¶ Tax Tower Defense Wiki
¶ Table of Contents
- Game Overview
- Gameplay
- Enemies
- Towers and Addons
- Economy and Taxes
- Interface and Hotkeys
- Strategy
¶ Game Overview
Welcome! Tax Tower Defense (or TTD for short) is a single player tower defense game that challenges the player act as the government, constructing a variety of towers to defend their city from a ruthless onslaught of enemies.
This would be easy except there is a strict no-debt policy. All defenses must be paid for with taxes collected from the civilians. Fortunately they're willing to fork over a little more when giant trolls are knocking on their doors.
Object of the Game
Survive as long as possible against waves of increasingly difficult enemies by taxing citizens, building towers, and expanding your city.
¶ Gameplay
When the game starts, you'll be presented with 4 buttons allowing you to choose a difficulty. More score is earned at higher difficulties.
- Easy - For beginners and when you want to design a cool city. (50% of normal score)
- Medium - For a bit of a challenge that still allows a wide range of strategies (75% score)
- Hard - The intended mode for a good, difficult game. (100% score)
- Expert - In case you like dying a lot, we added this difficulty. (125% score)
After selecting a difficulty you'll see the game screen.
You'll notice you begin the game with 4 neighborhoods (the green squares) and one business (the blue square). Each day a citizen will emerge from the neighborhood and go work at the business. If they get back safely they'll earn you money. If they die or their homes are burned down they won't earn you money. And it'll be sad of course.
Dead citizens aren't good taxpayers.
On the sidebar you can see how much money you have. You can also see a list of towers you can build to defend your city, as well as roads and businesses. You'll have to decide how to protect your city, you might see the Towers and Addons section for that. Hurry, the baddies are coming! See the Enemies section for a sneak peak at your foes.
Don't panic yet. The game won't start until you click the 
button or the 
button. Waves increase in difficulty, with the last wave in each round being a boss wave. There are 5 waves in a round and as many rounds as it takes you to die in a game.
As the game progresses new neighborhoods will pop up as your city expands. The less you tax neighborhoods the faster they'll expand. Only 10 citizens can work at a business so you'll have to build more of those too. Learn more about city expansion and setting taxes in the Economy and Taxes section.
As you build towers you will gain research points that allow you to purchase upgrades to make your towers stronger. These upgrades can be found in the "Addons" tab on the sidebar. Learn more about upgrades and research in the Towers and Addons section.
Even great civilizations must end eventually. Once you lose all your neighborhoods, businesses, and towers the game is over. You will get a score based on how long you managed to hold out. There are many different strategies to try! Good luck!
You can view highscore tables at http://phame.dev.
¶ Enemies
There are 5 different enemies that seem determined to destroy your city completely. They are the Soldier, the Warrior, the Wizard, the Thief, and of course, the Troll.
¶ Soldiers
Your first encounter not so bad on their own. They shoot a ranged, arrow attack but they are easily within reach of all towers and fairly low health. Still a horde of these guys can prove a menacing threat.
¶ Warriors
Brave and strong these warriors charge fearlessly into battle. They use a melee attack, meaning they must get right next to your towers to attakc. Their main advantage is their armor which affords them very high health. It'll take a lot of firepower to deal with these guys.
¶ Wizards
Wizards are not very durable but have a strong ranged attack. They are just barely in range of some towers, meaning they may only be targeted by one tower at a time. A horde of these can make quick work of your defenses.
¶ Thieves
This is a unique enemy that has no interest in destroying your towers. Instead they head straight for your neighborhoods and rob them of their savings. Thieves are very fast so you have to have your city well defended to prevent your citizens from having their pockets picked.
¶ Trolls
This unit will strike fear into your citizens' hearts. Though they are slow they have enormous health and can destroy most towers in one or two hits. Trolls also have a melee attack like warriors, but unlike warriors, if they get to your towers, it's already too late.
¶ Elite Enemies
Any of these enemies can appear in an elite version, which looks like a darker shade of the enemy (extra evil added!). These are generally faster and stronger than the regular enemies.
¶ Boss Enemies
During the last wave of each round (and occasionally during normal waves) a boss enemy will spawn. This could be any of the listed enemies but will look huge. Boss Enemies are typically slower but have a lot of health and do a lot more damage.
¶ Uber Enemies
In case you start living too long, you might encounter Uber enemies. These have all the strength of boss enemies and the speed of elite enemies. Oh, and their immune to being slowed down. Good luck!
¶ Hordes
Any one of these regular enemies (or the modified enemies in later levels) might spawn as part of a horde. A horde is a bunch of one type of enemies that spawn at the same location and time, attempting to overwhelm your defenses. The number and size of hordes increases as the game progresses.
¶ Towers
Well that's a lot of baddies. Fortunately the good taxpaying citizens of your city have deemed a wide variety of defensive structures as "worthy expenditures". Most towers also have three addons.
- The first increases a strength of the tower
- The second improves upon a tower's weakness
- The third provides a bonus but also has a downside.
Addons are fairly cheap to purchase and but they require a certain amount of research points to unlock first. Research points are earned in three ways.
- A small amount of research points are given for each tower, each wave
- Buying a tower earns a large amount of one-time research points for that tower
- Each tower you own earns some research points for that tower each wave
¶ Cannon Tower
The cannon tower is both cheap (at just $50) and effective with its high hp, damage, and rate of fire. The only thing not to like is that the ammunition for the tower tends to burn through savings pretty quickly. Also with a range of just 5 squares, it barely reaches some enemies.
- Rapid Reload - Faster reload speed
- Smarter Attack - Increased intelligence
- Low-Cost Design - Decreased cannon purchase cost
Towers with higher intelligence are less likely to waste ammo unnecessarily targeting enemies that are taken care of by other towers
¶ Freeze Tower
The freeze tower ($75) is a support tower that shoots snowballs to slow down enemies. Although the freeze tower does no damage, it can be great help to increase the time your other towers have to work. Not to mention it has great range, high hp, and best of all, the ammo is free!
- Faster Freeze - Enemies are slowed down faster
- Swivel - Tower can turn much more quickly
- Rapid reload - Increases the tower's attack speed, but decreases its range.
Freeze towers cannot slow enemies to a complete stop. Also their attack does not effect über enemies.
¶ Archer Tower
The archer tower is more of an investment at $100 and does not attack as quickly as the cannon tower, but it makes up for it on other fronts. Specifically, it has great range, allowing archer towers to work together. Their attack is also higher damage and arrows move quickly enough to track down some of the faster enemies. Best of all the ammo is quite cheap, meaning it won't sap your income like the cannon tower will.
- Compound Bow - Increases tower range
- Sharper Arrows - Arrows deal more damage
- Elite Archers - Archers have higher intelligence, but a slower turn speed
¶ Mortar Tower
Mortar tower are quite expensive ($125) for their slow rate of fire, but they have a trick up their sleeve. Their shells explode dealing area of effect (AOE) damage over a large area. This makes them ideal for dealing with hordes. Since mortars must lob their shells high in the air, they can't attack enemies that get too close to the tower. It's important to protect your mortars with other towers.
- Bigger Booms - Larger explosion radius
- Increased Angle - Decreased minimum range
- Napalm - Explosions burn longer, dealing more damage, but shells cost more.
¶ Tesla Tower
The next tower on the list is a real lifesaver. Though it is an investment at $150, the tesla tower can deal with both single enemies and groups with equal effectiveness. The tower attacks by shooting a bolt of electricity that bounces from unit to nearby unit. As long as units are in range, it can target any number, allowing it to deal with hordes. The tower's primary weakness is its long recharge time between shocks and relatively low hp. Range can also be an issue as it matches the cannon tower in just barely being able to reach wizard enemies.
- Higher Voltage - Shocks do more damage
- Better Range - Improves shock range
- Overload - Tower attacks faster, but has less hp.
¶ Economy and Taxes
Like any good neighborhood you are supported by your loyal citizens.