A guide on how to play: from basic to advanced gameplay

From Senkö, from City #4

Okay, first of all: why a guide? And, more specifically, why ANOTHER guide?
To answer that: now we all have a lot more experience playing and, also, there's a LOT of new content. So, here we go.

1.- Basics about the game.

ZGirls is a mobile war game in which you take the role of a survivor of a zombie apocalypse... With the main difference that you're not a controllable character but a “behind the scenes” commander that gives orders.

You manage your armies through the enablers (they 'enable' you to command your army). The enablers are a bunch of pretty anime-style underage girls with different skills. In the past, you could date most of them. Now you can only date 2, after fulfilling some requirements.

There are several types of Resources, they're mostly self-explanatory. We could add Obsidian (see under Fortresses, below) and Diamonds.

Diamonds is the “vip” RSS of the game. You can get some through Quests (check Item B for more on how to get them). We'll see the best uses for them later, too.

**Idleness is your worst enemy in this game, that’s why people that spend too much time offline get removed from the alliance.**

A.- The School

The game features 17 “inside the school” building grounds (to be filled with the 4 unit-producing buildings, Z11, Shrine, Embassy, Student Union, Logistics Center, Dorm, Armory, Communication Building, War Factory, Laboratory, Cafeteria, Clone Lab and Storeroom) and 35 “free- outside the school” building grounds (to be filled with YOUR choice of up to 8 of each type: Shelter, Farm, Oil Well, Clinic, Alloy Mine, Steel Mill).

Which number of each one of those to build will depend on your strategy and on your play method. You can build, for an “all out attack” strategy: 8 Shelters, 8 Clinics, 1 Farm, 8 Steel Mill, 8 Alloy Mine, 2 Oil Well.
Why this setting? It prioritizes Unit Production and the ability to heal them, plus helps you get the “harder” to obtain resources: Steel and Alloy.

Or a “Farm” setting: 8 of each Resource node (as above), 1 Shelter and 2 Clinics (or 2 Shelters/1 Clinic, up to you).

Besides the building, you also have to upgrade the buildings themselves, they get more useful with each level (or at some specific levels, as is the case with Barracks [unit producing buildings]). Having a level 17 or level 18 Military Office makes no real difference.

The Monument is a passive (as in no need to upgrade it) building. When your troops die in combat, you get life sign papers back. The stronger the enemy, the more life papers that you get (it's also speculated that, the stronger the unit that dies, the more papers it gives).

You can Build/Upgrade ONE building at a time, with the option of temporarily hiring a second one.

B.- Quests

The game gives you 3 types of quests.

“Mission Type”: they're announced with a yellow walkie-talkie while in the school interface. They never expire, and you may complete them in any order. Sometimes you complete one and get the rewards for several others that you completed along the way. You can only see three of these at a time.

“Event Type”: You can see them at the Events Building (to the left of the Teaching Building). It shows both Unique Events (like Easter-themed ones, Christimas-themed, and so on) and 'regular' ones (like Train Students, Kill Enemy Troops, Increase Strength and so on). The 'Regular' events rotate almost daily. **This is the main way for free-to-play players to obtain diamonds.**

Quest Type: marked with a Book (to the left of the Inventory button, above the chat box), Quest types are daily quests. They're further subdivided into 5:

- Sign-In Reward: you log in every day, and collect rewards. No further information necessary. You get Izumi (and plenty of other rewards) by doing this.

- Rescue: remember that little chopper on the right of your “inside the school” area? Well, 10 times a day, you get to send it outside and come back with free stuff for you. The longer the mission, the better the rewards. USUALLY.

The most important missions are the ones that give 5 Virus Stock. Then the ones that give ONE VS (virus stock), then the ones that give three 2h troop speedup (you'll want these for the Train Students Event), then the ones that give one 2h troop speedup. Then the others. If you get 2 or more Rescue adventures that don't give speedups or virus stocks, do the ones that do give those and then refresh (only using the free refresh, of course).

Why did I say that that's the importance order?
Because Virus Stock can only be obtained through this, Life Tree fruits, spending diamonds at the store or in events (AFAI remember).

And the speedups cost 175k per 2h. Making one 2h speedup worth more than those lame 10 min missions that don't give anything but fuel/food.

Sometimes you'll get a Survivor bonus. They have never worked for me, so I can't give you any advice about them. Their time runs while you're obtaining them, so even if you complete their mission, if you don't claim it, they'll still disappear.

- Alliance Attendance: gives you free rewards as long as your alliance has members login in. When 30 members have logged, you get extras. Same for 50 members. No further info necessary.

**- Alliance Contribution: I can't emphasize this enough. All the alliance members SHOULD donate to this constantly. They get rewards back (through the Alliance Wages, explained later) for doing it, plus the whole alliance gets bonuses for it and, also, they get store points to get EVEN MORE stuff. Seriously, if your players don't donate, consider moving them to your secondary/farm alliance.**

Both Alliance Attendance and Alliance Contribution are also part of Alliance Wages. The other Item in there (Active) is self-explanatory. You should aim to get at least 340 points there every day. It's not possible to get 500 points at the moment.

C.- The World Map

The World is where most stuff actually happens. It's where you'll find RSS nodes, Fortresses, Facilities, friends and foes.

RSS Nodes: you send troops there, they gather it and come back to the school. Then you use those RSS to become more powerful.

Fortresses: one of the game's latest additions. You capture them and your whole alliance gets a bonus. Plus you can send your troops (with an enabler, that's mandatory) and there they'll gather the new RSS: Obsidian. Obsidian can be used at the (third tab of the) Alliance Store to purchase stuff.

**They have decided now that they only last for a few days, making the effort required to capture them a complete load of uselessness. Not worth it anymore, except maybe some lvl 1.**

Facilities: there are 4 of these in the map. Supermarket, Ordnance, Prison, Laboratory. In City 4, Hin (replacing AoG), Col, WaR and Pod own them (in their respective order). They all give great bonuses to different things (they're pretty obvious, tho, so I won't go into much detail).

Friends & Foes: it's in the city where you'll find the other schools, whether enemies or allies will be found there. Check for more on this later.

2.- Advanced Tips

You should now be familiar with, at least, the basics of the game. Let's go into more detail.

A.- Attacking (& Formations)

Some people have their own personal formations that give them better results. They have a lot more fighting experience than I do, so I go with Recommended as it's quite well balanced.

The role of Tanks (whether they're Dead Tanks or Attacker tanks) is to die so your other troops don't have to. It's not uncommon to lose 10x as many troops if you don't use Tanks.

And why do you care about that? Healing costs are high. But training new troops? That's even worst.

B.- How to survive being attacked

In the ZGirls group we see a lot of people bitch about being attacked, these are ways to avoid that:
First: most people attack during KE only. So if you're gonna use a shield, do so during the KE. There are still some others that do attack outside KE, but they're a minority.

Second: even outside KE, you can still shield.

Third: “But I don't have more shields!”. WTH? What have you been... Nvm. Let's deal with this option. Are you absolutely sure that you CAN'T win? Ok, then send your troops to an ally that didn't waste his shields. That way, you can protect them for free.

Fourth: “That's not possible because \_\_\_\_\_ (insert excuse there)”. Don't worry, you can still send your troops to the other corner of the map. By the time they get there, they'll still have to get back. That means a lot of “protection” time. Better yet, send them to kill a deads group, so they come back on their own.

Fifth: “But what if I want to use them soon afterwards?” Ok, genius, then send them to School Ruins. As of today, they DON'T have additional functions except to hide your troops, kill some of them and give you a lame amount of RSS. Why use them? While they're there, nobody can target them.

Sixth: it is also possible to teleport away (randomly or with an advanced one).

This is more than enough to survive.

C.- Using Resources

During early game, the most important resource was Food. This has since been replaced since nobody in City #4 is at this stage.

However, starting at mid-game, Fuel replaces Food.

Food:

In my opinion, unless your Sariko/Carol Kizuna (increased food output) is crazy high, or you have very few troops (or they're deads for the most part), gathering food is a waste of time. Why? Because your troops will simply eat anything over your protected (remember the storeroom?) amount. And fast, too. In my opinion, currently (and I hope they fix them) it's better to farm Obsidian and to buy Food boxes (to open when you actually need them, so your troops don't eat them).

Fuel:

You can freely gather this to your heart's content, the more, the merrier. Fuel is used in almost everything starting mid-game, you can never go wrong with gathering fuel. If in doubt, unless you're missing Alliance Active points (read in the Quests section, above), gather fuel. Why? TRAVELLING MERCHANT (use Fuel, not diamonds!)

The Travelling Merchant offers stuff that you usually can't get unless you're p2w or you use a lot of diamonds. Also, you can trade Fuel for other RSS here (the exchange rate is:

Fuel to Food: 1>1 (as long as you pay less than the food that you're getting, you're not being ripped off)

Fuel to Steel: 6>1 (as long as you pay less than 6 fuel per point of steel, it's ok)

Fuel to Alloy: 24>1 (you should get the point by now)

You can also (and should!) buy the following here:

Enabler XP

Universal/Building Speedups

VIP points/VIP time (if you see them, buy them)

Carol Exclusive Gifts (they used to show up, stopped appearing once I got Carol. I wish they still did, tho)

Steel:

Important after starting mid-game. Not as important as Fuel and it doesn't have a mandatory function (but they're important for training deads or researching in late game).

Alloy:

Near the end of mid-game and the start of late game, Alloy becomes necessary. Why? Because it's mandatory, in high quantities, for everything.

Diamonds:

We have already covered how to obtain them. Now we'll deal with how to effectively use them.

Of course, this changes if you're paying. In that case, don't take this guide for the truth, since I dunno how it is to have that amount.

**Anytime: alliance tech donation. I still can't emphasize how important this is.**

Anyhow:

From early to mid-game: builders and spending events. What to spend them on?

That varies, but usually: random enabler boxes (this is new, but with Kizuna they're worth it if you're willing to buy several), 3-day peace shield (I'm not a fan, but suit yourself; they last for the whole KE), Adv. Teleport (you can NEVER have too many of these; but you'll probably do better by purchasing them at the Alliance Store. Only use diamonds if it's an emergency or a very important situation), War Horn (now THIS is an important use for these; in mid-game and during war times, War Horns show their true value. The more that you spend on these, the higher your Student Union level and the more troops that you can rally), Virus Stock (buy them from the Infection Institute for a discount! Given how powerful Dead units are, I'd highly recommend you to spend on this. Want tanks? Deads can tank. Want firepower? Deads have great firepower. Deads also debuff your enemies. If you research Tame Deads, available starting at mid-game, they can also carry more than your other type of troops. Deads rule!), 30-Day VIP (if you've reached VIP 8 and you're a free-to-play player like myself, this item is a must. Buy a couple of these and you'll be happy about it. The extra march is just one of the many perks of this.), VIP points (only buy them if you're about to level your VIP up), Exclusive Gifts (only buy them if you're gonna recruit the enabler with those gifts and/or during the spending event).

Stamina: while most people don't hunt deads, Stamina is very important. Because it can be used to capture fortresses and to kill more deads (see below for the Deads Appendix). You're probably better off buying this at the Alliance Store anyway.

What not to spend them on?

Gear: ever since it could be crafted, the value of buying them with diamonds decreased. Now that you can buy them with Obsidian (check below) and that you also get draw tickets with daily logins, this is a waste of diamonds.

Non-Exclusive Gifts: Exclusive Gifts cost less. Avoid them like the plague.

Nutrient Solution: while we all like the rewards, the % to get something worth 500 diamonds is WAY too low for this to be viable.

Resources: unless you're gonna reach a milestone or you're gonna do something VERY important, buying RSS is a waste of diamonds.

War Bonuses: they're so easy to obtain during daily events that it's a waste to use diamonds on these. Buy them from the Alliance Store if you really need them.

False Army/Gather Bonus/Food Cost Reduction: pointless. Buy them from the Alliance Store if you really need them.

Obsidian: this is the newest resource type. As I've mentioned above, I believe that the best use for this is to buy Food boxes to avoid losing all your food to the troops. If it's early game or you REALLY don't have gear, you can also use it to buy gear pieces (I'd rather craft it anyway, tho).

You can only obtain Obsidian from garrisoning the fortresses and the amount that you obtain from them is fixed, so you may as well change your gear to output or passive bonuses (I mean the ones that are active even if the enabler is NOT in the school or that affect everyone and not just that march).

D.- Deads

Kill deads. ALL. THE. TIME. Kill as many as you can, as strong as you can. Don't kill deads 3 or more levels below your maximum. Why?
- Gear: deads sometimes drop gear. You can either use it until you get something better or split it to actually Craft something better (at the armory).

- Life Tree: remember that I mentioned the life tree before? The only way to upgrade it for free is to give it LOTS of fertilizer. And how do you get fertilizer? By killing deads. The Life Tree rewards are awesome (Intensify Elements, Virus Stocks, Random Enabler Box, Kizuna pics, and more!). The only bad thing is that they nerfed the drop of fertilizer (still drops).

- Experience: we all wish our enablers were higher. Killing deads is a way to give them xp that's free.

- Resources: remember how important RSS are? Well, the RSS boxes are the improved version of just having resources laying around. They can't be stolen, they can't be eaten (take that, food upkeep!), you can easily quantify them and spend them on a need-to basis. They're always useful.

- Materials: sometimes, instead of gear the deads drop materials.

- Kizuna pictures: these are also dropped sometimes.

- Speedups: they're also dropped sometimes.

- Diamonds: I've personally never gotten the 100 diamonds from deads. But it's not that rare to get 5/10 diamonds.

If you don't like killing deads, still kill at least 5, for the Alliance Activity points (and to get troops to heal).

E.- Happy Day: not so long ago, we got a feature called “Happy Day”. Basically, you get to save on RSS/Time/Items when doing stuff. Take advantage and do those (if they're important and/or expensive) on these days.

F.- Armory: I suggest crafting oranges of the highest lvl only. Until then, use what you get from killing deads or from purple boxes.

G.- Skills:

Red is for an “on the right time” use only.

Green is for “Use as much as possible”.

Mass To Teaching Building, Long range Shot, Ultimate Agent, Resource Shield, Medivac, Escape, Behead, Turn to Deads

**Bumper Harvest, Collection Call, Special Training, Deep Plow, Invest**

**It's worth mentioning that Deep Plow is incorrectly described. It's real effect is “increase the amount of resource gathered by 60%”. As long as it is active when the gatherers return, the skill takes place. Best skill in the game AFAIK.**

Hide: prevents you from being scouted. Last for 8 hour, then a 24 hour cooldown.

H.- Specific Events

Easter, for example, had a “send a gift to a friend for points, get a gift from a friend for points” theme.

For these events, it's better to get a partner, gather as many items as possible (both you and your partner) and then send them all together right before the event ends.

For the Increase Strength event: heal all the wounded troops that you should get if you kill all the zombies and capturing the fortresses.

Kill Enemy Troops: at this point, in City 4 we mostly trade with others. If you find a target, all the better.

I.- Node Gathering

The most important part of gathering nodes at the moment is getting the Storage Boxes (obtainable only if you deplete the node!). You get the amulet for wishing from those and some minor speedups.

J.- Life Tree

The Life Tree is what gives you those amazing fruits. Plus it gives GREAT bonuses for the whole alliance. Not upgrading this is stupid (gives rewards for upgrading and passive bonuses too, what else do you want?).

K.- Laboratory Upgrades

Once you hit level 6, you can research Legion I. This NEEDS to be your first research ASAP. Same goes for Legion II and III.

Then upgrade what you want, depending on your strategy. I personally upgrade Deads since I think that they're the best unit type (splash and debuff, low upkeep cost, low producing cost, higher carrying capacity, etc).

L.- Alliance Force

Those pesky fortresses I keep mentioning? They're displayed here, along with the bonuses each fortress gives and who's occupying each of the 5 slots each fortress has.

M.- Alliance Store

Here you can exchange those hard-earned donation points for awesome stuff. NEVER buy anything for diamonds that you can purchase here unless it's of the utmost importance. It now also has the Obsidian shop.

N.- Alliance Help

Always Help as much as possible (there's a “Help All” button, use it as much as possible). Always ask for help, even if it is a 5 second heal timer (because there's an Alliance Activity that gives points for helping others).

O.- Bombs

In my opinion, build 120 each day (for the activity points) and forget about them until the next day. By R😂a😂i😂hah😁😁😉😉