Which start set gets the longest war? Info please.

[TFG1966]

Hi, I have done like a dozen of runs, except for the first 2, I got to the war is over, and I have got all 20 achievements like other players done the similar number of runs I guess.

The way I play is very slow, in average, on day 10 I got all 3 boards up, on day 20 I got enforced door and sufficient weapons to defend the raids, and on day 30-35 I got all stuff upgraded and can survive without worrying about meds or foods. The problem is, when I got everything, the war normally ended in the next couple of days, leaving my survivors very short time to enjoy their comfortable life, the longest war I have got is like 42 days. I read somewhere in a thread that other player had a war more than 60 days, that is, exactly what I want!!

Please, if anyone knows the exact start set which has the longest war (preferable 60 days up), share the info with me. I am not sure, not building and listen to a radio can last the war longer? If so, please confirm about it. Or, any other way to exennd the war to more than 60 days, without losing any survivors. Tips please, thank you.

[DG Dobrev]

War ends at a random date between 25 and 50, so if anyone has other observations, please share. My personal one is that this part of the game provides the exact randomness that we need.

Then again, I wouldn't mind if anton + cveta was a 25-27 day war... I can survive that if someone joins me before day 15 even in a crime wave...

[Infernus]

I have definitely noticed a trend in length of the war, and the characters you start with. Simply put, the easier the beginning the longer the war, the harder the beginning, the shorter the war. Possibly the useless mathematician and fat munching child lover lady would be the shortest war I'm guessing :P, not too sure about lengthiest characters exacly, yet.

[TFG1966]

Originally posted by Infernus:

Simply put, the easier the beginning the longer the war, the harder the beginning, the shorter the war.

Thanks for the feedback. It makes sense that a hard start set is designed to have a short war, I noticed the same in my runs. Ok, now to be able to get a long war, I might need to aim on the easist start set. XD

[DG Dobrev]

There is no easy start, mate.

While Pavle + Katia + Bruno in summer is the easiest, they will suffer a lot if the game pushes you towards a day 45+ win. Wirdly enough, people complain that this game could be longer. I can swear something: one would WISH and BEG the game would be shorter, after he/she hits day 25.

[dholland]

I think the point here is that some people have got so good at the game they go for all upgrades, and depending on their luck it might not be possible to get them all before the war ends, so they want it longer to have a maxed-out house. I'm nowhere near that good, myself, but I did want a longer war a couple of times so I could find out how effective a vegetable garden is. Still never built one. I suspect it's not so much about trading (though that will be part of it), but about maxing out the stealing and killing so you can scavenge huge amounts of stuff to trade.

[100-Nyan Power]

I understand where the OP is coming from, because if you create a good set-up in this game it gives you the same "one more day" feeling you get from playing Civilizations. Since the end date is so random the only real way to have your survivors 'enjoy their comfortable lives' is to make it comfortable as soon as you can. If you start with good survivors like Pavle, Katia and Bruno you can be pretty self-sufficient by day 20 or so without even needing to steal from anyone. By day 25-30 I was pumping out so much pure alcohol with Bruno traders didn't have enough to trade me for it. Had 20 bottles sitting in my basement. Once you set up an advanced med-crafting station you can start pumping out bandages with that alcohol instead. Couple all that with a veggie garden to in essence double your food supply from meat and you just snowball pretty easily and then you're free to do whatever you want, like go out and kill bad guys all night long or just explore without much pressure from the home front.

Personally for me after getting the initial beds and metal crafting table down I start plugging the holes in my house [reinforced door is pretty unneccesary imo, a fully boarded house and a couple of guards with crappy weapons is more than enough to fend off even gun-toting bandits easily] and if I'm lucky and the garage location spawns early, get an axe and chop down all the useless furniture in my home for wood and fuel. If not, then I just focus on getting a stable food supply using traps and then start my alcohol economy. This strategy hasn't failed me yet, although I've only done 3 playthroughs. The first was a throwaway fail game so I could learn just what the hell was going on since there's no tutorial for some reason. And I disagree with the mathetician being useless. His golden fingers practically gives me food with his trap boosting abilities so they catch a rat in at most 2 days rather than the average of 3 or more.

[Spacecataz]

Originally posted by dholland:

I think the point here is that some people have got so good at the game they go for all upgrades, and depending on their luck it might not be possible to get them all before the war ends, so they want it longer to have a maxed-out house. I'm nowhere near that good, myself, but I did want a longer war a couple of times so I could find out how effective a vegetable garden is. Still never built one. I suspect it's not so much about trading (though that will be part of it), but about maxing out the stealing and killing so you can scavenge huge amounts of stuff to trade.

I too had the dream of a veggie garden. I saw it's total expense and dreamed of how good it would be. It's crap. It takes 4 days to grow anything (longer if you end the days turn early) and when you do the only valuable'sh thing you can do with the veggies is trade. Unless you have a large amount of water to grow them, then cook them. The med/cig garden is much better imo.

[dniweR]

Originally posted by DG Dobrev:

There is no easy start, mate.

While Pavle + Katia + Bruno in summer is the easiest, they will suffer a lot if the game pushes you towards a day 45+ win. Wirdly enough, people complain that this game could be longer. I can swear something: one would WISH and BEG the game would be shorter, after he/she hits day 25.

Nah, usually by Day 25-30 I've got up 2 rat traps, a veggie garden, and either one or both of a moonshine still/distillery with necessities taken care of. If you can get those up you become self sufficient. You trade pure alcohol for the materials to make more pure alcohol + any components/wood you need for whatever (to be fair, when you have a garden + 2 traps all you really need is wood for fuel and components to make filters).

[bl0kkf4ustus]

i would love to see some kind of endless mode with new bandit/survivor spawning in already cleared areas wich bring new stuff with them to live there.
I did only 5 playthroughs yet and always was set for save living with enough meds,food and trading items at day 25-30 , so an endless mode would be nice to tryout how long u can survive plus with maybe some day raids where u have to defend in real time would be an awsome idea too

[dholland]

Most of this discussion seems to be about games that don't start in winter. I've won twice this way and I'm on another game with winter start. I know the devs claim it didn't get harder with the patch but this is the most punishing start ever for me. Marin, Boris, Emilia, Pavle. My first 4 person start. Just made 13 days and end of winter, but I have two people injured without bandages. At least I have meds and a guitar and a trap, but as for shooting for major upgrades, there's no chance with this winter start. Can you believe the garage was always blocked by fighting, I never got to trade except at the military outpost. I'm going to have to take those thieving soldiers down, if I ever get everybody fit again. They've snaffled most of my resources for very little in exchange. I just took out the construction site military and I'm eager to use my weapons since I've got nothing to barter with.

[TFG1966]

Originally posted by bl0kkf4ustus:

i would love to see some kind of endless mode with new bandit/survivor spawning in already cleared areas wich bring new stuff with them to live there.

+1 to the Endless mode, as an option of course, to be set before Day 1.

I noticed that I have never been able to consume the most of the materials available in those areas, even after I have got all my stuff upgraded. I estimate, up the war is over, if within 40 days, there are at least 30% (probabaly higher) materials left untouced, what a waste. An Endless mode can allow us to use as much as material as we could go.

Also, Double-Winter or even Triple-Winter are options nice to have too, well, we will suffer a bit at the first winter, but we are gonna enjoy the second one, and even feel cosy for the third one.

[DiseasedProject]

On the other side of the spectrum, I've done two playthroughs with Roman + wounded Katia combo and in both cases the war lasted 25 days. Don't let the short length fool you though; it's never really warm, once the winter comes it stays, raids are very frequent in the early days and since you only have two people at the beginning and one of them is even wounded, stuff is bound to disappear. The crime outbreak also happened around day 4 or 5 in both runs, too. And finally, only a handful of locations are available, forcing you to either encounter bandits or steal from civilians.

Wouldn't know about what triggers the longest war, though or if it's purely by chance (I doubt this). The longest I've had was 45 days.