Day 1

Explore

Most say the best thing to do this day is to explore. You should have food (from the doggy bag) and water (from the well). Make sure you always have both before you go out and explore (i'm looking at you Hathe!). Also you can easily drop food/water and move and be in trouble. So just watch what you drop. Go out to a new area and explore. Its not a bad idea to let others run out for the first few hours to pick your direction and see where zombies are.

Always search a zone when you enter it. If you move to another one you cannot come back to auto search that day. My strategy is to search a zone then auto search until its depleted then move on. Always keep track of your AP/Water/Food situation. I sometimes leave myself with a little bit of room in AP and just use it to help build at the end of the day.

If you don't run into zombies: auto search and drop stuff that is not needed as much. Others might come by and pick it up.

Best to worst:

*Planks, wrought iron, nuts and bolts are all needed early. Nuts and bolts are pretty hard to come by early. Scrap metal is also needed early. Electronic stuff and anything that sounds important probably is early. Really the biggest priority early is building supplies.

*Defense Items - place in the bank and it gives more defense that way than your house (which people rage about if you leave it in your house). Better for the town. Note you can only carry one heavy object.

*Food - not needed nearly as much as building supplies early.

*Weapons - goal is to survive not kill, not a big deal to get these early. I usually leave them.


So you got stopped by zombies? Post on the town forum your (x,y) location and as long as the town has some decent players they will come get you. All you have to do is have more people. People are worth 2 and zombies are worth 1. As long as you have more in the equation you can move back. Note - once the balance is back in favor of the zombies you have 30 minutes to move before you are trapped again. Don't try and fight bare handed or flee unless you have no other options, its just easier to save people. Also try not to log right after you post, you'd be surprised how quickly some respond.

Deposit building supplies in the bank upon returning. Keep food in your stash for the first few days.



Eat/Drink

Eat first to restore AP when it hits 0 (waste to do any earlier) than drink to restore the next 6.

If you move to much you get thirsty. So moving 12 (6 + 6 from food) than drinking you remove thirst and can still move 6 more.

Move to much -- > Thirst --> move to much again without drinking ---> dehydrated ---> stay dehydrated --> Die

Drinking can move Dehydrated to Thirst or Thirst to nothing its why its best to use your drink second. If not you chance getting dehydrated the next day if you move to far before drinking while Thirsty. Thirst will not go away over night.

Hopefully that is not to confusing. Just eat to restore first followed by drinking and you should be fine as long as you don't marathon around the map. You can only eat and drink (water) once a day



Building

This is simple if you don't want to gather. Only build your tent (no resources just AP) and don't build a Hovel. Unless you want to get shunned (which happened to both Hovel builders on day 1 in my game).

After that just read the forums and follow the leaders (if you don't have one it'll be a tough town anyways) and build what they say to build.

Usually its workshop followed by watchtower. Don't just randomly build stuff because you have supplies. People will rage. Feel free to use both your food/water to get more AP that day and get further in building.

These two strategies should keep you out of trouble in Day 1 and works for Day 2 as well. Killing zombies is not the goal. Trying to survive is the real goal.



Other Tips

Curtains are bad for your house - people panic and you can easily turn from a fan favorite in a town to getting shunned. Honestly building anything in your house other than your tent is probably not worth it until you understand the game. I'd just focus on gathering and building for the town.

Don't steal if the town is doing good. People will catch on and rage. Heroes can remove lines from the town register. It happened in our game after he tried to steal. Now a lot of people hate him.

Reading the town forums is a must.

Don't eat Human Flesh or Meaty Bones unless you have no other options - chance of being infected.