Protector IV.V

Heh, the default name for your save file is "Urist McHero". I get that!
Good thing I picked Fire as my damage type of choice! Or, uh, maybe not...

I cannot get the game to load. Is there a problem with firefox or Vista?

[Please try reloading the page. Our hosting provider had some issues this morning with their DNS, which I believe are resolved now. If you continue to experience difficulty with getting any game to load, we have a support FAQ that addresses this issue with a variety of troubleshooting measures to try to fix the problem. -Jay]

think the green "Play Protector IV.V"'s url is mistyped. Gives me a protocol error. The image link works so I can still get access to the game.

My main issue with the game is that it starts out fairly difficult and ends up being trivially easy.

You are stuck with a lousy fire-based melee champ that you MUST use because fire is a common weakness in early fights.

The goal is to replace him with an archer champ ASAP.

The energy mage is awesome and you should keep her the entire game.
The mages hit extremely hard at 2 range and are great against armor.
Their debuff ability is incredibly strong and you almost always want 1 or 2 of them as the first dudes to attack the incoming monsters.
It literally increases the damage everyone deals vs the debuffed monster by about the debuff percentage...almost DOUBLE damage with a maxed debuff tree!

Archmages are a fantastic advanced troop with a range of FOUR. Crazy good. They hit pretty hard and the range makes them perfect for many maps.

What you really want are archer champs that have a Scirmisher or Archer as their basic troop. These are the range 3 archers. One has anti-air and armor pierce, and the other has um..something else.
As soon as you can get a fire-element one of these, you are in business.
Avoid the champs with mixed types.. i.e. an archer and a swordsman.

Gold is almost useless in the game. It takes FOREVER to unlock all the shops...you are stuck with 2 of em for 80% of the game!

As such, don't bother with Merchant skill. I'd recommend taking something different.

For your champs, you want to max their RANGED or MAGIC skill.
Really, the other skills are garbage. Well not garbage but just not nearly as effective as the damage ones.

Assume you have 25 points to put in 1 skill. Do you want..
a) 50% more damage to every unit you place? That stacks with all other bonuses?
b) 50% less XP needed to upgrade?
c) 50% cheaper to place?

A) is the winner! Upgrades are diminishing returns and the first 3 occur extremely fast anyways, and you NEVER get the XP to get the final upgrade.
Cheaper units seems tempting but limited squares and pave costs kill this one for most maps.

With the existence of armor, more damage is just the obvious winner. Get items that boost your damage (and -paving costs) and spend your XP on them.

Awesome Game!! Addicting, but quite fun. 3/5.