New to this

[smegma boy]

I dont know what the ♥♥♥♥ im doing ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ whatttt

[uvarovite]

I have not bought the game yet, but I would imagine playing Rebuild 1 and 2 will give you a simplified experience of Rebuild 3. You kan play them on different sites in your browser. Hopefully someone whith more experience will come along with some actuall advice soon. :)

[Seventhsage]

EARLY GAME TIPS (This actually became more of a guide once I started writing it, sorry for wall of text, but it should all be useful)

- Play on easy mode for your first time. The campaign is split into many different maps, and you can change your difficulty each time you switch maps, don't be afraid to start things out on easy mode to get the feel for things. This is a game that has a LOT going on at once, and does require you to micro-manage things quite extensively (one of it's flaws, in my opinion, as being able to set up automation for scouting / scavenging / clearing zombies would be a great addition to the game)

- One of the best things you can start with (for first timers) is the construction worker main character. The perk that halves the required materials to build things with is insanely powerful in the early game.

- Know your classes: (Any character can do anything, but their skill level determines their success or failure, sending a builder with no combat experience to kill zombies will very likely result in injuries or death, especially on later maps or higher difficulties. Survivors can only level in the skill they are specced to, scavenging with a soldier, for example, will not train the scavenging skill, but will find resources (not as many as a trained scavenger would though). You can change a character's class at a school, and while they will then only level in the new class, the skill they have from before is still retained. A level 7 builder who is reclassed to soldier can kill zombies to level soldier then build the fortification immediately afterwards very quickly, but will recieve no additional builder experience for doing so. Your main character is the exception to this, as they CAN train all skills at once.)

This is listed in (rough) order of importance:

- Soldier (red) - these guys turn zombies into thin red paste. My advice is to convert units you get through recruitment that aren't useful to you to soldiers immediately (as soldiers are the only real class that is useful 100% of the time.) Your soldiers should be the primary recipient of your best weapons, though eventually you'll want everyone well equipped. (Keep in mind that if you equip them with a ranged weapon, you will need to scavenge or craft ammo or the weapon will provide no benefit to them, ammo will be automatically consumed as you send them on missions where they would need to fight). Soldiers clear areas of zombies so your builders can come in and add them to your fort as well as make scavenging / recruitment / any other missions easier in that area in the future, they are also your primary method of defense against zombie incursion when the zeds form a mob and come at you. Effectiveness of soldiers is limited only by their number and equipment. Recruit as many as your food will support.

- Builder (green) - These guys expand your fort and repurpose buildings to more useful buildings. A good builder is the very first thing you should train, and you should cherish and protect that unit forever. Expansion is very slow without higher level builders, another reason the construction worker is such a good role for your main character. All equipment for the construction worker should be in goal of increasing the building skill (Sledgehammer and toolbox, namely) and you should look out for the tools expert perk as it will double the effectiveness of said items (perks are explained below.)

- Engineer (purple) these guys sit in labs and research things for you. They will be completely useless in the early game, until you actually get a lab, but once all the research is done, they can be tossed into a workshop to build things for you (much of the available crafting recipes are based on research, which resets and expands each time you advance to the next map in the campaign.) You'll want to probably get one of these using a school (after you have a lab) in the first map and then use them for all the research. After that, sit them back on the school and let them passively train.

- Leader (Blue) The leader is useful in early game, as they help you recruit new units (black circles on a tile indicate the presence of recruitable units) they help out midgame by continuing to recruit and preaching / bartending to improve happiness. Late game (on later maps) they serve as your ambassador to other factions and prevent social faux pas (such as taking over a square directly adjacent to another faction, which will anger them unless you have a high level leader to smooth things over.) They are near useless in the early game, but serve as a solid utility once you get the food under control and are ready to pull in more survivors, as well as helping with happines management, trading, and diplomacy, making them the most important unit in end-game. Many people stick this trait on their main character, as it's something that you really don't need, (until you do, and then you REALLY do.) but having a dedicated Scavenger / Leader is a really good idea, as one is super useful early and one is super useful late. Note that leader is quite hard to train outside of a school, as it only benefits from recruitment (which isn't always desired) or trading (which isn't always available)

- Scavenger (Yellow) these guys are used for cleaning out buildings once they've been scouted. As their job involves some danger, it's a good idea to equip them with a decent weapon (preferably something that also increases scavenging.) The thing with them is that they're only useful in early game really, as they get you some starting equipment and top off your food before you can get it up to a net positive. It's useful to have one sitting around, and you can also assign them to hunt (in parks or fields) or to farm (on... farms) to boost your food income early, but mostly I just use them to scout early on and then scavenge police stations / malls for equipment and weapons. I tend to cross train a good scavenger / leader early on and that works well for a while.

- Start out when the map loads by taking a look around. Note especially the laboratory and the school, those are the two most important buildings to find at the start, since you can't build them until you research them (which requires the lab) or if you get a lucky random event. You may need to send units out to the "?" areas and have them scout to explore more of the map. The school lets you switch classes (note that all experience from previous class stays, so you can train someone as a good builder, then change them to a soldier and start training that, they'll keep the previous builder level too)

- Send a soldier (red colored unit) to "kill zombies" adjacent to another square of your base (preferably in the direction of the lab / school) Ideally try to plan a path to the target tile that crosses over farms so you can build up your food (each farm, based on size, produces 2, 3, or 4 food, each person in your fort consumes 1 food per day) You want to get this to a net gain as soon as possible, since you can also trade away spare food for useful equipment or materials.

- Once the soldier is done clearing the tile, send a builder (green dude, and if you picked the construction worker, your main character is really good at this too, but it's better to make him/her a soldier to start with, so you can have a dedicated builder) and have them reclaim the square, this will add it to your fort. Some buildings are useful just by having them (apartments, farms, and to a lesser extent banks and police stations, click on a building to read a short blurb about what they do.)

- Once you have the school / laboratory, your goal is to research survivor management (right tree) as this will allow your units to start getting perks. Occasionally you'll see a unit get a "..." symbol over them. (only after you have the research completed) Clicking on them and then on the speech bubble next to their picture will give you some of their backstory and then a selection of 3 perks (one related to the backstory and mostly random, the other two usually related to their current class but do have a chance to be random as well). I would recommend taking a look at this page, as it lists all of the available perks: (minor story spoilers, if that bothers you.)

https://rebuild.gamepedia.com/Perks

-Of particular note: every class has a +3 skill, that is obviously good and should be picked every time (excepting if you get mcguyver or Scrapper). Also note, your main character does not learn perks like everyone else, there are several story options which grant them additional perks (listed at link above, but does contain spoilers.) Each unit has no limit to the number of total perks, but can only recieve 3 per class (you can't level a class past 10 natively, but it can be increased further with equipment, at certain points based on native skill growth, which appear to be randomized to an extent, each unit will get a perk choice 3 times along the path from 1-10, switch classes at a school and level new classes to get more perks.)

Soldier: Focus on one discipline, melee or ranged. Weapons are usually very much desired, so I'd personally avoid hand to hand, but it is nice earlier on when you have a lack of weapons. if the unit doesn't have a weapon at time of perk choice, pick melee, since it requires no ammo management and often carries bonuses, like hunter or ninja. The best skill here is actually the +3, as the rest are somewhat meh. (though stacking commander on several units is quite amusing.)

Builder: Tools expert, note that this only applies to +building on the tool, so sledgehammer + toolbox goes from +5 to +10... it's all you really need for a good builder. I also prefer artist to redecorator, but both have merits and having both on a single unit is fine (no limit to number of perks.)

Engineer: Mcguyver, Bookworm, Crafter. (in that order) the second and third are really common and just make them better at what they do (if you have a book, if not, make it a priority to track one down, but the skill is still useful without) the first is god tier as you will eventually cross-train but really rare (i've seen it once at the time of this writing, roughly 11 hours of game time). First aid is notable if you plan on having the unit primarially work as a soldier and are just collecting perks with engi, you should also take it if you get mcguyver, otherwise, your engi shouldn't be on the front lines so it's somewhat wasted.

Scavenger: Hoarder should be on EVERY scavenger. Farmer is situational at best, as you'd want to have your farms passively provide food (and it can be provided through several pieces of equipment that are scavenged mostly from farms...) Scrapper is amazing, as the scrapper / soldier combo is actually really useful. (If you get scrapper, cross-train to engineer and pray for mcguyver for the most ridiculous unit ever.)

-In short, follow these in rough terms of priority on any given map
1. get your food to a surplus per day by taking over or building farms (you can highlight the food icon to see a gain / loss chart and a detailed description of where it's all coming from if you click that icon)

2. Find gustav (or let him find you.) Gustav is a trader, and you can sell him your surplus food for useful stuff. You will get an event, usually about two weeks in or so that he's come around to trade. Use a leader to trade with him always, as it's one of the only ways to build leadership.

3. Get a school and a laboratory. Use the school to train an engineer out of a new recruit or one of the starting units, (if you don't get one from your initial recruiting) then put them on a laboratory to have them research various things. If you're having trouble with zombies, get the +efficiency in zombie killing (left tree), if not, prioritize survivor management (right tree). Only bother with center tree if you're on a higher map where there are more options in it or your engineer has nothing else to do, most of middle tree is more useful mid-late game.

4. At this point, it's all about expansion and objective completion. If you get the option to build a town hall, you can do that to unlock a mission where you can go to the next map in the campaign (first map, later maps have more past the town hall), or you can just spend some time taking over the entire first map while you get some experience under your belt. Later maps involve diplomacy and rival factions, so things get more complicated, but with those basics under your belt, you should be more than fine.

Really hope this helps
-Seventhsage