XI. Critical Upgrades

Along the way and as we reach this point we have now come very close to reaching the upper limits for the amount of Wood resources we can store in our stockpiles, which introduces an interesting question: what do we do now?

To unlock the new structures that we will soon desperately need, we first have to upgrade our HQ...

To make our base competitive and safer we must take the following steps between our invasion and battle actions - and so must you!

(a) Headquarters Building - Upgrade HQ to Level 2

Upgrading HQ to Level 2 unlocks a number of helpful structures - most of which are part of this stage in the guide! Once you have completed this upgrade, go to the next item on the list...

(b) Gold Storage - 130 Wood and 2m Build Timer (Max Number = 1)

This is both a necessary addition to your base and a good one as it has an Achievement associated with it...

(c) Residence - 150 Wood and 2m Build Timer (Max Number = 2)

As was previously mentioned the number of houses is tied to your HQ Level, and as the Residences are part of the Gold stream, keeping these at the maximum number you can have, as soon as you can manage that, is a very good idea.

(d) Vault - 300 Wood and 5m Build Timer (Max Number = 1)

The Vault does more than simply provide additional resource storage for your stockpiles - it protects a percentage of your available resources from looting by the enemy even if they succeed in taking your base down! That makes it doubly valuable to us.

(e) Sniper Tower - 100 Wood and 3s Build Timer (Max Number = 2)

As our primary defensive nest adding a second Tower is a no-brainer! Get it done!

(f) Mines - 20 Wood per and Instant Build Timer.

Mines, while not majorly a threat to the enemy, nonetheless can contribute nicely to weakening their forces, so placing the limit you have access to along the line that marks the end of the beach and the start of the grassy field is really a sound tactical and defensive decision.

(g) Sawmill Upgrade - Upgrade Sawmill to Level 2

As your Sawmill is the primary source for the Wood resource, and as you are using a LOT of that early on in creating and beefing up your base, this upgrade should not require a lot of thought.

The cost for this is 200 Wood, but the result is +300 Health, +950 Max Storage of Wood, an additional +90 Wood Units per hour, and +2 XP. Nice one! The upgrade requires 5m.

(h) Gunboat Upgrade - Upgrade Gunboat to Level 2

It is difficult to emphasize just how crucial keeping your naval forces updated is - it is that important! Your Gunboat not only provides additional security for your LCs it also serves as your Arty Support during landings and attacks.

The cost for this upgrade works out to 180 Wood, but gives you +2 Energy (for a new total of 12) and +1 XP (and XP is always welcome!).

(i) Gunboat Upgrade - Upgrade Gunboat to Level 3

Right on the heels of the first major upgrade to the Gunboat comes the next one! At a cost of 1,240 Wood this upgrade not only adds to the effectiveness of your Gunboat, it gives it a total of 16 Energy - which is useful for raining hell down on the enemy!

(j) Headquarters Upgrade - Upgrade HQ to Level 3

Yes, we are back to upgrading the HQ but this time almost exclusively to set the stage for other additions and upgrades. This upgrade allows us to add a Mortar to our base defenses and allows the Gunboat to shoot marker flares, which better permits us to control and direct invasions and battles!

Primarily so we can add a third Residence to our base, but also as our immediate long-term goal is to get the HQ upgraded to Level 4 as soon as possible since that is the level at which we can add the following:

• 1 Additional Landing Craft

• The Armory (allows us to upgrade the military units)

• Machine-gun Nests - allows us to add some to our defenses!

• Additional Mines.

(k) Third Residence

With the HQ now upgraded the first thing we should do is place and build our third house - which will add to our inflow of Gold Coins.

(l) Residence Upgrade - Upgrade the Residences to Level 2

The cost for this upgrade is 350 Wood with a 5m Build Timer. The benefits, in addition to +2 XP are, per Residence, totals of 1200 Health / 950 Gold Storage / and 210 Gold Coins per hour.

Note: This does NOT uniformly upgrade ALL Residences - only the one you paid to upgrade. To upgrade the others you must tap them, pay, and run through their timer individually.

(m) Landing Craft Upgrade - Upgrade Landing Craft to Level 2

This upgrade adds an additional slot to the LC allowing you to add a 6th Rifleman to the boat. It also delivers +1 XP.

Note: This does NOT uniformly upgrade ALL Landing Craft - only the one you paid to upgrade. To upgrade the others you must tap them, pay, and run through their timer individually.

(n) Sniper Tower Upgrade - Upgrade the Sniper Towers to Level 2

Upgrading both of the Towers to Level 2 gives them each 1850 Health, and 44 Damage per Second. While they are not the ideal defensive nest by themselves, with a little bit of assistance they can be very very lethal! And speaking of assistance...

(o) Adding a Mortar Nest

The Mortar is a simple piece of defensive hardware that is similar in effect - though not in power - to artillery. Basically it is a tube that can be adjusted to lob an explosive shell with about four-times the power of a typical hand grenade as far as half a mile away!

The cost for your Mortar Nest is 1,180 Wood Units - so not cheap in other words - but the Mortar can be hella lethal once the Sniper Towers have slowed the enemy down! The idea here, strategically, is to place the Mortar Nest so it is behind a Sniper Tower so that when the enemy stops to take out the Tower they are within range of the Mortar.

At our current level we are only permitted to have one (1) Mortar Nest, and they take 30m to build. Note that darker small ring inside the large target-area ring? That is the close-in area that the Mortar Nest can NOT fire into.

We have now reached the point where your base and forces are at a relatively sound level. This happens to coincide with the point at which the expansion sectors revealed by Radar have reached the level of cost so that you are only really able to reveal one before you have to think about gathering up more Gold Coins - so the game has reached the point at which expansion now becomes a much slower and more directed process.

From here you can start to get more aggressive about going after targets and hey, have a little fun! But this is not the end of the process, not the end by far.

Happily this completes the basic game play guide - you now have all of the tools and knowledge that you need to proceed from here as a very lethal and dangerous commander.

We hope that you have enjoyed this guide and that it has been useful to you!