Strategy

Zugzwang’s Tower- Strategy

OK, so I’ve explained how the tower works. However, there’s not much strategy about WHAT to do. I’m going to do my best to provide some solid advice here, instead.

Increasing your Amplifier

Ok, this is logically the first step in hunting in the tower, because without the amplifier you can’t do anything in the tower! And there’s more to it than just “head to the garden.”
There are two obstacles to the garden- the first one is that with every FTA, you lose 3% on your amplifier, and the second is that some of the seasons just aren’t worth sticking around for.

So let’s discuss FTAs first. The obvious answer to this is using SB+, but while I heartily recommend SB+ in the tower, it’s far too expensive in the garden, so unless you’re donating lots to get thousands of pieces, I’d save my SB+ if I were you. Instead, use gouda cheese. Many hunters are really sold on brie in the SG, and they will tell you that brie is just as good as gouda for the SG.
My personal take on it is that while brie may be *almost* as good as gouda, it makes no sense from a design point-of-view for the devs to make a better cheese be… well, not better. So I don’t really buy that brie is just as good. However, it is pretty close. Whether or not you use brie is up to you- if you’re a long-time reader of mine, you will know that I always choose gouda because I’m a fan of fast results, even if it comes at a higher price. However, if gold is a concern for you, brie works well enough that you’ll do nearly as well as you would with gouda.

Then there’s the matter of picking a proper base for your trap. Generally speaking, it’s either magma/molten shrapnel or the wooden base with target. There are two sides to the coin- the magma/MSB provides a better catch rate at the expense of a lower attraction rate, and so while you catch more mice (increasing your amp), you also FTA (thereby decreasing your amp). The target base then obviously is the reverse: you FTA less, but you also miss more mice, thereby missing out on the amp bonus they would have provided.
I personally prefer sticking with the magma base I have, but I don’t think that it’s the “best” way to do it- I mostly do it because it suits my needs, as I tend to use Ronza traps, which really benefit from magma’s 10 luck. I DO use the target base in the fall, though.

Speaking of fall, let’s talk about the seasons next. There’s a very simple strategy for building your amp in the Seasonal Garden- build it in Spring and Summer, and don’t bother with Fall or Winter. The devs have told us that those seasons are deliberately more difficult, and it’s painful trying to increase your amp during those seasons. During fall and winter, go find something else to do- chase the Big Bad Burroughs or Silth mouse, if you want. I know that while I have the magma base, my fall/winter distraction is to collect scrap metal for the MSB.
I did read that for users with the heat bath and/or kraken, the winter is actually pretty nice. However, I can tell you that with the ASG (as you probably know for yourself), it’s brutal, much like the winter season.

OK, so to recap: use gouda, use either the MSB or the target base, and only go to the SG in spring & summer to raise your amp.
Got all that? Great! On to strategy for the tower itself!

Collecting Pawns

The first step in the tower is to collect pawns, right? This is a simple task, yet doing it incorrectly can absolutely ruin your run. First and foremost, you MUST use the pincher of whichever side you’re after. You will get to 8 pawns of the correct side, while only getting 0-1 on the other sides. This does two things: first, it saves you amplifier by not getting excess pawns, and second, it stops the knights of both sides from coming out. With knights on both sides out, you will quickly drain your amp catching both mystic and technic knights, bishops, etc. You’ll most likely not make it all the way to a king with either side doing it that way!

Now, I know I said that you should always use SB+ in the tower, but the pawns really are the exception to this rule. Gouda works fine for the pawns, and the reason for that is that you’re going to use the wooden base w/ target against the pawns. This means that you’ll get a total of a 40% attraction bonus- more than enough to ward off the FTAs.
The target base has a twofold use, though- it also helps to ward off the pawns of the opposite side.
You see, using the pawn pincher, your catch rate against the “right” type of pawn is nearly 100%. However, against the other pawns it’s pretty high as well, ESPECIALLY when you equip a powerful base. By equipping the wooden base with target, you bring the total trap power down to a pretty pitiful level, making it that much more difficult to catch pawns on the other side. So in the rare occasion when you attract them, you’ll miss- no amp lost.

Recap: Pincher/Target/Gouda for the pawns.

Moving up the Tower

So once you’ve gotten all eight pawns, you’ll unlock the knights. At this point, go ahead and switch to SB+ (gouda if you must). Equip Zugzwang’s First Move or the Blackstone Pass/Obvious Ambush if they’re available. Also equip your best base (magma/MSB/spellbook). There’s really not much advice at this point except to keep on trekking. Once you’ve unlocked the knights, you’ll get bishops, and then the rooks. I saw a strategy on the forums that said that if you didn’t use SB+ against the knights/bishops, you MUST use it against rooks, and I heartily agree. The reason for this is that the rook tends to be the most difficult of the mice to catch because you need to get two of them. Your amp is draining, and they’re tough mice to get- the last thing you need is an FTA to drop your amp another 3%.

Tower Royalty, and Checkmate Cheese

Once you’ve got your rooks, users of checkmate cheese have an option to switch to it, as it increases the attraction rate of kings and also queens. Now, this carries an inherent risk with it, because if you use checkmate cheese and you don’t get the queen quickly, you’ll run out of checkmate before you get the king. However, if you DO manage to get the queen, you’ll do so without wasting time attracting other mice and draining your amp.
Generally speaking, most people don’t bother with checkmate for the queen; SB+ is enough to take her down.

As for the king, hunters who intend to move on to the chess master obviously need to equip checkmate now so that they don’t get kicked from the tower once the king is caught. For the rest of us, you can safely get rid of your SB+ now. The reason for this is that the king is a fairly easy mouse to catch, and so your amplifier doesn’t need to be very high. Consequently, you can afford to lose some amp from FTAs, and at the same time you’ll save yourself thousands of gold.
Many hunters recommend equipping a weaker trap when going after the king- the rationale is that since the king is weak, equipping a weaker trap will decrease the odds of catching the other mice (which would lower your amp) while still giving you a good catch rate for the king. I don’t recommend this strategy, though- once your amp gets low, all traps are roughly the same anyway and you’re really not making much of a difference for yourself.

And of course, once you get the king with checkmate, keep on going for that chessmaster!

A two-pronged Tower Run

While I originally said that this was foolish, it CAN be done and has been done by several hunters already. However, it requires that you have either the Blackstone Pass or the Obvious Ambush, and it’s recommended that you wait until at least Baron to try it so that you can take advantage of the 160% amplifier.

So, to do this run: First, equip your pincher/target to get your pawns on one side, and then equip the respective trap for whichever type you are going after. Use SB+ throughout the process to get the mice as quickly as possible without losing amp. Finally, equip your checkmate cheese and catch a king. One side done!
Next, equip the OTHER pinchers to quickly collect the pawns on the other side. Now that you’ve caught the king on side 1, most of the mice from side 1 are gone- for some reason, you’ll only find pawns and rooks, and they’re uncommon. That means that you can chase the second side of the tower with relative impunity. Obviously use some more SB+ so that the FTAs don’t kill you, and just head on up the second side! If all goes well, you can get a technic AND mystic king all in one go!