Introduction

State of Survival is a MMO strategy game taking place in a post apocalyptic Zombie World. Like similar games the ultimate focus is likely to battle enemy alliances and states, but from a game play point of view the main focus is to develop your account, which means training troops, upgrading buildings, research, forging gear, research, leveling up your Chief and Heroes.

Tutorial

A new game starts with a tutorial. For first game players it is good to walk through this slowly as the game can get complicated because of its many different features. The tutorial does a reasonable job of explaining the absolute basics, but there is just too much functionality you should know to understand this game. This guide should help you further.

Bind Your Account

Do not forget to bind your account. Even if you do not spend any money on the game, it can be quite addictive and it would be a shame if your phone or tablet crashes and you no longer have access to your game. In the Player Profile window (accessible by clicking on the avatar at the left top), there is a button to access the Settings page at the left bottom. Here you can click Account to bind your account. On Android this can be done to Facebook, Google and VK.

Alliance

An important step is to find a suitable Alliance. Via the Alliance menu you can apply to join an alliance or join one of the alliances that are currently open for new recruits. As with other games with alliances it is important to find a likeminded group of people. Don't be afraid to switch to another alliance if you feel your first is not a good fit, or if either leaders or other members are not active enough. Make sure you have an active group of people. Not only the number of members are important, but also how many actually log in, which you can see in the Alliance menu (select Members at the left and you see for each member when they last logged in). If you are intending to play for a long time, the social aspect is important for many people as well.

Alliance Relocator

When you join an alliance for the first time you get a free alliance relocator (I had 3 when I started playing, got one as a free gift, not sure where the other came from. Can purchase extra in Alliance Store). You can use this to relocate close to your alliance, but be careful about using it. The game can suggest you to move to a location, which automatically happens if you accept, but this might not be the location your alliance wants to settle down, just where your leader happens to be at that time. Ask about it in the alliance chat first. You can also acquire an advanced relocator from the Alliance Store to relocate to any location of your chosing, but this is costly, and Alliance Credits are not easy to come by, so make sure you only use the Alliance Relocator if you are quite certain you will stay.

Research Lab

One of the buildings in your base is your Research Lab. You can build the Research Lab (I believe once you upgrade your Headquarters to lvl 4). Once you have it, you should basically try to make sure you always have some research project active and you should make your research speed as fast as possible. The Development Research Category contains important projects to increase your construction, research and troop training speed. Besides those there are very important Leadership projects in this tree as well, which increase the number of march slots. This is very important and a good reason to focus on the Development tree first. The Economic Research Category contains important projects to increase your resource production and gathering, the Battle Research Category contains many projects to improve the strength of your troops. This tree also contains March Capacity slots that increase the number of troops you can have in a single march. Very important to max these as well.

Training Troops

There are 4 buildings relevant for training troops. Barracks, Range and Garage are the building where you can give your assignments to train troop. The level of the buildings influence which troops you can train, the higher tier, the better the troops. Each is associated with a troop type, Infantry, Hunters and Riders. The Training Camps influence how many troops you can train and your troop training speed. For each Training Camp you have for each level the Troop Training Speed increases with 0.2%, so it is important to build many and upgrade all of them.

Upgrading Buildings

The game suggests some order of building and upgrading buildings, you don't need to pay attention to that. There are some things to consider. One building to upgrade as fast as possible is the Assembly Point (unlocked at Headquarters level 8), it increases the number of Alliance Helps you can receive and the time each Help deducts from your timers. It does not make as much difference as when a percentage of timers is deducted (like in some similar games), but especially early on in the game, when timers are not that long, it can make a difference if you can receive many Helps (and you have an active alliance that provides those Helps fast). Early on I also tend to focus on upgrading buildings that are requirements for the next Headquarters upgrade first to make sure I can start the next Headquarters upgrade when I go offline for a while. All the buildings have their own importance, the Research Lab unlocks new research project levels, the Barracks, Range and Garage new troops tiers, the Farms, Lumberyards, Furnaces and Gas Tanks increase your resource production rate and capacity (also build many of them and upgrade them). After you start an upgrade do not forget to click the item above the building to request for Alliance Helps.

Having two building queues will be very helpful. You can achieve this (for 2 days) by paying with Biocaps, but it (permament) is also part of certain packs you can purchase.

Helping Alliance Members with Research and Construction

You and your alliance members can help each other with research and building upgrades. Before you have build your Assembly Point you need to go to the Alliance menu to Help, once you have the Assembly Point there will be a shortcut icon above the Assembly Point to Help All. The number of Helps you can receive is determined by the Assembly Point level. Initially you can receive two Helps and it is increased by 1 by every level of your Assembly Point. The initial time that is deducted with each help is 30 seconds and this is increased by 3 seconds from level 2 of the Assembly Point onwards.

Using Biocaps and Speed Ups

In this game Biocaps are what gold is in some similar games. It is the most important "resource". During the game there are various ways to get Biocaps and speed ups, but they are not that easy to come by. Once your timers start to be more than just a few minutes you might get tempted to use these to speed up research, construction and troop training. My general advice is to don't just use these for anything, only use them if you can get something back by winning prizes in the active Events, or for example because it allos you to start a big upgrade before you sign off for the day. Saving up some biocaps and speed ups is important so that it will be easier to win the rewards for those Events. An exception are the morale speed ups you sometimes get (haven't figured out yet how). These you can better use up because there is a limited amount you can hold.

(Battle) Power

Although the Power of a player has no direct meaning for your strength in combat, it is often used by players as a quick measurement of strength anyway. Typically alliances will set certain power requirements for their players which increase over time. As such it is important you get your power up as well. There are seven basic categories of power: Chief, Troop, Building, Tech, Gear, Hero Gear, and Hero. You can see your power breakdown by clicking on your avatar at the left top of the screen, followed by clicking on the Stats button at the bottom. It is an extra reason to always have active research projects, building upgrades and troop training. Your Chief and Hero power increases by leveling up your Chief and Heroes. There are various way to get the necessary credits to be able to do so. The (Chief) Gear and Hero Gear falls outside of the scope of this beginners guide, it is not available at a low level.

Chief Talent Points

After each level up of your Chief you can assign Chief talent points. There are two different categories in the chief talent point section. My suggestion is to focus on the Economy section first. There are possibilities to increase the building and research speed in this section, as well as increasing resource production and gathering speed. Both are important for the speed with which you can grow your account. It is possible to reset the skills later by paying the required 2000 biocaps, but it is better to buy a Talent Point Reset for 40,000 credits in the Alliance Store. This way you can focus more on the War tree before you start to battle.

Infected and Dev Camps

There are plenty of Infected around on the map of different levels. You can initially only kill the level 1, but once you have killed a level 1 you are allowed to attack a level 2, once you killed a level 2 you are allowed to attack a level 3 and so on. You need to have a stronger army to kill higher level Infected. When you click on an Infected, you will see a recommended Troop Power and when you select troops to attack, you see a predicted outcome of the battle (at the right below the Troops and Troop Load). Killing Infected gives you various goodies. Hitting Infected costs stamina. Stamina will recharge automatically. Whenever you log in, hit Infected until you are out of stamina.

An alternative for your stamina is to use it to rally Dev Camps. Make sure someone else from your alliance is online to help you, because you need to rally Dev Camps and require a minimum of 2 players to do so.

You can find nearby Infected and Dev Camps with the Search function at the left bottom.

Events

You can win prizes by completing various stages of Events. You can find the active events by clicking on the Event menu at the right top of your screen. There are various events and this is likely to change all the time, so always good to check out when you log in. You can get rewards for all kind of things you do anyway (upgrading buildings, training troops, killing infected, upgrading heroes, just to name a few), so for sure worth to check this out.

Alliance Tech and Donations

The leaders (Rank 4 and 5) of an Alliance can do research that benefit the alliance in Alliance Tech and Donations. Any member can (and should) help by donating the requirements. This can be done by selecting Donations in the Alliance menu, by going to one of the projects for which the requirements are not filled yet, and clicking one of the buttons to Donate at the bottom. The left button is always active, the middle and right one sometimes. Even when they cost biocaps, you should push them. You get alliance credits (can be used to purchase items in the Alliance Store) in return and donate a lot more. Each Donation increases 10 minutes on the cooldown timer. Once you exceed four hours you cannot donate anymore until the timer is reset to 0, so I suggest to always stay below 4 hours so that you can donate again when you check back after 1 or 3 hours.

Note that the leaders typically select one preferred tech project you should donate to. This helps them plan the progress of the alliance, and gives you extra rewards.

Missions and Daily Reward

In the Missions menu at the bottom of your screen you can access your Daily Rewards and Missions.

Here you should look every day. The Daily Rewards give you extra rewards for tasks you likely do anyway . I will write a separate guide with an explanation for each activity of the Daily Rewards and tips on how to complete them.

The Missions are an extra one time rewards for certain development steps you have taken. Be aware that claiming all these rewards might provide you with a lot of resources. Better to do this when you need them (e.g. when you will do a Headquarters upgrade), otherwise having a lot of resources open might make you a target for bullies.

Intel, Explore, and Story Progress

At the left of your screen just above the corner button to switch between the Wilderness and Settlement view, you can look at lists of tasks that are related to a story line. These can involve things discussed above, like upgrading a specific building to a certain level, but also typically involve some Intel and Explore work.

Exploring can be accessed via the Hero Precinct building. To do well you need to get good Heroes and upgrade them (can be done in various ways, I will make a separate guide on this). The Explore game itself is quite self explanatory and t later levels you can go through it automatically.

Intel can be accessed via the Intel Post. For Intel you use your main march, so to do well you need to have many troops, high tier troops, good combat boosts. A very typical Intel activity is to fight an Infected.

Note: The Intel Post also regularly contains a free gift you can claim. Once you claim it, a timer starts and when the timer has run down a new gift can be claimed.

Gather Resources

Gathering resources is an important way to get extra resources. Assuming your state is relatively peaceful, make sure before you log off to send out your troops to gather.

Check List of What to Do When You Log In

Most of the things in this section we already mentioned, but it might be good to have a reminder of what you should look at as a minimum when you log into the game:

• Click on the Assembly Point Help icon to Help all alliance members with research and construction
• Claim the Free Gift from the Intel Post
• Look at the Events, see whether you can win biocaps, resources, speed ups and other goodies. Make sure you do the activity required for the event
• Kill infected and rally Dev Camps until your stamina is depleted
• Start a research if none is active
• Start a building upgrades if none is active (consider using 2 building queues)
• Start a troop training for each type of troops if none is active
• In the Alliance Donations select a project and donate to get your Alliance Credit and help you alliance with Tech
• Claim the completed Daily Rewards from the Mission menu
• Send your troops out to gather resources
• Read your e-mails and PMs (note that Alliance e-mails from the game might have gifts for you, you need to for example click Read and Claim All at the bottom of your mail list)

If you have more time consider:

• Working more towards completing your Daily Reward milestones
• Working more towards winning the daily stage of the Event
• Upgrade your Heroes
• Work on our Story Progress, Explore, do Intel Missions
• Discuss with your alliance members whether there is some nice targets to attack
• There is actually plenty more to do, but I wanted to keep the Beginner's Guide limited, just explore the map and your city and have fun!

Comparing State of Survival to King of Avalon and Guns of Glory

Guns of Glory and King of Avalon are two other titles from the same maker. King of Avalon and Guns of Glory are almost identical, but State of Survival, although a similar type of game and having quite some similar concepts is also different in many ways. In this section I go more into the differences.

The battle for the Capital (in itself similar with one key building surrounded by four towers) is different in the sense that troops lost will only be wounded, not killed. Besides that in general the wounded troops are split between wounded and slightly wounded, where the slightly wounded part is instantly healed when your march gets back to your city.

Besides the Capital Clash there are also 12 other state buildings (bunkers) for which you can do battle. Since every alliance can only do battle for at most two of these buildings, this is an opportunity for other alliances to compete as well.

Easier to keep growing your stronghold, as it is easier to meet resource requirements. Currently it only goes up till level 30, no idea yet how it will be from there on. I am at headquarters 27 and have not found any need for a farm account, the opposite, I still have loads of resources in my inventory.

Many many many events that keep gameplay interesting while your times are running. Both lots of "economy" events as plenty of battle oriented events both against other players and computer opposition.

No siege troops, which are pretty useless in King of Avalon and Guns of Glory anyway.

The version of Portal/Underworld Gate in State of Survival (Influencer Trap) has some improvements (cooldown of a bit less than 2 days so you can keep playing it at same time every 2 days, can keep donating to be eligible for victory rewards even after the donation target is reached).

Conclusion

I hope this helps you getting started. If you have questions, or if you have other suggestions for beginners, please share in the comment section.