Last Z Building Upgrade Guide: Best Buildings to Upgrade First

If your Last Z: Survival Shooter base is progressing slowly, you’re likely upgrading the wrong buildings.

With 76 buildings and 27 decorations in the game, it’s easy to waste resources on upgrades that barely increase your power. This guide highlights the most important buildings to prioritize—and the ones to avoid—so you can develop your base faster and more efficiently.

Headquarters: Your Absolute Top Priority

The Headquarters (HQ) is the most important building in the game because it controls the maximum level of every other structure in your town.

If your HQ is level 22, no other building can go beyond level 22. The maximum HQ level is 35, although many servers initially cap progression at level 30 until later stages unlock.

Because of this system, your main objective throughout the game should be straightforward: keep the Headquarters upgrading whenever possible.

Higher HQ levels also unlock higher hero level caps (eventually up to level 175), which significantly increases troop capacity, attack, and defense. In other words, every HQ upgrade is a direct step toward stronger armies and faster progression.

 

Mandatory Buildings for HQ Upgrades

To upgrade the Headquarters, several buildings must follow a fixed progression path. These structures are required and cannot be skipped.

Core HQ Progression Buildings

• City Walls
• Alliance Center
• Assaulter Camp
• Shooter Camp
• Rider Camp
• Laboratory

These buildings will repeatedly appear as requirements for higher HQ levels, and eventually they must reach level 30 and later level 35.

Troop camps are especially important because they increase both training capacity and training speed, allowing you to rebuild armies faster after battles. The Alliance Center increases alliance help capacity and reinforcement limits, which reduces construction, healing, and research time when alliance members assist you.

The Laboratory is equally critical. At level 30 it unlocks T10 troops, and higher levels open access to advanced research like Steel Age upgrades, reservist troops, emergency buildings, and additional steel plants. Eventually, the laboratory needs to reach level 34.

A second laboratory is optional but useful. It upgrades faster and costs fewer resources, making it a solid efficiency boost if you can afford it.

 

The One Early Upgrade You Shouldn’t Ignore

Most early buildings should be skipped unless they are required for HQ progression. However, there is one exception: the Villa.

The Villa provides construction speed bonuses and free construction time, which is incredibly valuable during the early and mid game. Faster construction means fewer speedups spent and faster HQ progression overall.

A practical stopping point is Villa level 25. Beyond that level, upgrade costs increase heavily while the benefits become relatively small.

To put things into perspective, upgrading a level 35 HQ can take roughly 260 days without buffs, so every construction speed bonus makes a noticeable difference.

 

Strong Support Buildings Worth Upgrading

While your main focus should remain on Headquarters progression, a few additional buildings provide strong efficiency benefits.

Recommended support buildings

• Bookstore – increases research speed
• Restaurant – improves troop training speed
• Military Center – increases maximum troop capacity
• Hospitals – expand hospital capacity

The Military Center becomes particularly powerful at high levels. At level 35, it can provide over 22,000 additional troop capacity, which is a massive boost to your overall combat strength.

Hospitals are another structure you should never neglect. Injured troops are sent to hospitals after battles, and if hospital capacity is exceeded, those troops die permanently. Upgrading hospitals ensures you avoid heavy troop losses during large fights or major events.

 

Mid-Game Power Buildings

Once your Headquarters reaches higher levels, your upgrade priorities begin to shift toward buildings that provide direct combat bonuses.

Formation Buildings

Formation buildings grant troop stat bonuses such as attack and defense. During the mid game, focus on Formation 1 and Formation 2, as they provide the most accessible upgrades. Formation 3 and Formation 4 should only be upgraded if they are available on your server.

Hall of Honor

Each faction in the game has its own Hall of Honor building. These buildings increase faction hero attack, hero defense, and troop capacity.

Upgrading them also raises the maximum hero honor level to 350. Once your heroes reach their fragment limit, extra fragments can be invested into the Hall of Honor to gain permanent stat boosts, making it a powerful long-term investment.

Rally Square

The Rally Square becomes extremely important in late-game combat. At level 35 it can provide up to 55% team damage and allows 10 players to join a single rally.

Early in the game rallies are used less frequently, but in the endgame coordinated rallies often outperform solo attacks, making this building a key part of alliance warfare.

 

Situational Buildings

Some buildings have niche uses but should not be prioritized early.

The Radar should be upgraded to level 17, which unlocks reinforcement unit details when scouting enemies. This is very useful for PvP strategy, but upgrades beyond level 17 usually provide poor value.

The Production Center increases gathering speed and troop load capacity. Troop load bonuses become more useful later in the game when gathering resources becomes a larger part of daily gameplay.

Training Grounds are another optional investment. There are four of them, and at level 35 each produces over 270,000 hero experience per hour. While this can accelerate early hero leveling, the value decreases significantly in the late game.

 

The Only Resource Building That’s Actually Worth It

Most resource production buildings in Last Z are inefficient compared to their upgrade costs. However, Smelting Plants are a notable exception.

At level 35, each smelting plant produces 350 alloy per hour. With four plants upgraded, this adds up to more than 235,000 alloy per week.

Alloy is essential for upgrading high-tier equipment—especially mythic gear—so these buildings can become valuable in the long run.

 

Buildings You Should Avoid Upgrading

Several buildings look useful but provide extremely poor returns.

Buildings to avoid

• Warehouses
• Farmhouses
• Lumber Yards
• Wind Turbines
• Residences
• Steel Plants
• Wanderer Camp
• Trade Center

Warehouses, for example, only protect a portion of your resources. In practice, resource protection is better handled through alliance reinforcements or shields, making warehouse upgrades largely unnecessary.

Similarly, most production buildings generate very small amounts of resources compared to what you spend upgrading them.

 

City Wall Strategy

City Walls are required for Headquarters upgrades up to level 31. After that point, upgrading them becomes optional.

While higher wall levels increase HQ durability, they do not directly increase combat power. Because of this, many players stop upgrading walls at level 31 and instead invest their resources into stronger combat buildings such as Formation structures or the Hall of Honor.

 

Conclusion

The best way to grow your town efficiently is surprisingly simple: plan ahead and focus only on upgrades that matter.

And of course, if you want to accelerate your progress even further, topping up in-game resources can make a huge difference. A reliable way to do this is through LDShop, where you can top up Last Z quickly and securely while enjoying competitive prices and frequent discounts.