General Tips

1. Interim Save

This is quite useful especially in the later rounds of a track, special mission, or if don't want to restart an Odyssey. Anytime during a mission or in the "game over" screen, don't hit restart or exit and just close the application. This will create an interim save. When you launch the application again, you will be able to resume the last round you're playing. Take note that this is a temporary save only; starting another mission will delete this interim save will be deleted and replaced with your new progress

2. Rank up and unlock

BTD5 uses a Rank system instead where you'll gain experience as you destroy bloons and complete missions. You'll permanently unlock stuff as you progress through the stages. Ranking up unlocks more tower, upgrades, missions, modes, and many more. You can also use the rewards to buy other permanent upgrades or enhance your towers Specialty Buildings.

3. Permanent Upgrades

Unlike most tower defense games, BTD5 allows the players to spend cash or tokens to purchase permanent upgrades for their Gameplay. Tokens are used in the Monkey Lab to purchase permanent upgrades that will apply to all towers. Cash can be spent on Specialty Buildings which provide permanent boost to their corresponding towers once activated. This should be your first priority in spending hard-earned rewards for completing missions since it will help you a lot in the long run.

4. Speed down!

Some high-tier upgrades give towers Activated Abilities. These can be hard to trigger in fast-forward so make sure to slow down in the later rounds so you can easily manage and properly time the activation of your towers' skills. Maintaining a normal speed will also allow you to upgrade your towers real-time, buy new ones in the middle of a round, or collect bananas from your Banana Farm.

5. Monkey Village is the core support!

The Monkey Village is a support tower in the game that boosts all towers within its range. The bonuses include increased Attack Speed, range, camo detection, piercing power. It also lowers the cost and upgrade costs of towers. The effects of multiple Monkey Villages doesn't stack with one another so it's unnecessary to building many close to each other.

6. Delaying Towers

Having a lot of high-damaging towers doesn't always guarantee a sure win. There will be times that you'll still be overwhelmed by extreme bloon numbers. To cope with this you may need to place "delaying towers". These usually towers have weaker firepower but they can slow down and delay bloons. Ice Towers, Glue Gunners, and Bloonchippers are the best examples for this category. Further upgrading them improves their capability in slowing down bloons and they can damage them as well. Place them near the spawn points, corners, and intersections for maximum effect. Some normal towers also have upgrades that give them extra abilities that can delay bloons too!

7. Banana Farms and other source of income

Banana Farms are the cheapest and effective way of earning extra cash outside popping bloons and the extra income provided to you at the end of every round. Banana Farms generate bundles of bananas that you must tap in order to collect it; failing to do so will spoil the bananas and make them disappear. You can make as many banana farms as you want as long you have enough space and of course, if your towers are capable of handling the defense anyway. The game has other income-generating upgrades, such as the Monkey Village's 3-0 upgrade that doubles the income generated from popping bloons or the engineer's Bloon Trap skill. Extra income means more towers and more upgrades, and sure win!

8. Beware of special bloons!

You'll encounter bloons with special properties in the later rounds like immunity to explosions, freezing, pointed projectiles, stealth, etc. This encourages great diversity in your tower deployment. You need to learn the many ways in countering them and the round they'll start to appear. Many towers have upgrades that can deal with them. You can refer to SC's guide about special bloons and how to deal with them.

9. Stealthy bloons

Camo Bloons are both annoying and dangerous since normal towers can't readily see them. Any bloon (outside MOAB-class bloons) can have the Camo trait, including the dreaded lead and ceramic ones. Only units with camo detection can take care of these sneaky bloons. For example, the Ninja Monkey and Dartling Guns are the only towers in the game capable of attacking camo bloons without any upgrades. A 2-3 Dart Monkey is also a cheap and effective camo detecting unit, while a 1-2 Sniper Monkey is also a potent anti-camo unit with unlimited range but with slow rate of fire. A Monkey Village with 0-2 upgrade can provide camo detection to ALL towers within its range. This allows your normal towers to see and attack camo bloons. A submerged Monkey Sub can remove the camo layer permanently as well as the blast from the Mortar Tower.

10. OMG! A ZOMG!

The MOAB-class bloons are especially the hardest the deal with due to their extensive health. Some towers can't even stop or attack them. Fortunately, there are dedicated upgrades and abilities that can instantly destroy MOAB-class bloons or heavily damage them. They appear way later in the game (they don't appear in Easy mode since the game ends in 50 rounds) so make sure you have some serious firepower prepared before they appear.

11. Good and Bad Combos

Place towers that complement with each other. Monkey Village works well with anything. Bloonchippers and Boomerang Throwers work well together. There are a lot of other good combos for you to try. A good example of a inconvenient combo is having Dartling Guns and Banana Farms together. Dartling Guns follow the direction where you last tapped.

12. Call in the Special Agents

Use these guys wisely since they cost valuable Monkey Cash. They're great for keeping you out in a bind but they are only active in a single battle, meaning you'll lose them if you restart a map. (Consider using the interim save trick mentioned in #3). On the brighter side, using agents a certain number of times permanently unlocks their Pro version, which is basically the powered up version of the special agent.

13. Daily Rewards

Daily rewards come in the form of cash. Even if you're not playing, getting free cash daily will help you a lot in the long run. And since no internet connection is required to claim your daily reward, you can just launch the game, collect the reward and go on with your daily routine.

14. Super Monkeys

This is the strongest tower in the game (Available at $3,500) is capable of handling almost every type of bloon. Make sure that you place it within the vicinity of an upgraded Monkey Village. It can also upgrade its range, allowing it to extend its reach almost anywhere in the map.