Talk:Tutorial: Leveling/@comment-26160126-20150319082226/@comment-5380363-20150320035628

Just lots and lots of grinding without going into boss nodes. HQ Lv increases with victory at boss nodes, so some admirals deliberately end their sorties before hitting it, such as 1-node grinding in 2-4 or 3-2. That, and leveling only a core number of ships as opposed to trying to love each shipgirls evenly.

Nothing to be afraid of, really, since it's a natural progess for HQ Lv to steadily increase as you plow through more and more maps. That is, until you reach HQ 80. Then you'll have to put up with that Nuke Sub at 1-5-A and increased difficulty level at the Extra Operation maps.