How to Play Build and Conquer

How to play Build and Conquer in one sentence: grow a self-funding city on your plot, unlock military through population and research, then push tunnels onto the mainland and hold strategic ground. This page is the systems overview — use it as the spine, then dive into specialist guides when a single system is blocking you.

New to the empty plot? Skim Getting Started first. Need bindings? See Controls. Hunting fake free cash? The Codes Hub still shows no working codes as of November 2026.

Core fantasy and match rules

• Genre: Roblox strategy / city-builder with military endgame
• Developer: The Slop Company
• Version context: V0.2 beta — expect bugs
• Players: up to 8 per server
• Monetization: free to play; optional game passes exist (community-reported prices)

You are not running a pure tycoon clicker. Placement quality, utility coverage, and timing of military unlocks matter as much as raw grind.

Video guide

The gameplay loop

Roads + Housing → Population → Shops / Supermarkets → Cash
        ↓
Farms + Industry → Refineries / Steel → Fuel & Missile inputs
        ↓
Utilities (Power / Water) keep everything online
        ↓
Research Office → Guns, Soldiers, Drones, Tanks, HIMARS, Missiles
        ↓
City Levels (pop gates) unlock stronger military options
        ↓
Tunnels → Mainland → Contest Strategic Areas → Buffs + Map Control

Every failure mode maps to a break in that chain. No population means no shop income. No cash means stalled research. No research means you arrive on the mainland with sticks. No utilities means the chain silently rots while you wonder why growth stopped.

Phase 1 — Establish the plot

1. Grid roads with room for later industry.
2. Mass housing without skipping power and water.
3. Plant shops, then supermarkets as density rises.
4. Add farms and light factories when cash allows.

Detailed placement habits live in Make Money Fast. The goal of phase 1 is boring: positive cash and climbing population.

Phase 2 — City levels and basic military

Population drives city level. Community consensus:

City level	Approx. population	Why you care
2	~250	Guns and soldiers unlock
3–4	Not officially published	Soft mid-game; watch tooltips
5	~2,500	High-density showcase (e.g. glass tower ~180 pop notes)

Hit level 2, then train soldiers and place guns. Do not abandon shops the moment barracks open — armies are a budget line. Full milestone discussion: City Levels.

Phase 3 — Research and advanced units

A research office is mandatory for serious military tech. From the office you branch into drones (including Shahed-style loitering munitions in community vernacular), tanks, HIMARS, and the missile tree.

Missile tiers unlock through hit quests — destroy enough enemy units/buildings:

Missile	Community-tested hits
SRBM	5
GLCM	12
MRBM	25
Hypersonic	100
Cluster	1,500

Large missile research often wants around city level 4. Fuel and steel from the industry chain feed sustained fires. Deep dive: Missile Guide.

Phase 4 — Mainland warfare

When the plot can fund replacements:

1. Dig tunnels toward the mainland.
2. Move troops with right-click orders.
3. Contest strategic areas — community reports cite roughly +20% income and +30% population while holding.
4. Layer air defense (C-RAM, RA3, Iron Dome, Pantsir are names players discuss) against enemy drones and missiles.

Tactics, defense, and hold discipline: Mainland Warfare.

Economy subsystems you must respect

Housing and retail

Homes create population; shops and supermarkets monetize it. Retail without roofs fails. Roofs without retail starve research.

Industry chain

Farms and factories are not vanity. They enable refineries and steel, which enable fuel and higher-end munitions. If missiles feel “unlocked but unusable,” check the resource chain before blaming the quest counter.

Utilities

Power and water are the silent tutors of the beta. Expand coverage every time you expand housing footprint.

Controls in the loop

• Hold left-click, drag — place buildings
• E — teleport your avatar on the plot
• Right-click — move troops on the mainland

Mastery details: Controls.

Multiplayer realities

Eight-player servers mean neighbors can outpace you. You are not obligated to rush tunnels on minute fifteen. A slower, richer city often beats an early tunnel into a prepared defense. Watch who already holds strategic zones before committing your only armored push.

Be polite in voice/chat if you use it; the genre attracts both traders and grief-minded raiders. Your best defense is logistics depth, not chat arguments.

Optional Robux — where it fits

Community-reported passes include military packs (~399 R$), more city slots (~249 R$), and custom billboards (~99 R$). Extra slots help sprawling plans; military packs accelerate toys you still need to supply. None rewrite the loop above. Prefer finishing phase 1–2 free before spending.

Practice curriculum (one weekend)

Session A: Roads, housing, utilities, first shops — Getting Started.
Session B: Optimize income and industry — Make Money Fast.
Session C: Push ~250 pop, unlock guns/soldiers — City Levels.
Session D: Research office + first hit quests toward SRBM/GLCM — Missile Guide.
Session E: Tunnel and contest one strategic area — Mainland Warfare.

Between sessions, re-open this how-to-play page and check which loop arrow broke.

Troubleshooting the loop

Symptom	Likely break	Fix
No cash	Shops / pop	Rebalance retail vs housing
Pop stalled	Power / water / space	Expand utilities and plots carefully
No guns	Below city level 2	Push to ~250 pop
Missiles locked	Hit quests / research / city level	Track destroys; fund office
Mainland steamrolled	Early tunnel / no AD	Delay push; add air defense
“Codes will save me”	Misinformation	Read Codes

Mindset for beta

Patch days can change costs, unlock text, or break tunnels temporarily. When in doubt, trust in-game tooltips over memory, then compare with this wiki’s specialist pages. We prioritize community-tested numbers when official docs lag, and we update when The Slop Company clarifies.

Play the loop, not the hype. A funded city with mediocre missiles beats a bankrupt skyline with a Cluster launcher you cannot reload. From here, jump to the guide that matches your current bottleneck — and keep the Guides Hub handy as your table of contents.