[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Enemy creeps

The most notable creeps you need to pay particular attention to:

The bombs, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru.png, have the bad habit of jumping over empty corners like the following:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru2.jpg

The solution is not leaving any empty corners on the field; always use “covered” or “filled” corners like this:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru3.jpg

or this:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru4.jpg

The satellites, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/satellites.jpg , are very fast. Shocks are essential for slowing them down.

The airplanes, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airplane.jpg , are the only air enemies. In my 8k practice, I’ve found that while “simple” Snipers deal less considerably damage to them, even a battalion of 8-10 upgraded Airs (the dedicated anti-air weapon), placed in the center of the gaming field, won’t stop at least the last two, most powerful tides of then-superstrong airplanes. Just putting at least four columns of Snipers and one column (as recommended) of Shocks (in the entrance) will almost completely stop even the last two tides of them.

When I tried placing a massive amount of Airs in the center of the battlefield, I generally lost my 8k games because it’s very important to have as many anti-ground ranged weapons in there . These means, most preferably, Earthquakes backed up (where ice can’t affect them) Snipers as Rocket Launchers can’t be used for anti-air and Cannons, while excellent against enemies coming in a bunch, aren’t as powerful as the mass Earthquake + Sniper combo.

The yellow guys, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguys.jpg , come in a group as in http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguysinagroup.jpg. This means Cannons (which do splash damage affecting very adjacent enemies) and, to a lesser degree, Earthquakes are especially useful against them.

The invisible folks, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/invisibleicon.jpg , make it necessary to build Radars on the field. Fortunately, splash damage done by Cannon / Earthquake is effective against them even when invisible if there are visible enemies (very) close to them. I recommend putting two radars in the two entrances (and upgrading them entirely) and another one in the lower right corner to get rid of the remaining ones.

The boss (a black ball - remember the one - see for example THIS - in Epyx’ Impossible Mission?) is worth trying to eliminate at any rate as it gives at least 100 points. That is, try not to bring it to the field with the other enemies so that all your weapons can shoot at it. Also, if the field is doesn’t have many other creeps making it hard to guarantee you can build the tower back, use the tricks like quickly altering the path of these balls by quickly removing a tower - and, when the have come sufficiently close, re-building it. With a loss of 2 dollars a time (if you use a non-upgraded Sniper for the trick), you can give the AI a hard time and keep the two bosses in the maze for quite long, until they indeed get destroyed.

Finally, Ice, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/iceicon.jpg , is by far the worst enemy: it disables all kinds of weapons (even Radars!) in its close vicinity. A very good counter-measure is not using columns of single or even two weapons, but - horizontally - group your weapons into groups of three. The two external weapons should be Earthquakes and the inner one a Sniper. The majority of my screenshots show exactly this setup. This way, even when the Ice creeps disable the outer Earthquakes, the inner Sniper will still be able to shoot at them. Nevertheless, be prepared to see some of them pass even the strongest weapons. Fortunately, this will only be an issue with the last about two waves - at least in 8k games, if you quickly build up your structures - not leaving out the three-wide walls of weapons as can be seen in the following screenshot:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg

(Note that the full-screen screenshots have all been taken on a desktop PC to make my life easier (compared to all the hassles of taking screenshots on phones...). The game looks exactly the same on VGA devices. On QVGA ones, the sprites aren't high-res and the non-active (game) area is much smaller.)

An example screenshot of showing these creatures locking down the nearby towers (showing a massive attack; that is, swamping the maze on purpose. Of course, you won’t want to do anything like this, particularly not at the end of the game, where not even splash weapons like Earthquakes or Cannons will be able to destroy most of them)

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/massattack.jpg

Here, locked-down towers are white.

Tips & tricks

* in 8k games, it’s worth deploying Shocks right at the beginning in the first row so that the enemies are slowed down right at the beginning, giving your weapons much more time to take them out. Also, make sure that if you manage to build up a multi-column defensive structure like the one in the screenshot below:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg

then, place some additional Shocks in the points far away from the start because the shock (and the consequential slowdown) goes away after a while. In the above shot, there’s one in the lower right corner and the path is built up in a way that it takes the enemies back to the upper block of several long-range Shocks, making sure that all your enemies are slowed down (again). Of course, the artificial intelligence of the app gives priority to shooting at enemies having been further on the field; that is, in a structure like this the Shocks will shoot at the enemies coming from down and not just entering the field. Of course, this is what one would expect.

I show you three shots of 8k games I successfully completed. Now, based on the rest of this Strategy Guide, you’ll understand why I’ve gone the mass-Earthquake + Sniper route (with some Shocks in addition to slow down the enemies).

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-2.png.jpg

http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-3.png.jpg