Pre-Release Guide
Storm & Subdue is a new event that hasn't been released yet. This guide is built from game code analysis ahead of live release. The core loop — earning Depleted Cores, the thug fight, and the fixed-price shop — is locked in via configuration files, but a few live-only details can't be confirmed until it runs: the exact size of the normal-intel Depleted-Core bonus (the game decides it, so it isn't a fixed number), the inferred "1M Ammo (Safe)" and "1M Cash (Safe)" shop labels (which may read slightly differently in-game), and the difficulty tier the server hands you per Magnetic Thug fight.
We'll update this guide with field-tested observations after the first event run.
01. What It Is
Storm & Subdue is a two-part earn-and-spend event that runs for 2 days, plus a 1-day redemption grace window. You farm a temporary currency — Depleted Cores — by hunting Magnetic Thugs through the Intel Center, then spend those cores at a fixed-price exchange shop (the "Chief's Conquest Store"). The headline reward is the Electro Core.
💡 The one thing to internalize
Depleted Cores are a spend-it-or-lose-it currency. They exist only for this event and don't carry over. Whatever you don't spend gets auto-converted to a tiny Ammo payout when the grace window closes — worth a fraction of what the same core buys in the shop. Your whole job: earn cores, then spend every last one in the right order before the timer ends.
Two prerequisites gate the entire event. If you can't earn Depleted Cores, this is why:
- ▸Chief's Office at Lvl 7 or higher. The unlock threshold for the Intel Center.
- ▸The Intel Center built. There's no separate Storm & Subdue screen for earning — the event injects a special case into your existing Intel Center pool.
02. How You Earn Cores
The Magnetic Thug can never be crowded off your board — but you also can't stack them. Unlike ordinary intel, the Magnetic Thug ignores the Intel Center's display cap and always floats to the top of your list (it behaves like Bounty intel). You'll never lose it in a pile of normal cases. The flip side: only one Magnetic Thug is ever active at a time. Kill it, and the server can surface the next one on a later refresh — but until then, there's nothing more to hunt. Your earning rate is capped by how many the game spawns, not by how fast you can clear them.
There are two ways cores come in:
🎯 Magnetic Thug kills
Each Magnetic Thug you defeat pays a flat 10 Depleted Cores. This is your main faucet. Costs 10 Stamina per attack (more on the fight below).
✓ Normal Intel trickle
Claiming any normal Intel reward during the event also grants a small bonus of Depleted Cores — Bounty Missions excluded. Just working the Intel Center feeds the event for free.
Takeaway: don't tunnel-vision on the thug. Because it spawns one at a time on a fixed schedule, the thug alone won't fill your wallet. Clear your regular intel too — every non-Bounty claim tops you up while you wait for the next thug to appear.
Refresh timing
- ▸The intel pool refreshes at 00:00, 08:00, and 16:00 server time — three windows a day.
- ▸Each case, including the Magnetic Thug, lasts 15 hours after it appears, then expires. Check in around each refresh so you never let a thug time out unfought.
- ▸The Magnetic Thug can't be pay-refreshed — no gems will conjure another one early. You wait for the server.
The exact size of the normal-intel core bonus is decided by the game and isn't shown as a fixed number — treat it as a small top-up, not a primary source.
03. The Fight: A Real Troop March
This is not an auto-resolve tap — it's a full troop march, and it can wipe you. Attacking a Magnetic Thug sends a real army to its tile, resolved as a standard State battle. It costs 10 Stamina per attack, and the enemy scales across 10 difficulty tiers — from a trivial 108 power all the way up to roughly 1.47 million power at the top tier. Marching an undersized army just feeds it your troops and wastes the Stamina.
You don't pick the tier — the game hands you one. Which of the 10 tiers spawns is decided by the server (tied to your Intel Case progress). So the play isn't to farm the easy tier; it's to read the recommended power shown on the attack screen and send an army that clears it.
Difficulty-Tier Table — Members Only
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⭐ Read the number, not the tier
The tier-to-tier jumps look dramatic — tier 7 to tier 8 is nearly 8× — but the actual numbers stay modest. Even tier 10's ~1.47M recommended power is nothing special by mid-game standards, and most active Chiefs can clear it outright. Just glance at the power on the attack button and send a comfortably bigger march — that's the whole decision.
04. The Exchange Shop
Buying out the entire shop costs 270 Depleted Cores — that's 27 Magnetic Thug kills, and almost nobody gets there. With one thug at a time on a 3-per-day refresh over a 2-day window, even a diligent player nets only a few dozen cores plus the intel trickle. That's the fact that makes this event a prioritization puzzle, not a shopping spree. The full price list:
| Reward | Qty | Cost | Buy Limit | Cores to Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electro Core ×5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 30 |
| 1M Ammo (Safe) ×1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 30 |
| 1M Cash (Safe) ×1 | 1 | 1 | 30 | 30 |
| 100K Electricity (Safe) ×2 | 2 | 1 | 30 | 30 |
| 10K Gas (Safe) ×5 | 5 | 1 | 30 | 30 |
| 10K Hero EXP ×1 | 1 | 3 | 20 | 60 |
| 1-Hr Research Speedup ×2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 20 |
| 1-Hr Construction Speedup ×2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 20 |
| 1-Hr Training Speedup ×2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 20 |
- ▸All caps are event-total, not daily. There's no per-day reset — once you've bought your 6 Electro Core packs, that row is done for the whole event.
- ▸Everything is visible and buyable from the start. Nothing is locked behind progress; the only gates are your core balance and each row's cap.
The "1M Ammo (Safe)" and "1M Cash (Safe)" labels are inferred from the resource tier series and may read slightly differently on your shop screen — the cost and quantity are what matter.
05. Spend Priority
Spend Priority — Members Only
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06. The Auto-Convert Trap
A leftover core is worth roughly 100× less than a spent one — so no core should ever expire. When the grace window closes, every unspent Depleted Core is auto-converted to a single small Ammo bundle and mailed back to you. But inside the shop, that same core buys a 1M Ammo bundle at the 1-cost row. Same resource, one core, roughly one hundred times more of it. Letting cores auto-convert is one of the worst value trades in the game.
💀 Never let the timer eat your cores
Even if you've already maxed Electro Cores and every reward you care about, dump your remaining cores into the cheapest 1-cost rows before the grace countdown ends. A 1M Ammo, 1M Cash, 200K Electricity, or 50K Gas bundle per core beats the auto-convert by 50–200×. The floor value of any core is enormous — burn them all.
The two deadlines
- ▸Day 2 — earning ends. After the 2-day run, no new Magnetic Thugs spawn. Whatever cores you have is what you've got.
- ▸Day 3 — the shop closes for good. The 1-day grace window keeps the shop open only for spending. Use it. When that countdown hits zero, every remaining core auto-converts and the shop is gone.
07. Common Mistakes
- ▸ Letting cores auto-convert. The single biggest error — a leftover core returns ~100× less than one spent on a 1-cost row. Spend down to zero.
- ▸ Only hunting the thug. One thug at a time on a fixed schedule won't fill your wallet. Claim your normal (non-Bounty) intel too — it trickles cores for free.
- ▸ Marching an undersized army. The fight is a real State battle, not an auto-resolve. Read the recommended power; a failed march burns troops and 10 Stamina.
- ▸Members Only
- ▸Members Only
- ▸ Missing refresh windows. Thugs spawn around 00:00 / 08:00 / 16:00 server time and expire after 15 hours. Check in each window so none times out unfought.
- ▸ Assuming the grace window is extra earning time. It's spend-only. No new thugs spawn after Day 2.
TL;DR — The Quick Hits
- 1. Storm & Subdue is a 2-day earn-and-spend event, plus a 1-day spend-only grace window.
- 2. Earn Depleted Cores; spend them at the exchange shop before the grace timer ends.
- 3. Requires Chief's Office Lvl 7 and a built Intel Center — no Intel Center, no cores.
- 4. Each Magnetic Thug kill = 10 cores; only one thug is active at a time, and it always floats to the top of your intel list.
- 5. Claiming normal (non-Bounty) intel also trickles cores — work the whole Intel Center, not just the thug.
- 6. The fight is a real troop march (10 Stamina), scaling to ~1.47M power. Read the recommended power; over-commit rather than lose the march.
- 7. Refresh windows: 00:00 / 08:00 / 16:00 server time; each case lasts 15 hours. The thug can't be pay-refreshed.
- 8. Buying out the whole shop costs 270 cores — almost nobody gets there, so spend order is everything.
- 9. Priority 1: Members Only
- 10. Priority 2: Members Only
- 11. Priority 3:Members Only
- 12. All caps are event-total, not daily. Everything's unlocked from the start.
- 13. Never let a core auto-convert — leftovers pay ~100× less than a 1-cost shop buy. Dump every core before the countdown ends.
- 14. The grace window is for spending only — no new thugs spawn after Day 2.