rootninja

Most Tower Defense games follow a standard format — Bad guys enter the field in one place and exit another. Your job is to kill them before they leave the field by placing stationary objects that serve as both walls to constrict their path and weapons to destroy them.

The first and easiest strategy is to place a meandering snake of turrets to force enemies to stay on the field as long as possible. This works quite well, but there are a few tactics you can add to really dominate the game.

First off, the long twisty path you create doesn’t have to start out by turning 90 degrees, zigzagging back and forth as tightly as possible. In the case of Fieldrunners on the Android platform, you can place turrets from left to right along the middle to take advantage of the fact that all flying enemies will ignore the path, flying straight across the field.

In this case you’re taking advantage of the fact that even the cheapest turrets will hit planes while still allowing you to wind a path back and forth later. Guns are so cheap, just think of it as the zerg rush of tower defense.

Just be careful not to overextend toward the exit before reversing the path or you may find land units spill out of your tunnel too close to the exit. If this happens, take an active approach and remove one of your turrets to force the AI to reroute some of the units. Divide and conquer!

Also keep in mind the range of each turret type. You can place long range behind short range and both turrets will hit the enemy at the same time just like the guns and slowing turrets above.

While these are the cheap guns, you can stack a slowing effect with extreme damage from a more expensive turret type such as the tesla coil, and increase the overall damage output. It’s all about the ratio of cost between the two turret types.

When you factor in the cost of upgrades, look at the increase in damage output. When the cost to upgrade is less than buying another turret of the same type and the output is double, it is definitely a good idea to upgrade. I usually upgrade to the max before placing a new turret. The only exception is when you absolutely need a longer path.

If you have areas where flying enemies take a different path than land enemies, consider the areas where the two overlap to be critical. Put your best turrets in these spots. Below you can see the path of flying enemies from left to right. I placed the most expensive turret types directly under this line for maximum damage to both flying and land units.

I also took range into consideration and placed long range rocket turrets close enough to the line that they will still hit flying units. Along the top and bottom are cheaper, shorter range turrets because rockets would not hit the middle anyway.

When considering range, try to maximize the area where a turret will be useful. The turret highlighted below cannot hit the enemies shown. The range of rocket turrets in Fieldrunners is not optimal for rows 2 squares thick.

Since that map type does not have enemies coming from the top or bottom, don’t waste money on expensive long range turrets along the top or bottom. Use this space for slowing targets for other rockets to hit, or for shorter range turrets that cost less.

If you want a flawless victory with ease, try this layout. I used the standard single file line of turrets, maximizing the path enemies must take while taking advantage of long range rockets along with slowing turrets along the path of flying enemies.

Those tanks are only halfway through my maze and about to pop on the final level.