Monkey Village (BTDB2)/Strategies/General

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This page is a general guide for Monkey Village. For more advanced guides, see Monkey Village (BTDB2)/Strategies/Optimization

Monkey Village

The Monkey Village is a mostly pure support tower that can buff nearby towers, counter certain types of bloons, and save/produce money. Monkey Village cannot attack bloons on its own (except for the Primary Expertise upgrade), the buffs it provides are especially valuable. The base tower and it's upgrades are expensive and has a lack of affordable damage options, making it relatively weak in the early-game, but with access to stronger buffs it becomes a worthy investment in the mid-to-late-game.

The aim of this article is a general guide for using the Monkey Village. It summarizes how to effectively use Monkey Village without going into too much intricate detail about meta strategy.

Base Tower

• Cost: $1,200
• Unlock: 200 (?)

Base Monkey Village is quite expensive for a typically weak buff of +10% range. It's best to not buy it until you can afford some of the later, more impactful upgrades. However, it can be used for buffing the range of other, higher-tier Monkey Villages reach more towers.

Upgrades

Bigger Radius

• Cost: $400
• Path: 1
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Bigger Radius increases the range of the Monkey Village, allowing it to buff more towers. This is mostly used to reach a tower just out of range of the base Monkey Village.

Jungle Drums

• Cost: $1,500
• Path: 1
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Jungle Drums provides a powerful attack speed bonus to towers in range. This buff is permanent and can affect any tower, with no downside. It's a staple upgrade of any loadout with Monkey Village.

Primary Training

• Cost: $800
• Path: 1
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Primary Training grants Primary Monkeys in radius increased pierce, range, and projectile speed. The pierce buff is very effective on towers with low pierce, such as Tack Shooters. The increased range is effective on towers with low range, such as Tack Shooters and Ice Monkeys. The increased projectile speed pairs nice with Juggernauts and Bomb Shooters.

Primary Mentoring

• Cost: $2,500
• Path: 1
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Primary Mentoring grants Primary Monkeys in radius free Tier 1 upgrades, increased range, and reduced ability cooldowns. The free Tier 1 upgrades makes Primary Mentoring a valuable addition to spam strategies, such as with Maulers and Cluster Bombs. The increased range is effective on towers with low range, such as Tack Shooters and Ice Monkeys. The reduced ability cooldowns is especially useful for middle path Tier 5 Primary Monkeys, where selling and rebuying to refresh the ability cooldown becomes very expensive.

Primary Expertise

• Cost: $25,000
• Path: 1
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: TBA

Primary Expertise adds a Mega Ballista attack which excels at cleaning up Ceramic Bloons and putting a dent in stronger bloons such as ZOMGs. It also enhances previous buffs from Primary Training and Primary Mentoring, by granting Primary Monkeys free Tier 1 and Tier 2 upgrades, and increasing pierce further. These free upgrades are especially effective with Bomb Shooters and Glue Gunners due to their relatively expensive Tier 2 upgrades. The increased pierce works very nicely with Tack Shooters.

Grow Blocker

• Cost: $250
• Path: 2
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Grow Blocker prevents Regrow Bloons from regenerating layers while in radius of the Monkey Village. This can provide excellent support against regrow rushes in the early and mid-game.

Radar Scanner

• Cost: $1,700
• Path: 2
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Radar Scanner grants all towers in range Camo Detection. It is by far the most reliable form of countering camo bloons, as the buff is permanent to towers in range and does not rely on limited pierce or low attack speed unlike all other decamo options. It can be hard to afford by the time Camo Bloons can be sent, so keep an eye on the round number and your current cash.

Monkey Intelligence Bureau

• Cost: $7,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Monkey Intelligence Bureau grants all towers in range Normal damage type. This, along with the previous Radar Scanner upgrade, is one of the best anti-DDT options available, although it is quite expensive. The capability to damage any bloon type also can help prevent certain attacks from getting blocked by immune bloons (e.g. Purples layered under ZOMG rushes).

Call To Arms

• Cost: $21,500
• Path: 2
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Call To Arms grants the Call To Arms Ability, which gives all towers in range +50% Attack Speed and Pierce for 8 seconds, with a cooldown of 45 seconds. The very low uptime, combined with its low range and high cost, make Call To Arms a particularly weak upgrade, but can nonetheless be very helpful when dealing with a dense rush.

Homeland Defense

• Cost: $45,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: TBA

Homeland Defense grants the Homeland Defense Ability, which gives all towers on screen +100% Attack Speed and Pierce for 17 seconds, with a cooldown of 45 seconds. While expensive, the doubled attack speed and pierce for every tower on screen for a whopping 20 seconds can make short work of any rush, regardless of how dense it is.

Monkey Business

• Cost: $500
• Path: 3
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Monkey Business reduces the cost of all Tier 3 upgrades and below and towers placed in the radius of the Monkey Village by 10%. This is especially effective with towers that have expensive low-tier upgrades, such as Heli Pilots and Super Monkeys.

Monkey Commerce

• Cost: $500
• Path: 3
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Monkey Commerce further reduces the cost of all Tier 3 upgrades and below and towers placed in the radius of the Monkey Village by an additional 5%. While rather unimpactful on its own, it can stack with itself up to 3 times for a total discount of 25%. This is very valuable when buying multiple towers with expensive Tier 3 or below upgrades, such as Heli Pilots and Super Monkeys. A notable synergy is specifically with the Dark Knight upgrade, which is a Tier 3 Upgrade for the Super Monkey that can then use it's Darkshift ability to move away from 3 Monkey Commerce Villages, making space to place even more Dark Knights in range. This can allow you to fill the screen with Dark Knights that are up to 25% cheaper than normal.

Monkey Town

• Cost: $5,000
• Path: 3
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Monkey Town makes Bloon Sends grant 10% more eco. For Bloon Sends that reduce eco, the penalty is reduced by 10% rather than increased. If you know the match will be going late-game, it can be a worth investment for eco strategies.

Monkey City

• Cost: $7,000
• Path: 3
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Monkey City further improves on the eco benefits of its predecessor, allowing Bloon Sends to grant a total of 20% more eco, or in the case of Bloon Sends that reduce eco, reducing the penalty by 20%. Monkey City's influence radius is also increased, allowing it to buff towers from further away, or to self-synergize with its last benefit, automatically collecting bananas, crates and Bloon traps in range. It can be a worthwhile investment for eco strategies that you know will go late-game, or farm strategies where your attention is needed elsewhere than your farms.

Monkeyopolis

• Cost: $15,000 + $5000 per farm in range
• Path: 3
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: TBA

Monkeyopolis absorbs nearby Tier 4 and below farms and their income when upgraded. At base, it produces 10 crates per round, each worth $600. For every $2,000 spent on farms, an additional $600 is added to each crate. This can be a very expensive upgrade due to the increasing cost of the Tier 5 per farm, and the cost of the farms themselves, but pays off generously. Unlike in BTD6, Banana Farms do NOT have to be in range of the Monkey City or present in the loadout out to be purchased. However, it produces much less cash for a larger cumulative price than Banana Research Facility and being unable to have more than one Monkeyopolis at a time. Because of this, it is still recommended to bring Banana Farms in the loadout if relying on Monkeyopolis to make serious amounts of cash late-game.

General Strategy

All towers including Monkey Village start off with upgrades up to Tier 2. All upgrades are unlocked with Tower XP of the respective tower's type, and can be unlocked in any order provided that previous tiers on the same path are unlocked first. In order to suit the tower's varied specialties, some upgrades are better unlocked first before others. Below is a brief guide to unlocking Village upgrades.

Monkey Village's first two tiers of each path are general-purpose buffs that fit almost any situation. Jungle Drums provides a powerful and permanent buff for a relatively cheap price, Radar Scanner is the best anti-camo option in the game, and Monkey Commerce can save thousands of cash. The Tier 3 upgrades are where you'll want to take in mind what strategy you are running and which upgrades will most effectively benefit it. Primary Training is very good for loadouts with multiple Primary Monkeys, especially Tack Shooters. Monkey Intelligence Bureau effectively counters DDTs, and Monkey Town makes for a worthwhile investment in eco strategies.

For Tier 4 upgrades, usage begins to vary a bit. Primary Mentoring sticks with the theme of buffing Primary Monkeys, but Call To Arms becomes a more impactful, general purpose support than it's predecessor, giving a large buff to attack speed and pierce. Monkey City further improves the eco buff of Monkey Town, but also provides upgrades that benefit Banana Farm strategies and makes for a nice stepping stone into the following Tier 5 upgrade.

As for Tier 5 upgrades, they mostly improve on their previous buffs, such as Primary Expertise granting more pierce and free upgrades to Primary Monkeys and Homeland Defense providing a much improved version of Call To Arms. Monkeyopolis is a very risky investment, requiring not only tens or even hundreds of thousands of cash to afford an effective version, but also 2 tower slots (Banana Farm and Monkey Village) which have little to no damage capabilities. However, the boost to cash generation from Monkeyopolis itself, and the freed space from absorbed Banana Farms can outweight the downsides.

There is no recommended upgrade order, as the Tier 3-5 upgrades heavily depend on which type of strategy you want to run.