War Tortoise Tips, Cheats and Strategies

War Tortoise is a wave defense game from Foursaken Media; a wave defense game where you control a gun turret on top of a very heavily armored tortoise, no less.

Gamezebo’s War Tortoise tips, cheats and strategies will help you make the most out of your war funds, and help you stick it to all those nasty critters who don’t seem to like shelled reptiles very much.

Holding Your Own

• When dealing with groups of enemies, try to keep several of them inside the targeting circle. Large groups tend to be made up of weaker critters, and the gun will auto-target anything inside the red ring. So grouping multiple enemies together usually means that the machine gun will cut through them quickly.
• Always prioritize enemies with guns. Even if something huge is lumbering towards you, take a moment to pick off the small fry that use ranged attacks. They have a tendency to start firing while outside of your defenses’ effective range at later levels and all that damage adds up.
• Save the heavy weapons (i.e. the sniper rifle and howitzer) for strong enemies. Or groups of enemies if you’re using the howitzer, I suppose.

• Auto-battle is your friend. Sure it’s not quite as accurate as manually aiming the machine gun, but by activating auto-battle (either through double-tapping the screen or tapping the button in the top-left corner of the screen) you’ll be able to move the camera around and asses the situation while automatically shooting at whatever’s closest.
• Seriously, use auto-battle. While the gun continues to fire you can actually move the inactive targeting reticule over various enemies to see what they are. It’s a fantastic way of seeing what’s coming, and you can easily switch back to normal fire or special weapons to quickly go after anything that might be a bit too tough for your normal defenses to handle. In later levels it’s also a good idea to immediately turn on auto-battle and do a quick sweep of the battlefield to see what the next wave contains.

• Keep your eyes and ears peeled for mining tower goodies. Every so often your mining tower (or towers if you buy certain upgrades) will cough up a glowing gem or two. Make sure you tap on these as they’ll give you a much needed monetary boost.
• Take breaks. Not because it’s good to give your eyes a rest, but because you’ll earn extra money while you’re away from the game. The tortoise will also regenerate health while you’re away, and sometimes you can cheese this fact by turning the game off right before you lose the last of your health. Give it a few hours and you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off with more (or even full, depending on how long your break was) health. It’s cheap, yes, but it’s also effective.

Upgrading

• There’s really no wrong way to upgrade in War Tortoise. Focusing on defenses over personal firepower works, and focusing on becoming a shelled death machine and to heck with any support can also be effective. There are a few particularly notable options, however.
• Always get perks. You can earn perks either by spending whatever the little red gear-looking icons are supposed to be, or by occasionally watching a video. Do this often, as perks give you some really helpful benefits like bonus damage across the board and more staring cash. They stack as well, so feel free to double-up on the perks you like. As an added bonus, any perks you’ve earned are permanent and will carry over to the next tortoise generation whenever you have to start over.

• Upgrade your mining towers as soon as possible. Your mining towers will be your chief source of income up to around level 8 or so (early game enemies don’t drop much cash). They’re still quite handy later on as well, assuming you decide improve them. Upgrading their rate will have them cough-up gems more often, while buying more towers increases the amount each gem is worth.
• Consider putting at least some money into your War Tortoise’s defense. You can upgrade health and armor, and believe me, you don’t want to hit the later levels with zero in either category. All the support in the world won’t make a difference if an Iguana Gunner gets into range when you have barebones health and next to no armor.

• Secondary weapons are awesome. The gun carriage will give you one to four additional guns that will automatically target anything that gets too close – a great defense against anything that manages to survive long enough to get within striking distance. Conversely, the mortar rack is great for whittling down enemies while they’re still at a distance and can weaken entire groups with its splash damage. Both of these secondary weapons do their thing automatically too, so you can focus on more important stuff.
• Sometimes speed is better than raw damage. Both the sniper rifle and howitzer are quite handy in a pinch, but they have very limited ammo and long reload times. Consider dumping money into improving the sniper rifle’s ammo count, or into either weapons’ reload time, before upgrading damage.

• Allies can be invaluable. You absolutely can ignore allies and stick with upgrading just your tortoise, of course. However, units like the Mouse Assault Squad can really help to take some of the heat off of you during tough enemy waves, and they’re great for keeping enemies occupied long enough to line up a shot with the sniper rifle or howitzer. Mouse Gunners, meanwhile, are a more brittle but cheaper alternative to gun towers. And the list goes on.
• Sheer numbers are often better than higher stats, whether it’s for allies or defensive weapons. Having a Mouse Gunner that deals a good amount of damage is great, but having two or three Mouse Gunners that deal decent damage might be even better. The same goes for gun racks, gun towers, mortars, and other allies. You can always increase damage and defense later, and those effects will carry over to all the allies/weapons in that specific group.

Rob Rich

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Just a guy who likes to play video games, then tell people about them. Also a fan of the indie development scene.