Facebook Game Maze Defense Guide

Written by Steve Bultinck.

This Guide is sort of a help to people who are freshly starting or are experienced Mazers (taking advice of a Lord :p).
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1. The beginning:
Think of a design that you want. At this stage it’s all a
preference matter, but you can always find some ideas in the forum section.
Ex: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=18028&start;=30&hash;=c981fd3c9c559bc9c975d859ea53b94f#/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=10845

That Forumtopic has some neat design that you can test out or
make it your own.
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2. Building: When someone builds a maze one has to know
following things:
-There are 5 entrances = The big holes on the sides of your maze
-One exit: The small hole on the right in the middle
-Bugs take the shortest route to your exit

This gives you a general idea where to build your towers in such a way that they have to pass every tower you build and that it will take a while before they reach your maze-exit (*The designs on the forums try to optimise these)

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3. Upgrading: When starting out it’s best to make a full maze of basic towers to make the path as long as possible (the longer the path the higher chance you can kill al the low level-bugs)
When you do start upgrading it is again all up to your own preference.
You can go for the slow Techtree or the fast one.
-Slow = Heavy damage/Second but slow (lower tier has low range)
-Fast = Light damage/Second but fast

Tower Tech tree:
http://www.armazegeddon.com/images/MDtowers.png
notice the ranks but will get to that further on.
When upgrading different basic tower into their higher tier one can also notice the range of some of the towers. In your design you will notice that it’s sometimes better to get a different kind of tower so that it will fire more often at the bugs when they pass

ex: Firebolt has a range 6m (Tier3) and does 490damage(1500gold) and the Terragun has 9m (Tier3) and does 300 damage(2000gold).
Firebolt does more damage at the cost of range and damage/Second, but is less expensive.
in this case you’ll have to decide for yourself what you prefer (or ask in the forum :p).

When you get to the point of getting splash take a look here
(since i don’t have that i will not tell you things i’m not sure off):
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=18028&start;=30&hash;=c981fd3c9c559bc9c975d859ea53b94f#/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=18019

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4. Progress
As you maze you’ll notice on the left hand side that there are people above you. When starting out those have a name and rank.
Ex: Peon Mesosilly
Those are ranks.
The ranks are not given … they are taken, most likely by force.
You can do this aswell. and this is how:
When you play turns you can either choose to:
-Take money for your mazeturn (lets you further upgrade your maze) see A
-Get an attack card See B

A) You’ll notice you have multiple difficulties: Very easy, easy, medium, hard, very hard and insane. as the word implies it generally gives a harder wave when you take a higher difficulty (not always true… see later in the guide).

As beginner you can play insane very often depending on the design of your maze (experiment what your maze can handle or use one of the tools further down in the guide)
—–
Very easy and easy= wave with no increase of power level of the wave
Medium= wave with +1 power level of the wave and stays at that level
Hard, very hard and insane= wave with +2 power level of the wave and stays at that level
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B) An attack card gives you the the Wave of bugs that just went through your maze = you can use that wave on other players.

in your left hand corner you will see the card (Powerlvl ??).
Now if you think you can handle a player higher in rank of you (just click on people’s portraits above you to scout their maze). you can, if your looking at their maze, attack them with your card.
you can:
-Select your card, then press attack (fingers crossed) See A
-Create a coalition (costs 1000gold) See B

A: Your wave will go through the maze of your opponent. If 1 or more bugs get to the end of the maze, you’ve won and will take their place (you can rank up or swap places with someone of the same rank). attacking lower players in rank gives you a fuzzy feeling inside.

B: A coalition creates 3 spots for someone to help you attack a maze. Your attack card can then be added to other cards, creating a stronger and harder wave of bugs = increasing chance of winning. Ask for help on the forum, Friends or others to add their card.

Note: sometimes browsing these forums will get you your target: Beginners should check this topic:http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=18028&start;=30&hash;=c981fd3c9c559bc9c975d859ea53b94f#/topic.php?uid=14618023107&topic;=8818

–Winning or losing a battle gives you immunity for a certain period of time to help you recuperate or prepare–

you can also find higher ranked people in these forums that others think that they are weak: follow the Sticky: Weak “Fill in a rank”

Small note: when starting out don’t get the the power level 1 cards… they don’t have any real use and will certainly not win you any battle. Also don’t attack the Great king (highest rank), it only gives him a fuzzy feeling :).

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5. Usefull tools to test your maze or make it more effective.

Zing’s Java Maze Calc & Code Output: http://www.designtech.co.za/Zing/MazeDefense.htm
Besluau’s Maze Simulator & Wave Calculator: http://www.javatd.com/TestThomas/Facebook/Judicator.htm
Mike Murphy’s Sim & Tower Table: http://www.armazegeddon.com/maze_defense.asp
Dave Eaton’s Maze Editor & Activation Calculator: http://www.suave.net/~dave/md/editor.html

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6. How to use some of the tools:
First of all: Have java installed, download here:
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/widget/jdk6.jsp

when installed download this pritty tool:
http://www.designtech.co.za/Zing/CannonDPS_MDFA_1b.jar
and extract it to the place of your choosing. This will give you a

java icon where you have placed it. When you open it you’ll get a screen where you are prompted to enter an url. This can be obtained by right clicking your maze (only when not building or watching replays) and click properties. and copy the long url you find there!
paste it and when you click update you’ll get all the stats of your maze.
-Dps
-Path lengths
-what towers you have

and the bottom (scroll down) you’ll find a code of your maze:
ex: x8x12x28x10x11x2x10x15
this is your maze ID: you can use this in tools from the websites given to test your maze for various things (most are self-explaining).
These ID’s can also be found in various topics of designs of other people= Lets you look at the maze or adjust them to your preferences, so you can plan your maze or find improvements by trying out various designs and gunplacement.

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7. Justin Dimmick’s maze calculator spreadsheet:

http://www.box.net/shared/2dsyv6tidd

This a powerfull tool in the hands of any mazer:
****calculates estimation of how far a wave will get****

How to get it working:
It requires that the have http://www.designtech.co.za/Zing/CannonDPS_MDFA_1b.jar working so you can copy the cannon stats on the 2nd page. Just copy and past the maze stats and past it in cell A1. The wave stats are a little trickier. Copy the wave stats and right-click on cell A1 on the 3rd page, and click on “Paste Special” then select “text”. The first page tells you all the important information. It does make some assumptions. It assumes that you have a decent design, and that your damage is evenly distributed and the safety factor is settable. Justin is not
responsible for the user setting the safety factor too high and nuking, but this should really help :)

-Small Note: just because your maze can handle the insane cards, doesn’t mean you should run them! You will dig yourself a hole you can’t dig yourself out of.

My way of averting this: I calculate all the waves. If you can Beat all the waves you can go up in difficulty (play medium). When you can’t beat 1 Wave go With Easy or very Easy
ex1: Very easy (300 path remaining) Easy (280PR) Medium (260PR) Hard (180PR) Very Hard (150PR) Insane (30PR)

go

ex2: Very easy (80PR) EASY (Medium 130PR) Hard (150PR) Very Hard (120PR) Insane(300PR)

go

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8. Buying Turns:
-most important thing to know when buying turns is that even if you play insane, with the bought turns, it will keep you at your current maximum level for that day. (make note that you will not earn more and more money each hard turn you play either, so don’t waste your turns.)
You can also get a higher level card this way without having to risk to increase your difficulty.

ex: you are playing at lvl 150, with bought turns you can play an insane wave (lvl 152) and get the 152 card without the fear of now being at a higher powerlvl. so next time you play your turns they will still be 150

-The maximum amount of turns you can use up for a day is 15.
As Lord you have 5 turns basic and with the bought turns you can use up another 10 that day. 5 turns that have an adjustable difficulty (if you play medium, hard,very hard or insane) and 10 unadjustable difficulties (you will stay at your current powerlvl even if you play any of the increased difficulty waves)

Glossary:
MD = Maze Defense
GK = Great King
JD = Judicator
HT = High Templar
KG = Kingdom Guardian
K = Knight
L = Lord
P = Peon
DPS = Damage Per Second
T# = Cannon tech level (T1 = Basic, T4 = Megatrons, etc, T5 = Sonic Blasters, etc)

Special thanks to: Sylvie Reine Des Mayas, Chris Yap,Besluau Thomas,Mike Murphy,Dave Eaton,Justin Dimmick, Payam Karimian and all others i might have forgotten and the current Great king Shan Fu Chong for allowing us to give him fuzzy feelings.

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