Swarms problem

[Szynszyl]

Hello,
I survive 220 days in story mode but i have big problem with swarms. They come almost every day and i can't rebuild my defense. I had lots of reinforced Towers with shotguns. After 220 days and almost all my towers destroyed i give up. Any idea how to increase chance for survival to my zone? This is normal amount of swarms?

[Blehh.....]

Originally posted by Szynszyl:

Hello,
I survive 220 days in story mode but i have big problem with swarms. They come almost every day and i can't rebuild my defense. I had lots of reinforced Towers with shotguns. After 220 days and almost all my towers destroyed i give up. Any idea how to increase chance for survival to my zone? This is normal amount of swarms?

Play on easiest difficulty, not the hardest...

[Cane]

Originally posted by Szynszyl:

Hello,
I survive 220 days in story mode but i have big problem with swarms. They come almost every day and i can't rebuild my defense. I had lots of reinforced Towers with shotguns. After 220 days and almost all my towers destroyed i give up. Any idea how to increase chance for survival to my zone? This is normal amount of swarms?

It very much depends on your overall situation, so it's hard to say what would help in your scenario.
- as suggested you can change difficulty setting and play on easier mode. If that's one of your first camps I would recommend it. It will allow you to try different tactics and experiment with a bigger margin for error.
- u can use cars to mowed down the infected. The heavier the car or cars the better. U will still have to repair them after but that would thin out the infected before they would come to ur camp to deal with them. Less damage overall but u have to e careful as cars got damaged and crew can get hurt.
- if u know where hoard is coming from u can send a few squads in a cars to kill most of the infected before they will arrive to your camp. Again it's rather heavy on micromanagement of those units, but with 5+ cars can be very effective. Shoot -> move away -> shoot -> move away....
- change shotguns to sniper riffles asap. I didn't found a good use of shotguns except of the early stages of the game. Sniper riffles with the same dmg if placed on towers can cover much bigger ground, they will start shooting earlier as well.
- build few layers of cheap walls before your actual fortifications. They would stop the progress of infected and it will give u some time to shoot more of them before they would arrive to your main fortifications.
- build gates. They can fit up to 6 defenders and they quite sturdy.
- have some warehouses/headquarters close to the gates/walls and squads stationed there with sniper riffles. They can refill ammo at those points and are protected if infected would get trough.
- make sure that your towers are always fully stuffed for the night. Citizens would not go to the tower if infected are to close, so make sure to do it before sundown.

I don't know what you struggle with the most so those are very general advice that work for me. If you give some more details maybe we can come up with some points more related to your situation. GL.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Adding a bit to Cane's tips.

Actually it is better to mix snipers and shotguns. If you have enough ammo. The longer range is offset by slower rate of fire. (in 10 seconds you get 3 sniper and 4 shotgun shots. Each kills 1 infected, as damage does not carry over afaik.) (But if you have enough ammo go for AR:D)

- Towers are a trap. Most of the time the folks stuck in it will not rush to replenish their ammo to a nearby place. But even if they do....that means they leave their place (can be killed by infected) they go into the Warehouse/HQ grab ammo, go back(again can be killed). This trip is a huge waste of time. Therefore it is best to use pistol users in towers and in gates. (Sadly.) Hell in gates even bow users are better cuz of this. (Not required for them to leave for ammo:D)
Best is to build HQ-s instead of towers. Takes a bit of time to build up a building and adapt it, but once it is an HQ it can serve as a tower, and the folks inside will always grab new ammo without the need to leave. Depending how big buildings you build (i build 16 story buildings that are medium sized on width and lengths) it takes me around 8 days to make a new HQ.

- Car plowing can be good but can be risky because they can often damage you even in a completely intact vehicle. Instead kite.

- Remember to reinforce buildings with bricks.

- You can see where a swarm is coming from, even if for some reason you do not get the "mark" on the edge of the map. Zoom in on your base, and slightly start to zoom out, at one time it will show multiple red arrows pointing toward one part of the map-> this is where the horde is coming from.

- You can break up swarms. With one car you can easily lead half a swarm away...or stall them, breaking one huge swarm down to two. Or more if you are willing to micro and kite with multiple cars. Once a swarm reached your base however, you can only lure 2-4 hordes away via car, as in getting close enough to them to notice. Then even if 10 hordes are attacking the same spot, only 2 will break off most of the time. Sometimes 3 and rarely 4.

- If you know which side the swarm is coming, you assign more squads to the HQ-s that are on that side. Mobile defense:) (cars are mobile harassment:D)

[The Slender Man]

Originally posted by Szynszyl:

Hello,
I survive 220 days in story mode but i have big problem with swarms. They come almost every day and i can't rebuild my defense. I had lots of reinforced Towers with shotguns. After 220 days and almost all my towers destroyed i give up. Any idea how to increase chance for survival to my zone? This is normal amount of swarms?

More workers More civilians!! Invite MORE PEOPLE!!! More people mean more guards and more squads.. Also the game Devs added a "Repair man" building... this actually is great cause it auto assigns skilled builders to rebuild your base no matter what level the damage so they are constantly repairing things even without you telling them... I would say get a nice Med sized building and convert it to a repair office...

Also I almost never have but one shotgun guy in a squad NEVER in a tower.. only rifles in towers.. this makes weapon development ESSENTIAL late game. I have 35 autorifles and 7 snipers and like 64 handguns. If your towers are being smashed start making Kill zones.. and Pull your defenses in closer to the center of your base around the HQ & Shelters.. Leave one section of the wall open so the hoarde will choose to run into the hole rather then attack the walls and towers.. Line that hole with towers and squads for massive kills.. this allows you to lead them into the kill zone...

KillZones:
-------------
Here is a rudimentary example of killzones in text:

West Firelane(Aims West)______>

TOWER#1: Center Firelane________>

East firelane(Aims East)__________>


XXXXXXXX-This space between the towers is a Kill Zone-XXXXXXXXXX
(In this space Both towers should have Interecting areas of rifle protection and both will fire on any targets in the kill zone.. Tower#1's Eastern fireline will cross with Tower#2's Western fireline) KILLZONE!

West Firelane(Aims West)______>

TOWER#2: Center Firelane________>

East Firelane(Aims East)______>


ALWAYS Create Kill zones for your towers, each tower should be built in range of the Rifles of the next tower, this insures no tower is left to fend off a hoard alone and the space between the towers is a Kill zone.

More Strategies..

Bait Towers:
_________________
When you know what way the swarm is comming in from Build a Tower right in the middle of any hole breaches.. put wall on 3 sides of the tower and surround it with concertina wire.. That Tower should be covered by two other towers from inside the base while the bait tower is Outside the base... place one guard in the bait tower(He is likely going to die, best its only one guard not 3-4 etc).

This allows you to eliminate MASSIVE amounts of infected as they will attack the lone bait tower on the outside of the base before attacking your main walls etc....and THUS they must break through wall and concertina wire before they can reach the bait tower.. this allows your other two towers to take out the hoard surrounding the doomed tower while keeping the main base safe.. it also allows you time to recoever the rest of your base the next day... Any time you have a damaged wall Build a bait tower outside the damagaed hole in yourdefenses.. build simple wooden towers as bait tower unless you have lots of metal or brick wooden towers are built in les then 8 hours usually so you can build it fast and leave it with one guard while you work on the hole in your defenses,


OutPosts:
_________________
You are in Day 220+ so the hoardes will be HUGE with an Alpha almost every time... You have to start thinking outside the box regarding WHERE is the enemy going to target.. Towers & Shelters seem to be the main targets in my games so what I did was build Outposts(Small 4 corner bases) 10-20 clicks away from my main base. I build one outpost for each direction as a Diversion for the hordes.. This allows my Main Base to be as strong as possible while losing only items in the supply cach IF they destroy the warehouse & the outposts get overrun. Outposts should be Very small perimeterwise with one main building in the center being the warehouse. What goes in a Outpost?

1. Perimeter defenses(Wooden Towers, brick walls)
2. Warehouse for supplies
3. Shelter for workers to go end of day

First youll need one main squad to protect the outpost and a QRF squad to travel & back them up when needed.. find a good building to be the warehouse which will be the defacto HQ of the outpost. BEFORE converting the building to a warehouse surround the proposed building with walls & no towers(the walls should encompass 2-3 other buildings for future shelter space), No towers ensures the infected will not attack the area yet as its not yet inhabited with people. Once the walls are up and the buildings enclosed THEN start the warehouse conversion & the towers. 4 corners of towers and one tower between each corner for a total of 8 towers on the perimeter with intersecting lanes of fire will do it. Building the Warehouse here allows the workers to drop off supplies close by without having to walk all the way back to base for supplies. Now convert the other 2-3 buildings into shelters and Boom outpost is ready. Start the next one.

While outpost take time to build they are a BOON to your main base protection because once you have 3-4 of them on each outside region of your base they act as deterents for the horde to target and they collect supplies from far away from your main base making some great yeilds for late game stockpiling. I have 3 outpost in a triangle on the outskirts of my main base with about 500-600 people in my NYC zone. Dont put food or any essential buildings in the outposts.. they are ONLY for defense and Raw supply collection(Wood, metal, bricks in the area near the outpost).

QRF Teams
_________________
Develop Q.uick R.eaction F.orce Teams by creating 2-3 squads. highlight each squad with CTRL and click. once 2-3 are selected and highlighted, Hold CTRL + [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, or 9] to assign them ALL to ONE group number. The QRF team does NOT do scavenging or other tasks they ONLY get used to show up & Fight. This frees up your other squads to scavenge and guard the main base while the QRF does most of the real fighting. 2 squads in one QRF team gives you 8 heads to face off against any hordes. 3 Squads in one QRF team gives you a team of 12 Heads!! Do NOT give the QRF Pistols..... pole arms, or a mix of one shotgun & Rifles only(make the driver a shotgun, one sniper and 2 auto rifles is a great mix for QRF). They WILL need a car for each team to give them mobility but you can have base QRF without cars but they must stay in what ever base or outposts they are guarding. If you make foot solgier QRF without cars Pole arms and shotguns will be best for them as they will fight best in buildings and will need buildings for cover.(I watched a team of 8 QRF on foot with pole arms and shotguns destroy over 40+ infected in one overrun building while only losing 2 members & killing the alpha)

For more instance, I have a 2 squad QRF team with rifles in cars all assigned to #5 on my key board.. they are ALWAYS available becasue I do Not use them to scavenge only to defend. So whiel my other squads Scavenge i always have the QRF to show up and clear any enemies around the zone. WHEN there is a HUGE hoard I take my QRF Outside the Base and go Behind the hoard to fire on them.. this turns the hoard away from my base to attack the QRF team which I keep just out of reach (As Cane explained) while slowly leading the hoards through Concertina wire & kill zones around and near my base.. YOU MUST KNOW WHERE YOUR KILL ZONES ARE.. lead the hordes there with the QRF team. This is the Best strategy to save your defensive structures in the main base as the infected see the QRF team in cars as an easier meal then going through walls or attacking towers.. they will chase your QRF team around the perimeter if you stay just out of reach until the towers kills them all. The QRF will also back up your outposts very easily since they are in high number(8-16) and the outposts are small and easy to circle around. QRF are a BOON to any base set up.. this is how our commanders in the army also set up their base defenses during OEF1 irl as well. Intersecting lines of fire, known kill zones, outposts & a QRF team of heavily armed men always ready to deploy for rescue or defense.

Concertina Wire
_______________
While Metal is hard to comeby the Concertina Wire is a BOON to base defense.. they not only slow the hoard down immensely but they do great damage to the infected as well.
Place the wire in this pattern in front of walls in the middle of your kill zones:


-------------------. . . . . . . . . . .--------------------
.. . . . . . . . . . . .-----------------------------. . . . . . . . . .
================ MAIN WALLS===============

^^^^^^single dashes are the wire.... dots are space..... this set up for wire instead of just one line gives you a triple strand effect where you can lead the hoard into the wire with your QRF and allow them to get caught in the wire AND in the kill zone of your base. Leading the hoard into wires will kill MANY of them befoe they can attack your main base walls and towers,,


Im in day like 300+ in my game in NYC.. I have yet to lose much more then a tower or two in an attack on the main base but my perimeter has multiple levels of defense as explained above before they reach any essential buildings inside the walls. My Outposts are a total boon to the system as well as they allow my base to rest and double up on defenses while they get hammered and I lose very little in regards to essential buildings.

Sorry for the Book but Hope this Helps!!

[Nordil(Hun)]

Concertina Wire-> Barbed Wire.