Proper use of tower troops involves a lot of *strategy* as opposed to the brute strength approach of most other castles. You really need to know your tower troops intimately. (sorry if that sounded dirty) I find that using tower troops during combat involves a lot of calculation and planning many rounds in advance. By doing this you will find that tower troops often prevail even when outnumbered.

You will need to rely heavily on your hero's spells because, without the right spells, tower creatures tend to be pretty average. Tower is perhaps best in seige combat, for both defending and attacking.

I tend to use either Solmyr or Cyra as my primary hero, but the choice depends on the map size. Solmyr is great on small to medium maps, for Chain Lightning is extremely powerful early in the game and will get you off to a great start. Cyra is especially handy when the map is large and you can get very high levels. Her Haste specialty will be a huge advantage later on. (Hasted master gremlins will eventually be faster than arch angels!) Also, Cyra starts with diplomacy, which is a very underrated skill. Once your army has of a few titans, you'll find that a lot of wandering creature stacks will offer to join.

It's important to pick the right secondary skills for your main hero. My priority in secondary skills goes something like this:

1. Wisdom
2. Magic Schools (Earth Magic, Fire Magic, Air Magic, Water Magic)
3. Intelligence
4. Logistics
5. Archery (extremely handy but quite rare for wizards)

This is really something that changes every time... to play tower troops effectively you need to be able to adjust your tactics to suit the situation. My battle formation is usually like this:

slot 1: Master Gremlins slot 2: 1 Master Genie slot 3: 1 Master Genie slot 4: Titans slot 5: Naga Queens slot 6: main genie stack slot 7: Archmagi

Attack Formation

You'll find that most battles will rely on your ranged attackers to take out enemy ranged units and approaching ground troops. The Naga Queens will form the bulk of your melee offense, because they can take the hits and dish out a heck of a lot of damage. 8)

Notice I don't take Gargoyles or Golems with my main hero. I prefer to leave them inside the castle, and only buy them when I get desperate for troops, or to defend the castle.

Do not buy an Ammo Cart! You'll never need it, and it will just be an easy way for Dragons or Phoenix to eliminate your gremlins without suffering a counterattack.

Use of the right spells is what really makes tower troops awesome. Try hard to get expert levels in Air, Water and Earth Magic. Don't always go for the ballistic approach of throwing Lightning Bolts every round. Often an Expert Bless, Expert Haste or Expert Slow will serve you better. (Expert levels in these spells affects all allies or enemies) Use the Master Genies to cast spells on your Titans and Master Gremlins, for they will benefit most from those spells. I usually avoid using Genies to cast spells on Naga Queens... they are good enough on their own, and you might accidentally cast Frenzy on your Naga Queens (yes that can be a good spell, but it will spell trouble more often that not).

Tower takes a lot of practice to play effectively, but it can be a lot of fun. Besides that, all the tower creatures look classy 8)

Last Update: May 18, 2001

Copyright © 2000 - 2001 Rocco J Carello