Last War Survival: Headquarters (HQ) Requirements & Strategy#

Upgrading your Headquarters (HQ) is more than just leveling a building, it’s the backbone of your progress in Last War Survival. It increases the available levels for your buildings and heroes, unlocks additional buildings and research and opens up new mechanics and events to participate in. Once you enter the Age of Oil after Season 2, it will unlock additional levels above 30 to progress even further. Here’s how to navigate the journey effectively.

HQ Level 1-10: Easy Peasy#

At the start of the game you will find it a breeze to level up. The buildings require little resources and the waiting times are short too. No real secrets to share here yet, other than focus on getting your HQ level up to unlock more abilities and to grow in power.

HQ Levels 10–25: The (Relatively) Easy Climb#

From HQ 10 to HQ 25 it should be straightforward in terms of resources required for the upgrades. At this point in the game there will generally be enough resources available by the time you have your buildings upgraded to the required levels to also have saved up for your headquarters. The main challenges are to keep a constant progress going. You'll start noticing that you can't simply rush your headquarters anymore and need time to acquire enough resources and speedups. Some general tips for these levels:

• Keep all resource chests unopened until you need them. With every later level you are able to open these, you will get more resources when you really need them. To get an idea of the differences between levels, have a look at our Resource Chests Calculator - keeping them unopened will help you in the long run! As an added benefit you will also be a less interesting target to plunder when you have little resources available in your base, as the resources from chests are safe.
• Focus on HQ requirement buildings. Plan ahead and level up the buildings that are requirements for the HQ upgrades. Generally speaking these are also the buildings that give you the most benefits, so nothing wrong with upgrading some in advance even if they aren't a direct requirement for your next HQ upgrade. Give our Building Resources Calculator a try to understand the building requirements and the corresponding resources, and combine it with our HQ Requirements Calculator to get a quick overview of the levels you want to get certain buildings to for future upgrades.
• Open buildings on the right VS day (building - tuesday). At this point in the game you will still be able to finish a lot of buildings in a week. Make sure to keep the ones that do not hold back your progression (e.g. they are not a requirement for other upgrades/unlocks) unopened in your base. That way you can open them all on Tuesday for VS points!

All in all you should be able to get to level 25 before you start running into the real grind. Above level 20 will definitely be slower, but still doable.

HQ Levels 25-30: The First Grind#

At HQ 25 up to 30 you'll start to notice the resource requirements increase much more than they did before. At this stage you will start slowing down your builds and there will be less HQ upgrades in a week than prior. It will still be possible to progress well if you make sure to focus on the right buildings. Prioritise the ones needed for your HQ upgrades and don't overspend on other buildings; you will have time to do that once you reach level 30. Tips for this grind are:

• Keep all resource chests unopened until you need them - same as for the previous section: keep them unopened until you actually need the resources to benefit from the increase in value for each HQ level.
• Focus on the HQ requirement buildings. Again, focus on these that will allow you to upgrade your HQ further. Generally speaking they are the most helpful as well (apart from the Wall, we all dislike that). Use our Building Resources Calculator to know ahead of time what resource requirements there are.
• Save buildings for VS. Since it will be slower to upgrade the higher level buildings, make sure to plan ahead for VS. You don't want to overshoot your daily boxes as it will be more difficult to get enough buildings in a week for the next building VS day: only cover the necessity and consider pushing when you're sure you will manage next week without issue!

HQ Levels 31+: Unlocked by the Age of Oil - The Real Grind#

At the end of Season 2 you will find yourself in the "Age of Oil" event, which introduces a new resource: Oil. In addition it brings a new tech tree that becomes available once your Tech Center is level 30 and you've completed at least 40% of the "Special Forces" research (formely 80%).

With this tech tree you can start working towards the "HQ Expansion" research at the end of the tree. When you complete this research, it will allow you to progress past level 30 with your HQ and the new max level will be HQ 35!

Oil will be the main bottleneck holding you back going forward, as you should have an ok amount of food and iron in the meantime. Don't stress it too much, the earliest time you will be able to reach HQ 35 without spending additional funds would be the last couple weeks of S4. It's a long grind, but you'll get there eventually. Of course there are also Oil packs available that you can purchase to increase your oil resources. Some additional tips for the HQ 30+ grind:

• Unlock oil wells early! Oil will be your bottleneck and it remains a hard to obtain resource (let alone the oil requirements go through the roof at later levels). Because of this, it's recommended to reach the oil well research quickly so you can build it and let it run; any day without oil is a setback to level up your buildings.
• Get to HQ 31 for weapon shards. At HQ 31 your reindeer trucks will contain choice chests for legendary shards or weapon shards. It's helpful to get to HQ 31 soon to benefit the most from this change to stock up on additional weapon shards.
• Focus on HQ buildings. Since oil is a bottleneck, only focus on upgrading the buildings that are required for your HQ upgrades past 30. If you branch out, it will take much longer to get to the maximum HQ level, while there will be plenty of time at that point to upgrade other buildings with the oil you'll keep producing. Use our Building Resources Calculator to know ahead of time what resource requirements there are.
• Additional oil well unlocks - By researching you can unlock 2 oil wells, and you can get an additional 3 from leveling up your HQ for a total of 5 oil wells! Make sure to keep this in mind as your primary source of oil will be from these wells.

When to Rush, When to Grind#

Up to HQ25, it’s both easy and strategic to rush—key buildings and hero caps unlock quickly, fueling your power curve. But after that, progression slows; HQ30 in particular is a grind.

That said, once the Age of Oil arrives, rushing to HQ31 is smart. It unlocks oil wells, triggers better truck rewards (weapon shards), and provides better secret tasks (including oil) and dig rewards. Plus, additional oil wells at higher HQ levels will boost your oil output to upgrade buildings past level 30.

Tools to Plan Ahead#

• Use the Building Resources Calculator to plan your resource needs for each HQ level.
• Check the HQ Requirements Calculator for a general overview of the building-level prerequisites for each HQ upgrade.