Corrupt W's strategy

Hello i'm Corrupt\_W and i'm going to share my strategy. I've reached day 1800+ with it. Warning : This strategy is hard to understand and is a bit weird for most people since it's almost the opposite of what you are supposed to do. This is a variation on the 4th strategy in The How to play Guide, So the Same Warning applies to here, if you want to use this strategy then use it as a challenge rather than a way to play if you don't push to higher waves. This strategy was made to make you survive a few more hundreds days than the average player on the leaderboard.

1.FOR NEW PLAYERS (EASY MODE AND REGULAR MODE TOO)

The early game before the first boss is the same as what i've wrote in the first section, Don't put towers or walls before day 4, it's impossible to die before that, also crystals mines should have enough health to hold for that long, for transporters just spam them, especially in front of crystals mines, Now after day 4 if you upgraded your base this should be fine to hold until day 10.

What your base should look like before day 10.png

Your base at the first few days should be similar to this :

Now for the first boss it's easy don't worry, the game won't throw at you super hard things fast, it's even possible to survive it with level 1 but i recommend being at least level 4, but you can fight the boss with all the way up to level 7, and it's even possible to reach level 8 by the end of the night, a good trick is to put a level 1 wall in front of him, then upgrade that wall when it's about to die, all the way up to your max level, now another trick if you're at least level 5 is to directly tank with the base since it has loads of hp !

Your setup for the boss wave should be similar to the first picture but with an higher level.

Upgrade mining only in the skill tree except the 50 point upgrade, except at day 10 where you should upgrade the 5 point transporters skill.

Now something that kills a lot of newbies is the game at day 13+, because the dev intended the zombies to get stronger every 13 or 14 days, now it's not that hard to fight that, even on regular, my trick is to make a small base with 2-3 level 2 cannons and a few walls surronding them, it also works with lightnings but it's more expensive, the reason it works is because cannons and lightnings are great at doing damage to multiple zombies at the same time.

Small base..png

The small base should look a bit like this, at this point you should be at least level 5. Also feel free to put some level 1 walls in front of crystals mines if it doesn't have enough health :

Now day 30 and above are gonna be a lot tougher since it's much harder to keep up with the increase in both number and strength of the zombies, at this point you can start to put 1-2 lighting to help out, and also upgrade if it's getting too hard to keep up.

Now something that is very important is when to upgrade defenses and walls, the best thing to do is to upgrade them only when you know that it's too hard to keep up, NEVER upgrade defenses, walls and factories "just to be safe" it will mostly be a waste of ressources since you can just reset to where you was before that night and upgrade things up, a good tip is to remember when the waves get harder, and it's every 13-14 days, so just calculate or remember this : 13-27-40-53-67-80-93-106 etc

After getting past day 100 it will probably start to get easier for you (unless you play on hard, or is super late on regular) to survive and it's also gonna be more of a waiting game because the costs will get much higher each time you upgrade your base.

Now what to do to take the whole map ?

First off i recommend to get at least level 16 to put double walls, but you can do it at level 13, then build arrows only, and maybe cannons to help a bit if you run out of arrow towers, the reason you should do it is because do a lot of damage but to one target only, so if you take the whole map then they will be far more useful than cannons and lightnings who will have far less targets and thus be far less useful.

For Reference i consider those numbers to be enough to be able to take the whole map, once you are good enough to get around this day, you're alredy decent enough at the game b̶u̶t̶ ̶a̶v̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶f̶l̶e̶x̶i̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶n̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶i̶'̶m̶ ̶g̶o̶n̶n̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶s̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶f̶l̶e̶x̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶,̶

Level 9 at day 45-50. Level 10 at day 55-60. Level 11 at day 70-75. Level 12 at day 85-90. Level 13 at day 100-110. Level 14 at day 130-135. Level 15 at day 160. Level 16 at day 195-200, after this point you should be good enough to manage to survive to at least day 500, or maybe even 1000.

Now that you finished the active part of the run (past day 200) you should mainly do something else while waiting for the next base level up, with the game running in the background, avoid sleeping and check sometimes if nothing is wrong. (except if you just choose to max out level 27 around day 900 since you have to do it no matter what you do) upgrade your defenses and walls to the next tier when your walls start to get destroyed just keep doing this until day 1200-1300 (when walls start to break) before that only use arrows because they are the cheapest towers and the towers that deal the highest damage on higher levels to a single target.

After day 1300 (that you prob won't reach) you should build more defenses at spots where more walls are destroyed and balance the defenses in general, should should only use arrows and cannons in late game and very late game as lightning towers makes you lag a lot and they doesn't do much damage.

Those tips are also good enough to work on regular, at least it's better to reach higher days.

2. How to use Towers

The advantages and the disadvantages of each tower.

Cannon: Cannons are splash damage defences they can hit several zombies with 1 attack. In early game (day 30-150) they are cheap and useful and you don't have a hard time filling all of them up. A very compact base with 1-3 cannons is the best strategy (using cannons) on early game. On very late game (between 1000 and 1300 (depending on when walls start to break) to 1815 (since it's the highest verified day right now)) they are also very useful, and the really high cost of them in very high levels (26-28) is worth it when walls start to break.

Now the disadvantages: Cannons in mid (150-500) and late game (500-between 1000 and 1300) are a waste of resources and they will only make the base die earlier in late/very late game, and in early game despite the lower costs using a few lightnings towers (1-3) will end up being better in early game (except in hard and impossible because the costs are much higher and the zombies can't be killed after day 30 no matter what) have because cannons's splash damage isn't as good as lightnings's splash damage. And in very late game cannons are so expensive so you must place them wisely or you will just kill your base, also since you need to buy the "cannons deal twice the damage but 3x more resources" in very late game, it will be hard to fill all of them.

Arrow towers : Arrows are defences that can hit only 1 zombie with one attack from them, and they are built to deal massive damage to 1 zombies so a bunch of them is needed if you don't use cannons or lightnings (though i don't recommend this since it would be a waste of resources). they are mostly useful in mid and late game when nothing happens. (though spamming them won't help until 1000-1300+) and they are they are also useful in very late game because zombies have a lot of hp and cannons doesn't deal as much damage as arrows do.

Now the disadvantages: i said this earlier: "Arrows are defences that can only hit 1 zombies with one attack from them" so using them in early game isn't useful at all because you'd need a lot of them, and the best strategy is to make a very compact base to save as much resources as possible.

Lightning towers: Lightning towers are defences that spread their attacks trough chains. this is very useful because you can deal a lot of damage to a lot of zombies using only 1 attack. it's very useful in early game (except on impossible since they are more expensive than cannons) since you need to spend almost no money on towers, and since they deal a lot of damage in early game you'd need to spend less money on walls and this is great. Cannons can also do that.

Now for the disadvantages: They make you lag a lot in late game and very late game and they slow down your computer like hell also they deal almost no damage in late game and their range is very low so you can only put them near the walls and in very late game you need to put a lot of walls near the edge so you can't place them in very late game without killing your base.

Thanks for Reading !

3. HARD

yeet---: much more detailed guide of the strategies and the techniques used in hard mode here <-- hard mode guide The stuff here is very vague and is to some extent, slightly off the point. (this is an advertisement with permission, don't you guys go reporting to him.)

Hard mode is much different from easy and regular, first off the gap between regular and hard is even bigger than the gap between easy and regular, The costs are much higher (for example base level 9 on easy costs 660k while on hard it costs 1.65m).

Before reading this, watch Corrupt X's video on hard, as it will help a lot to understand this.

Now also before starting it is advised that you get consistent with taking the whole map, you should be able to do it almost everytime, it's useless to play on hard and get rekt because of the MASSIVE jump in difficulty.

Now once you are prepared it's time to start on hard !

Before you even place your base, we need to find a good spot and a good seed, the best spot for this is a corner because it will be much easier for lightnings to kill more zombies, but not just anywhere in a corner, place your main base around 25 tiles in both directions (30 is the max) of the border, anything above that and the zombies will spread and it will be harder for lightnings to be useful, also you shouldn't make the main building in the center of the base, because the zombies always try to get as close as the base as possible, so if it's in the center then zombies will spread out, also you should have crystals mines and uranium around it.

The First Night is alredy a huge increase in difficulty because in easy and regular, your base could just tank up the first night and you needed to do nothing except waiting for the zombies to die, on hard it's not possible to do that for the first night. But here is how you could beat this.

Block one of the two zombie with one wall, the base is good enough to survive against one zombie, but not two

A cheaper method is to block one zombie with transporters but it is much harder to do, but i recommend doing it even after putting your first walls to help the base a bit.

DO NOT USE DEFENSES AT THIS POINT BECAUSE IT IS A WASTE OF RESSOURCES.

Now the next few days after this won't be hard at all, so use them to upgrade your base as much as possible, just keep doing the same thing, defenses are still useless at this point, it should look like easy or regular at this point.

For the skill tree focus on mining still, also do it all the way up to the 25 point one (not included), you can also put a bit in factories if you have almost no ammo.

For the boss you should have at least level 4, if you don't have it then consider restating, just do the trick that Corrupt X did (put a level 1 wall then keep upgrading it when it's about to die) this tip applies to all gamemodes.

Easy times are over now, we are at day 13 and it's always when zombies get their first buff, this also start the real game, as the first 12 days are considered pre-game.

Early game should be until day 30 as it's the biggest gap in difficulty, except maybe day 13.

also by this time you should be at least level 5. The best strategy to fight those buffed zombies are to do the thing that you did for the boss, but do it to zombies, you should do it to group of zombies as blocking 1 zombie is not very good.

When you reach level 6 you can choose to put a lightning (andd don't upgrade it) if it's getting too hard to defend, and to relive some stress, but i recommend doing it at level 7+

Day 20, just do what you have done for day 10.

Day 27 is the next zombie buff, but you don't really notice it until day 31 and above, by this time you should have put lightnings to help, as walls only will struggle to keep the base alive. Another trick that is very useful on hard is to switch to another save when the nights end and the day arrive and to switch back to the hard save, that way all zombies will be removed, this is very useful because most bases on hard can't kill the zombies and are in general too weak to survive without it.

Mid Game is until you start to run out of factory ressources.

By this point all you need to do is to do the same thing that Corrupt X did, at least until level 9.

Now that you got level 9 you should NOT build shields yet, yes this gives out many advantages to defend, but this will delay the base upgrades by a lot, so only build shields when the price is insignificant typically at level 11 at least

You should reach level 10 way before day 50, even before day 40 if you can.

By this time most people can't build crystals mines very close to the base anymore, so they need to build farther out, this is when the 5 point transporter upgrade will be very important as you can't focus on repairing transporters without waves taking over an hour each, also the crystals placement also matters a lot, to find a good placement then imagine that zombies are drawing a L while coming to your base (unless you have a bad base placement sorry) and that your base is the corner of the L. you should build outside of that L, where almost no zombies come.

Level 11 shouldn't be too diffrent to Level 10 since the change in difficulty is slowing down, and the crystal generation speed up a lot, this is also when you should start to put level 1 shields as it won't be too expensive, but upgrading them will be, you should have it by day 60 or before

Still Unfinished, i will update later don't worry