Introduction

Following the Intermediate Growth Strategy Guide I wrote earlier (check it out if you haven't read it!) it should be relatively easy to grow till Headquarters 22. Based on my experience with other similar games I was expecting the growth to become a lot more difficult, potentially requiring farm accounts to meet resource requirements and waiting much longer for times, but it turned out to be not that bad. In this guide I share my further experience and some tips.

Resources Are Still Important

The resource requirements did not grow as fast as I expected. I am now about to start HQ 29 and this requires only 18.7 million gas, 65.2 million Iron and 233 million food and wood. Seems a lot, but I have easily been able to save up large amounts of resource items over the past months that would allow me to start HQ 29 even if my stocks were empty.

Still, it is important to keep playing actively and gathering as much as you can. Do not use up those resource items unless you have to to keep your Headquarters and Hero Precinct upgrades going, for the rest, just gather and use from your stocks.

For resources keep following the tip from the earlier Growth Strategy. Make sure you have enough troops to gather with all your marches, make sure your hive is located near high level tiles, and keep your Mega Gathering Boost (from the Settlement Buffs) active whenever it is safe to gather.

Building Timers are the main Issue

I expected resources to take over as main issue from timers, but they didn't even now at HQ 28 I have so far been easily able to keep the Headquarters and Hero Precinct upgrades going non stop.

This means it is important to keep the construction speed high, on the other hand it also feels like I got the finishing line (HQ 30 and tier 10 troops) within reach, and I am consciously not researching Tool Improvement VI lvl 3 (a 2.5% construction speed bonus for about 7 days of research), because I have the feeling that not too long from now the construction speed will be irrelevant.

Of course there will be new levels, the star levels have already been introduced, but I expect for those time is not going to be a direct issue, it will be purchasing items.

I have kept my VIP 5 active giving me an extra construction speed boost of 10%, and of course have kept using the Rapid Development talent for major constructions.

Keeping Leveling Up Your Other Buildings

I have kept using one of my building queues for Hero Precinct and Headquarters upgrades, the other to upgrade all other buildings. I have used some speed ups of the other buildings because I really wanted to complete Growth Missions to get my chief to 44 (a bit more about that in a later paragraph). At this moment I am about to start HQ 29, and I have still 2 buildings at 26, 5 buildings at 28 and the rest at 27, so I have kept up quite well. This is also necessary, because the prosperity condition to upgrade your Headquarters makes sure your other buildings cannot lag too much.

Research

Although research is not the key focus of this guide, it is very important as well. A very important reason for construction is unlocking the tier 10 troops, which have better basic stats than lower tier troops. Via research you can increase the combat boosts of your troops, having the same effect, making your troops stronger. One important step in research is getting your chief to EXP level 44. At Chief EXP level 44 you will have enough talent points to max out the second Tech Improvement project, which greatly increases your research speed.

Completing the Growth Missions, which is basically just upgrading all buildings, is the easiest way to get a lot of Chief EXP.

Conclusion

I hope this guide will offer some help with growing your Headquarters from level 23 to 30, although basically it is just about keep going the same as before. If you have questions or you want to share tips for others, please leave your remarks in the comment section.