Revenge of the Titans will test your long-term planning abilities, since early decisions can make later levels relatively easy or hellishly hard.
Adaptive difficulty level[]
The game changes the difficulty level based on how much money you have at the end of the level. Effectively, the more money you have at the end of a level, the more resilient and numerous the titans become in the following level. This implies much for strategy:
- you should always try to save powerups and tech instead of money. Sitting on a bunch of money mean more angry titans, so you will have to spend your cash.
- finishing a "hard" level like a planet final with very few money is not as problematic as you may think, because the incoming missions will be easier.
That said, you will still need an healthy amount of money, the exact amount depending on playstyle (on Saturn, people have gotten by with only $5k, whereas it is common for some players to be above $20k in the area).
Additionally, map generation spawns less crystals once you are over $25k, and next to none once you are over $50k.
Powerup use[]
Usually, you should keep the exotic powerup for the last levels, or if a boss is causing you a lot of trouble. Tossing exotic powerup against regular titans is usually not a good move, you will encounter them again in the next level, and you will have expended your trump card.
Among the regular powerups, freeze and berserk are usually best used against bosses, whereas the other three are usually a good way to round up a level. They come relatively easily, so using 1 or 2 to finish a level is usually worth it. Try not to depend too much on them, however.
Tower placement[]
First, don't forget that Titans will not come out before you build a refinery or a droid factory. During this time, buildings will be 100% refunded, so you can take your time and try different layouts. Barricades can't be sold, so place them last.
Each lane (skulls and spawn points) will always give the same titan combination on a given level, so you can make a first try to see what is coming out and adapt the towers. The boss are the exception, they will replace entirely the titans from one of the lanes.
Titans behavior is completely predictable, and while their strategies are simple, they are surprisingly effective. The main points to remember is that a titan will always attack a building on his path (even if it's invisible) ; traffic jams will cause them to stray from the usual path ; and they will change theirs paths according to threats (in other word, they will actively try to avoid turrets).
R&D strategy[]
Some technologies are needed to deal with specific threats and can have quite a lot of requirements.
As a general guideline, here's the generic tech order :
- On earth, take 1-2 addons, barricades, heavy blaster, and spreader cannon
- On moon, blast cannon, and prepare to get either mine or droids
- On Mars, get either cluster mine or droid, and either capacitor or x-ray scanner
This covers the basics and you should be able to get quite a bit of other technologies. A lot of the trickier technologies will need experimentation ; one of the best tools for that is the endless mode, because using the first 10 endless missions to test lasers or decoys is a lot less time consuming than making 10 mission and having to go back to change your tech order.
Here's the list of required technology :
- Armor-piercing capability : Beginning with the moon, armored titans will appear. It's not too much of a problem, since the heavy blaster and blast cannons are must-have and don't require too much technology. You will need either heavy blaster or nuclear plant addon once on the moon, and either blast cannon or heavy blaster and nuclear plant past moon 16.
- Anti-microtitans capability : The microtitans are too small to be efficiently dispatched by regular tower. You will need either cluster mine (regular mine aren't tripped by them) or droid factory. They are not too much of a threat, so you can lag a little behind, but it's not recommended. They appear on Mars 15.
- Anti-phantom capability : phantom-type titans appear on the last parts of Mars. They need either capacitor (and micro-management) or X-ray scanner to get rid of. The X-ray scanner needs a lot of technology, but it allows you to skip the not-too-useful capacitor completely.
In addition to that, there is a bunch of useful technology :
- All the addons are worth researching. The Reloader and the Scanner are the weakest link : the reloader is not terribly efficient compared to batteries and cooling tower, and good tower placement can often remove the need of the scanner. However, they can still save your day.
- Multiblasters, while relatively weak against armored threats, are real killers against unarmored ones. You should try to get them before Mars as it make the hordes of unarmored titans a lot easier to manage. They *can* destroy 4-armor titans with a nuclear plant or two.
- Spreader cannon can't damage armored titans, but can stun them, and have a pretty high damage output against unarmored threats. The fast and armored titans on the moon are very hard to stop without them.
- The deliveries technologies are a little of a poison pill, because the difficulty level is adjusted based on your money and they give you a lot of cash. Try to avoid them if you already have a lot of money. They lead to a lot of very sweet technology, however, including the hard to skip X-ray scanner and Special Supplies.
- Heavy weapons (rockets, disruptor, laser) are worth having, but you can delay until Mars or Jupiter. The disruptor tend to be the easier to use and powerful against all sorts of titans without any drawbacks. The rockets can destroy your own buildings but pack a lot of punch. Lasers don't damage armored titans but is long-ranged and pretty destructive.
- The Economics building can easily be completely ignored. In fact, it's often difficult to gain money using those technologies.
- Barricades, at least the first one, are must-have. Having extra resistance can help a lot on Saturn because that's where titans begin to hit like trucks.
- Misc. building can help, but don't dig too deep into them. They are tricks, and while tricks can help, they will not give you the punch you need.