Last Train Home – How to Get Different Troops at The Start (by Power-Leveling)

Warning: Contains early-game spoilers! Tired of feeling like nothing you do before Moscow matters? Maybe I can help a bit with that…

Intro (and Spoiler Warning)

This guide will contain spoilers for the early game. I’ve really prepared this to benefit those who have already progressed through the game (perhaps even completed it) who are looking for any ways to try to change things up upon restarting.

If I had one major complaint about the game, it’s the lack of randomization in soldiers, traits, and points of interest. During battles, enemies will follow the same patrol paths, you’ll get the same loot, etc. I’m hoping the developers will make changes to promote the game’s replay value. If they do (and I really hope they do), this guide will become irrelevant in many ways. But for now, you can try this:

Totally Unnecessary Matrix Reference

If you notice when you start the game, some of the troops don’t have combat roles, and unfortunately a few have some decent traits that would come in handy. Spoiler ahead:

If you have played through to Moscow already, you know all of your worker peeps will die in a fiery crash. The only ones who survive will be the ones you take in the squad for battle in Moscow. Your supplies and anything you craft will be destroyed. It seems like nothing you do before Moscow matters.

What if I told you that you could change the outcome a bit, so you aren’t playing with the exact same tired faces each time you restart?

You can take the red pill and learn how you can use these ‘extra’ characters, or you can take the blue pill and go back to thinking that absolutely nothing you do before Moscow really matters.

From this point there won’t be any more blacked-out spoiler tags. If you just bought the game and are playing for the first time, continue at your own risk.

Tip to Avoid Wasting Your Time

Before I get into the details: Two of your starting soldiers are going to die in Moscow no matter what you do. Josef Kinsky and David Rozprym should probably be placed in, and stay in, the locomotive.

Josef is an engineer with the pacifist trait, and David is a faint-hearted worker, and because of these traits, neither can take combat roles. In my experience, the engine is the best place for them to waste what is left of their pathetic, useless lives.

We’re Going to Farm Experience and Here’s The 10 Steps to Set It Up Correctly

Okay, here’s exactly what I do to avoid a meaningless pre-Moscow game:

• 1) Grab everything you can in the very first mission. Search the whole map for supplies. Normally it wouldn’t matter, because you will lose these after the crash in Moscow, but you will need them for this strategy. As soon as you finish the very first mission, the train automatically departs.

Pause The Game

• 2) Shift your two doctors to research in the medical car. Put your medic, Magdalena, into the healing doctor slot. You won’t need her for now, she already has a combat role and so we’re not going to worry about her experience gain at the moment. Set your doctors in crafting and research slot to start crafting med-kits on repeat. You’re going to change this later, but for now, it gives them something to do.

Un-Pause

• 3) Do the next mission. It’s up to you who to take, as it doesn’t really matter at this point. The most important thing is to make sure you collect all the supplies on the map.

Pause

• 4) After the mission put Alzbeta, the new medic you found, into another healing-doctor slot (not research).
• 5) Make sure you fill every spot in the artillery car, both cannons and machine guns. These positions, as long as they are filled, will generate 720 worker experience for every 12 hours on duty, for each soldier in the car. That’s 720xp, for just sitting there doing nothing.

Un-Pause

• 6) Leave the station and wait for the pop-up from the major to tell you that you need supplies, and he’s right. You need those supplies for this strategy. Stop the train and send a squad to the village and buy all the herbs. You don’t need the coal, and the cloth is probably optional as long as you grabbed everything you could in the previous missions. On second thought, just go ahead and buy all the cloth and herbs.

Pause

• 7) Stop crafting med-kits, and switch to research first-aid kits. As soon as that research is done, you’ll start crafting those new first-aid kits on repeat. The reason is that you will have way more cloth than herbs, and first-aid kits take longer to craft than med-kits, and you need your research doctors to be busy as long as possible and make the best use of the supplies you have, and farm as much experience as possible.
• 8) Going hungry: At or around this this point in your journey, your troops will begin consuming food. Open the ‘soldier overview’ and put everyone on half rations (you can do this with one click by using the ration settings at the very top of the ‘food rations’ column) EDIT: I believe food supply starts ticking down at the ‘break-down’ event, so maybe wait until then to adjust rations. Regardless, as soon as you notice them start to eat your food supply, take half their food away.
• 9) Make sure anyone who doesn’t have a combat role is either working in the medical car (crafting first-aid kits on repeat once the research is completed) or as a worker in the artillery car (Except the two useless soldiers I told you about at the beginning, they should still be on the locomotive, wondering to themselves why they joined the military. Maybe they were drafted.). You can shift people in/out of the artillery car to make sure everyone gets some experience, but the key is to make sure those who don’t yet have combat roles take priority in filling those slots.

Un-Pause

• 10) Proceed along the rails to the ‘break-down’ event and send a squad to the forest and the lake. Your hunter and your herbalist should definitely be part of the squad. Once the repairs are made, move your train up next to the lake and pick the squad up. Keep an eye on when that research is done for the first-aid kits and start crafting them as soon as you can.

Stop The Train, And Keep The Game Un-Paused

Go Grab a Coffee and Prepare to Do Nothing for a While

There’s nothing to do here except park the train, let the game run and farm XP like crazy. Remain on half-rations and watch your troops’ morale. You can pretty much let it safely drop gradually until it hits 50%. You want the food to last but you don’t want them deserting before you get to Moscow. Use cigarettes and vodka (which does carry an overdose risk, so be careful with that, you can safely avoid using the vodka) to keep morale up.

You want to stretch your food supplies out as long as possible. You should have about 7-8 days worth of food (on half-rations) depending on how well you did with the forest and lake (hopefully you sent your hunter and your herbalist and got a nice bonus). Cloth supply should be around 300 and your herbs close to 150 (or higher if you got really lucky with the RNG while foraging). Thanks to the medical car’s already-present recycling upgrade, these materials are going to last you even longer than you think.

Once each soldier gradually gets enough experience (either by crafting first-aid kits or sitting in the artillery car doing… nothing), they should rank up to lance corporal, granting them an attribute point and a role unlock.

Critical point! Make sure you give combat roles to the leveled-up troops who don’t have one. Don’t waste it on unlocking cooks, doctors, engineers, or workers. You may need to use their attribute point to bump them up for a specific combat role.

Unlocking a combat role is what will save them after the crash in Moscow.

You Have to Decide Who Lives and Who Dies (Soldier Breakdown)

Here’s a breakdown of who you can save, who would otherwise be lost if you just run straight to Moscow without leveling them enough to obtain combat roles. They’re listed starting with the most-useful at the top to the least-useful (in my opinion).

Viktor Severa, a doctor

Good: thrill-seeker (increased combat xp but less work efficiency), burglar, herbalist

Bad (sort of) Kind-hearted so he has less chance to hit in battle (bad unless you want to use him as healing-doctor)

Interesting character trait: “Thief” (not even really sure what this does as I haven’t noticed it on anyone else, but it isn’t the same as ‘burglar’)

Gustav Beran

Good, really good if you don’t take the kitchen car: Hunter

Bad: Sickly (but this really won’t matter early game until you hit the colder chapters)

Prokop Sysel

Good: Focused (+15% work efficiency)

Bad, but not too bad: Slow-witted (-1 INT)

Anna Davidova, another doctor

Good: I mean, come on… just look at her portrait. She’s too pretty to die in a scripted train crash. Talented: (Increased xp gain for any non-combat role)

Bad: Careless (so she’ll constantly be costing you resources if you send her out to POIs, ‘lost the axe’… again?)

[She’s ranked higher up in this list because she’s likely going to be your most experienced doctor if you follow this strategy correctly and let her keep crafting until she just can’t anymore.]

Vit Kuklik

This guy’s not that great. Intelligent (+1 INT) but Sickly (more likely to get illness later in the game)

Roman Palacky

This guy is not that great, either.

No positive traits.

Bad: Jinx (Bad luck to others in his squad.) Insomniac. (decreased stamina regain)

Has an interesting but probably useless trait: Indifferent: (doesn’t care if other people die. I suppose you could keep him just for the peculiarity of having a religious guy who doesn’t give a crap if his comrades die. What a jerk.)

Johan Kocourek

No positive traits.

Undoubtedly the worst soldier in the Czech Legion, aside from the pacifist and the faint-hearted. Just throw this guy off the train… while it’s moving… across a bridge.

Clumsy (-1 Dexterity) and Self-Conscious (-1 charisma)

‘Entertainer’ character trait. I guess it would be fun to watch him fall off the train.

On to Moscow!

After you’ve milked absolutely as much experience from farming as you can, for as long as you can without running out of food or tanking your morale, and/or you’re out of herbs, start the train moving and get to Moscow.

Decide who you want to ‘save’ by putting them in the squad you are going to use in Moscow. Whoever is not in that squad will not be with you at the end of the Moscow battle. The mission details recommend a squad of 8. You can fill all 10, so fill all the slots. You’re probably gonna have to leave some people behind. Just sort through their traits and determine that yourself.

I’m about 95% certain that any equipment your troops take with them into battle will be with them at the end, provided you don’t use them during battle. (I’ll be testing this further to confirm). This won’t drastically change the outcome. I suppose could take 3 medics and leave the battle with 15 med-kits + what you find in battle. Or you could take 4 medics and leave with 20 med-kits. It really depends on what combat roles you unlocked. Take some extra machine gunners and get more MG ammo which can get kind of expensive.

It’s up to you.

Money, raw materials, and consumables (that can’t be equipped) will be the same every time you leave Moscow (provided you pick up everything you can during the battle), as far as I can tell.

The experience you gain does carry over, so feel free to farm away, even if you have no interest in making any particular changes.

I’m not sure if pre-Moscow morale carries over, so I’d advise you to make sure that all members of the squad you take with you have their morale boosted using consumables just before starting the mission. Might as well use them since you’re going to lose all that fish, cigarettes, coffee, etc. You don’t want to come out of battle and be hit with desertions. I’ve never pushed things that far.

Final Side Note and Potential Risks with This Strategy

You may see one or two soldiers in the “new soldiers” list in the post-battle summary who you can’t find once you leave the battle. I’m guessing these would be ‘fill in’ soldiers in case you didn’t take a full squad into Moscow. The troop capacity for your train is initially capped at 18, so of those new soldiers, some might be left behind, and the game will automatically choose for you. (later you get to decide who to take and who to leave whenever you’re faced with additional soldiers trying to join).

However, everyone you took into the squad before starting the Moscow battle should survive and be present after the battle. (at least that has been the case for me in the 3-4 times I’ve done this).

General tip about power-leveling:

This has the potential to make the game easier. Some of you probably feel the game lacks enough challenge as it is. Some of you may be struggling. However you see it, take it into consideration. Having workers who are better at stoking means less opportunity for fuel waste. Higher skilled doctors means you’re going to start with much faster healing (whenever you can afford to get a hospital car). This is in addition to the side benefits of early-game attribute gains. Abuse this strategy at your own risk.