Collapse: Faction Wars

Build a community and survive the end of the world Start with only a small campsite and a few people. Search abandoned neighborhoods for food, water, medicine, weapons, fuel, vehicles, tools, and building materials. Rescue survivors, expand your settlement, build defenses, develop new skills, and decide how far you are willing to go to keep your people alive. The infected are everywhere, but they are not your only enemy. Up to eight survivor factions can compete across the same map. Other communities search the same buildings, recruit the same survivors, claim valuable locations, build their own settlements, and fight for the same limited supplies. You can cooperate with them, avoid them, trade with them, raid them, or destroy them. As the match continues, the infected population becomes more dangerous and the struggle for what remains becomes harder. Every survivor matters You do not simply train new people from a barracks. Every survivor is an individual person who must be found, rescued, recruited, or convinced to join your community. Survivors have their own names, traits, strengths, weaknesses, equipment, morale, health, wounds, infection, and skills. A former mechanic may be much better at repairing vehicles. A hunter may be skilled with firearms. A nurse may be valuable when infection spreads through the camp. A runner may move faster and become an excellent scavenger. Losing an experienced survivor can completely change how your community operates. Survivors improve through experience People become better by actually doing things. Survivors can improve their abilities in scavenging, melee combat, firearms, construction, medicine, mechanics, and athletics. A survivor may begin as a Level 1 scavenger and eventually become one of the best people in your community for dangerous supply runs. Experienced builders construct facilities faster. Experienced medics are better at treating injuries and infection. Experienced mechanics can repair better equipment and unlock more advanced crafting. Experienced fighters become much more valuable when the infected or another faction attacks your settlement. Who you send on a mission matters. Search an abandoned city The world is filled with places to explore. Search grocery stores, homes, apartments, pharmacies, hospitals, police stations, gas stations, restaurants, warehouses, schools, hardware stores, construction sites, offices, motels, fire stations, mechanic shops, survivor camps, and abandoned vehicles. Different locations contain different types of supplies. A pharmacy may contain valuable medicine. A police station may contain firearms and ammunition. A gas station may still have fuel. A construction site may contain large amounts of building material. A mechanic shop may provide vehicle parts and tools. A grocery store may save a starving community. But every search takes time and creates risk. Scavenging is a real expedition Supplies do not simply appear in your inventory when you click a building. Choose survivors and send them into the city. They travel to the location, search it, gather what they can carry, and bring the supplies back to your settlement. Vehicles allow larger scavenging runs and make it possible to transport much more equipment, but vehicles require fuel and create additional noise. A survivor carrying valuable supplies can be attacked on the way home. Another faction may reach the location first. A group of infected may follow the noise. A simple food run can turn into a fight for survival. Build a survivor settlement Every faction begins small. Your first home is a basic campsite with only enough space and supplies to support a handful of people. From there you can slowly turn the camp into a functioning survivor community. Build Bedroll Shelters to house more people. Build Rain Catchers to collect water. Build Garden Plots to supplement scavenged food. Build Supply Sheds to increase storage. Build Aid Stations to care for wounded and infected survivors. Build Workbenches to craft and repair equipment. Build Lookouts to watch the surrounding area. Build Barricades to slow attackers. Build Salvage Garages to repair and maintain vehicles. Build Radio Shacks to contact survivors outside your immediate area. Your settlement begins as a few tents and eventually becomes a defended community capable of surviving major attacks. Food and water keep everyone alive Your supplies are not just numbers used to purchase units. People actually consume food and water. Larger communities require more supplies every day. Running out of food lowers morale and eventually causes starvation. Running out of water becomes dangerous even faster. A large community can be powerful, but every additional survivor is another person who needs to eat, drink, sleep, and stay healthy. Sometimes taking in another survivor can save your community. Sometimes it can make an already desperate shortage even worse. Medicine can mean the difference between life and death People become wounded during combat, scavenging, accidents, and attacks by the infected. Medicine is required to properly care for serious injuries and infection. A skilled medic and a functioning Aid Station can dramatically improve your chances of keeping someone alive. Without treatment, an injured survivor may be unable to work effectively. An infected survivor may eventually become too sick to leave the settlement. If the infection becomes severe enough, they may die. And death is not always the end. Your own people can become infected Being attacked by the infected can spread the infection to survivors. Infection develops over time. Some people can continue working while infected. Others may become increasingly sick and need to remain at the settlement. Medicine, medical knowledge, skilled survivors, and proper facilities can improve their chances of recovery. If an infected survivor dies with the infection still inside them, they may reanimate. Someone who spent hours building your community can become one of the infected you are forced to kill. The infected are everywhere The infected are not a normal RTS faction sitting inside a base. They roam the city. They wander through streets and abandoned neighborhoods. They follow noise. They gather into groups. They can become attracted to gunfire, vehicles, construction, alarms, scavenging activity, and large battles between human factions. A quiet neighborhood can become extremely dangerous because of one badly timed gunshot. Different infected create different threats Not every infected behaves the same way. Walkers are common and dangerous in groups. Runners can quickly close the distance on isolated survivors. Brutes can absorb much more punishment and threaten defensive positions. Armored infected are harder to kill. Screamers can draw more infected toward an area. Bloaters can create dangerous situations when killed at close range. The most dangerous threat is often not a single special infected. It is what happens when several different infected types appear inside a much larger group. Hordes move through the world Large groups of infected can form and travel across the city. A horde may pass harmlessly through an abandoned neighborhood. It may wander toward another survivor settlement. It may hear gunfire from your people. It may follow a vehicle back toward your base. As the match continues, the infected become a larger problem. The city becomes more dangerous. Major attacks become more common. The safe areas of the early game may not remain safe forever. Noise can get people killed Many actions create noise. Firearms are loud. Vehicles are loud. Construction creates activity. Searching some locations can attract attention. Large settlements naturally create more movement. A quiet group using melee weapons may be able to search an area without attracting much attention. A survivor firing a shotgun can completely change the situation. Sometimes the strongest weapon is not the smartest weapon. Fight with melee weapons and firearms Survivors can use improvised weapons, baseball bats, crowbars, machetes, axes, pistols, revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and automatic weapons. Different survivors are better with different equipment. Firearms are powerful but consume ammunition and create large amounts of noise. Every shot matters. When ammunition runs out, survivors cannot continue firing forever. They must switch to melee combat. This makes ammunition one of the most valuable resources in the world. Craft and repair equipment A Workbench allows your community to create and maintain better equipment. Materials and parts recovered from the city can be turned into weapons and useful equipment. More advanced items require better mechanical knowledge and more experienced survivors. Finding the right survivor can be just as important as finding the materials. A community with skilled mechanics may have access to equipment that another faction cannot easily produce. Knowledge survives with your community Progress is not only based around building structures. Your community develops knowledge in construction, food and water management, medicine, security, mechanics, and community organization. Books, manuals, notes, experienced survivors, and important locations can help improve what your group knows. Better knowledge unlocks new facilities, equipment, improvements, and survival options. A community that survives long enough gradually becomes much more capable than the desperate group that originally started around a campfire. Morale can hold a community together or destroy it Survivors react to the condition of the settlement. Food shortages hurt morale. Water shortages hurt morale. Overcrowding hurts morale. Deaths hurt morale. Severe infection problems hurt morale. Constant attacks can make people feel unsafe. A well supplied and protected settlement improves morale. High morale can help attract new survivors. A strong community with available beds, food, water, and a working radio may begin receiving people who have heard about the settlement and want to join. A collapsing community can experience the opposite. At extremely low morale, survivors may decide they would have a better chance somewhere else and leave. Meet survivors outside your community Not everyone belongs to one of the major factions. Independent survivors can be found throughout the city. Some are hiding. Some are scavenging. Some are trapped. Some may be traveling alone. Some may be part of small temporary groups. Approach them and attempt to recruit them. You need somewhere for them to live and enough supplies to support them. A well developed community has a much easier time convincing people to stay. Other survivor factions are trying to survive too Every human faction follows the same basic rules. They need food. They need water. They need medicine. They need ammunition. They need fuel. They need people. They need somewhere safe to live. AI factions send survivors into the city to search for supplies. They recruit independent survivors. They expand their settlements. They construct defenses. They treat wounded people. They develop better equipment. They repair vehicles. They scout the world. They respond to shortages. They fight the infected. And they compete with you for the same limited resources. Fight other human communities The infected may be the greatest long term threat, but other people can become just as dangerous. Attack another faction and kill their survivors. Raid their scavenging parties. Steal valuable locations before they reach them. Attack their settlement. Destroy their defenses. Take supplies from defeated enemies. A rival community that controls a pharmacy, fuel rich neighborhood, or important warehouse may become worth attacking even if you were previously at peace. The world does not create enough resources for everyone to become powerful. Eventually factions will have to decide what they are willing to do to survive. Scout before starting a war Information matters. Exploring the city reveals new scavenging locations, independent survivors, infected activity, enemy settlements, and possible threats. Fog of war prevents you from knowing everything happening across the map. A rival faction may be quietly growing on the other side of the city. A major horde may be moving through an unexplored district. An apparently valuable location may be surrounded by infected. Sending people into unknown territory is always a risk. Build defenses before you need them Barricades, lookouts, defensive positions, armed survivors, and carefully designed settlement layouts can make the difference during a major attack. A settlement that focuses entirely on growth may become wealthy but vulnerable. A heavily fortified community may survive attacks but struggle to gather enough food. The strongest settlement is usually the one that balances supplies, population, defenses, equipment, transportation, and exploration. The world becomes harder over time The beginning of the match is about establishing a basic community. The middle of the match becomes a competition for important supplies, experienced survivors, vehicles, knowledge, and defensible locations. Later in the game, large infected groups become increasingly dangerous while the surviving human factions have had time to become stronger. Neighborhoods that were once easy to search may become extremely dangerous. Supplies become harder to find. Human wars become more costly. A long running game becomes a fight between developed survivor communities inside a city that is becoming increasingly difficult to control. Become the last community standing You can survive for a long time without fighting every human faction. But eventually only a limited number of safe locations and supplies remain. Destroy rival settlements, survive the infected, protect your people, and become the strongest remaining survivor community. The last faction standing has not defeated the apocalypse. It has simply survived everyone else. A large city to explore Matches take place across large maps designed around exploration. Roads connect neighborhoods filled with abandoned homes, stores, industrial areas, medical locations, warehouses, vehicle locations, and other places worth searching. The map is intentionally much larger than your starting settlement. You are not supposed to know what is everywhere at the beginning. You have to send people out and find it.