Graveyard Keeper 2 combat: Town battles, squads and sewers
Combat in Graveyard Keeper 2 is part of reclaiming the Town. The Keeper fights alongside undead troops, with equipment and constructed defences supporting the battle. Choose the encounter before equipping your squads. Reserve materials for the fortifications you intend to build.
Town battles and the sewers are not the same activity. Town combat is tied to a particular day of the week, while the sewers are available throughout the six-day week. Missing the Town's battle day does not mean every combat option has disappeared.
Prepare for defence or a control-point battle
The Town Square centres on defending against waves approaching from different directions. Central streets instead involve pushing along several fronts and capturing control points. Those objectives ask different things from your preparation.
For a defence, look at where pressure can arrive and how your troops and structures cover it. For a push, think about how you will move through the streets and support more than one front. A formation that concentrates everything in one place may solve a local fight while leaving the wider objective unattended.
The useful question is not simply how many zombies you can bring. It is what each part of the force contributes to the objective. A squad holding space, a ranged group attacking from behind it and the Keeper responding to a threatened position have different jobs.
Bring materials for towers and barricades
Towers and barricades help your troops hold the battlefield and consume materials produced at home. That is why a battle plan should include construction supplies alongside weapons, armour and other preparation.
The available approaches include archer squads, spiked barricades and combat potions. Treat them as options to combine with the encounter you face, not as a single guaranteed solution to every district. Check what you can build and equip before committing to a strategy that depends on it.
Decide where squads should fight
Zombie squads can be deployed at positions around the battlefield, or you can raise the banner and lead troops yourself. Those are useful alternatives: a unit assigned to hold an area has a different purpose from a group moving with the Keeper.
Before moving the whole force, ask what you are leaving behind. In a multi-front street fight, keeping pressure in one direction does not automatically secure the others. During a defence, moving to answer one wave may expose another approach. Use the deployment choice to match the job rather than moving every squad together by default.
Training and equipment still matter. Your zombies' individual development makes body preparation relevant beyond the workshop, and crafted weapons and armour create a reason to invest in production. A new military option only becomes useful when you can actually supply it.
What can you do between Town battle days?
The sewers provide combat throughout the week. They are a separate destination rather than a way to start the next scheduled Town battle early. Keep that distinction in mind when choosing where to spend a day.
Between Town encounters, you can also use the time to complete equipment, prepare construction materials or improve a production step that held you back. It is often more useful to finish a specific missing part of the plan than to wait with an army that still lacks the equipment you intended to give it.
Travel and quest availability are related scheduling questions, but they are not identical. Milestones and weekly tasks help you arrange the rest of the route around the activity that is available today.
The street you win becomes part of the Town
These battles take place in the real Town streets, not a separate set of disposable combat arenas. Reclaiming a district opens the next stage of restoration, businesses and markets. The equipment you make for a fight can therefore lead to new economic opportunities after it.
That connection is worth planning for before the battle. Keep a distinction between the resources required to win access and the resources you expect to use afterwards. Otherwise, a successful encounter can leave you standing in a newly available district with no clear restoration project ready.
A practical preparation check is to name the objective, decide which units hold or advance, check the equipment they need and reserve materials for the structures you intend to use. Then reassess after the encounter: the next district may change the layout and objective, so the previous plan is a starting point rather than a universal winning formation.