My desk always gets overrun with creeps.

January 14, 2008 8:20 AM

How can I beat Desktop Tower Defense on hard mode?

I can beat medium mode trivially, and can get to the upper 40s/low 50s fairly consistently on hard. But never any farther. I've tried looking at the final maps of people who've won, but just looking at the configuration doesn't tell me when a given tower was built or upgraded, and order's important.

Have you beaten it? How did you do it? Help me, I can't get this game out of my head until I conquer it.

posted by COBRA! to sports, hobbies, & recreation (16 comments total)

I've never got around to it, but I've been told it's done by using a squirt tower to block off you maze like normal. However, as the creeps get close to the exit, sell of that one tower blocking another route to the exit and blockade off the direction the creeps were just going. If done correctly, it will force them to go back through parts of your maze with fully upgraded towers.
posted by jmd82 at 8:36 AM on January 14

There are a bunch of videos on YouTube that might help you. Example 1, example 2, etc.
posted by hjo3 at 8:37 AM on January 14

Seconding jmd. I'm pretty sure the trick is to "juggle" the creeps back and forth through the maze by selling and rebuilding towers. I've seen setups with 3 different paths out, and you juggle between them. The forums you can get to from the tower defense site have a bunch of people talking about strategies.
posted by cschneid at 8:42 AM on January 14

There are many ways to beat DTD. If you just want to beat it on hard mode a simple maze with as many fully upgraded squirt tower as you can make one or two freeze towers two fully upgraded swarm towers and a maze that does not use many diagonals (the swarm creeps can get through). If you are using squirt towers an important thing to do is to construct the opening of your maze so that the creeps entering from the side take longer to enter the maze than the creeps entering from the top (or vice versa) this keeps your maze from getting overloaded with more creeps than you can handle at once.

This shows an easier strategy that will work well.
posted by I Foody at 8:42 AM on January 14

If you just want to beat it on hard mode a simple maze with as many fully upgraded squirt tower as you can make one or two freeze towers two fully upgraded swarm towers and a maze that does not use many diagonals (the swarm creeps can get through). If you are using squirt towers an important thing to do is to construct the opening of your maze so that the creeps entering from the side take longer to enter the maze than the creeps entering from the top (or vice versa) this keeps your maze from getting overloaded with more creeps than you can handle at once.

That's exactly what gets me to 50ish, but I always get overloaded..

The YouTube examples look helpful, but Jesus Christ, what's up with the music?
posted by COBRA! at 8:47 AM on January 14

the secret is squirts plus those "support towers." You can make have several to really increase your squirt power. You don't have to juggle.
posted by history is a weapon at 8:54 AM on January 14

Agreed, fully upgraded squirts are the answer. Going into the "endgame" I tend to use a formation like this at the center of my map:

SSS
S+A
SSA

(where S is squirt, A is anti-air, and + is a +50% tower)

I then start building a similar 3x3 block to the bottom right of my first one. I upgrade three squirts to full, the build a +50%, then upgrade as many squirts as I can before the game ends. Upgrade two squirts at a time if you can.
posted by Maastrictian at 9:02 AM on January 14

Once you have a little more than two squirts (and a little bit more) it makes more sense to build a support tower than an additional squirt (as long as the support tower effects all the squirt towers.

Air Towers just sweeten the deal.
posted by I Foody at 9:05 AM on January 14

You can beat hard easily with a low number of fully-upgraded towers. Don't undervalue bash towers: they can hurt any number of creeps within their range, and they swing big damage when they're fully upgraded.

Generally, one highly-upgraded tower will do more for you than two towers that are half-as-upgraded. I build a maze with pellets, then build 1 squirt, 1 air, and one bash tower. No attack towers will be built until those three hit their highest level (I build two frost towers and get them halfway-upgraded for the fast boss).

Look at other player's work! The youtube links and the maps page are where I go when I'm looking to improve. Keep in mind that the maps that you see are from the last level - they will usually be devoid of air towers. I sell mine as soon as the last flying boss is through and invest in another 3-4 squirts.

You don't need to juggle to beat hard.
posted by tylermoody at 9:09 AM on January 14

Go to the forums (linked on the DTD site). Many people have posted screenshots and tutorials that explain how they have beat (or come close to beating) the game using different strategies.
posted by chrisamiller at 9:16 AM on January 14

I haven't beaten hard mode (on version 1.5), but here's a setup that can beat the $10000 "fun" level:

(screenshot)

You need all those anti-air towers and boost towers for the later flying levels; basically, dollar you earn should be spent upgrading those, from the center outward. But this still isn't enough for the last two regular flying levels (91 and 98, IIRC); that's what the two spiky-immobilizing-towers are for (one for 91, one for 98)--wait until as many flying creeps as possible are within range, then fire. Don't even bother trying to kill the last flying bosses (level 99).

As for the ground creeps, basically you just have to juggle them back and forth (by selling and building at C, blocking off one path at a time) until all the flyers are gone. The bash towers will kill the earlier ones, but the later ones you just have to contain for a while. Once the flyers are done, sell all the anti-air towers and build more bash towers (along the top and left walls) to kill the remaining ground creeps more quickly.

Plain old juggling won't be enough--the creeps will get more stretched out, and you'll run out of selling time--so you have to use another trick at A and B. When the creeps are going forward along those branches, leave those towers in; when they're going backward, take them out, so the line of creeps folds in on itself at the end and gets shorter.

(P.S. Is everyone here referring to the same version? Can you really beat hard mode on version 1.5, where there are 100 levels, without juggling?)
posted by equalpants at 9:16 AM on January 14

P.S. again: whoops, I'm stupid, sorry. For some reason I was confusing hard mode with the 100-level challenge. Do what everyone else said for hard mode. If you want to try the 100-level challenge, maybe you can find a way to improve my setup...
posted by equalpants at 9:25 AM on January 14

You can surrond a bash tower with blocks such that the creeps have to travel around 3/4 of the bash (it's basically at the end of a diagonal line). If the bash is upgraded fully, for a huge number of levels one hit will kill them all. Use a fully-upgraded freeze or two to keep them in the bash range for a while. I've beaten hard many times using this system, missing 100 only due to the flying bosses and sometimes one or two other end bosses.
posted by underwater at 9:34 AM on January 14

OK, just beat it with a 9-tower block in the middle, surrounding a boost, and a sort of "radiator" maze surrounding it. Thanks for the tips, my productivity should now rebound as soon as the novelty wears off.
posted by COBRA! at 12:07 PM on January 14

It's all about the juggling. Once you've mastered the art of selling key towers at the right moments, hard mode is quite beatable. Watch the youtube videos for examples of juggling.
posted by reformedjerk at 12:37 PM on January 14

Work on your grid by going to Fun mode and sellecting the 10,000 gold coins option so you can create the ultimate maze. Once you've worked out the basics, you can then try the hard mode.
posted by Kioki-Silver at 6:01 PM on January 14