Late Game and Freeplay (BTD6 Era)

Late game and Freeplay are two distinct, yet often interchangeably used, terms in Bloons TD 6 describing high rounds. Late Game refers to the rounds near the end of the Hard and Impoppable gamemodes (usually between 75-100). However, Late Game also describes round 100+ as these rounds consist mainly of MOAB-class bloons and Super Ceramic rushes. Likewise, Freeplay refers exclusively to rounds after the gamemode has been beaten and XP downscaling begins. So, Freeplay can begin on round 41 on Easy Mode, 61 on Medium, 81 on Hard, and 101 on Impoppable, C.H.I.M.P.S. and Boss Events. As a result there is overlap in the definitions of Late Game and Freeplay. In either case, this article will focus on Late Game and Freeplay past round 75.

There are many reasons a player would want or need to play Late Game. Practical reasons include gamemode requirements. Players must be able to survive the grueling MOAB rushes of round 80-100 in order to beat C.H.I.M.P.S. and Impoppable. This is furthered in Boss Events, where late game towers are a necessity to combat round 100-140. Beyond these rounds, Late Game also provides and environment rich in RBE and MOAB spawns, perfect for obtaining achievements like Bloon Master Populous and Sapper. Another reason, is that expensive upgrades like Super Mines, Flying Fortress, and Paragons are largely inaccessible until round 90+. Going into Freeplay allows players to experiment and push these towers to their upper damage limit. However, the most fundamental motivation for players venturing into freeplay is the sense of accomplishment for achieving a high round or pop count, and showing off to other players via their profile statistics.

After round 80, rounds have modified rules. The following sections detail this behavior and some general strategies to survive Late Game.

General Freeplay Information
Freeplay Begins once the final round is beaten. The cutoffs are


 * Round 41 on Easy Gamemodes
 * Round 61 Medium Gamemodes and Deflation
 * Round 81 on Hard Gamemodes
 * Round 101 Impoppable, C.H.I.M.P.S., and Boss Events.

During freeplay, XP rewards are decreased to 30% of the original rate before round 100, and 10% after round 100.

General Late Game Behavior
Rounds 51-60 :


 * Cash per pop is reduced to 50%.

Rounds 61-85 :


 * Cash per pop is reduced to 20%.

Rounds 81+ :


 * Ceramic bloons become super ceramics with 6x more health, but only one line of children. (They still give the same amount of money.)

Rounds 86-100 :


 * Cash per pop is reduced to 10%.

Rounds 101+ :


 * Cash per pop is reduced to 2%.

Rounds 141+ :


 * From this point, all rounds become randomly generated, except for a few special rounds like 163, 200 or 263.

Rounds 300 :


 * All Bloons now have a 25% chance of ignoring stun effects.

Rounds 350+ :


 * All Bloons now have a 50% chance of ignoring stun effects.

HP Ramping
Rounds 81-100 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 2% every round. (r81 : x1.02, r100 : x1.4).

Rounds 101-124 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 5% every round. (r101 : x1.45, r124 : x2.6).

Round 125-150 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 15% every round. (r125 : x2.75, r150 : x6.5).

Rounds 151-250 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 35% every round. (r151 : x6.85, r250 : x41.5)

Rounds 251-300 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 100% every round. (r251 : x42.5, r300 : x91.5)

Rounds 301-400 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 150% every round. (r301 : x93, r400 : x241.5)

Rounds 401-500 :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 250% every round. (r401 : x244, r500 : x491.5)

Rounds 501+ :


 * MOAB class bloons' health now increase by 500% every round. (r501 : x496.5, rN : 5N-2008.5)

Speed Ramping
Rounds 81-100 :


 * Every bloons' speed now increase by 2% every round. (r81 : x1.02, r100 : x1.4).

Round 101 :


 * Every bloons' speed jumps by an extra 18%. (r101 : x1.6, r150 : x2.58).

Round 151 :


 * Every bloons' speed jumps by an extra 40%. (r151 : x3, r200 : x3.98).

Round 201 :


 * Every bloons' speed jumps by an extra 50%. (r201 : x4.5, r251 : x5.5).

Round 252 :


 * Every bloons' speed jumps by an extra 48%. (r252 : x6, rN : x(N+48)/50)

Strategies
Late game presents a number of challenges including dense MOAB rushes, high HP super-ceramics, and stun resistance. However, by far, the two biggest threats are high speed DDTs that can rush though a defense early in the round and BAD bloons which can not be stunned or slowed in any way, and can eventually cruise through any defense. Where early and mid-game rounds are focused on finding effective synergies and being efficient with income, a Late Game defense requires a fairly inflexible strategy centered around 5 critical aspects: Income, High Damage Per Second (DPS) towers, maximal buffing, MOAB stalling, and lag reduction.

To learn about these various strategies, see BTD6 Freeplay Mode/Strategies.

Trivia

 * There is no known round limit in Freeplay Mode, though it is most likely the 32-bit integer limit (2147483647 rounds).
 * As of the 14.3 version of BTD6, the last round that has Bloons is round 2,147,548, which technically is the "round limit".
 * The highest legitimate round ever to be achieved in BTD6's Freeplay Mode prior to version 11.0 is round 3275 by nucleon_oz. Link.
 * On version 11.0, rounds above 1100 were possible to be achieved due to a bug with Obyn Greenfoot hyperbuffing Vengeful True Sun God sun avatars. Link.
 * Ever since the Obyn bug has been patched in version 12.0, rounds above 600 is extremely hard to legitimately accomplish.
 * There is an ongoing legitimate run on version 16.2, in which round 1000 was achieved. The strategy involves 23 Sun Temples and more than 30 Unstable Concoctions, taking advantage of the enormous health ramping of B.A.D's at higher rounds to set off chain reaction explosions. However, this results in massive performance drops and each round is said to take 40 minutes to complete, totalling at 270 hours to reach round 1000. Link.
 * Purple Bloons have the least RBE of any freeplay Bloon, although many are stacked with 0 spacing.
 * In BTD6, some Freeplay Rounds show resemblance to regular rounds that are 100 rounds before. For example, round 163 (many Lead Bloons and Ceramic Bloon) and round 63; round 200 (2 Fortified BADs) and round 100.
 * In BTD6, the last random round is round 9,999, from round 10,000, every round till round 2,147,548 contains 200 Fortified BADs. From round 2,147,549, there won't be any Bloons at all.
 * As of Version 21.0 in BTD6, when the player loses in Freeplay Mode, instead of showing 'Defeat', the game will show 'Game Over' as well as a stat card similar to the one when the player wins, though the player can still continue if the game they're playing allows them to.
 * There is a bug on Version 27.0 where every level after entering freeplay mode rewards cash if the player exits to main menu and reloads the game.