A noob guide to Ancient Tower Defense [REMASTERED]

Overview

*Important Note: This guide might not be viable considering that the ATD mode releases new versions every now and then.Let’s just start by saying that i’m not an expert to the ATD mode. But since i’ve managed to finish it quite sometimes, i felt like writing a guide to help new players. Let’s start with the basics (I assume you already know what is ATD and how to use the shop).The current version is 20.5[BETA] Version

How to beat the ATD

The game lasts 90 minutes real-time or 3 hours game time (on fast speed). From now on, every reference i make will be for game-time.
I also consider that this is the standard difficulty(25 kings start). I will not tell you what your purchase order should be as i’m not sure whether my way is the most efficient way (And certainly there are more than 1 ways to beat the game).

So let’s begin. I will split the game in 5 parts.
– First part is: 0-30 mins
– Second part: 30 – 60 mins
– Third part: 1 hour – 2 hours
– Fourth part: 2 hours – 2:30 hours
– Fifth part: 2:30 to end game

– The first part ( 0 – 30 mins)
You have 25 kings in your possesion and 10 mins before waves start. Since gold is the most important resource of the game (2500 = 1 king), you need to invest all of your kings in it. That could be one of the following: trade,relics,kings per time(minutes or seconds). Up to the 20th minute mark of the game, you can easily defend with normal towers (blacksmith and university upgrades) AND both of the Accursed Towers (These are your most important defense for the first waves).

After the level 1 boss, it becomes more and more necessary to invest in tower AP (Attack Power) per second, cause your towers won’t be able to defend the next waves. So as the 20th minute mark of the game is over you need to have the necessary kings (15 kings) to invest in “1 AP every 5 seconds”. Personally i like to invest in both the “1 AP every 5 seconds” and “1 AP every 10 seconds”. These two purchases will keep you safe for the 1st hour (the AP every 5 seconds might be enough though, i have never tested it).

– The second part (30 mins to 1 hour)
Now let’s assume that we hit the 30th minute mark (Can be earlier, can’t be later) and we’ve purchased the AP per 5,10 seconds. So we have 30 minutes of safety that we can invest our kings again to gold or kings per time. In the next 30 minutes you need to complete all the trade and relics (If you haven’t yet), the resources per minute and take most of the kings per minute flags (besides the 80 kings).

In around 45 minutes you should consider opening the 2nd store (You can open it much earlier if you want, but not later) and purchasing the 1st nuke (Which won’t be available after 50 mins).
The 2nd part is finishing the 1st shop so you can move to the 2nd shop. The faster you do it, the more you chances of survival. If you reached the 2nd shop before the 1 hour and have purchased the nuke, make the queen purchase (1 queen = 22500 gold ) (1 queen = 10 kings but 10 kings = 25000 gold so it’s an awesome bonus that you need it fast) and start spawning queens. At 8 queens purchase the 1 king per 15 second.

*Between the second and third part you also need to buy some villagers for your resource area to build the wonders.

– The third part (1 hour – 2 hours)
If you haven’t make the queen purchase yet, you need to do it fast and start spawning queens. At this point it also becomes clear that your AP is not enough to defend the next waves. You need to invest as fast as possible to the “1 AP per 2 seconds” that requires 40k wood,40k food and 40k stone. That purchase will give you another half hour of survivability. Use your queens to get the resources. After that your purchases should be the wonders,the resources per minute, the mega trade and mega relic bonuses (Not in that order)(Also you might have got the gold per 90 second bonus already depending on your strategy). Also don’t forget to use your kingslayer to kill those who block the shop.

If you bought all the gold/resource bonuses, your next purchase should be “2000 AP to new units created” and “5 range to new units created”. Hopefully you’ve done all that in 1:15 or 1:20 the latter (Can be done much earlier). Now you need to invest your queens in gems. Also don’t forget the 2nd nuke

*What are gems?: 1 gem = 250 gold. Every 5 minutes depending on your gems, you get paid in gold. So 4 gems give you 1000 gold every 5 mins. With 1 queen you can buy 10 gems.

Up until 2 hours you need to be purchasing troops to defend you. After 1 hour and 30 minutes towers can’t defend you solo. You need troops. So from 1:20 (The maximum) up to 2 hours, you invest in gems and purchase troops (It’s also a good time to purchase the dragon ships)

– The fourth part ( 2 – 2:30 hours)
After 2 hours the gem shop has closed. Hopefully by now you have at least 1000 gems (If you have more than 1200 gems, you probably have won the game already and don’t know it yet :P) (Yeah you invested 100 queens or more). *Your military should be maxed (500 troops). Your next gems should go to Military AP (Not tower). 7 queens for 1000 AP every time until you’ve reached around 22 – 24k AP in your troops. (No more than 32000 AP or your troops won’t do any damage)

*If you maxed your military earlier, you can buy the AP earlier.
*Don’t invest in towers. You have 500 troops against 130 maximum towers. Towers are not worth the investment.

– The fifth part (2:30 to end game
The queens that you get from the 2:30,2:35 and 2:40 minute mark (from gems) should all go to reduce the damage your tower takes. Also right now is a good time to invest in your tower health (That’s not necassary though).

The final wave
You can’t defend the final wave, no matter how much AP you have. That’s why gems were so important. At 2:44 the final waves begins and last up to 3 hours minute mark. You might kill a unit here and there but most of the units will be lost. *So your end goal is to have plenty of queens and stone to heal your tower. After 2:40 keep all the queens you get, buy stone and keep some aside to heal your tower. Hopefully you have enough to last all the waves.

Use the nukes, the spells and the special move you got to defend. Try not to use the nukes in the waves before cause they relieve some of the pressure and give you time

*For those who don’t know, in the 1st shop there is a purchase where you give 1 queen + 9000 stone to heal your tower for 4k HP.

*One thing, that this guide won’t tell you is the investment bank. To be honest you don’t need it, in order to win the game but it can be a huge boost if you had a bad start.

-What’s the investment bank?: At any point of the game (although the best is at the very start) you can make an investment of 5,10,15 or 20 kings (1 or 2 queens). Every 15 mins (1 cycle) that investment increases by 40%. After 60 mins that investment increases by 40% every 10 mins. And after 90 mins that investment increases by 40% every 5 mins.

In the investment bank every player has a palisade wall that shows his investment. In every cycle that palisade takes damage. If the palisade is destroyed (either cause you deleted it or because it was destroyed by time) you get your money back plus the interests. I haven’t made the exact math but if you invest 1 queen at the beginning of the game you can get around 20 queens (maybe more) after all cycles are done.

Some final notes.
So as you realise there are plenty of things you can do to beat the ATD.
You don’t need to follow every step by the letter. Your strategy might get you where you want faster or you might “jump” some of the steps above. Either way this guide won’t give you the most efficent strategy. The goal of this guide is to give you some milestones so you know what you need to do in order to progress to the game.

Also the class you choose plays an important role in your strategy.

Conclusion:
The most important things to remember is that you need the “1 AP per 5 seconds” and “1 AP per 10 seconds” to survive the 1st hour. You need the “1 AP per 2 seconds” to survive the next 30 minutes. You need troops ( that start with 2000 AP) to survive the next 30 minutes and you need to invest in AP until you reach 23k-25k AP to survive the next 45 mins. Finally you need to have plenty of queens to survive the final wave.

Good luck out there.

P.S: Excuse me for my bad english