# Why am I writing this guide? (feel free to skip this part) So when I first started playing Bloons Monkey City (BMC), I thought—like most new players—that I would level up my city super fast and that just blow through the whole game. Well, that didn’t happen at all. It was real easy for a while and then leads, camos, rainbows, camo leads, and omg ceramics started appearing and slamming me. I had no idea what to do next. But somehow I figured it out. Superjombombo2’s BMC video’s were very instructional in this regard. I base my core strategy on his. Anyhow, let’s get it to it already. # Purpose—important **Now I notice a lot of people complaining about ninjas not getting a fair shake, so let me address this issue. I feel the part of the game where only tier 2 upgrades are available is so easy as to be self-explanatory. When only tier 2’s are available, yes, ninjas are superior, hands down. Just spam 2/2 ninjas. This guide is for those that cannot progress any further with tier 2 ninjas. At a certain point, you need tier 3 to make any further progress. And the difficulty really sharply rises once tier 3 opens up. There’s so many choices, it’s difficult to know where to start. And tier 3 takes a significant investment of time, so without foreknowledge, it’s difficult to know what upgrades to purchase. Once you hit tier 3, things really change in a big way.** * * * # The Big 3—Ninjas, Boomerangs, Magic **It seems to be such an issue, that I thought I’d address this in the beginning of the guide. Many beginners think that Ninja Monkeys and Monkey Appentices (the wizards) are great. And they are—at tier 2. Again, there will be a point where neither the 2/2 Monkey Apprentice (app) nor the 2/2 Monkey Ninja (ninja) can’t take you any further. At this point, you’ll need to get tier 3 upgrades. Once tier 3 opens up, both the app and ninja are overshadowed by the boomerang monkey (boomer). Let’s analyze some numbers to illustrate: the 3/2 ninja pops roughly 8 per shot. The 2/2 apprentice’s lightning pops 25 per shot. The 3/2 boomer pops 40 per shot. I have all of the tier 3 upgrades for all 3, and have tested all of them. Those numbers are most likely correct. In actual gameplay, the 3/2 boomer is the strongest. The 2/2 app comes second. And the 3/2 ninja becomes easily overwhelmed in later waves. Both tier 3’s of the ninja don’t have enough popping power and not enough delaying power to compensate for the lack of popping power. You won’t be able to afford tier 3 app early enough in the match to make it your workhorse, and the 2/2 app just isn’t as strong as the tier 3 boomer. This is why tier 3/x boomer is the best tier 3 to upgrade first. It serves as the workhorse of tier 3.** * * * ## Guide So, initially, rising in city level happens very quickly. Tiles are super easy to beat. At around maybe level 10 or so many of you are going to hit a sudden rise in difficulty—mostly in the form of certain advanced bloon types. I’ll give a brief overview of them: **black** invincible to explosions. spawns 2 pink bloons (I think—correct me if i’m wrong) **lead** cannot be popped by darts, ninja stars, or unupgraded boomerangs **camo** most monkeys cannot “see” these without upgrades or assistance from other monkeys. notable exception is the ninja These 3 are probably the first set that will give you problems. So we need a **simple, yet cost effective strategy** to deal with these. Cost effectiveness, at this point, becomes very important because you’ll need to begin opening tier 3 upgrades to start busting these bad boys. The jump from tier 2 to tier three upgrades in terms of both city cash and timers is tremendous. Just guessing which one to upgrade is frustrating. So what is our strategy to be that can deal with all this? # The Workhorse: Boomerang Monkeys Well, we are going to focus first on getting boomerang monkeys (boomers) upgraded to tier 3. You will need to log in every hour gathering cash until you get enough and then purchase upgrade 3/x (glaive ricochet). This will give you the **raw popping power** you need for this stage of the game at a **price you can afford**. Everything else is either too expensive, or just falls short in popping power. You will also want to get the x/2 upgrade (red hot ’rangs). This will enable you to pop frozen bloons and then lead bloons. At this point, black bloons are not a big deal for a 3/2 boomer. # Why not ninja monkeys, you ask? Now, I know there are a great many die-hard ninja monkey fans out there who swear on ninja monkeys as their staple. I believe most of these are players who have unlocked the 4th tier upgrade, Bloonjitsu. Now look, in the early game, which is where you and I are at, 4th tier is not an issue. You’re not gonna see 4th tier upgrades for a good while—(I don’t even have any yet). Anyhow, I have both tier 3 upgrades for both the ninja and the boomers and have done comparisons. The boomers clearly have more popping power than the ninjas. As for distraction (x/2), again, it doesn’t seem useful until you get bloonjitsu. # Lighting up those Camos: The Mortar Monkey So, moving on—how do we deal with camo bloons? Boomers are unable to detect camos by themselves. But there’s a great fix for this, which leads into our first monkey combo, as well: The next monkey you need to upgrade is the mortar monkey. The bare minimum upgrades you will need for the mortar is 0/3 (signal flare). Personally, I would recommend using the 1/3 mortar (increased accuracy + signal flare). What signal flare does is to permanently remove the camo from bloons that are caught by the explosion. After getting whacked by signal flare, your boomers will be able to “see” and pop those no-longer-camo bloons. Problem solved! **On a side note: perfect games, no lives lost…** Additionally, you’ll want to start practicing “perfect” games—where you don’t lose any lives. This will win you 5 bloonstones per game. After level 10, you can capture tiles in hardcore mode. This will double the cash and bloonstone reward. This is important because you need bloonstones to upgrade. And you need upgrades to make progress. There are 2 great strategies to help you do this. If you can afford it, you’ll want to start the round with both a boomer close to the entrance and a spike factory at the exit. If the spike factory (spactory) is too expensive at this point, use road spikes to take care of the bloons that slip past your boomer. # Core Strategy Once you have gotten your 3/2 boomer upgrades, it’s time to rock’n’roll. Basic strategy is this: start by placing a boomer and, if you can afford it, a spactory. If you can’t, maybe just have some road spikes prepared. Now you just upgrade the boomer until it’s 3/0. If you encounter camos, put down a mortar, aim it close to the entrance, and then upgrade to maybe 1/3 (signal flare). If you see leads, upgrade the boomer to 3/2 (red hot ’rang). This is our core strategy. This should serve you well—at least until you start encountering ceramics. # Made of clay: Ceramics These tough, brown mothers take multiple hits before popping, and when they do, they spawn a large number of children bloons. Now, I’ll bet you’re thinking you need more popping power at this point. That’s what I thought, too. But sorry, folks, it ain’t gonna happen. There’s no way at this point in the game to afford enough power to pop the ceramic and all its children. Too much armor, too many children, not enough cash. But, good news! You don’t have to add much popping power. What you need now is a way to slow those dastardly bloons to a crawl, so that your boomers can cut them down to size. You likely have 3 options at this point: ninjas, glue gunners, and ice monkeys. The ninja’s x/2 (distraction) is just not reliable enough to do the job. It might activate 1 out of 4 times (and that’s being generous). Letting even one ceramic go is probably gonna wipe you out, let alone 3. And x/3 (flash bomb) is just too expensive. Glue gunners are also unsuitable. The best you can afford right now is very likely 2/1 glue. Glue does not slow ceramics. So right now, they’re not too useful to us. I’ve heard that, at higher tiers (maybe 3/2), they are good to combo with maybe a 2/2 or 3/2 ice, but that’s still out of reach, at this point. Now, ice, our savior. Ice monkeys do freeze ceramics. Typically, 2/1 ice monkeys will stop the ceramics and their children long enough for 3/2 boomers to take them out. Core Strategy Update—Ceramic Bloons So now, our strat is looking like this: start the round with one boomer at the entrance and a spactory at the exit. Next, upgrade the boomer to 3/0. If leads start coming, upgrade to 3/2 (red hot ‘rangs). If camos start appearing, put down a 1/3 mortar (signal flare). If not, put down another 3/0 boomer. At this point, ceramics will be looming over the horizon. Place an ice tower somewhere. Be sure to upgrade your boomers to at least 3/1 (sonic boomerang) so they can pop frozen bloons. You’ll want your ice towers at 2/1. 2 2/1 ice monkeys should be sufficient for the ceramics at this point. Whew! Well, I’m beat for now, so I’ll stop here. But it’s far from complete. There’s much more to come in the future. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to pm me or post in the thread.

Well, thank you for these instructions sir.

You are wrong in saying that ninja monkeys distraction upgrade doesn’t do the job against ceramics. It won’t be enough to kill a ceramic, but the ability to send a ceramic and subsequent bloons back to the entrance is priceless. When you talk to seasoned players, they will tell you that when you are getting rushed with 20-50+ ceramics at once and don’t have the popping power to pop them immediately, having a few x/2 ninjas will make all the difference.

And what about apprentices? they got the popping power with lightning and the camo/lead counter all up in that mofo, while maintaining a cheap ingame upgrade path. Having said that, what brings me here is the MOABs… im still on my way to getting moab mauler upgrade (36 hours ~~.~~ srsly) to really get them early so my bloon poppin can hit (no problem here)…. but even then im afraid i wont have the cash to decently have a bloon poppin acluster and a MOAB mauler cluster. so what im asking is a more cost effective way to kill moabs or some economy tips to get the cash for stronger what i want (cuz banana farms seem useless).

raw banana farms start getting profit at 2nd turn,become “free” at 10th

Other then the fact that you said 1-2 glue gunners are too expensive, but that 2-4 ice towers are just fine, this is well though out strategy guide. I’m a shameless lover of ninjas, but I will say that some maps are definitely more suited to boomers then ninjas.

exactly 10 rounds to get your money on banana farms thats without upgrades i assume for a 18 round game. its just not worth it bloons 4 and 5 rock monkey city is meh i want to hardcore play for hours straight but the game wont let me

> *Originally posted by **[BLUELightning27](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8701082):*** > > Other then the fact that you said 1-2 glue gunners are too expensive, but that 2-4 ice towers are just fine, this is well though out strategy guide. I’m a shameless lover of ninjas, but I will say that some maps are definitely more suited to boomers then ninjas. You misread. He said 1/2 (i.e., the upgrade level!) glue gunners are too expensive , but that two to four (i.e., the number of them) ice monkeys is ok.

> *Originally posted by **[BLUELightning27](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8701082):*** > > Other then the fact that you said 1-2 glue gunners are too expensive, but that 2-4 ice towers are just fine, this is well though out strategy guide. I’m a shameless lover of ninjas, but I will say that some maps are definitely more suited to boomers then ninjas. > > \</bloc > > > *Originally posted by **[BLUELightning27](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8701082):*** > > > > Other then the fact that you said 1-2 glue gunners are too expensive, but that 2-4 ice towers are just fine, this is well though out strategy guide. I’m a shameless lover of ninjas, but I will say that some maps are definitely more suited to boomers then ninjas. > > Omg. Did I say 2-4 ice? Holy smokes. Tier 4 is certainly not relevant in early game. I was very tired when I was typing this out…Oh, man. I also meant 2-1 glue gunners…not 1-2—I’ll have to fix that. Thanks for catching the errors. I’ll be editing and updating the post at some point.

when i try to start monkey vs monkey the game asks me to pay bloonstones. how do i have to choose the opponent to start for free?

> *Originally posted by **[littlelisa](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8702156):*** > > when i try to start monkey vs monkey the game asks me to pay bloonstones. how do i have to choose the opponent to start for free? I have this issue too. I think you have to just keep choosing random opponents. If you have the maximum bloontonium storage for your level then just keep searching. eventually you will find an opponent that’s your level and the attack should be “free”.

> *Originally posted by **[littlelisa](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8702156):*** > > when i try to start monkey vs monkey the game asks me to pay bloonstones. how do i have to choose the opponent to start for free? If your attack requires more bloontonium than you have you can use bloonstones to make up for the bloontonium you don’t have. Once you get your 3rd storage unit this shouldn’t be problem anymore. before then wait to revenge a target after a successful defense so you can attack without paying bloontoniums since you should have some salvaged bloontonium that allows you to temporarily have more bloontonium than your max bloontonium.

Very nice guide, especially for beginners. Definitely not the only way to approach the game, as I am using a different strategy and having no problems at all (though I am a bit of a BTD veteran :P).

Hey, SnakeWing, so what kind of strategy are you using? I may want to include it in my guide.

dude,you should seriously exclude the mortars and include the 2/2 apprentices in yar guide.they rock…………..you won’t even need spactories if you get those,they shoot beams every two seconds which cover almost the entire area…………and while the useful spikes cost around 2750,they only cost 2650 and you can even exclude the mortars.

now this is just a speculation as i am,too,a die hard fan of monkeys who gets 3/x boomerangs if i have the money left to do so(mostly in contested territory,that is from where i get all my money)

Boomers are nice to have around, but really ninjas have more popping power, even at tier 3 with 3/2, they can pierce 4 with homing and throw 2 for a total of 8 pierce (as compared to a 3/2 boomerangs’ 7 pierce) and it’s 2 SEPERATE attacks which mean they are twice as effective vs moabs, the only downside to the ninja is that it cannot pop lead (easily fixed with engineers (slightly advanced) and apprentices (by all means rush the 2/x upgrade ASAP)) the fact that they cannot pop frozen is an issue but there are later work rounds, the x/2 is phenomenal even if they’re only 2/2 the throwback effect has saved me on countless occasions and it alone puts them far above boomerangs in my book, I don’t have Bloonjitsu or any other tier 4 unlocked yet, nor am I really anywhere near it, yet the ninjas can easily support me, I have been top in CT consistently mainly because of them and spactories, and they’re always a reliable fall back. So please, stop hating on the ninjas in this misbegotten guide, 2/2 ninjas are superb and a lot easier to get than any tier 3 in the game. Also I just mentioned it but others have as well, why didn’t apprentices show up anywhere? their 2/0 is a godsend for killing leads and it can bounce to like 40 other bloons constantly…. cheap easy early game damage that you just ignored .-. ninja app spactory carried me all the way into level 17, and the only reason I’m switching is because of the sheer amount of blimps in CT with a split map that spactories aren’t the best in

the truth has been spoken…………………………………………..

> *Originally posted by **[nealn](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8704459):*** > > Hey, SnakeWing, so what kind of strategy are you using? I may want to include it in my guide. **GUIDE:** **omnipopping** A tower that can pop any balloon type (ie lead+camo) **crowd control** Any effect a tower puts on a balloon that inhibits a balloons movement **CORE:** I am one of those ninja people :P. I mostly use ninja monkeys for damage and as my starting towers. At early levels when third upgrades weren’t available I found ninjas to be way better, especially for starting towers, since the seeker shuriken gives them 100% efficiency, while boomers without ricochet tend to miss a lot and let bloons though. **MOABS AND LEADS:** I have boomers available too since the 2/3 is nice for killing moabs and leads plus it deals more damage overall before you unlock bloonjistu. Though I primarily use snipers and mortars for dealing with leads. **CROWD CONTROL:** I use glue instead of ice, always been a personal preference of mine, I don’t mind that ceramics don’t get slowed, the corrosion is still very effective and it slows the ceramic’s children. **THAT OTHER THING:** And lastly I have invested in pirates because ninjas are not available on water tiles and my city spawn point has water surrounding 2 of the 4 sides T\_T . **SIDE NOTE:** I fully support those who support apprentices as well. I haven’t made any yet in this game but used them in lot in the past BTD games. They are one of the cheapest omnipopping towers in the game and the lightining gives awesome AoE popping. The third and fourth upgrades are also very nice with the whirlwind giveing incredible crowd control and the fire breathing giving lots of damage, can even be used for moab slaying.

@snakewing you should get apprentices for the omnipoping thing

> *Originally posted by **[ratul](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8704905):*** > > @snakewing > you should get apprentices for the omnipoping thing I think I will. Once you have the tier three upgrades, apprientices, engineers, boomers and ninjas are all viable options as starting towers. Each being more powerful on different maps.

Hm, I’ve been using ninjas instead of boomerangs, but I haven’t actually tried boomerangs yet so I’ll give this a try. That said, how do you handle camos if they appear early on? There are many maps where they can appear as early as round 1, so there’s no time to buy the signal flare mortar.

> *Originally posted by **[RedeemedWahrior](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=1#posts-8707612):*** > > Hm, I’ve been using ninjas instead of boomerangs, but I haven’t actually tried boomerangs yet so I’ll give this a try. > > That said, how do you handle camos if they appear early on? There are many maps where they can appear as early as round 1, so there’s no time to buy the signal flare mortar. The easiest solution is to get ninja monkeys or 2/x dart monkeys. Won’t hold against too many, but if it’s just some camo bloons then you will be fine.

i think ninjas are the best starting monkeys as leads don’t appear at that time………get a 3-2 or 2-2 ninja then an apprentice 2-2.then more ninjas and apprentices until you have money for the dragonbreath or when moabs start spawning.then dragonbreath for moabs,spactories for the few small ones which get through.a spactory preffered to get before dragonbreath,2 if you have the money

Cant say I would agree with the guide’s advice. I personally favor ninjas by far over boomerang as an early unit. Camo killing and efficiency are huge. Boomerangs are extremely inefficient until you get the t3 upgrade, at which point they’re bordering on obsolete, since it takes 48 hours to complete—ninjas on the other hand are cutting edge at 2/2 and can clear any level until leads show. Spike factory and apprentices added in clear everything including most ceramic levels, at which point adding in mortar/ice becomes important as you wait for the t3s to come in. Things to buy early: Ninja (2/2), Spike Factory (1/1), Mortar (0/2), Apprentice (2/2). Progressing, add in Ice (2/2) and Buccaneer (2/2). Then, I’d start working on the t3s/filling out the others. Noteworthy early T3s are Ninja (3/x. Very cheap in-mission.), Bomb shooter (x/3. There’s a quest and it’s pretty mandatory for moab/bfb/zomg management.), Buccaneer (x/3. Cannon ships are a niche tower, but they fill it oh so well, and can demolish moabs and BFBs) and mortar (x/3. Yeah, it’s not necessary most of the time, but it can clear the way for certain missions very well.). By the time you manage that, you’re probably closing in on being level 15, getting the new city and engis, etc. Moving out of early to mid game, and planning out upgrades to address the nearby special missions. I’ve heard a lot about dartlings, they’re not my style, but they may be worth considering if you try them and find they work for you, as they can imitate a super monkey like attack for cheaper, hit camos, and have unlimited range. Many folks swear by them for low leveling contested territories, although i’ve had no issue holding CT with other strategies