Once you reach HQ Level 6 your speed of advancement slows down quite a bit. You no longer have the relatively immediate advancement with either toys or with building (this stops at about Commander level 14). Focus on upgrading all of your buildings to the max level, then upgrading your HQ. Keep your Lab working on research, and keep your Training Camps making troops. The tutorial has for the most part stopped pointing at things for you to do, but you can still go to the chapter guide to see where to move next.
Let's talk about more things you can collect:
- Daily Lucky Wheel: you start out with 3 spins each day, make sure you get them every day.
- Arms Dealer: The Arms Dealer opens up for a period of time after you attack Toys or train troops, and allows you to purchase resource boxes, speedups, Advanced Teleports, and other useful items. The cost differs from item to item, and is either gold or resources. There can be good deals here, and some items that are difficult to get can be purchased here, including Aegis and Advanced Teleports.
- Recruit Center: You are given a free single recruit once every 8 hours. Each recruiting token gives you a chance at some officer fragments, or a full officer. Officer fragments must be collected until you have 100 of them, which you can then fuse together to make a whole officer.
- Daily Quests: Perform the required tasks (Gather Plastic, Use Resource Items, etc...) to earn Quest Points and open quest reward boxes. If you collect 3000 points you can open the top reward, which contains an Honor Recruit Signet, some officer fragments, and 300 gold.
At HQ Level 6 five more resource plots open up - look for the small green army men waving their arms. You can unlock these with 5k each paint and plastic. Fill them with Resource Factories.
Explore around your Command Center a bit - just about everything you see is something to open and check out. Click on every building and see what it does.
You probably have available Strongholds to capture in Special Operations, and it's one of your Chapter quests, so don't forget about them. You now have 3 officers (at least), so be sure to add Victoria to your attack lineup. Victoria gives you another Stage Skill: Cannonballs (the icon with purple bombs). If you've purchased Wendy your battles are going to be very easy for a bit. Eventually you are going to come across a Supply Point. This is a position that is held by an actual human player. See if you can capture it. They may try to capture it back, and it will go back and forth between you until one of you is unable to win the battle. You also have the option to Change Opponent to see if you can get a softer target. You might also find a Supply Point that is held by an inactive player. Your goal is to keep as many of these as possible, because they give you regular rewards. Don't forget to collect your Occupation Rewards - look for the sparkling gift box in the upper right corner.
Once you have captured Stronghold 11, you gain another full Victoria officer, and the tutorial shows you how to merge them. You'll want to do this, as it makes your officer more powerful, and for many of your officers you don't need multiples of them (there are some exceptions to this, so check out the Officers section for more info).
HQ Level 6 unlocks the Shelter, which is a building that allows you to store resources and troops to protect them from attack. Unfortunately it doesn't allow you to protect much, so it's not as useful as it could be, but it does help some.
HQ Level 6 also unlocks the Nexus building. Increasing the level of your Nexus improves the amount of time gained when your corps members help you with your research and building tasks. Having this as high level as possible is very beneficial for you, so always keep it upgraded.
Finally, HQ Level 6 unlocks the AMS Assistant. This is a tool that allows you to do some tedious tasks rapidly. You can attack toys, automatically do the Bug Killer Bonus, sweep Counterattack stages, etc... You can also spend money to activate the Advanced Assistant. For $5 you get 30 days of Advanced AMS Assistant, which allows you to instantly collect all Online Rewards, collect all free Recruitment, automatically spin the Lucky Wheel, collect all Air Force Tactics Drill points, and instantly gather all Air Force Supply items for the full day. It's $5 well spent, in my opinion.
Look to the 7-Day Training activity in the Bonus Center for tasks to perform. You can also look to the Recommended Quests tab under Quests. Performing these activities will give you rewards once you accomplish them, as well as help improve your player power.
HQ Level 7 unlocks the Exchange - this allows you to send and receive resources (plastic, paint, etc..) to and from your fellow corps members. Unfortunately there is a very low limit on how many resources can be transported at a time, and there is a relatively steep tax (45% at Exchange level 1), so it's not that useful at low levels. Once you reach higher levels, however, this building is very useful.
HQ Level 7 also unlocks Joint Command. Joint Command allows you to both create and participate in rallies with your fellow corps members. In a rally, multiple corps members join their attacking forces together to launch one, large attack at an enemy. In order to upgrade the Joint Command building you must use Micro Antenna, which can be purchased with gold
Once you beat Stronghold 18 in Special Operations, you are rewarded with another officer: Doctor Comedian.
This officer is an Assignment Officer, which means their main purpose is not in battle, but to provide administrative function. The tutorial will show you the Assignment Center, and will show you how to assign Doctor Comedian to the Logistics Department. When Doctor Comedian is assigned to the Logistics Department, he provides a 3 minute Building Upgrade bonus at Skill Level I. You can increase this bonus by improving Doctor Comedian's Skill Level. For now the Officer Level of Doctor Comedian does not matter, unless you wish to use him in Special Operations battles. You can gain Doctor Comedian Officer Fragments by claiming the Special Operations Stage Chest rewards.
At HQ Level 8 a number of things open up for you:
- You gain 5 new resource building plots to fill - build on those as soon as possible.
- Your Air Force Command Center opens up - this allows you to earn Air Force Tactical Points through the Air Force Tactics Drill.
- The Command section of your Assignment Center becomes available. This allows you to assign officers to administrative positions that give you buffs.
- You become eligible to compete in Silver Competition and in Deep Battle on the weekends. Look to those pages for more information.
You've hopefully Joined a Corps by now, since you get a lot of rewards simply by doing so. You should be attacking Evil Toys to use up your Stamina. You may be attacking players now, especially if you are on a new field (If everyone on your field is HQ Level 15 or lower you're probably on a brand new field). You should be building up your Buildings and you should always have something in the Research queue. You are probably training troops all the time as well. Remember to keep your building levels as high as they can be before leveling your HQ. Take advantage of all the free items available - look for red dots to show you when something is available or needs to be done. You should be leveling up your Officers, including upgrading their level, Promoting them to increase their Star Level, and improving their Skill Rank. Focus on improving the Officers you use the most, either for Attacking, for Special Operations, and for Assignment. If you are on a war-like field keep your Aegis up. Remember that a cheap 24-hour Aegis is now available every day in the Loot Store in Counterattack. Many players set themselves alarms to remind themselves when their Aegis is about to expire.