How in the world do you win on Challenging mode?

[Pancakes DuBois]

I'm on my hundredth play-through and I can't seem to even gain a foothold when on challenge mode. My general strategy is to:

Scout as far around me as possible. If I'm not near a lab, large farm, or river, restart until I find a better starting point. Then find the nearest lab and dart towards it to research construction. I find a large farm and center my defenses around that, as it's the most defensible place (which usually doesn't work; it doesn't add enough defense points to it.) I try and find a school and train everyone up to a level 4 soldier, no matter the profession.

Ever soldiers seems to get killed. Everything gets overrun and my defenses shatter. I can't find a feasible way to to work through the initial stages and have a working defense.

How do you beat challenge mode??

[Argile]

My tips from playing on impossible:

Early Game:

Scout to find lab, natural barriers, woods/park (for materials)

Have soldiers constantly cleansing surrounding tiles so hordes don't spawn, even if it is a high danger level. If hordes spawn, attack them directly, don't sit behind walls waiting for them. Don't start attacking them right after they appear because they won't attack your walls for at least 2 days. Use that time to maximize the time you have for more cleansing. When you attack them outside the walls you don't have to worry about defending multiple tiles, so you have the highest chance of repelling them when attacking them first.

Scavenger needs to constantly be bringing in food/materials

Builder needs to constantly be making farms/expanding to new tiles.

Expand only towards natural barriers or tiles without alot of surrounding tiles. (Like ones in front of multi-tile blocks) You want the least amount of surrounding tiles you have to defend against as possible. Count the number of tiles you have to defend against before expanding and make sure your expansion is never adding more than 1 or 2 more tiles you need to defend against. Ideally it can be 0 if you are expanding correctly. With 2 soldiers you can't handle more than 10 outside tiles to defend against at a time without falling to the horde spawn rate. Never expand to suburbs or big farms in early game, they are resource inefficient and are attackable from more sides.

Secure lab and rush construction->traps ASAP. You can secure a lab and then rebuild it somewhere safer after you research construction. Don't be afraid to lose tiles if you are expanding towards more defensible terrain. Think of it as a tactical retreat. Don't waste resources trying to take back bad tiles, or defending them.

Recruit survivors only when you have enough food to support them. If too many people die, restart.

Mid Game:

Scavenger becomes farmer, hopefully he has is at least level 3, and food becomes income to trade with Gustav.

Builder chops materials from trees when not busy with expansion.

Research traps and build workshop. Constantly produce traps and place them so you don't have to worry about creeping hordes spawning anymore.

When not researching, have engineer make bullets constantly so you have more income to trade.

Trade for good equipment, materials, and fuel.

Use molotovs to kill roamers and charging hordes before they get to your walls.

Try to ally factions to get cheap trade deals.

Always recruit soldiers over other classes when possible.

Don't forget to rest people periodically to boost happiness.

Tier 2 building build order: Lab>Workshop>Hospital>School>Bar/Church>Others

Train spare soldiers you don't need for defense to create a massive solider ball to deal with antagonist factions. To claim a tile from an enemy faction you need at least 5 high level soldiers with guns.

Late Game:

If you are still alive the rest is easy.

Conquer the tiles or make a government.

Stockpile molotovs to deal with horde waves that try to stop you.

[a man and his harem]

Originally posted by RhopalicCoward:

My tips from playing on impossible:

Early Game:

Scout to find lab, natural barriers, woods/park (for materials)

Have soldiers constantly cleansing surrounding tiles so hordes don't spawn, even if it is a high danger level. If hordes spawn, attack them directly, don't sit behind walls waiting for them. Don't start attacking them right after they appear because they won't attack your walls for at least 2 days. Use that time to maximize the time you have for more cleansing. When you attack them outside the walls you don't have to worry about defending multiple tiles, so you have the highest chance of repelling them when attacking them first.

Scavenger needs to constantly be bringing in food/materials

Builder needs to constantly be making farms/expanding to new tiles.

Expand only towards natural barriers or tiles without alot of surrounding tiles. (Like ones in front of multi-tile blocks) You want the least amount of surrounding tiles you have to defend against as possible. Count the number of tiles you have to defend against before expanding and make sure your expansion is never adding more than 1 or 2 more tiles you need to defend against. Ideally it can be 0 if you are expanding correctly. With 2 soldiers you can't handle more than 10 outside tiles to defend against at a time without falling to the horde spawn rate. Never expand to suburbs or big farms in early game, they are resource inefficient and are attackable from more sides.

Secure lab and rush construction->traps ASAP. You can secure a lab and then rebuild it somewhere safer after you research construction. Don't be afraid to lose tiles if you are expanding towards more defensible terrain. Think of it as a tactical retreat. Don't waste resources trying to take back bad tiles, or defending them.

Recruit survivors only when you have enough food to support them. If too many people die, restart.

Mid Game:

Scavenger becomes farmer, hopefully he has is at least level 3, and food becomes income to trade with Gustav.

Builder chops materials from trees when not busy with expansion.

Research traps and build workshop. Constantly produce traps and place them so you don't have to worry about creeping hordes spawning anymore.

When not researching, have engineer make bullets constantly so you have more income to trade.

Trade for good equipment, materials, and fuel.

Use molotovs to kill roamers and charging hordes before they get to your walls.

Try to ally factions to get cheap trade deals.

Always recruit soldiers over other classes when possible.

Don't forget to rest people periodically to boost happiness.

Tier 2 building build order: Lab>Workshop>Hospital>School>Bar/Church>Others

Train spare soldiers you don't need for defense to create a massive solider ball to deal with antagonist factions. To claim a tile from an enemy faction you need at least 5 high level soldiers with guns.

Late Game:

If you are still alive the rest is easy.

Conquer the tiles or make a government.

Stockpile molotovs to deal with horde waves that try to stop you.

how do u deal with hords when they seem to spawn 2 or 3 time at a time in the 2-3days spawn. i play on my cell and i find they kill more of my NPCs then anything, giving me no time sadly enough to fight back. this is early game im speaking, i been trying to keep as many alive as i can but i find hlaf of mine die to easily.

[red_mage_king]

If you can survive long enough to put traps out, they will help immensely.
I would also suggest not going into challenging until you have a decent team leaving a city.

[Argile]

Originally posted by Zombiehunter220:

Originally posted by RhopalicCoward:

how do u deal with hords when they seem to spawn 2 or 3 time at a time in the 2-3days spawn. i play on my cell and i find they kill more of my NPCs then anything, giving me no time sadly enough to fight back. this is early game im speaking, i been trying to keep as many alive as i can but i find hlaf of mine die to easily.

Hordes may spawn at right after each other but they will only attack 1 at a time. They will always attack in the order that they spawned. You never want to defend against a horde, you always want to attack them. Right before they are about to attack (at the 2 day mark), put all your soldiers on the horde tile that is about to attack and do "kill zombies" You will notice the danger level for your base will be much lower than if you are just defending, plus you don't have to worry about defending multiple base tiles, and you get one day closer to cleansing that tile.

Early game is all about playing as aggressively as possible. You need to either get a lab secured or a steady supply of materials by day 60, otherwise you will get swarmed by the charging hordes and fall apart.

If you are against a charging horde, don't defend unless you have strong guys, just let them take the tile. Ideally you should have explosives or zombie bait to deal with them by this point though.

Sometimes you get unlucky and your soldiers die, but most of the time they should just get injured, especially if the injury comes from killing zombies.

tldr: NEVER defend against hordes. ALWAYS attack regular hordes before they attack you,

Just let charging hordes take your tiles, it's not worth it to defend against them and they are immune to being attacked by soldiers.