Place your dart monkeys near the front of the map so that you have enough time to recover if you miss a few bloons. Do not invest too much into upgrading early units. It’s generally considered more productive to place more units than to upgrade units you already have—at least until the mid- or late-game when your path is mostly covered.
Do not place your hero if you’re losing life. It’s better to spend an early $215 on a necessary dart monkey that will preserve your life total than it is to take the hit early on by placing your hero.
Keep in mind, in the early- to mid-game, it’s generally better to place a larger number of towers than it is to upgrade a lot. A few key upgrades are fine if you want to access certain abilities, but don’t go “all in” on a handful of units. As a note, when you see strategy guides talk about an 0-0-2 village, or a 1-0-3 super monkey, they’re talking about the build path. A 1-0-3 super monkey has 1 upgrade point in the first upgrade path, 0 points in the second path, and 3 points in the third path.
Your life total is essential—especially in the early game. It’s better to bite the bullet and place a last-minute dart monkey than it is to let bloons pass.
For units that fire in a straight line, like the dartling monkey, aim to position them where they’ll have the straightest view of the track. For magic units that buff your other towers, ignore the track and pay attention to where your towers are placed. Keep the support buildings that don’t actively influence the bloons as far away from the track as possible.
Many players memorize the order of the bloons, so start paying attention to what rounds prove especially problematic for you![5] X Research source The MOAB—mother of all bloons—shows up at round 40. You need a lot of piercing damage to get through this one. When it comes to camo bloons, your best shot is to upgrade a handful of units to obtain camo detection. A 0-0-2 dart monkey, 5-0-0 boomerang monkey, and 5-0-0 tack shooter can all do this. Upgrading an early boomerang monkey into a glaive monkey is a great way to get some early piercing power for levels with stronger bloons.
If you haven’t unlocked all of the heroes yet, just keep playing. You unlock a new hero on the road to level 28. Many of the heroes must be purchased using in-game currency. Do not feel pressured into spending money on the game if you can’t afford it. Obyn Greenfoot is widely considered to be one of the best “starter” heroes. You unlock Obyn last at level 28. If you do want to pay for a few heroes, Etienne, Geraldo, Psi, and Benjamin are considered among the most powerful in the game.
For example, depending on the wave, you may want to focus all of your mortar monkeys on one portion of the map to destroy a MOAB or large number of bloons. However, if the bloon wave is moving at different speeds, you might get more bang for your buck by spreading out your fire and targeting different parts of the map.
Primaries (dart monkey, tack shooter, etc. ) – These are your bread and butter. These towers specialize in killing bloons, and that’s about it. Militaries (mortar monkey, dartling gunner, etc. ) – These towers also kill bloons, but they fulfill niche needs and destroy specific types of balloons (like mortar monkeys, which pop larger balloons quickly). Magics (wizard monkey, alchemist, etc. ) – These towers boost and buff (improve) your other towers to make them stronger or more resilient, while also popping bloons. Supports (banana farm, monkey village, etc. ) – These towers generally do not pop bloons, with the exception of the engineer monkey and spike factory. They may make your team stronger, make you money, or slow bloons down, though.
From here, you can upgrade your alchemist, additional support units, or place a handful of military units. You’ll likely need a village at some point (likely around round 50) to support your hero and the two nearby units. A 2-2-0 village will dramatically help! In the late game, adapt your strategy to the map. If you have water, an aircraft carrier can carry you through the late game. If there’s no water, helicopters and canons are great.
Upgrade your banana farms and place primary units as necessary to preserve your life total. Take out the IMF loan bank option to go half cash. Put all of that money into upgraded farms to overcome the hit you take to future options. Use upgraded alchemists to buff a small army and then slowly build out additional farms.
Just keep spamming your druids. The more druids surrounding Obyn, the better! A single well-placed village can go a long way when it comes to sustainable damage for your druids. You can use Gwendolin instead of Obyn if you prefer. Her fire damage pairs nicely with the druids to make up for their shortcomings with lead balloons.
This should give you enough time and income to purchase your next set of towers. From here, you can build out militaries, primaries, or additional ninja monkeys. Many players will place a single alchemist right next to their ninja monkey to perpetually buff it. A monkey ace in the middle of the map can really do a ton of damage in the mid- and late-game.
From here, continue building out units in this tiny area so that your buffs overlap. You can go in any direction you’d like, but this starting setup is key since it allows you to tackle any random bloon that appears. Apocalypse mode includes random waves, and the RNG just won’t work in your favor sometimes. It’s okay to quit a losing run and start over. This is one of the toughest modes in the game for a reason!
The Bloonarius spawns other bloons, so you need a combination of speed, piercing damage, and MOAB/boss damage. Lych steals temporary buffs (alchemist brew, engineer overclock, etc. ) from your towers, stunning them and healing itself in the process. As a result, you should make sure not to have any buffs except permanent village buffs on your towers when Lych spawns. Vortex can stun nearby towers, so use long-ranged towers and keep a distance between them and the track. As far as the number of farms go, 8 upgraded farms should provide enough income in most games, although elite boss events require more.
