Island Defense General Introduction Tutorial
Written by PoisonX
Hey, some of you who are new to the Island Defense map are probably wondering, how hard is this game? Does it take a long time to learn? Let's dive into some frequently asked questions.
FAQ:
How hard is this game?
Answer: Only as hard as you make it, the game is pretty simple to learn, and very fun once you learn all of the game's functions.
Does it take a long time to learn?
Answer: You'll be able to keep up with other players after about 3 or 4 games.
People keep yelling at me for being noob, even though I know I'm noob, why won't they stop?
Answer: Most of them are unfortunately quite cranky. However it's recommended that you listen to people who are trying to help you, as you can always improve at the game.
Which is more fun, builder or titan?
Answer: Completely depends on you, I myself prefer the titan because I have more fun and I'm better at it. Builder has far more options though.
Now that we've gotten those out of the way, it's time to look at some of the general mechanics of the game, including how to play basic functions and such.
Objectives of the Game:
Builder: Build bases to defend yourself against the Titan.
Titan: Kill all the builders.
It may seem simple, but there's a lot more underneath the surface, but with some practice you'll have them nailed down. Let's go into some of the easier concepts first.
First, let's name a couple things that you should type at the beginning of the game.
-cam #
-clear
With the -cam command, you can choose any number from 100 to 210. I always use 200 as for me it has the best range. If you have a laggy computer, I recommend using 150. 100 is simply too close to the map for it to be strategically effective.
The -clear command clears any annoying game generated text off your screen (not chat text).
-silence
If you have music going and don't want to hear builders typing in sound commands, simply type -silence. It won't disable the game music but it will stop random noises from being made.
The Beginning (Builders):
When you first start the game after the map has loaded, there will be a 10 second period in which the game is loading and your computer if you have a slow one has time to settle. After that finishes, in front of you will be three ships. These three ships will have each of the builders in them. The left having the easiest, the middle having the medium difficulty, and the right having the hardest builders. Until you get better at the game, I recommend sticking with the left ship. There is also a random builder function, if you choose the random builder function. You will start off with a bit more lumber, and your builder will have a chance to get extra HP. However I recommend that you get used to all the builders before you start using the random function.
We're going to use the Murlock builder for our first time. The Murlock has two escape abilities, Panic and Teleport. Only use teleport when you're trapped in a tight location and you're going to die. Use panic either to run away from the titan or to attempt to stay out of sight from the titan, timing is a good aspect to have when using both of these spells.
We're going to pay attention to a couple buildings first.
Shelter
Fruit Tree
Wall
Run to one of the bases on the map and build a shelter that's one pathing block away (one pathing block = just enough space for your main Murloc to walk in-between the tree and shelter). Then build a fruit tree somewhere in the base. Now click on your shelter and spawn workers and make them get lumber from the trees. Continue to build fruit trees until you have six fruit trees and spawn your workers until you've reached 150 / 150 food count. Once all your workers are summoned. Kill your fruit trees by attacking them. Killing your fruit trees will allow you to deny the titan feed.
In your shelter you will notice you also have the ability to purchase lumber upgrades, do this whenever you have enough lumber to. It allows your workers to gather more lumber faster.
It is recommended that you get at least 25,000 lumber before basing with Murlock. Although you can base with 15 - 20 k if you want, it's just slightly risky. If you get someone to wall for you, you can base at 10 k.
Which brings me to my next two points, walling and detonating your workers. To detonate your workers, double click on one of your workers and it will highlight all nearby workers. Next, press D and then click anywhere nearby on your map. Make sure you do this as fast as you can if the titan is coming to attack your workers. This will prevent him from getting feed.
Another precaution to keeping the titan away from your feed is building walls. The titan needs a space of 2 pathing blocks to get through (as big as a wall). While your builder only needs 1 to get through.
Make sure you build two walls so that you can get through but the titan can't, and that's how to protect your lumber area.
Congratulations. You just made your first lumber base, and you now know how to detonate it so that the titan doesn't get that much feed. Now we're going to look at making bases.
Basing:
Now it's time to base, you have your 25 k, you're an awesome Murlock and you're ready to go. Now, pick any base on the map that's preferably far away from the gold mine where you get gold. We'll cover gold later in the introduction. But anyways, go to the base, and start walling, remember what I mentioned earlier about the pathing. You can get through one pathing spot, the titan can get through two. A good base should have at least five walls that the titan has to break through in order to try and get in *since you will have two rows, that adds up to 10 walls total*. Most bases these days usually have 6 or 7 walls *12 or 14*, so even 5 is pushing it a bit. You can upgrade your walls to a second stage, which will give them better armor and higher HP.
Once you are done building your walls and have them upgraded, it's time to build your towers. It's important to build your towers in strategic positions so you can exit your base to rebuild your walls when needed. So build them directly with your walls inside your base. Make sure to leave the 1 sized pathing block for you to get through to rewall.
A good base should have at least 20 - 25 towers. You're probably going to need to detonate some of your workers to make room in your food count for your towers.
After you've built your towers, you will notice that you're able to upgrade your towers. Upgrade them all. You'll be able to upgrade them to Supers without gold.
Congratulations. You just made your first offensive base, and now you know how to wall and how to tower. Now for the fun part of the game. Gold and golding.
Gold and Golding:
The most fun part of this map is... Getting gold. You most likely noticed the gold wall next to where you spawned. Once the titan spawned, you can right click on that mound to get gold. But the titan is most likely going to try and get you, so you have to have your escape abilities ready to use. Most likely when someone types "b" or "back" in the chat, it's a good sign that the titan is on his way back and you should go away from the mound to a safe spot, either in walls near the center that someone built, or into a base or hiding spot if none of those are up.
Gold isn't a necessity for your Murlock, but it certainly helps. A lot of builders require gold in order to base, and some just require gold to even be useful at all.
Once you get 45 gold, you can build a merchant. This will allow you to upgrade your towers from Supers to Megas, allow you to get some cool new upgrades and multiple other things, like more lumbering upgrades at your shelters. You can also build an advanced research center to upgrade the damage of your towers and such.
If you aren't able to get gold (for example if the titan has a mini and is camping, we'll explain what mini's are later). Then you just have to wait for the gold penalty.
After 30 minutes in the game have gone by, every builder in the game will receive 90 gold, and every consecutive 10 minutes after that, each of the builders will receive 30 gold. Remember though that you should try to get gold if you can, because gold is always more important than lumber in Island Defense.
Miscellaneous Stuff:
There are several other cool things to note about Murlock. Such as his hunter. Not all builders have hunters, you can summon a hunter by creating one in your research center. He is mainly used to hunt minis and help defend your base. What you can do since this hunter is a melee hunter, is you can kill one of your inner walls using your towers, and blink your hunter into that spot. Since it has more bulk than a wall, and then when and if titan reaches it, you can blink it back into your base to prevent it from getting killed, causing titan to have wasted all of that effort for nothing and to have lost a lot of health.
Along with this, you can upgrade your hunter with gold and give him items you find littered around the map.
There are creeps that you can hire from your merchant, most notably the Gnoll Tracker which can detect invisible units.
If you see any items around the map. Make sure to pick them up and sell them to get some extra lumber, one can never have enough lumber.
If you're killed as builder:
If you can't quite make it and you are killed, all of your buildings, resources and workers will be lost and either one of two things will happen. The titan will let you play, or he won't let you play. If he lets you play, you will be able to control a mini, in which you run around the map and kill builders and their bases / feed. If the titan doesn't let you play. Then you can either leave the game or type -obs, this will change you into an observer and allow you to watch the builders and talk with them in allied chat.
Now for the second part of Island Defense... The Titan.
The Titan's Beginning:
You have chosen titan, this is awesome because not a lot of people like being titan. I however enjoy it more than being builder as I find it to be a more fun and rewarding game.
You will be able to choose your titan 40 seconds after the builders are given the chance to choose. For this tutorial we are going to use the fire titan, Molt.
You're going to notice several key abilities. These abilities are (Wind Walk, Nuke, Heal, Scout and Ultimate) Use the wind walk to sneak up on builders and kill them, use heal to heal yourself when attacking a base, use nuke to attack multiple people at once, but only use it after you have damaged a builder by attacking. Scout is to reveal invisible units around you and to find feed all over the map. Ultimate's vary between titans. Molt's ultimate is called "Magmide" and it allows you to summon a creature inside enemy bases, this is incredibly useful if you want to kill off the enemies base quickly and efficiently.
Now for the part that makes titan really pack the wallop that he needs to, items.
Items:
Right off the bat, let's list some recommended items.
3 regen spines + 1 webbed feet = super regen scales
2 tridents of power = titanic trident
3 healing wards = eternal wards = titanic ward
2 regen spnies + 1 greater healing flask + 1 magic coral = life essence
1 command helmet + 1 webbed feet + gem of haste = helm of dominance
3 shields of fate = armor of fate
1 pearl + 1 magic coral + 1 gem of haste = mystic staff of gods
Damage tomes
HP tomes
None of the items above are listed in any order. Any of those item combinations are beneficial towards you.
There are also several items not mentioned on the list that can be helpful, those are:
Pearl
Wind Catcher
Energy Rod
Fog Generator
Although mostly those items are titan specific.
Conclusion:
Now that you've gotten a taste of what it's like to play Island Defense and you've read through the guide, go play a game! Have fun, it's a game where learning new things is always rewarded and having fun is rewarded even greater.
Subject: Island Defense General Introduction 
Sun Jun 24, 2012 8:50 pm
)) My lovely item.
