MauxStrategyGamingNews: Guide to Beating Tower Defence Games(Free Field)

This is a helpful guide to beating Free Field Tower Defence games, if you would like to learn how to beat Circuit Defence games, read my previous post for help.

As explained in the last post, there are two types of Tower Defence games you should identify, Circuit and Free Field. The reason they are called what they are is because in a Circuit Tower Defence games, your enemies spawn and move along a fixed track/circuit, unaffected by your towers (unless they kill them that is). In a Free Field Tower Defence, you may place your turrets anywhere on a field, and your enemies have to navigate through it all to reach the other side. The only rule in Free Field is that you may not block the objective from your enemies, for Circuit, you cannot place it on the track, only beside it, to attack, the things that come in range.

Free Field

There aren't as many notable Free Field games as there are Circuit games like Bloons Tower Defence. But I know a couple from old gaming sites I used to play quite a while ago (maybe 4-5 years ago). I usually get really angry at these kinds of games, since you can lose very easily if you are careless, no matter what strategy you use, you are kept on your toes by these games. My Technique is quite popular and more effective than the one that most people would use.

All beginner Free Field players usually place em en masse in one location and direct the minions there to be pounded by the many towers you have at that one place. Using this strategy can easily get you defeated, since if your enemies are fast, you may miss a few in mid and late game. The ones you miss will add up and you lose. I used to use this, but then I figured out another way to set up my turrets, and it worked significantly better, but still wasn't good enough because it didn't sustain me too long on endless modes.

Picture taken from Xeno Tactics

This Is The Second Strategy Set-Up

The second strategy is to, first, set up a route from the beginning to the end while using the entire map as the road by placing cheap turrets in a near-vertical line across the map (can also use any other design as long as the route curves inside the whole map). This works well in very well in early, middle, and quite a bit into late game, but it's too static, once you have upgraded all you can, there's not really anything else that you can do, and when the waves get strong enough, they overpower you. Which brings me to the third and most effective strategy I have.

My favourite way to play these Free-Field defence games is to set up two routes. These two routes are identical in placement, but with the top route has more powerful turrets since, by default, the spawning figures go towards the top. The way to place these two routes is simple. First, you make a line in the very middle of the map, with both halves able to reach the end. The turrets used to construct the middle should be powerful ones, although you can make it out of cheap turrets in the beginning, the reason for this is because they will attack during the whole wave. You also have to set up each half similar to the second strategy, by making a long path. Once you've had that all done, you may ask "But what does the bottom half do? It's worthless if it doesn't attack." Now that's the part that makes this my favourite strategy, since both halves have connection to the enemy's destination, when they are overpowering your turrets, you just place a turret to block the top route to the end. The enemies will have to go all the way back and around the other side, where they will be pounded by the middle turrets and the turrets on the other half. You can repeat this process by deleting the turret blocking the exit, then adding one onto the bottom so they will all go top (you should only do this when all the enemies are firmly within the maze on the bottom).

Flying Creatures!!!

As in almost every Free Field game, there will be something nasty and flying that can skip the extremely long route you set up. Now in the 3rd Strategy, I said that you should make the middle turrets powerful because they attack on both sides, but the other reason is, usually one of the strongest turrets will be able to hit both Ground and Air units, if your game has one of those units, then you fill up the middle, and a few spaces that are close to the middle with those strong units to prevent any Air based units to get through. If there are no towers that attack both Air and Ground units, then you should put lots of anti-air turrets because you would have enough towers to take down the ground ones.

What's Next?

Now you have sold all the cheap units you used to make the route in the 3rd Strategy, but now you notice that Enemies are close to, or have gotten through. To prevent this from happening, you need to use slow or freeze turrets. Set them close to the middle, so that it can hit the flying units and slow them down as well. Look at the diagram below for a basic look at how your map should look like.

Even though you may have slow turrets, you will have to constantly upgrade all your turrets, starting with the middle first, then the top, and finally the bottom. Once that's all done, you continue using the strategy and win or -if it is endless- die. The Free-Field Tower Defences are just like the Circuit ones, it will make you lax with easy levels, then the enemies will be significantly buffed, and you'll lose if your not careful. You can get through quite a lot more rounds with the Third, than you can with the First or Second.