Plants Vs. Zombies Catch-All

Thowky wrote:

I found the vasebreaker levels quite easy. Seems to work best if you start with vases on the right. Don't go too fast but at the same time don't waste cards by placing them too quickly before you know what's going to come out of that row.

Are you talking about endless vasebreaker though? It's a lot tougher.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Hit the green ones first!

Thowky wrote:

I found the vasebreaker levels quite easy. Seems to work best if you start with vases on the right. Don't go too fast but at the same time don't waste cards by placing them too quickly before you know what's going to come out of that row.

The problem with both of these strategies is the cards disappear after a few moments in endless mode. Thus, I can't save up a bunch of squashes for a gargantuar.

My strategy for Endless Vasebreaker (which has only gotten me a streak of 9 so far):
Hit the greens first.

If you get a mine or squash or wallnut, put it in the right-most empty spot on the left side of the fullest row that has no defenses yet.
If you get a right-facing peashooter, put it on the far left of the fullest row without any defenses. A 3-shooter should try to straddle 3 undefended lanes.
A lantern should go in a spot that'll illuminate the highest possible number of vases, 8 if you can do it.
If you get a left-facing repeater, then you'll probably have to smash a vase unless there's an open spot on the far right of an otherwise undefended lane.

I generally try to put shooter plants in lanes that are otherwise undefended UNLESS there's a buckethead zombie or gargantuan in a lane already. A buckethead will not be stopped by a regular peashooter or even a repeater unless it has enough time.

Once I get a left-facing repeater on the right side of a lane, I start hitting the vases in that lane starting at the right. If I reveal a zombie I don't think it can handle, I'll break a vase that's in a lane with a squash or mine or shooter. That way if I get yet another zombie, it'll be handles down the line. If I don't have another zombie-less lane with a squash/mine I can hit, then I'll have to risk breaking a vase in an undefended lane.

Wait until the zombie in a lane is dead before breaking new vases in that lane.

If you get a jack-in-the-box zombie, you may be SOL.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

If you get a jack-in-the-box zombie, you may be SOL. :)

One jack-in-the-box isn't so bad. It's when you get those damn chain reactions that take out like 2/3 of your remaining vases.

I love the Gattling Pea. Makes me feel tough

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but you can pick up the game for $6.99 at BigFishgames. You just have to remember to cancel your membership after buying the game, or else they'll charge you $6.99 the following month. I used these guys to pick up Puzzle Quest and BookWorm Adventures and have had good luck with them.

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download...

Try alternate rows once you release a zombie on one row and if you do get quite a few squashes go faster to try and release a gargantuar. I didn't really find endless any tougher than the individual stages, I actually ended up giving up after 17 rounds as I was a bit fed up of it.

I did notice that less people seem to have the achievement for Vasebreaker than any other though so maybe I'm alone in thinking this... More people have grown the tree of wisdom to 100 feet which I'm amazed at as I've been playing for ages and am only just 1/2 way there.

Endless survival on the other hand I'm really struggling with. I think I've got past 20 once and that took me quite a few attempts.

How do you see the total time spent on the game by the way? I can't seem to display anything other than the last 2 weeks stats on steam.

I don't know how tall my tree is.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

I don't know how tall my tree is.

That means you're less than fifty feet tall; once you hit fifty, it becomes bigger than the screen, and there's a numerical display at the top that tells you how tall it is.

Tamren wrote:

speaking of saves, where are they stored and how can I back them up?

C:\ProgramData\Steam\plantsvszombies for vista and win 7. It might be different in win xp. Probably somewhere under my games or user for that.

I thought I lost my saves forever when I went to win 7 but it was still there on the vista install.

Well, Quintin, I used your strategy to get to five. Seems to work pretty well.

Edit: Just tried another run and got to 20 in Vasebreaker endless.

That mode is becoming my favorite.

Is there any way to view the tips you've already unlocked on the tree? I can't figure out a way to do that.

Idle on that tree screen and it'll start repeating them.

I caved and got this last night because I needed a new laptop game.

I then played it for like two hours straight. Yikes.

HaciendaSquish wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

I don't know how tall my tree is.

That means you're less than fifty feet tall; once you hit fifty, it becomes bigger than the screen, and there's a numerical display at the top that tells you how tall it is.

And then each bag of tree food increases the size of the tree by a foot. It takes forever to grow that thing!

I wouldn't have thought it would be, but this PVZ is actually a great game to play with my 4 year old. The violence is cartoonish, which bothers my wife more than me, but the last 5 times we've played the game we've done nothing but play in the Zen Garden. Which is nice, cause it gives me cash in the game to use for acquiring goods.

I thought I remember someone posting a screenshot of the roof map and they had dual gatling peas with two per flower pot. Was I hallucinating or can you get those?

- Marigold farming on Last Stand -

I saw a similar technique on YouTube but it didn't work very well. The entire field was covered in Marigolds and the ones at the front were given a Pumpkin shield. That lasted about a few seconds. I spent about a half hour tweaking this method. I was trying to come up with a way to plant a field of Marigolds and have the round last as long as possible. This is my final version:

IMAGE(http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/mystic_violet/Screenshots/Video%20Games/th_MarigoldLastStand01.jpg)

Eventually, the zombies will breach the Tall-nut wall. It should be around the final wave. I saved 200 points of sun power for this moment.

IMAGE(http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/mystic_violet/Screenshots/Video%20Games/th_MarigoldLastStand03.jpg)

Once it's over, you do get some sun power but it's not enough to do anything significant. I was done after the first wave.

IMAGE(http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/mystic_violet/Screenshots/Video%20Games/th_MarigoldLastStand04.jpg)

Yeah, that sucks.

I just discovered a different setup using Gatling Peas and Garlic. I'll have to try it now.

EDIT:

This works. I survived all 5 flags.

Make sure you have enough sun power to replace any Garlic that was eaten at the start of every flag.

IMAGE(http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/mystic_violet/Screenshots/Video%20Games/MarigoldLastStandGatlingGarlic01.jpg)

Gradually build up a row of 3 Spikeweeds, replace the Garlic when necessary and that's it!

IMAGE(http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/mystic_violet/Screenshots/Video%20Games/MarigoldLastStandGatlingGarlic02.jpg)

For Marigold Farming, you're better off with garlic, doom shrooms and magnet shrooms for defense. I cleared all 5 flags with it and cleared several thousand gold.

The doom shrooms are surprisingly powerful. Two of them will kill anything but a football player. The magnets take care of the football players and the jack in the boxes.

I might have to try to come up with my own way to farm. Looks like a fun thing to try.

if your looking for money, i'll post the perfect setup for Endless Survival when I load it up next.

Safe to say I was raking in the cash and I lasted 51 flags.

ended up with 104k, which promptly got spent on the tree of wisdom (having bought every upgrade)

AP Erebus wrote:

if your looking for money, i'll post the perfect setup for Endless Survival when I load it up next.

Safe to say I was raking in the cash and I lasted 51 flags.

ended up with 104k, which promptly got spent on the tree of wisdom (having bought every upgrade)

I use a method I found on YouTube. I got to 44 flags my first time trying it, and made about 100K as well.

This is my setup...

IMAGE(http://i43.tinypic.com/wiwns2.jpg)

In what order do you build up that garden, and about what flag are you ready?

Is there an advantage to having all of the melon launchers as ice melon launchers?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Is there an advantage to having all of the melon launchers as ice melon launchers?

Yes. You will never have zombies that are unfrozen, but you don't need to start off with all ice ones immediately (for cash purposes).

OK, first you start with the sunflowers. I also take the corn-catapults and use them instead of the peashooters.

Then build the melon launchers, then the shroom upgrades (this is the hardest as you need 3 items (coffee, shroom + upgrade)...

try and get at least 1 cob cannon by about flag 8 or so...

then the winter melons and extraneous bits.

then the rest of the cob cannons.

As I recall, I had the layout done by about flag 12 - 14 and fully upgraded by about flag 18...

It's really the upgrades that kill you as the price increases per upgrade, and the longer you don't have any giant zombies, the better

My wife has been asking to play this for a while and I had her use my Steam account during the July 4th weekend to play it and I haven't been able to get my computer back since!

See, I'd dismissed those 360 spore shrooms as useless. Guess I was wrong.