The game is still... so... damn... easy.
Well, it's easy for me, a person who has played hundreds of hours learning every single thing I could about this game. I've perfected the best strategies for each game mode (single player really isn't a mode, as it's a one off experience) and I did so well that many of my records remained despite not playing since late 2014.
I checked this morning and I'm still in the top 30 for lifeline and breakdown stats. In fact, if my lifeline score hadn't bugged out (stopped counting civies for some reason and missions stopped spawning), I'd probably be in the top 10 still. Speaking of lifeline and easy gameplay, every one of my soldiers has a grenade launcher, so my base is invincible during sieges (I only have to kill the bigguns and ferals who are immune to my teammates' grenades).
Much like a zombie Apocalypse, the leaderboard is all about long term survival. My breakdown levels are quick, efficient, and on the whole not dangerous at all. Now that I have THOUSANDS of fireworks, pipebombs, snacks, ammo, and medical supplies, I only die from the occasional survivor turning up missing/dead. All told I believe I've lost fewer than a dozen people in 54 levels.
At the moment I'm down to 5 survivors, as my medical/mechanic chick died because she decided to go missing at 11 PM on a Sunday night then turn up dead the following Wednesday. I'll have to spend longer than normal in level 55 finding and training my next survivor. I'm hoping to find a team mom or father figure to keep my team members' attitudes high. As I said before, people going missing is my #1 cause of death, and that happens for reasons I'm not directly responsible for (morale and interpersonal relationships for example).
I'd like to leave people who happen to come across this site a big tip regarding how to survive breakdown long term. Unlike lifeline, this game is less of a race and more of a marathon. In level 54 I only killed 134 zombies. That's 3-6 hours of play and only 134 kills. Mostly from missions, clearing buildings or picking off someone that wandered into my safe zone. Your number one priority is to avoid fighting. That makes marathoners and ninja's your top performing characters because they are the best at either running from danger or moving around unheard. This principle also dictates that the only missions I go on are for upset team mates or supply runs. Only when I need a recruit do I spend any time helping neighbors.
My strategy can be broken down into three stages:
1. Run a marathoner to a nearby base (or car to take me to a base). If I don't have immediate access to materials I take the alamo.
2. Ninja nearby buildings for create outposts and gather supplies. Fireworks are used to reach buildings that are farther away and make for a better spread of safe area once converted to outposts. Build workshop, sleeping bags, medical facility and optional training ground.
3. Drive around safe area packing supplies into cars and gathering up enough to finish the RV once it's available. Place ammo or grenade launchers into survivors with excess influence before taking off to next location. Also use nearby neighbor vaults to dispose of weapons/bags my teammates decided to shove into my own locker.
Notice how nowhere I talked about defeating hordes, taking on specials or wasting time doing any kind of murdering? Because death can come so quickly in State of Decay, it's all about avoiding fighting to stay alive. Let's see if I can get past level 99 using this strategy, a threshold which people have theorized (from modding) is as far as one can get in Breakdown.
