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First we had Fieldrunners, then Tap Defense and now 7 Cities TD. The first 6 cities in this game are very easy, but i have spent hours on my train commute trying to beat the last city “Onyx Monolith” and finally beat it tonight with only 7 lives lost. Here are some pointers you can follow to beat this level yourself, and save yourself some frustration (note: i have only tested this strategy on easy):

1) Like my strategy for Tap Defense, it turns out an Arrow Tower strategy in the beginning works wonders. Build them as soon as you have the gold because the more towers standing the more gems you can get with each kill. DO NOT BUILD ANY OTHER TOWER TYPE YET.

2) The mistake i was making was trying to distribute my gem +dmg upgrades across too many towers. I found it best to put 100% of my gem upgrades into the arrow tower in the picture below. Eventually you are just one shotting everything that attempts to pass by.

3) Once you have covered the map in arrow towers and have the gold, replace 3 of them with Obelisk towers, each using different auras (Damage, Range & Speed) and overlapping your “uber” arrow tower pictured above.

4) Continue to spend gems on this arrow tower. You may find a couple heavy armor turtles get by near the end.

5) Once you are comfortable with how things are going feel free to add a few tornado towers before the area where the rivers converge to maximize impact of your uber tower.

6) Use the “Critical Hit” upgrade on your arrow towers as they level up.

Here is what my map looked like when i finished the game:

You can also check out my strategy for beating Tower Defense for iPhone here.

Update Dec/08: This strategy is even easier now that you can upgrade your arrow towers to level 4.

Tap Defense is a tricky game at first, but once you understand a few things – it’s actually very easy. The game is most difficult in the first 20-30 levels when you don’t have much gold and are limited in terms of what you can build. Because of this it is really important that you limit your spending as much as possible. I have used these pointers on easy/medium & hard and can beat the game on any difficulty now:

1. In the beginning, build only arrow towers
2. Never build so much in one level that you run out of gold
3. With each new level, you should actually have more gold than you did the previous level. If you don’t, you are spending too much
4. Don’t upgrade arrow towers until you have most of the map covered
5. Use your first 4 halos on interest upgrades
6. After you get the 2nd interest upgrade, focus on upgrading arrow towers until you can get a halo to research the ice tower
7. Build at least 4 ice towers near the beginning of the road, staggered 1 or 2 spots (don’t put them all beside each other)
8. Upgrade ice towers to level 2 asap
9. Use next halo to research the storm tower & start replacing arrow towers near the beginning (they should be beside the ice towers). Aim to have about 4 of them full upgraded asap
10. Continue to make sure your gold is increasing each level

By the time you get 3-4 fully upgraded storm towers, you will notice things are ridiculously easy and you can basically cruise to level 43 (the end of the game).

Check out my guide on how to beat 7 Cities TD for iphone as well here.