Hey all you gang-bangers, block-rockers, and drug-pushing pranksters. The DrugWars team just dropped a new update a couple of days ago, so let's take a look at how the game has changed, what's new, and what's going on with that map.
The Map
Following this most recent update, the first thing you'll be greeted with upon logging in is a statement that you have to pick a location for your base. This is true whether you're a long-time, returning player, or someone who just picked up the game today. In order to do this, you need to visit the Map via the menu on the left side of your screen, and when you do, you'll see something like this:
The Earth is apparently now covered with dozens and dozens of hexagons of varying colors, so let's get into the nuts and bolts of what this means.
When you choose a location for your base, what you're doing is planting your flag in a specific part of the map. If you hold down the left mouse button, you can drag and tilt the Earth -- otherwise it rotates slowly in space, displaying the continents. There are hexagons available pretty much anywhere you want to claim territory: you can even tilt the planet up or down to find a place for your base in Antarctica or the Arctic Circle if you like. Every hex is home to 225 separate areas which can be claimed for bases. With over 450 hexes to play around with, that leaves room for well over 100,000 potential bases, so there's plenty of space for everybody at the moment.
Every hexagonal area can be one of several colors. Generally these denote how many other players have already set up shop in that area, and thus the "Risk" of building your base there. Risk isn't an important factor right now, but future updates will introduce factors where the government or law enforcement agencies notice and react accordingly. The more bases of operation in a given hex, the more "heat" is drawn to that area, and the greater the chance The Man will start kicking in doors. Clicking on a hex, as shown above, will give tell you what its number is, who controls it, how many free locations there are, how many total bases are located there, and the current "Risk" level. As you can see, at the time I took the screenshot, Territory 53 was under Government control, had 9 bases built, 216 free areas, and held a "Moderate" risk of getting the government's attention.
Green, yellow, orange, and red hexes all represent places players have built, and the risk associated with setting up camp there.
Blue hexes are "Mission" hexes; currently there are no actual missions to accomplish, but future updates may send players to different places to commit different acts of mischief, either to acquire resources or just progress through a limited campaign of sorts. Mission hexes can be built in, though doing so may not be wise given that the game may be directing players to those areas specifically in the future.
Black hexes (which, at the time of this writing, exist only in South America and Africa) are empty zones, currently devoid of anything: no people, no bases, no missions, no nothing. You can build in an empty zone and it will change color to reflect your arrival, so expect to see these vanish as more players look for undeveloped territories.
Once you've picked your hex, you'll be taken to a screen that resembles the Periodic Table of Elements:
Now that you've selected the hex in which you want to start your new empire, you need to pick a Base location within that hex. Red squares represent already-occupied territory, while black squares represent free zones ripe for the plucking. In the screenshot above, you can see we're in territory 214. Areas 1, 2, 10, 17, 34, 42, 128, 214, and 223 are all controlled by other players--everything else is up for grabs. A green square represents a base you own.
Doing this will generate a two-number field that explains where your base is specifically located on the left side of your screen, just below your avatar icon. For example, if you built in area 19 of hex 117, you'll see "{Base Name} 117 : 19".
If you're curious to know who your next-door neighbors are, you can click on a Base square and learn some basic information: the nickname of the player who owns it, the gang they are affiliated with (if any), what level their HQ is at that base, and the base's name.
The default name for your base is "Primary", but you have the option of naming it something else when you create it. Be careful: once you've created a base and named it, you cannot move it or re-name it. Make sure you are happy with the location before you finalize it, because the last thing you want is to piss off some gang who was trying to take over an entire block, column, row, or other pattern of territory.
Once you plunk down the base, assuming you're a returning player, you'll see your resource generation beginning in earnest as your buildings pop into existence exactly the way they were prior to the update, so there's no need to rebuild or anything like that.
Storage Upgrade
The devs have significantly boosted the amount of resources that your storage facilities for drugs, weapons, and alcohol hold and protect with this update. The only problem is, in order for the change to take effect, you need to upgrade each by one level--until then, you'll be operating at pre-update levels.
Before building anything else, upgrade your Drug Storage, Weapon Storage, and Alcohol Silo, if for no other reason than to enjoy the increased resource protection.
New Unit: The Occupation Troop
The Occupation Troop, as you can see in the image above, is the single most expensive unit in the entire game: for a million total resources (half in guns, half in booze), you get the ability to build an additional base!
Now before you fantasize about owning 3/4ths of the map, you need to be aware of a few things. First, you can only hold a maximum of five areas: your primary base and four alternates. You are not limited with where you can establish a new base: some players may want them all in a line in the same area for ease of access, others might want to put up strongholds in different continents. It's all up to you.
Second, the Occupation Troop will defend in combat if you get attacked (it has Offensive and Resistance values for a reason). Its unit priority is set to 'last', meaning it acts after the Mercenary, but this also means it is now the first unit targeted by Knifers. Should an opponent decide to mess with you, roughly 30 Knifers are enough to chew through its 20,000 points of health. Thus, the rule of Occupation Troops is that you only create them when you're ready to deploy them, because leaving them in reserve is just asking for trouble and they're too expensive to waste.
To create a new base, go to the Actions menu after having trained your Occupation Troop, and select the 'Occupy' action from your list of choices. Add your Occupation Troop to the outgoing force, enter your target coordinates in the boxes below (for instance, if you want to establish a new base in area 225 of hex 19, you would put '19' in the box marked "Territory", and '225' in the box marked "Base"). Enter a name for your new base if you like. Click the big, red "OCCUPY" button, and your troop will head on his way.
Note that once he's planted your flag in the new territory, the Occupation Troop "dies", so you don't get him back after the mission. This means that, yes, if you want to establish a third, fourth, or fifth base, you'll need to dump another half-million firearms and alcohol into recruiting another one. Consider it a cost of doing business.
You probably noticed that the Occupation Troop has an ENORMOUS carrying capacity: 30,000 for a single unit. It makes sense--the guy's hauling all the supplies necessary to establish a new HQ in some other sector. You might get it in your mind to keep an Occupation Troop in your boot camp at all times just for transporting goods between your bases (or carrying off loot from other players), but this is an objectively terrible idea. For one thing, the Occupation Troop is slow as all hell despite the fact he's the only one shown driving a vehicle. It takes him over half an hour to reach his destination, unless you've MASSIVELY trained "Routing". For another, he costs a million resources to produce. To put that in perspective, 75 Super Bouncers can haul the exact same 30,000 resource units in less than half the time, and at less than one quarter of the cost (225,000 total). Occupation Troops have one job, and one job only: to build a new HQ. Using them for literally anything else is a colossal waste.
Tips For Handling Your New Base
Your new base comes online with next to no supplies at all: just a level 1 HQ, and around 5,000 units worth of Drugs, Weapons, and Alcohol. You might be tempted to use those right away, by setting up a Crack House, Ammunition Factory, and Traditional Distillery, and maybe one or two Storage units, but before you start upgrading willy-nilly using your resources, take a look at the low, low cost (both in Future and Steem) of doing instant upgrades to your buildings.
If you're a new player, you won't have any Future in the bank unless you've purchased some on the open exchange, but if you're a returning player, chances are good you've got some of those coins banked. Well, now is your chance to spend a few to get your new colony up and running. At low levels, many of the buildings cost fewer than 10 Future to build, and many of them only run 1-2 at first level. The time it takes to upgrade your Headquarters manually is over four hours; dropping a couple Future right off the bat to get that HQ leveled up (and thus applying the reduction to construction time for all other buildings) is well worth the price. Likewise, the faster you can get your resource production going, the sooner you can start paying off that million-resource debt you incurred starting the base off to begin with. Future has limited uses outside of DrugWars, so throw some into the pot and maximize your return on investment. At the very least, you'll want some resource production, storage, and probably a Training Facility so you can recruit new troops to guard your base.
If you can spare them, send a few troops over from your primary HQ to serve as guards. You don't want to leave a new base undefended, after all. Even a handful of knifers, bouncers, and gunmen can be enough to ward off potential Spies and keep people looking for an easy score elsewhere.
What NOT To Build In Your New Base
Some stuff you don't actually need to construct in your new base, because the game only looks at the highest level of a particular building to determine its effects on your troops. Because of this, unless you've completely neglected them in your primary base for some reason, don't bother building the Operation Center, Pantheon, or Research Center.
You can likewise ignore the Training Facility after you've put a single level into it, because it will almost always be more cost-effective to Station pre-existing troops at your new base using the Actions menu, then recruit more to replace them at your primary base, where your Training Facility is pumped up. Use the resources of your new base to bolster your resource production, and use your main base to supply the guards as-needed.
A Slower Pace
With the requirement to pick a spot for your HQ as soon as you enter the game now, this update effectively "wiped" all the inactive players from the game. That means you're extremely unlikely to find any players to 'farm', since you cannot attack a player until they have established a base, and anyone who is an active player will be spending their resources and enjoying the larger supply holdings granted to them by this update.
If you've been used to farming players for resources in order to build your empire quickly, it's time to get used to a slower pace for the game--at least for now. Use this time and the added storage capacity to focus on building your major resource production areas: Pharmaceutical Labs, 3D Metal Printing shops, and Industrial Distilleries (after you've upgraded your storage units at least once).
Patience will be a virtue here, and depending on your resource level and how much you've been building, you may find yourself needing to log in only once every day or two: just often enough to upgrade a building or two, then log out again. It will probably take a few weeks, if not months, for players to reach a point where they are routinely exceeding their Safe storage limits, which will make attacking and pillaging an attractive option again.
If you're a new player, enjoy this relative tranquility and use it to get your empire off the ground. If you're an established player, this is a great time to ignore beefing up your army in favor of ramping up resource production. Players will abandon the game in the coming weeks, I'm sure, but for now just about everybody playing will be active in consolidating their own forces and branching out into new areas to expand their empires.
Be chill. All hell will break loose again soon enough. For now, enjoy the new features, explore your options, and keep that drug money flowing!
Does DrugWars sound like fun? Want to start playing right away? Here's the link, go claim some turf and start capping fools.