It’s the zombie apocalypse, and the undead roams the streets. Resources are scarce; shelter is nowhere to be found and, to top it all off, a murderous mutant warlord is out to get you. What else can go wrong in Zero City? However, the fact that the world in this game is dead doesn’t mean that you have to be, especially considering that a cure to zombification might be around the corner.

Zero City is the base-building game with real-time battles and PvP elements that’ll keep you playing for hours. The objective is to slowly build your shelter and provide your survivors with everything they need for eking out an existence in the wasteland. In stark contrast with the destruction and desolation that permeates through the ruined world, your shelter is a sanctuary for the last remaining vestiges of humankind as researchers in a nearby lab toil endlessly to find a cure to reverse zombification.

The plot in this game, while simple and cliché, is all we need for context as the main appeal of Zero City comes from the gameplay. If you want to learn more about the story, we suggest reading our review on this awesome game.

To make a long story short, the previous commander of the base perished in combat, and now you’re in charge of leading the remaining survivors on a trip to find a new shelter. However, before, moving into your new home, you have to clean house. After an easy battle with a few zombies, you’re free to work on your new shelter, and this is where the fun begins.

The Main Screen

The main view of the game is a cutaway of your shelter. That is, you view your sanctuary from the side with the walls removed so that you can take a good look at all the rooms. The rooms themselves are the most critical part of your base as your production, training, defense, and even mating will take part in specialized chambers.

From this main view, you can access several menus. On the left, you can access your trophies, your reports, the chat screen, the available missions, and your inventory. Meanwhile, on the right, you can find special offers you can purchase with real money, game updates and changelogs, the achievement menu, and settings. Lastly, on each bottom corner, you can access the world map on the left, and the marketplace on the right.

Of note are the latter two as they are the most important menus in the game. The world map is where you will go to fight zombies in campaign missions, as well as to raid other players to steal their money and increase your rank in PvP leaderboards. Meanwhile, the market is where you will purchase new rooms and set them in your shelter. Some rooms are standalone projects while others are expansions of existing chambers.

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Restoring Your Shelter

When you first arrive at your base, the place is ruined. Before populating it, you even have to clear the shelter of a horde of zombies residing within. Once you clear it up, you’re free to move and to start building.

To construct a new chamber, all you have to do is click on the market icon, select the desired room, and place it on an open slot in your shelter. In the beginning, you should be focusing on creating a Dining Hall, a Print Shop, a Gym, and a Living Room. With these buildings, you can start producing food and money (the game’s primary resources in the beginning), as well as train your fighters, and also have your inhabitants procreate and bear offspring. Check out our guide on making money in Zero City if, like us, you run into a wall where you need tons of money to keep building and don’t know where to get it.

Zero City has a built-in accelerate feature, which allows you to skip the last 10 minutes of any building project. While this won’t help you very much in the future, when these projects can stretch on for hours on end, it’ll help you tons at the beginning. Every time you build a new room, remember to click on “Speed Up” to save some time and start producing immediately.

Keep in mind that some rooms can be combined with others of the same type to increase their productivity. For example, two Dining Halls can be combined into one big Dining Hall that can produce double the food and fit up to four cooks to speed up production. The same goes for the Print Shop and other production rooms.

Inhabitant Proficiencies

A critical part of managing your base is the proper delegation of duties. Every inhabitant has its own set of proficiencies, which you can consult at any time by clicking on them. In the beginning, they’ll have skill levels in fighting, accounting, and cooking. These levels will determine their proficiency at the corresponding task. In this sense, it’s always best to assign your people to the functions in which they are more skilled.

Later on in the game, you’ll be able to build facilities to develop their skills in many fields, including accounting and cooking. However, at the start, you’ll only be allowed to build the Gym, in which your people can train and increase their fighting prowess. However, until the time when you can prepare your citizens comes, you’ll need to assign them to the tasks in which they excel.

One last thing about proficiencies is that your characters’ potentials are limited by their quality, which is represented by their number of stars. For every star they have, they can train up to 20 levels. For instance, a 3-star character can train up to level 60 in every proficiency.

To increase the quality of a character, you must take a male and a female of high potential and assign them to the Living Room. There, they will become romantically involved and conceive a baby. The newborn child will have a chance of being of higher potential than his progenitors. By repeating this process, you can fill your shelter with 4-star citizens, and eventually 5-star inhabitants as well. Once you have enough high-level characters, you can dismiss the lower quality ones as they’ll only get in the way. There’s no room for slackers in this shelter!

Starting out in Zero City is simple. However, there are specific priorities that you must consider if you want to make good progress in the game. Establishing a decent production, appropriately delegating tasks, and ensuring your citizens are adequately trained in fighting are only a few of your initial concerns. Luckily, with the tips we’ve shared so far, you’ll be well on your way to creating a great shelter.

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