Fort Defence — guidebook

Build towers beside the road and protect the fort through eight waves. Enemies follow the marked path; your towers attack automatically. You choose positions, tower types and upgrades, then send each wave when you are ready.

Set up a defence

Choose Riverbend, Switchback or Spiral from the Map selector. Each has eight fixed building sites marked A–H, a road entrance and a fort at its end. You start with 170 gold and 15 fort lives.

Select a site on the map or use the Site selector below it. Choose Arrow, Cannon or Frost to spend gold and build. An occupied site holds just one tower. There is no selling, refunding or moving an existing tower in this edition, so check the position before spending.

Press Send wave when ready. The next wave does not start automatically. You can keep building and upgrading during a wave, or pause to think without enemies advancing.

Tower choices and costs

Every tower begins at level 1 and can be upgraded twice. Upgrade prices are additional spending, not the total value of the tower.

• Arrow: build 55 gold; level 2 costs 45 more; level 3 costs 70 more. Fast single-target fire.
• Cannon: build 90; upgrades cost 70 and 110. Slower shots damage groups around the target.
• Frost: build 70; upgrades cost 55 and 85. Deals damage and slows its target.

The selected tower's information panel shows its exact damage, shots per second and range, plus splash radius or slow strength when relevant. A circle on the map shows the selected tower's range.

Towers choose the enemy furthest along the road within range, rather than the closest enemy by straight-line distance. Frost slows last 1.5 seconds. Multiple slows do not add together; the strongest active slow takes priority. A tower can cover more than one section of a bending road if both lie within its range.

Gold and fort lives

Kills earn gold: a basic enemy pays 5, a runner 4 and a brute 15. An enemy that escapes to the fort gives no gold. Basics and runners cost one fort life on escape; a brute costs three.

When all enemies in a wave have either been defeated or escaped and the fort still has lives, you receive a completion bonus of 20 + 5 × the wave number. Wave 1 therefore pays 25 bonus gold; wave 8 pays 60. The bonus does not require a leak-free wave.

For example, building an Arrow and a Frost costs 125 of your 170 starting gold, leaving 45. That can fund the Arrow's first upgrade, or you can save it for later. This is an affordable opening, not a guaranteed winning layout on every map.

The eight waves

The first waves contain basic enemies. Runners appear from wave 3 and brutes from wave 5. Waves become larger and enemies tougher as the match progresses. The wave button shows how many queued or active enemies remain.

After a wave resolves, use the quiet interval to inspect coverage and spend your earnings before sending the next. Resolve wave 8 with at least one life remaining to win. At zero lives the fort falls and the match ends. Losing some lives earlier does not prevent a later victory.

Controls, pause and replacement

Tap or click a site, then a tower button or Upgrade. Every action also has a normal keyboard-accessible control below the map: use Tab, the selectors, Enter and Space. The Site selector helps when map markers are small on a phone.

Pause freezes enemies, tower fire and the match clock. You may still select sites, build and upgrade while paused. Resume continues. You cannot send a wave while paused.

Switching tabs, losing window focus or removing the game from its page pauses it. Resume explicitly when you return. New game and map changes ask before replacing a match once you have built or started a wave. That confirmation pauses the match; if you keep playing, use Resume when ready.

A defence playbook

Look for bends where one tower can reach enemies more than once. Spread coverage thoughtfully; a tower far from the road may fire too rarely even if it looks central on the map.

Mix roles. Arrow supplies steady damage, Frost buys time and Cannon rewards clustered enemies. Upgrading an effective site may help more than adding another weakly placed tower. Watch runners for gaps in coverage and brutes for insufficient damage.

Keep a little gold available if you want to react during a wave. Pause is part of the intended strategy, so use it to compare prices, ranges and the road ahead. The three maps require different placements; replaying with a revised layout is part of learning.

Results, replay and saves

The end banner says whether the fort survived. Your remaining lives and wave count stay visible. New game restarts the selected map, or choose a different map for another attempt.

Matches are not saved. Reloading starts fresh. This edition has no sound, online opponents, account or leaderboard. Opening this guidebook in another tab keeps the original page open but may pause the match.

Install, offline and troubleshooting

Load the complete standalone game online once. Use Install or your browser's Install app/Add to Home Screen action where available. On iPhone/iPad Safari, use Share then Add to Home Screen. Installation is optional; the browser game and guidebook work offline after the complete first online load. When embedded, installation belongs to the host site.

The guidebook opens separately and can be printed or saved as PDF through the browser. Physical-phone performance and installation have not been verified on a device.

If a build button is unavailable, check that the selected site is empty and you can afford it. If Upgrade is unavailable, check that there is a tower, it is below level 3 and you have enough gold. If Send wave is unavailable, finish the active wave or resume. After clearing browser data, load the page online again to restore offline files.