and pick up E's by morning.  If I've got a shotty in each building by the first night I need more people outside than I need garrisoning.

My highest scoring game involved a lot of rotation the first evening, so that veteran skill was taking up the slack where a lot of newbies wouldn't have survived the big assaults.  I didn't lose a single person that game either.

[Coded One]

One of my personal gripes with the game is that survivor management is very basic, so when you have 20+ of them its hard to remember who has what. It was one of the first things I addressed with Deadshed - you only have six characters and they are always visible regardless of the situation.

There's potential for a v2.0 with a moderate revamp of the game, but it's on the bottom of my list of projects at the moment. But keep making suggestions - with the changed scope of Deadshed, Zafehouse is looking like a good place to implement some of the cut-away ideas.

Something simple like having their previous perks next to their name would work, even better would be to say what building they are in, what weapon they are holding, etc.

[shypixel]

Hey there!

Great game, so glad I Stumble-d Upon your page.

I've only played a few times, but a couple things are working for me.

The first day I concentrate on taking all the buildings except the mansion, and building supplies. I don't defend or fortify any buildings, it seems that re-taking them isn't too bad yet, and the building materials I save end up saving me later. I try not to build up more survivors than I can house the first night, though after reading this thread I think that might be a mistake point-wise. On the last turn, I move my best veterans into the buildings I own and max out the fortifications.

On the first turn of the first night, I take the mansion with my next six longest survivors, and leave the rest to the zombie hordes. I've yet to have anyone survive outside the first night, so I don't waste resources or weapons on them.

I start the second day with lots of water and med-kits this way. I leave the two best people in all the buildings except, again, the mansion. In the morning I concentrate on survivors and water/first aid, then ammo/supplies and weapons later. As my raiding party grows, I'll start moving vets to the mansion.

With many people now, mostly wielding melee, I prepare for the nights carnage by stocking up all buildings. If I have to chose between two closely skilled survivors to put in a building, I'll move an injured one to save a med-pack or an infected one, as they rarely get hit, and I hate losing people to re-animated friend. I'm not sure this works, but I leave the newest person each turn unarmed, to die first.

The third day, I usually have to concentrate on building supplies to keep my fortifications up. Again, it helps to give up the mansion.



I'll see if I can't get my scores up a little higher by following the advice above.

As far as survivor management, even just ordering the lists by experience would be very helpful.

Any way we'll ever have to survive that third night, with no new survivors or supplies? Could get brutal, maybe call it suicide mode.

Anyhow, thanks for throwing this together.

[Bartre]

New Dude around here, and I have to tell you, this game is frustrating sometimes as my grizzled+lucky survivers get capwnd while my 0 hour survivors don't. I didn't know about the melee raiding party rule, so I focused heavily on camping my buildings with House Advantaged dudes, by the the 2nd night, my raiding parties usually get raped, so I usually get stuck with 2 fortified buildings stacked to the brim with everything but barricade supplies -_-

[Myron Oak]

I was shown this game about 10 hours ago, and i've hit 6,455 points. I have no idea how to get 11,320. I'm working on that.

Here's what I typically do though.

Turn 1, I raid with an emphasis on survivors, then I send a party of two into the store and send the rest to raid. From then on I take the other buildings (except the mansion) over the next two turns. While keeping a raiding party of three going.

I try to get a small handful of people and weapons in the first few hours, then switch to water/supplies until nightfall.

I've gone from having a well equipped raiding party of 25 and fortified buildings covered by several GSH shotgun units to nothing over three or four hours just because I can't get water.

I leave the mansion until at least the second night, and keep every other building as fortified as possible with at least one person with a rifle in each one.

Everyone else is equipped as well as possible. I keep my raiding party out at night, and keep it as large as I can. By the first night I usually have a raiding party of 8-15 outside, Almost all armed with machetes, rifles and pistols.

Keeping a well stocked raiding party of 10-20 outside at all times, I made it through a game losing no buildings and only losing two people.

After the second night I control everything, at least 1 rifle and 1 pistol inside of each building (if I run low on fortification and have a lot of people I will keep a third)

I don't garrison all of my veterans, I try to keep it balanced. I typically keep about half of them as ESL's outside.


If I figure anything else that works out i'll add more.

[Sombra]

So, after a few failed play attempts, I've managed to get a workable strategy that'll at least ensure your survival; you can build on it for more points, I suppose.

Turn 1: Look for survivors first, and the other three at your leisure. Take one of the survivors you find (if you do indeed find one), give him your spare baseball bat (I always have one, I don't know if thats normal in the game, but its how I've noticed it) and send him/her off to either the warehouse or the factory. With luck, it'll be yours, and you can continue to capture buildings until you have the ones you care to take. (I didn't bother with the mansion for a while, but that's personal preference.)

Day 1: Keep your characters provisioned, searching for weapons first, ammo second, supplies third, and survivors last, at least for a few hours. Rotate them as you see fit, to ensure a steady maintenance of your necessities (in prioritie order of: Barricades, Ammo, Water, Med Kits.) Maintain this strategy until night falls, and buckle down for the waves to follow. Defend throughout the night, making sure to see that your warehouse and factory are kept well protected (they're the backbone of late-night survival), and wait for the dawn. (Note: While the mansion is great for holding six people, it offers no other value, and should be the first building allowed to fall, if need be, although there shouldn't be any structural losses, if you've got a healthy stock of lead aspirin and handy survivors.)

Day 2: Time to start leaving people in buildings to defend. Pretty much anyone with a shotgun can do this well, but any 2 combo of anyone using a munition-based damage source should be enough. The rest go a-raiding. Same old story, rinse and repeat. Do this until night falls, and fight on to the third day, making sure again that the warehouse and factory stay strong.

Day 3: This is where my strategy takes a shift from most. It seems that most people are extremely keen on a raiding party to rival the zombies' party in size, but I've found that if you've stocked yourself well enough and have no survivors just chillin' outside, you can simply wait it out in the buildings. With enough barricades and ammo, the zombies simply won't attack you with enough force to take you down entirely. This has worked multiple times for me, and while some people say that not having a raiding party is ineffective because you can't get resources, the idea of blowing said resources on healing, loading, and watering a hardcore raiding party seem to balance out the lack of resources tied to being holed up for the last 12 hours. It works, but it doesn't necessarily promise you the best of scores. Start here, work your way to new and different strategies :D!

[LoganB]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how that score was achieved myself.

Zafehouse 2 should have more comprehensive scoring information, so you can see exactly what the player did to get their high score.