January 23, 2009
New version of TapDefense is now available! Now we have challenges: “This is Sparta,” “Sudden Death,” “Ten Towers,” “Silver Spoon” and “Credit Crisis.” I am working on getting tips for you guys and will post my solutions as I progress. Please leave any tips you have in the comments.
This is Sparta:
12.30.08 – Easy: Won this keeping all 3 wings with a score of 11,671 and 13,755 gold left. You start with three halos, so first thing you should do is to upgrade your interest. What I did was upgrade interest once and then researched ice. I started with three arrow towers and then upgraded one to level 4. A level 4 arrow tower has huge range and will do 250 damage. Set this one in the middle. The other two I kept at level three and then upgraded one more at around round 30. After a while gold was not an issue and I had three storm towers (2nd to last tower I researched) all at level three and they were slightly staggered. I then researched earthquake and put it as my last defense. Basically it would clip some of the starting monsters but took out any that made it through the gauntlet I setup before.
12.31.08 – Med: Won keeping 2 wings with a score of 10,210 and 10,742 gold left. Very similar tactics I used in ten towers and the easy sparta. I started with the three arrow towers except I. put two of them where the earthquake tower is on the picture. I upgraded the arrows to level 4 once they were in-effective as level 3. I’m finding out that you need to raise enough money, not only to get everything to level 3 but you to buy earthquake and upgrade to level three. I don’t see any way to beat the politicians without earthquake.
1.23.08 – Hard: Finally won this level keeping only 1 wing, score of 7,264 and 785 gold left. To begin this level, I researched interest and Magic tower. I built only Magic towers at first and had only one arrow tower at the end to pick off any 
stragglers. I also used three canons to begin. I didn’t build any level three water until I absolutely needed it. By doing this, I found that I could go many more turns without having to upgrade, therefore getting more interest. I would choose the cheapest upgrade first until I was maxed. I then researched earthquake and got it to level two immediately. I had to go a few turns before I had enough for a level three earthquake but once I did, it was
all downhill from there. Replaced my water towers with level three ice and added two storm towers for good measure. This was by far the hardest for me but I also did get in a rut of trying the same thing over and over again which made me lose at about level 24 every time. Whew!!
Ten Towers:
12.31.08 – Easy: Won this level losing 1 wing with a score of 37,591 and 137,500 gold left. Start out the same as you would playing the regular game. I made sure to upgrade interest twice before I researched any towers. I had three arrow towers, two water towers and two cannons and upgraded them up to level 3 slowly, not too much to use up all my money. I then upgraded my farthest arrow tower to level 4 and it acted as a type of sniper. The first tower I researched was ice and I replaced both of my water towers and upgraded to level 3. I maxed the rest of my towers with level 4 arrows because you will need them from level 30 to 33. Once I got past level 33, got my storm tower and staggered them (see pic). Used the earthquake to finish off the politicians and that’s it.
1.3.09 – Med: Won this level with a score of 8,860, 10,267 gold and 10 wings lef
t. 
This level was pretty easy if you employ the tactics that I mentioned in Credit Crisis. Lined the path with arrows and two level three water towers in the middle. I had a few level 4 arrows toward the end, especially when money wasn’t an issue. Once again, earthquake is a must have and level three ice makes it real easy to kill everything with it. See pics for my final config.
Silver Spoon:
12.31.08 – Easy, Medium, Hard: No tips here, just have fun. The real challenge of this section is to see how much gold you can rack up. There is no way you can lose it, especially if you research interest with the first two halos that were given to you. This is a good level to relax to and not worry about strategy and focus on kicking some ass.
Credit Crisis:
1.2.09 – Easy: Barely won with a score of 5,283 and with twelve gold left. The key of this level is to only choose towers that you want to keep throughout the whole game. I started with a level three water canon and two arrow towers. My big mistake was to upgrade the arrow tower to level 4 (waste of money). I should have started with two level 3 water canons. Anyway, you need to get a level 3 earthquake to win so make sure that you have enough money for that.
1.2.09 – Med: Won this level with a score of 6,586, 17 gold and 18 wings left. What I had to do is muddle through for the first 7 levels with arrow towers (see pic). Once I got my 
first halo, I researched, ice and replaced one of the arrow towers with a level 3 ice. I put it where it could shoot at monsters coming and going. I researched the earthquake tower next and put it on top and made it level 3. Put a level 3 storm right at the beginning and bought as many ice as I could with the remaining money to slow down the monsters for the storm and earthquake towers.
1.3.09 – Hard: Won this level having a score of 5,230, 15 gold left and 11 wings le
ft. 
What I did was line the path with arrow towers (see pic). I held on long enough to wait to research earthquake and upgraded it to level 3. After that I lined the path with ice towers to slow down the monsters. Didn’t buy one magic tower. The canon was put there because I had just enough money to buy it.
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January 10, 2009
Problem: Recently got a MacBookPro and installed Vista on it using BootCamp. Works great but the delete key on the MacBook acts as a backspace key. So how do I get it to work as a delete key for files and within documents.
Solution: The key sequence is fn – delete and it worked perfectly in both documents and when deleting files. I noticed when deleting files you can use fn – delete to send it to the recycle bin and fn – shift – del to permanently delete the fil
Posted in Software, Solutions, apple No Comments »
December 30, 2008
New version of TapDefense is now available! Now we have challenges: “This is Sparta,” “Sudden Death,” “Ten Towers,” “Silver Spoon” and “Credit Crisis.” I am working on getting tips for you guys and will post my solutions as I progress. Please leave any tips you have in the comments.
This is Sparta:
12.30.08 – Easy: Won this keeping all 3 wings with a score of 11,671 and 13,755 gold left. You start with three halos, so first thing you should do is to upgrade your interest. What I did was upgrade interest once and then researched ice. I started with three arrow towers and then upgraded one to level 4. A level 4 arrow tower has huge range and will do 250 damage. Set this one in the middle. The other two I kept at level three and then upgraded one more at around round 30. After a while gold was not an issue and I had three storm towers (2nd to last tower I researched) all at level three and they were slightly staggered. I then researched earthquake and put it as my last defense. Basically it would clip some of the starting monsters but took out any that made it through the gauntlet I setup before.
12.31.08 – Med: Won keeping 2 wings with a score of 10,210 and 10,742 gold left. Very similar tactics I used in ten towers and the easy sparta. I started with the three arrow towers except I. put two of them where the earthquake tower is on the picture. I upgraded the arrows to level 4 once they were in-effective as level 3. I’m finding out that you need to raise enough money, not only to get everything to level 3 but you to buy earthquake and upgrade to level three. I don’t see any way to beat the politicians without earthquake.
Ten Towers:
12.31.08 – Easy: Won this level losing 1 wing with a score of 37,591 and 137,500 gold left. Start out the same as you would playing the regular game. I made sure to upgrade interest twice before I researched any towers. I had three arrow towers, two water towers and two cannons and upgraded them up to level 3 slowly, not too much to use up all my money. I then upgraded my farthest arrow tower to level 4 and it acted as a type of sniper. The first tower I researched was ice and I replaced both of my water towers and upgraded to level 3. I maxed the rest of my towers with level 4 arrows because you will need them from level 30 to 33. Once I got past level 33, got my storm tower and staggered them (see pic). Used the earthquake to finish off the politicians and that’s it.
1.3.09 – Med: Won this level with a score of 8,860, 10,267 gold and 10 wings lef
t. 
This level was pretty easy if you employ the tactics that I mentioned in Credit Crisis. Lined the path with arrows and two level three water towers in the middle. I had a few level 4 arrows toward the end, especially when money wasn’t an issue. Once again, earthquake is a must have and level three ice makes it real easy to kill everything with it. See pics for my final config.
Silver Spoon:
12.31.08 – Easy, Medium, Hard: No tips here, just have fun. The real challenge of this section is to see how much gold you can rack up. There is no way you can lose it, especially if you research interest with the first two halos that were given to you. This is a good level to relax to and not worry about strategy and focus on kicking some ass.
Credit Crisis:
1.2.09 – Easy: Barely won with a score of 5,283 and with twelve gold left. The key of this level is to only choose towers that you want to keep throughout the whole game. I started with a level three water canon and two arrow towers. My big mistake was to upgrade the arrow tower to level 4 (waste of money). I should have started with two level 3 water canons. Anyway, you need to get a level 3 earthquake to win so make sure that you have enough money for that.
1.2.09 – Med: Won this level with a score of 6,586, 17 gold and 18 wings left. What I had to do is muddle through for the first 7 levels with arrow towers (see pic). Once I got my 
first halo, I researched, ice and replaced one of the arrow towers with a level 3 ice. I put it where it could shoot at monsters coming and going. I researched the earthquake tower next and put it on top and made it level 3. Put a level 3 storm right at the beginning and bought as many ice as I could with the remaining money to slow down the monsters for the storm and earthquake towers.
1.3.09 – Hard: Won this level having a score of 5,230, 15 gold left and 11 wings le
ft. 
What I did was line the path with arrow towers (see pic). I held on long enough to wait to research earthquake and upgraded it to level 3. After that I lined the path with ice towers to slow down the monsters. Didn’t buy one magic tower. The canon was put there because I had just enough money to buy it.
Posted in Software, iPhone, tapdefense 13 Comments »
December 8, 2008
Problem: Had a DNAT setup in Astaro to reroute the external IP (DNS resolution) of my OWA server to it’s internal address. However, it would time out every time. Port 80 and other traffic worked fine, it seemed to be only an issue with https (443).
Solution: Had to do a full NAT for this and made the internal address of the Astaro box the new source. After that adjustment, all was well.
Posted in Astaro, Internet No Comments »
December 4, 2008
I have reviewed a few iPhone apps in my guitar blog but haven’t found too many that made me want recommend them on this site, until now. Downloaded and installed TapDefense a few days ago and I’m addicted. Defending the heavens from the minions of Hell can be quite a job. Anyway, this post is more of a forum to hopefully get tips from other players. I have searched the web but not much is out there yet on strategy and such and with this game, you need to think carefully before you act.
Here are the few things that I have learned:
- Can’t spend all your gold at once. You need to keep a large enough balance to gain interest for more purchases.
- Don’t buy too much of one thing. Some of the monsters are immune to certain towers.
- Arrow towers work well in the beginning but tend to lose their effectiveness as you get farther into the game.
- Upgraded cannons will inflict damage on a group of monsters. Very helpful unless the monsters are resistant to cannons.
- Ice and water combined is a great way to slow down the monster so the other towers can pick them off. Not as effective if there is a large fast moving group of monsters.
- Upgrade and place your towers where they can do twice the work. IE, on corners or in-between the path.
- Runs down your battery fast.
With what I know I can approach level 30 on almost all the difficulty levels but then it stops there. What strategies to you use or suggest to move farther in this game? My kudos to TapJoy for making a great game and for making it free.
More Tap Defense Tips:
12.7.08: If you have any buildings that you know you won’t want after a level, sell them before the level is finished. This will give you extra gold to acrue interest.
12.8.08: start out using arrows. You get the most bang for the buck. You will then be able to save your gold for the big guns. Magic is very effective, especially if you upgrade. After level 33, I believe, the arrows are useless. When you get to that level, sell them all. The game will warn you that the arrows are useless.
12.10.08: I got to level 37 and I took Todd’s Advice in the comments and used a ton of Ice. Storm towers help as well. Here’s a pic of my tower configuration.
12.11.08: New tap defense update is out. Deals with the ever important interest rate bug.
12.15.08: Got to level 43 today. The trick for me was to hold off researching any new towers until I upgraded interest twice in a row. How I was able to hold off was to utilize a lot of arrow 
towers. They are cheap and 4 of them put together is a 24 damage. I just made sure that the monsters were getting hit at all times on the path. It’s good to have something work them down. LVL 3 cannons are great at the start because they inflict a lot of damage and have a splash rating that will inflict damage on nearby monsters. I didn’t utilize ice until I upgraded interest twice, so that was about level 23 or so. Then I just fit them in and spaced them out appropriately. With the interest rate high, I was able to upgrade my ice towers with the interest and not lose too much money. LVL 2 ice at a minimum toward the end and you need a few LVL 3 ice to really be effective.
Before you are done with level 33 sell all of the arrow towers that you can. You will not need them anymore and I replaced my arrow towers with Magic towers. Almost a 1 to 1 trade. 
12.15.08: Won the game on easy. Finally. The key was to hold off on buying and build up money, then I bought storms and put them on lvl 3 at the beginning where they could do the most damage.
12.16.08: Just got word that Todd beat the medium level. He sent a pic. 
Good job Todd!! Not to be outdone I just finished beating the medium level as well. I forgot to take a screen shot but I wasn’t as efficient as Todd was with the towers. As always, storm towers are the key to beat this great iPhone game.
12.24.08: FINALLY BEAT THE HARD LEVEL!!!! After a few weeks of frustration and a bit of cussing, I beat the hard level today with 12 angels left. The key for me was to save money so I started with a ton of level 1 arrows, two by two, up the whole path. If there was a place that a level 1 arrow could get a hit, I would put one there. I staggered a few cannons and a whole bunch of water. a round lev
el 11, I was able to get in enough gold to pay for my water
and cannon upgrades with interest earned. I stayed with the formula of upgrading interest twice before researching towers. Next was ice and put them in between the water and upgraded to level 2 immediately and the level three within a few turns. Once magic was available, I slowly replaced the arrow towers and got most of my magic to level two. I put a crap load of storm on this level and upgraded almost all of them to level three. I didn’t put them all in the same 
area like last time. I staggered them and had a level three far into the path to get any the other storm towers missed. This will really come in handy when you deal with the politicians. I didn’t let one politician get by with that config. One thing I did do was upgrade and add magic as the politicians died. Just in case I needed to get something that got by all the other defenses.
Links:
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12.31.08 – Med: Won keeping 2 wings with a score of 10,210 and 10,742 gold left. Very similar tactics I used in ten towers and the easy sparta. I started with the three arrow towers except I. put two of them where the earthquake tower is on the picture. I upgraded the arrows to level 4 once they were in-effective as level 3. I’m finding out that you need to raise enough money, not only to get everything to level 3 but you to buy earthquake and upgrade to level three. I don’t see any way to beat the politicians without earthquake.
1.23.08 – Hard: Finally won this level keeping only 1 wing, score of 7,264 and 785 gold left. To begin this level, I researched interest and Magic tower. I built only Magic towers at first and had only one arrow tower at the end to pick off any 
stragglers. I also used three canons to begin. I didn’t build any level three water until I absolutely needed it. By doing this, I found that I could go many more turns without having to upgrade, therefore getting more interest. I would choose the cheapest upgrade first until I was maxed. I then researched earthquake and got it to level two immediately. I had to go a few turns before I had enough for a level three earthquake but once I did, it was
all downhill from there. Replaced my water towers with level three ice and added two storm towers for good measure. This was by far the hardest for me but I also did get in a rut of trying the same thing over and over again which made me lose at about level 24 every time. Whew!!
t. 
This level was pretty easy if you employ the tactics that I mentioned in Credit Crisis. Lined the path with arrows and two level three water towers in the middle. I had a few level 4 arrows toward the end, especially when money wasn’t an issue. Once again, earthquake is a must have and level three ice makes it real easy to kill everything with it. See pics for my final config.
1.2.09 – Med: Won this level with a score of 6,586, 17 gold and 18 wings left. What I had to do is muddle through for the first 7 levels with arrow towers (see pic). Once I got my 
first halo, I researched, ice and replaced one of the arrow towers with a level 3 ice. I put it where it could shoot at monsters coming and going. I researched the earthquake tower next and put it on top and made it level 3. Put a level 3 storm right at the beginning and bought as many ice as I could with the remaining money to slow down the monsters for the storm and earthquake towers. 
ft. 
What I did was line the path with arrow towers (see pic). I held on long enough to wait to research earthquake and upgraded it to level 3. After that I lined the path with ice towers to slow down the monsters. Didn’t buy one magic tower. The canon was put there because I had just enough money to buy it. 
