Tower Defense Wiki

Overview

Tower Defense is a real-time strategy mode where you build a base on a 7×7 grid, place buildings and troops, and defend your Headquarters (HQ) against waves of enemies. Each level is set in a themed realm with specific enemy types, and clearing all waves in a level advances you to the next.

Your currency is XP — you spend it to build, train, and upgrade. You earn XP by clearing waves, and you start each level with a budget. Smart XP management is the core of the game.

The Grid

The battlefield is a 7×7 grid (columns A–G, rows 1–7). Your HQ starts at the center (D4). Enemies spawn at random edge cells and path toward the HQ's current position. Buildings and troops are placed on grid cells; each cell holds one structure or unit.

• Buildings (including the HQ) can be moved by dragging; you can also destroy and rebuild.
• Troops and heroes can be repositioned between waves.
• Range is calculated using Manhattan distance for range > 3, and specific adjacency patterns for range 1–3.

Buildings

Buildings form the backbone of your defense. Each level unlocks building types and caps how many you can place.

HQ

Free

HP 3,000DMG 30RNG 3Atk 1.1/s

Tower

200 XP

HP 400DMG 20RNG 2Atk 3.0/s

Wall

100 XP

HP 500

Resource

250 XP

HP 200XP/tick 5

You can place and move all buildings (including the HQ) by dragging. HQ attacks enemies; if it falls, the run ends. Towers are your primary ranged turrets. Walls absorb damage and block enemy pathing. Resource buildings (unlocked at Level 2) generate passive XP income — a key long-run investment. The HQ also generates 1 XP/tick.

Recent balance update: HQ base HP is now 3,000 to better support endgame survivability against high-level bosses.

Atk = attacks per second.

Units (Troops)

Troops are your offensive and defensive soldiers. Each class has a distinct role on the battlefield.

Warrior

80 XP

HP 200DMG 15RNG 2Atk 3.0/s

Ranger

110 XP

HP 150DMG 30RNG 3Atk 2.3/s

Ravager

140 XP

HP 400DMG 60RNG 1Atk 1.1/s

Mage

170 XP

HP 120DMG 10RNG 3Atk 9.0/s

Heroes

Recruit one hero per run for 300 XP. Heroes are elite versions of any troop class — 5× damage and 1.5× health — and scale further with upgrades.

Hero Warrior

300 XP

DMG 5×HP 1.5×

Hero Ranger

300 XP

DMG 5×HP 1.5×

Hero Ravager

300 XP

DMG 5×HP 1.5×

Hero Mage

300 XP

DMG 5×HP 1.5×

• Hero levels (from upgrades) grant +50% HP and +50% damage per level, up to level 20.
• Hero level persists across campaigns — your hero stays at their upgraded level for every new run.
• You can reposition your hero between waves.
• Choose your hero class to complement your army composition.

Upgrades

Upgrade troops and your hero to scale their stats. Upgrades apply to all units of that class. Troop and hero levels persist across campaigns — once you level up a Warrior or your Hero, they stay at that level for every future run. This meta-progression makes later runs easier and rewards replay.

Each troop upgrade raises that class's meta level by 1. Stats use 1 + (level − 1) × 0.35 for HP and damage (troops), or 0.50 per step for the hero — applied on top of the hero's 5× / 1.5× base multipliers. Upgrading is incentivized heavily — each level makes a noticeable difference, and a few upgrade passes is the key to beating the later levels.

If you have 4 Rangers on the field, one Ranger upgrade is far more valuable than upgrading a single Warrior. Leveling troops and your hero early in your career pays off in later levels and repeat runs. Upgrade stacking is how you beat the game — a few runs to build up unit levels makes the bosses manageable.

During live gameplay, each upgrade now plays a short animation and enters an Upgrading... countdown (default 5s) before applying. This delay is configurable in balance data and is designed as a future hook for power-up systems.

Enemies

Enemies spawn at the map edges and march toward your HQ. Each realm introduces new threats. The numbers on the cards below are base stats from balance data — in a real run, both HP and attack scale up with your level and the current wave.

Scaling (regular enemies only — bosses use fixed stats): HP = round(base HP × (1 + 0.22 × (wave − 1)) × (1 + 0.14 × (level − 1))). Attack = round(base ATK × (1 + 0.18 × (wave − 1) + 0.10 × (level − 1))).

The Goblin Realm

Goblin

Base HP 65Base ATK 10Atk 2.3/s

Orc

Base HP 100Base ATK 15Atk 4.5/s

Troll

Base HP 200Base ATK 40Atk 1.1/s

The Undead Realm

Skeleton

Base HP 45Base ATK 15Atk 2.3/s

Revenant

Base HP 125Base ATK 20Atk 4.5/s

Zombie

Base HP 270Base ATK 40Atk 1.1/s

Goblins swarm in numbers, Orcs hit harder, and Trolls are slow-moving tanks. The Undead mirror this pattern but with Skeletons (fast/fragile), Revenants (durable), and Zombies (devastating HP sponges). Necromancer-raised skeletons use the same scaling when they spawn mid-wave.

Bosses

Boss fights are the climax of certain levels. Bosses occupy a 2×2 footprint on the grid and have unique devastating mechanics.

Boss HP and melee/ranged hit damage are fixed (set in game balance to match the difficulty they had under the old level/wave scaling). They do not use the same multipliers as regular enemies — what you see below is exactly what you face in-game.

Goblin King

Level 5 Boss — The Goblin Realm

HP 5,000ATK 100RNG 1 / 8 throw

• Goblin Throw: Hurls goblins at your buildings from range 8. Up to 3 active thrown goblins at once.
• Stomp: Every 20 ticks, deals 40 area damage to adjacent defenders. Stomps on spawn too, shaking the entire map.
• Crush: Destroys buildings it spawns on top of.

Necromancer

Level 10 Boss — The Undead Realm

HP 15,000ATK 400RNG 8

• Dark Bolt: Ranged attack using boss ATK (~400 damage per hit, plus a small random bonus).
• Global Spell: Every 30 ticks, deals 10 damage to all your units and buildings. Fires on spawn.
• Raise Dead: Every 20 ticks, summons 2 skeletons near your HQ (max 6 active). They rise behind your outer defenses.
• Crush: Destroys any building it spawns on top of.

XP Economy

XP is your currency for everything: buildings, troops, upgrades, and heroes.

XP remaining at the end of a run counts toward your leaderboard score (×0.15). Banking XP by being efficient is rewarded — don't overspend if you're already winning.

Levels & Realms

The game currently has 10 levels across two realms. Each level increases starting XP, enemies, and building/unit caps.

Caps grow generously each level — by Level 7 you can field 25 troops, 14 towers, and 27 walls. The 7×7 grid (48 usable tiles) becomes the real constraint at higher levels, forcing meaningful choices about how to fill your space. Beyond Level 10, the game continues with scaling difficulty and the Undead Realm enemy pool.

Waves

Each level has a target number of waves to clear. Between waves you can reposition troops, build, and upgrade. During a wave, enemies spawn at the edges and march toward your HQ.

• Enemies spawn in intervals (one every ~0.44s at base speed).
• Each wave has a set enemy count and composition defined by the level.
• Clearing a wave earns XP; clearing all waves in a level earns the level clear bonus and advances you.
• Boss waves typically appear as the final wave of a boss level (Level 5, Level 10).

HQ global strike & emergency sweep

To keep waves from getting stuck, the HQ has two support mechanics:

• HQ global strike — Roughly every 40 seconds during a wave, the HQ fires a global strike that damages all enemies on the map (flat damage). This helps clear stuck or hard-to-reach enemies.
• HQ emergency sweep — If a wave runs too long (about 66 seconds), the HQ force-completes the wave so the game never stays stuck in one wave indefinitely.

Scoring

For full scoring details, see the Scoring page.

Quick summary: your TD run score = level × 500 + waves × 80 + xpRemaining × 0.15 + timeBonus. Higher levels and banked XP earn more. Your career TD score on the leaderboard is the sum of all runs.

Leaderboard views: The app and web show both total TD points (career sum) and best average run — average points per run, rounded to a whole number, so you can see who is most consistent as well as who has the highest total.

Strategy Tips

Higher levels unlock dramatically more building and troop slots than you can afford to fill — meaning your configuration is a real strategic choice. Here are the main viable paths and tips for each.

Tower Grid

Max out towers (up to 20 at L10) with minimal troops. Towers fire constantly from fixed positions — a dense tower grid delivers massive sustained DPS with no casualties. Expensive per-tile but brutally effective.

Wall Maze + Melee

Up to 40 walls let you build real chokepoints and kill corridors. Pack those corridors with Ravagers (400 HP, 60 DMG) and Warriors. Enemies that funnel into a melee trap rarely survive. Cheapest per-tile configuration.

Troop Army

Field up to 40 troops with almost no buildings. Rangers behind a thin wall line, or pure Ravager walls of meat. High troop counts overwhelm enemies through sheer numbers — repositionable between waves for adaptive defense.

Resource Engine

Fill your resource slots early (up to 9 at L10 at 5 XP/tick each). Sacrifice early wave strength for a snowballing XP engine that funds troop upgrades — upgraded troops at +35% per level stack into enormous late-wave damage multipliers.

Mage Fortress

A cluster of walls funneling into a Mage battery. Mages attack at 9.0/s with fire (DoT) and freeze (slow) — their crowd control multiplies the effectiveness of every other unit on the field. Great against swarm waves.

Time Your Hero

300 XP is a real investment early. Build your base first, then recruit a hero before a tough wave or boss. Heroes deal 5× troop damage and their levels carry over between runs — upgrading your hero is one of the best long-term investments.

Upgrade Stacking (Meta)

Troop and hero levels persist across all runs. Each troop upgrade adds +35% HP and +35% DMG per level; hero upgrades add +50%. A level 10 Ravager hits for ~249 damage per swing with 1,660 HP. At max level 20, that climbs to ~459 DMG. Invest early for compounding returns.

Bank XP for Score

XP remaining at the end of a run counts toward your leaderboard score (×0.15). If you're winning comfortably, resist spending — banked XP adds up fast on the leaderboard.