Warsaw – Basic Survival Guide

Vital info about enemies, skills, items, strategy – you name it.

Gameplay – Map

All credit goes to SyfonMK!

When you move around the city there are a few important factors to keep in mind. To get an idea of what you might stumble upon during the current mission see the bottom-right part of the screen.

Keep in mind that the buildings are a physical barrier you cannot cross and later in the game on a rare occasion some paths inside or near destroyed buildings won’t be passable due to a rubble blocking your path.

Objective arrows

There are two types: white and yellow. The brighter the arrow the closer the object is. Though the detection radius is rather small and you will really want to use flares (see items section).

• White – indicates enemies, loot crates and random events.
• Yellow – Objectives. Take note that in a missions like “gain X influence” or “kill X german squadrons” they will still be indicated as white arrows.

Enemies

If possible avoid any unnecessary fights. The rewards may or may not compensate for ammo loss, also you will most likely get your heroes injured or dead.

Encounters come in 2 variants:

• Normal squadrons – they are not aware of your presence and you can decide whether or not you’ll fight them.
• Outposts / sentry – they have a red circle around them which is a detection radius. If you are within the red circle AND germans have a clear line of sight – you will be forced to fight. Buildings will help you to stay undetected Use any physical cover if possible and you will be able to sneak past the outpost. The detection radius varies per squadron and they may overlap each other which might put you in a very unfavorable chain of fights. Often the enemy have a much greater detection radius than you and you will end up in an ambush. Flares are your best friend here – see items section for details.

Loot crates

You’ll want to keep at least a few empty spaces in your inventory to get any usable loot you can find on the map.Prioritize medals, ammo (heavy>long>short) and weapon parts. One stack of long ammo is worth 5×50 money, while a single money stack is just 50. Try to maximize the value of your inventory as much as possible – every penny is important. Obviously try to get as much loot crates as you can during any mission, yet try to avoid any unnecessary fights in the process.

Random events

Watch what dialogue option you choose as the outcome might be fatal for your party. Most events won’t give you anything valuable so if you are not confident (and have healthy party) – just skip them. Also the same type of event usually gives the same reward. They do count for the “gain X influence” mission types so prioritize events over fights.

Gameplay – Base

Party management

You will want to have two full parties ready for a mission. In 95% cases your squad will be heavily injured when the mission is over and it won’t be wise to take them to the next one without healing them first.Thus the advised scenario is to complete a mission with party A, then go for next one with squad B while A takes its time to treat the wounds, then go with full hp A party and let B rest and so on.

Injuries

Every character got 3 levels of injuries. Which basically equals to how many days it will take to bring them back to full health. Going on a 3-4 days mission is enough for your injured folks to recover. Sometimes you will be forced to go on a mission with injured heroes – in such cases prioritize the ones with most hp, take 1-2 healers with you and heal them asap durin the mission.

Recuits

• They come in a few variants.
• They are quite expensive but still you’ll want to have 2-4 of them ready, preferably with different skillsets.
• They cannot gain levels but they are still very useful.
• They can be a valid replacement for your injured heroes, especially in the early-mid game.
• Keep in mind their low hp pool.

The most useful recruits skills (see weapons & skills section for more details):

• Healing – more potent than Franek’s while it can also remove one debuff from the target. Having one such recruit along with Franek is a good subsitute for Jadwiga when you cannot take her on a mission due to injuries
• Gimmick – gives one of your heroes an extra activation point while also removing one activation point from the enemies.
• Cheap 1-heavy ammo strike
• Good rifle 2-target strike
• Pistol repsitioning skill

Resources & party composition

These two factors comes together when it comes to manage economy and battle efficiency. You’ll want to balance your ammo consumption. A good party consists of short, long and explosive ammo users. Try to avoid single type ammo users in the same party as much as possible, especially early game when you don’t have a large quantity of ammo stacked. Pay extra attention to pistol ammo: it is cheaper and more common than long and explosive, A single stack is 100 bullets instead of 50 for long and 25 for explosive and it can be used by 3 weapon types: pistol, revolver and SMG.Having one pistol/revolver, one SMG, one rifle and one demolition weapon users in team is a favorable scenario – at least early-mid game. Also pay attention to skill ranges – it is unwise when your only attack that can reach this last enemy staying in the last row is a very expensive 4-row aoe strike. Ps: you’ll always want to have at least one healer in your party. First aid kits are scarce, expensive and can only be used outside battles.

Repairing weapons

You will always want to repair any weapon you’ve recovered from a mission. Selling weapons will be your main income source during the game. Always have some money left (~100) to affort repairing cost for at least one weapon.

Shop

Don’t waste resources for ammo and items unless absolutely necessary, also later in the game when you will have a large quantities of ammo you can consider selling some to afford extra actions to strenghten city districts.

Helping districts

It might seem useless and expensive but it’s really worth it in the long run. Though you may skip it early game due to lack of money, try to help city districs when possible to keep the morale even across the city. Also you may notice that cheaper actions are more money-to-morale efficient than the most expensive ones.

Choosing mission

Prioritize weakest districts to keep them from surrendering for as long as possible. Then prioritize non-violent missions. You will really want to think twice before going on a mission against armored targets like artillery or tanks, especially early game when you lack skills and resources. You might be tempted to choose missions with better rewards – i.e. heavy weapon parts instead of piustol parts, but the starting weapons of your crew is actually well balanced and keeping the city alive is more important. As a side note – failing a mission is better than letting you heroes die, unless they are recruits and you can affort new ones. You can run from a mission whenever you like, both on a city map and during any fight.

Post mission events & cheats

After every mission there will be a random even with positive or negative effect. If the outcome is very unfavorable – like death of a party member or loss of a city district you can Alt-F4 the game and load it again. You will be placed at the end of your latest mission and there will be a different event waiting for you. This can also be used if you are struggling to get a particular party member to join you.

Gameplay – Fights

Positioning

• Avoid placing your heroes in the first row, place them in the 2nd one instead. The reason for this is that often there will be barricades present on your side of the battle arena and they are usually placed in the first rows, meaning that taking 2nd row will grant you the extra protection for free.
• Think about your squad skillsets, and choose flexible party composition where there is someone that can utilize his skills from 2nd row, someone for the back rows and someone for the middle rows.
• Scatter your team between upped and lower rows, so there wont be 3 party members lined up together waiting to be obliterated by a single shrapnel shell.
• Hitting target from the opposite row grants 20% damage bonus (upper/lower row and vice versa), abuse it.
• Having repositioning attack skills is essential for aoe-based party. You can push the enemy back, you can switch the row (up/down) the enemy is in as well. Before using any expensive aoe skill try to first group your enemies together. Keep in mind they can also reposition themselves.
• Maximize aoe skills effect. It is useless to waste 4 field attack on a single enemy. If it will take you a few action points to maximize aoe damage for the rest of the fight – go for it.
• Some enemies can reposition your team members i.e. by switching their position from 2nd to the last row – expect this and have a skillset that can be used from both front and back rows, otherwise you will have to waste an action points for repositioning to a more favorable spot.

Priority targets

Always think about who you gonna kill first or if you can afford aoe attacks to weaken the whole enemy squad instead of focusing a single target. If you are fighting 4 cramped grenadiers with one sniper in the back it would be tempting to nuke the grenadiers but sniper alone will give you hell, so focus him instead, especially seeing his low hp pool. Important note about amored targets – they are often accompanied with supporting crew (engineers) that can and will repair them for a considerable amounts. It might be wiser to kill all other enemies before switching back to this pesky cannon. Doctors and radio operators may be annoying but they have a limited fighting capabilities so consider them a low priority targets. Same goes for commanders. Few enemy types have two action points per turn which automatically makes them a high priority targets. On the other hand 2 action points means they will bleed and burn twice as often – abuse this fact.

Action points

• Your heroes starts battle with 3 action points.
• They will recoved 1 action points per turn (unless it’s Franek who can regain 2 when trained).
• Actions will use 1 or 2 action points, most simple attacks uses one, most explosive and some aoe skills uses 2.
• The more action points you got during the attack the better the accuracy.
• Passive skills does not use action points, therefore it is wise to get some of them.
• Repositioning your heroes uses action point, avoid doing it.
• Try to lure your enemies to waste their action points if possible. When there is a doctor in enemy squadron he will try to heal any bleeding or burning effect which will waste one german’s action point. Many enemies will prioritize buffs/help on their weakened comrades which is also a win for you. Heavy weapons will use one turn for the attack and one turn for reloading giving you a more breathing space. Also use your recruit’s skill to strip enemies from one action point – it’s often a life saver.

Cheats

This game have undeterministic RNG, which means the same situation will be different every time you load the game and is not determined by pre-generated seed (like Xcom2 or Slay The Spire).

What does it mean to you?

When you get to an unfavorable fight where half of your team was obliterated by a single critical hit aoe explosive you can Alt+F4 the game. Load it again and try the fight with slightly different enemy setup and positioning and a chance to get a different outcome.

Items

Flares

In my opinion the most important item when it comes to survival. The flare will reveal all nearby objectives including german outposts, loot crates etc. When you are near a few objects and you want to avoid ambushes – go on and use a flare. They are quite expensive but you will find them in most missions and usually it won’t be necessary to restock them in shop.

Compass

A must for longer missions with lot of objectives, especially the ones that require you to find X objects that are not german squadrons. Compass will temporary slow down action points loss on the map, effectively giving you more time to explore the map.

Weapon parts

A reward from any mission, also a rare drop from loot crate. Grenades and heavy weapon parts are the most expensive to both sell and repair. Then comes machine guns & rifles, then postols, revolvers and SMGs. When you got two similar missions to take – take the one with heavier and more expensive weapon reward.

Medals

Same as weapon parts – always acquired for completing a mission, and can be find in loot crate as well. Medals are used to level up your heroes, one for 1st upgrade, 2 for 2nd and 3 for 3rd.

Med kits

Expensive, rather rare, can heal one person for a large amount of hp outside the battle. Consider them a good source of money and an emergency healing tool. You’ll still want to always have a healer in your team and with proper battle management you won’t need the first aid kits anyway.

Ammo

There are 3 types:

• Short – 100 in a single stack, Used for SMGs, pistols, revolvers. Low damage, but cheap and common. 100-150 per mission should be plenty for 1-2 users.
• Long – 50 per stack. Used for rifles and machine guns. How much you will take heavily depends on a skill set. Aoe skills uses a lot of ammo while a single rifle shot can use as low as one bullet.
• Explosive – 25 per stack, Used for heavy weaponry and grenades. Try to use it as effective as possible. If the attack can hit 3 targets – hit 3 targets. With proper usage you won’t have to buy them in shops. 2 stacks for a single user should be more than enough for a mission. Also most attacks with this kind of ammo uses two action points so you won’t be able to spam explosive attacks with the same person anyway.

Money

Used to strenghten city districts (morale boost) to repair weapons and to buy resources. A single stack accomodates 50, which makes it least effective use for inventory slot, as the full ammo or item slot is worth much more when sold. Always try to have at least ~100 to be able to repair any weapon you’ll get from a mission.

Weapons and Skills

As of 6th October the Weapon’s parameters (damage, critical chance etc) does not matter completely as the actual damage depends solely on the skills parameters. Therefore if two different weapons got the same skill you’d like to use – sell the more expensive one.

Notable Skills

This section contains the most useful (in my opinion) skills in the game that I’ve been using to succesfully survive through the whole uprising. SInce I have not unlocked all heroes – this is based on a limited subset of folks that joined me.

Barricade – used by recruits and Wanda. Quite useful skill when there are no barricades on the map and when you are facing many enemies that cannot ignore obstacles (i.e. the flamethrower can, machineguns cannot and its damage will be reduced by barricades).

Continous care – best healing skill in the game, exclusively used by Jadwiga. The best part of it – it’s passive and heals you even if the enemy skill misses.

Explosive shot – good for early game. Cheapest attack utilizing explosive ammo (1 bullet) and does moderate damage.

Fire! – cheap and can hit two targets in a row. Very ammo effective if used agains two targets and from an opposite row. Great for early-mid game.

Gimmick – recruit skill, one of the best survival skills if used correctly. It costs 2 action points, gives one ally extra action points and strips enemies from one action point. Use it mostly when you want to avoid an attack or when there is only one enemy left. He will be left helpless while you will be able to heal your party members quicker.

Helping hand – recruit skill, quite potent healing, removes one negative effect from the target. Better version of Franek’s healing and a substitute for Jadwiga when you cannot take her on a mission.

Shot without aiming – recruit skill, upon a succesfull hit moves target to an opposite row (up/down). Great for grouping targets together and to buff the damage of your other team members due to row difference damage bonus.

First aid – basic healing skill you will find youreself constantly using. Can critically hit for double healing amount. More powerful than helping hand but cannot remove debuffs.

Garbage collector – passive skill that helps you to build larger ammo pool. The earlier in the game you get it the better. Can be skipped in late game and when you are in need of more battle skills for difficult missions.

Incinerate – places burning effect on up to 4 targets in 2×2 area. Signature skill of Marian. The best part of it? – it does not cost you any ammo. Use it often. Fire can also burn barricades.

Contraband ammo – can be useful in early game, especially when you can cast it on two characters and both of them have aoe skills since the burn/bleed effect will then affect all aoe targets.

Pin down – there are a few variants of this skill and they are all very useful. You can basically prevent one enemy from doing a single attack. Especially useful vs guys with rocket launchers. Do keep in mind enemy can resist it.

Push back – both variants serves the same purpose and both are viable for aoe setups to move enemy one step back.

Shield breaker – not as useful as ‘take cover’ due to 2 row aoe, but got a decent armor piercing capabilities and relatively high critical chance. Take it if you plan to fight agains heavy ordnance.

Single shot – your bread and butter in early and mid game. Costs only 1 long bullet and does moderate damage. It can only hit two back rows so you’ll want to have someone with either push back skill or with a good attack for the front rows.

Stinger & Slicing salvo – both deals damage with a chance for bleeding debuff. Most useful vs 2 action points enemies.

Snipe – godlike skill of our sniper Anna. Can kill a private(?) type enemy with a single shot. Even in late game there will always be enemies she’ll be able to pwn with this and it will make numerous battles much easier. Use whenever possible and since it takes 2 action points – conserve the 3rd ap from the 1st turn so you can use snipe again in the 2nd turn.

Take cover – most useful 3-hit aoe explosive skill. You will be constantly using it during the entire game. This skill is the main reason why you’d like to use all this low damage repositioning skills.

Historical Aspect

This game is based on a true events from World War II.

Some game mechanics might seem weird to you, some events may feel odd, but keep in mind this all actually happened and one of the goals of this game is to teach you about the past events.

Take time to read the index, to learn about the history of polish folks who fought germans. Read about the german army and their cruel deeds, see how the beautiful capital of Poland was completely destroyed. That’s why there is so much death in this game and that’s why many battles and events are so unfair – it was even worse for the folks who decided to fight for their freedom during WW II despite having no chances of success agains germans.

Misc.

Stuff that is not suitable for any other chapter.

Save location

Saves are located in C:Users<current user>AppDataLocalLowPixelated MilkWarsaw

If you are tired of constantly losing and just want to get it through the game – you can ‘scum save’ and periodically make a copy of save files.

Save file bugs

When you delete a game save from the main menu and restart the game – it will still be there, effectively preventing you from using this slot for a fresh start.