Tech Tree guide?

[MessiahofMelons]

Hey just wondering if theres any tree guide for the campaign. Ive already picked a few questionable choices. Currently trying to do coast of bones with no food upgrades or farm unlocked.

Edit: Are there any unlocks to avoid like the plauge. For example i got starting sniper and i feel like it was a huge waste

I dont want to get half way through to find out if f'ed myself and have to restart.

[Kushko]

Cottages, Farms, Soldiers, Stone walls/gates, Shock towers are all must haves and are to be gotten asap in that order. Snipers are not a must if you want to just use soldiers with range upgrade and in towers instead (i skipped the wood tower and went right for the stone one). After those it's really just quality of life stuff. Marketplace is wonderful. The logistics line is pretty great (the one where your train brings you supplies). I quite enjoy Wasp turrets as well. After that, just get whatever since you have all the essentials.

[MessiahofMelons]

Originally posted by Kushko:

Cottages, Farms, Soldiers, Stone walls/gates, Shock towers are all must haves and are to be gotten asap in that order. Snipers are not a must if you want to just use soldiers with range upgrade and in towers instead (i skipped the wood tower and went right for the stone one). After those it's really just quality of life stuff. Marketplace is wonderful. The logistics line is pretty great (the one where your train brings you supplies). I quite enjoy Wasp turrets as well. After that, just get whatever since you have all the essentials.

Hmmm okay, maybe havnt fed myself too bad yet. I would restart if it wasnt for the hero missions. I cant stand doing those again.

Would it be better to ask which ones to never get?

[DarkRaiiin]

Originally posted by Kushko:

Cottages, Farms, Soldiers, Stone walls/gates, Shock towers are all must haves and are to be gotten asap in that order. Snipers are not a must if you want to just use soldiers with range upgrade and in towers instead (i skipped the wood tower and went right for the stone one). After those it's really just quality of life stuff. Marketplace is wonderful. The logistics line is pretty great (the one where your train brings you supplies). I quite enjoy Wasp turrets as well. After that, just get whatever since you have all the essentials.

This, although I don't care for stone towers. A big enough stone wall and they won't get to your weaker wood towers anyways. Unless there's a range bonus I'm unaware of? Either way, this post is pretty much spot on. I've just personally had no problem using stone wall/wood towers combo.

[soulguard]

I'll go out on a limb and say this... i'm sure i'll get flack...

All the skills in the tree are viable, pending your playstyle, but also pending the environment. For me, I went soldiers, food, the wood towers. That plus range is viable for rangers, they get off 3 more hits on a solo runner before it gets close.

I tend to be a ranger spammer once my soldier center is built. With that i'm looking for day 14 to start massing soldiers and walls. Rangers are for scouting and protecting the base. Patrol is your friend.

From there I've been focusing on economy growth because soldiers, during these early missions, are pretty terrific. I have only gone as far as doing all the swarms and 2 of the towns beyond them, so still pretty early.

The most advanced tech I have is spike traps, and ballistas. I still haven't touched train supports or any of the logistics... yet. Waiting to get stone walls before I go that route.

What I said, I know it's not really a guide, but I hope it helps. So far, doing 100%, I haven't hit a map that has floored me cause I don't have enough tech. Giants... giants could be a problem, so i'm saving that for last.
;-)

[Kushko]

Originally posted by ⅅ︎Å︎ℜ︎Kℜ︎Å︎IIIℕ:

Originally posted by Kushko:

Cottages, Farms, Soldiers, Stone walls/gates, Shock towers are all must haves and are to be gotten asap in that order. Snipers are not a must if you want to just use soldiers with range upgrade and in towers instead (i skipped the wood tower and went right for the stone one). After those it's really just quality of life stuff. Marketplace is wonderful. The logistics line is pretty great (the one where your train brings you supplies). I quite enjoy Wasp turrets as well. After that, just get whatever since you have all the essentials.

This, although I don't care for stone towers. A big enough stone wall and they won't get to your weaker wood towers anyways. Unless there's a range bonus I'm unaware of? Either way, this post is pretty much spot on. I've just personally had no problem using stone wall/wood towers combo.

Afaik towers give bonus range. They also have higher hp pools than their wall type. Stone towers only cost 80 and are in my opinion a must. Especially once you get in to missions with more unique zombies.

As for never to get...well i'm completely skipping the inn and their support tech. I'm skipping bonuses to wood wall tech since i replaced those after just a few missions. I have not gotten or have felt i need any wonders yet (70% in to the campaign). But i might get a couple of those (the energy one and the food one at least). Can probably skip the veterancy and the oil wonders with no problems. Ive skipped lucifers and don't intend to get them, but i dont play those tower defense missions on high difficulty.

In general, just have goals on what you want to get after you reach each previous goal and don't get sidetracked. As long as you are covering the basics which are housing for pop, farms for food, power plants for energy, shock towers of thanatos for aoe damage, stone towers with soldiers or snipers for high single target damage and maybe wasps for plugging defense holes. With those there should be no missions where you cant overcome the challenge. Anything else will just add flavor and make your life a little bit easier. There are very little truly horrible choices in the tech tree, only way you can really screw yourself is by not covering the basics soon enough.

As a little bonus, getting the two techs that let you start with a soldier really makes life easy since you can use the 4 starting rangers to defend and the two soldiers to clear. Can also get an extra ranger and a sniper, but those two don't add the same value for your buck as two soldiers. Only get those if you are swimming in points.

[MessiahofMelons]

Originally posted by Kushko:

Originally posted by ⅅ︎Å︎ℜ︎Kℜ︎Å︎IIIℕ:

This, although I don't care for stone towers. A big enough stone wall and they won't get to your weaker wood towers anyways. Unless there's a range bonus I'm unaware of? Either way, this post is pretty much spot on. I've just personally had no problem using stone wall/wood towers combo.

Afaik towers give bonus range. They also have higher hp pools than their wall type. Stone towers only cost 80 and are in my opinion a must. Especially once you get in to missions with more unique zombies.

As for never to get...well i'm completely skipping the inn and their support tech. I'm skipping bonuses to wood wall tech since i replaced those after just a few missions. I have not gotten or have felt i need any wonders yet (70% in to the campaign). But i might get a couple of those (the energy one and the food one at least). Can probably skip the veterancy and the oil wonders with no problems. Ive skipped lucifers and don't intend to get them, but i dont play those tower defense missions on high difficulty.

In general, just have goals on what you want to get after you reach each previous goal and don't get sidetracked. As long as you are covering the basics which are housing for pop, farms for food, power plants for energy, shock towers of thanatos for aoe damage, stone towers with soldiers or snipers for high single target damage and maybe wasps for plugging defense holes. With those there should be no missions where you cant overcome the challenge. Anything else will just add flavor and make your life a little bit easier. There are very little truly horrible choices in the tech tree, only way you can really screw yourself is by not covering the basics soon enough.

Thats kinda what im woried about. Im currently feeling the sting for not gettimg farms or cottages early. It takes the entire map to get 800 pop in coast of bones for me. And i mean every single possible spot for food. I have stuff outside my walls at the border

[DarkRaiiin]

Originally posted by Kushko:

Originally posted by ⅅ︎Å︎ℜ︎Kℜ︎Å︎IIIℕ:

This, although I don't care for stone towers. A big enough stone wall and they won't get to your weaker wood towers anyways. Unless there's a range bonus I'm unaware of? Either way, this post is pretty much spot on. I've just personally had no problem using stone wall/wood towers combo.

Afaik towers give bonus range. They also have higher hp pools than their wall type. Stone towers only cost 80 and are in my opinion a must. Especially once you get in to missions with more unique zombies.

They do give a range bonus. I meant if the stone tower gave an additional range bonus over the wooden tower.

To be fair, I've only gotten about halfway through the campaign, but I still haven't had a wave go through stone walls. And Bahroo is on Nightmare near the end and is still using wooden towers himself. Not that stone towers are a HUGE investment, but I tend to be a min/maxer and like to leave out things I don't need.

[I'm A Distraction!]

Can soldiers manage the attack missions as well as snipers can? I've found just spamming out snipers like its going out of style is my best bet on these missions. That being said, there's almost no upgrades for snipers, and its effectively ~360 points for them (although the soldier range upgrade sprouts off of the sniper requirements).

[Panfilo]

One thing to be aware of is a lot of 'improved' versions of buildings can be upgraded from older versions. So stone defenses can be upgraded from existing wood structures I believe, tents can be upgraded to wood then stone houses, and some turrets can be upgraded too. This keeps the older version from becoming totally obsolete - it's totally worth building the first tier version and upgrading them when you have the tech and resources.

[Xuhybrid]

Train deliveries, Soldiers, Farms, Ballistas and Markets/Banks. All pretty core tech to have imo.
Stone walls, wood towers, shock towers and wasps all nice to have too.

[Kushko]

Originally posted by ⅅ︎Å︎ℜ︎Kℜ︎Å︎IIIℕ:

Originally posted by Kushko:

Afaik towers give bonus range. They also have higher hp pools than their wall type. Stone towers only cost 80 and are in my opinion a must. Especially once you get in to missions with more unique zombies.

They do give a range bonus. I meant if the stone tower gave an additional range bonus over the wooden tower.

To be fair, I've only gotten about halfway through the campaign, but I still haven't had a wave go through stone walls. And Bahroo is on Nightmare near the end and is still using wooden towers himself. Not that stone towers are a HUGE investment, but I tend to be a min/maxer and like to leave out things I don't need.

According to the wiki wood towers give +2 range, stone gives +3. On top of more than doubling the hp.

[DarkRaiiin]

Originally posted by Kushko:

Originally posted by ⅅ︎Å︎ℜ︎Kℜ︎Å︎IIIℕ:

They do give a range bonus. I meant if the stone tower gave an additional range bonus over the wooden tower.

To be fair, I've only gotten about halfway through the campaign, but I still haven't had a wave go through stone walls. And Bahroo is on Nightmare near the end and is still using wooden towers himself. Not that stone towers are a HUGE investment, but I tend to be a min/maxer and like to leave out things I don't need.

According to the wiki wood towers give +2 range, stone gives +3. On top of more than doubling the hp.

Huh, well then. I retract my "don't worry about stone towers" then. That's a decent offence boost.

[kanick3000]

I find the only techs that are absolutely mandatory are the wood workshop (which gives you cottages and branches you out into a new tech tier) and farms. Because of how important hitting the pop requirement is, you're really handicapping yourself if you don't get farms. From there, you'll want to formulate a strategy. Soldier spam in stone towers is an effective one, but you can also go sniper spam, or ballista spam w/ stake traps. Honestly, stake traps have been a decent substitute for shock towers so far in my game. By the end of missions when I'm waiting for the swarm and swimming in gold and wood, buying a few layers of these things in front of a single layer of wall with soldiers in stone towers is all I really need. Shock towers are easier to set up, but require more of a tech point investment that you could use on quality of life upgrades; like the market and the warehouse or even the train upgrades. Plus, I’ve never been a fan of how much power they require. It’s not really an issue if you’re setting up your power grid properly, but it just annoyes me having to reserve so much power for a few stupid towers.

[snuggleform]

Soldiers definitely not necessary but you need to compensate by getting wasps for swarm missions, and then snipers for some anti-venom material.

Super high value: farm, shock tower

excellent value: wasp (it complements the shock towers weaknesses and can wipe out most wandering horde missions as a cool bonus)

very useful on many low resource maps: train deposits, market

filler but makes your life a lot easier managing the base: energy reduction on various buildings, better mill energy production, starting food/energy

I would suggest ignoring the "Starter unit" stuff as its crumby, probably the advanced farm and turbine mill blades aren't worth it since they're quite expensive on upkeep and the basic mill is quite excellent with the +30% upgrade.

[Kushko]

Oh i found another tech that is useless. Advanced mill. Costs 5x more in upkeep (from 6 to 30) and provides less than twice the power (from 30 to 50).

*edit* I see wsc150 beat me to it. :) Although i disagree about the advanced farms. Unlike advanced mills there is seldom reason you need to conserve space and build 1 advanced mill instead of 2 normal ones for half the upkeep. Farms on the other hand need special land which in some missions is very hard to come by, making advanced farms valuable.