Kingdom Rush Tip # 5: Know Thy Hero
Each of the three "free" heroes has their own strengths, and can be useful in different situations:
- Gerald Lightseeker can inspire nearby troops for a damage and health bonus, and he's also got a fair bit of health and speed, so he can move from conflict to conflict easily.
- Alleria Swiftwind is the only one of the three who can hit flying targets, and she can also provide support fire from a safe distance. Her "Call of the Wild" skill summons a wolf, which can be used to block an additional enemy.
- Malik Hammerfury is the best of the three at dealing with groups of enemies, as he can stun and do area of effect damage. He's the slowest, however, and still can only block one enemy at a time.
Depending on your strategies and the types of enemies in a level, you may want to pick a different Hero for the level. For instance, if Gargoyles are causing you issues, bring Alleria, or if you're overwhelmed by weak ground enemies, try Malik.
Kingdom Rush Tip # 4: Heroes Lead From the Front
It may be tempting to have your hero hang back and deal with whatever stragglers get to close to the exit. However, heroes gain experience and become more powerful through combat. If you kill all the weaker enemies with your towers and never give them a chance to fight, they'll be weak by the time the stronger enemies arrive that you need their help with.
My suggestion is to start with your hero out front during the early rounds. This allows them to smash through some weak enemies and gain some levels, so by the time you really need their skills, they're ready for action.
Heroes' levels reset every level, so any experience or skills they learned will have to be relearned every time. The maximum level is 10, but they'll learn both of their skills by level 4.
Kingdom Rush Tip # 3: Use Bombs Wisely
When you win a level in Kingdom Rush, you'll likely also win some Gems. These are the "freemium" currency that you can spend money to get more of. I usually hoard these just in case I need them on some super-hard level later.
However, you make enough gems per-win that you can afford to occasionally invest in single-use items from the Shop.
- The Heartbox will refill your hearts. Star ratings are determined by hearts, so it might pay to have one of these around in case you're really close to three stars but just can't get there. You can save replaying the mission by using one.
- The Frozotov and the Chill Wand freeze enemies, which gives you more time to deal with them, and lets your abilities recharge a bit. If you're just a bit too overwhelmed, these can turn the tide.
- Dynamite can do a small amount of damage to a small area - kind of like a Bombard shot. It's not super effective against stronger enemies, but could do decent damage to some weaker ones in a pinch.
- The Fat Boy wipes everything out, which can be a lifesaver... But honestly, it's very costly. If you're in need of these often, you may want to rethink your strategies!
- The Gold Bag gives you an immediate gold boost. 500 gold might not seem like much, but it's enough to get you over the hump with a mid-tier tower into something more powerful.
All of these levels are doable, though, without spending gems. Usually the first couple of rounds will help you decide if your starting strategy was going to work or not - it's not a long time investment to try a few times to get the placement of the towers just right for the enemies you will face.
Kingdom Rush Tip # 2: Stars, Stars Everywhere
The overall goal of the game is to earn stars. Stars track your progress, and stars buy upgrades. Getting three stars on every level means that you're doing good, right? But, there's more!
In addition to the three stars for difficulty, there's one star for each of the "Heroic" and "Iron" challenges. These challenges unlock after you've gotten 3 stars on the "normal" mode. The challenges limit your use of tower types, upgrades, and heroes, while throwing more and more monsters your way. This can be bad, but it also means that there are fewer combinations of towers to try. They're all solvable, after all, so some pattern has to work! With the other tips in this guide, you should be able to figure these challenges out easy.
Once you've completed the campaign, a set of more difficult levels unlocks. If you haven't been doing the challenges up to this point, I highly suggest that you do so in order to get more upgrades before attempting the higher-difficulty levels.
Also note that getting stars doesn't require any specific difficulty level - it counts just the same if you do these levels and challenges on Easy versus Normal or Heroic. If you're not having fun, take the difficulty down a notch and try again!
Kingdom Rush Tip # 1: Like a Boss
There are several "boss monsters" in Kingdom Rush, and these guys take a beating before going down. Letting one pass leads to instant defeat. Thus, defeating them is a high priority.
There are a few tricks you can employ to survive against a Kingdom Rush boss monster, though:
- Stop them whenever you can. You can use reinforcements in their path to make them pause for a bit. You can also use soldiers or the Sorcerer's elemental to stop them temporarily, or your Hero. Remember that you can change the rally point for your troops, so if the boss wipes out your soldiers at starts moving, you can have your soldiers spawn further down the path and stop him again.
- Use Rain of Fire. Usually you can get one or two solid charges out of Rain of Fire before the boss takes your base. Hit them right when they show up, and then immediately when the ability is ready again.
- Throw up more towers. There's a constant stream of monsters flowing, so the gold should also be flowing into your reserves. Use this wisely to make towers in areas you may have not defended as strongly before. High-damage towers like the Musketeer and the Arcane mage can deal a lot of damage to the boss.