Trogdor
Advanced strategy
OK. So now you're ready to reach the higher levels, and acheive Trogdor mastery. Here are the deep, secret secrets of the game. You're welcome.
1. The knights' movement is not random.
The knights move in "N"-shaped patterns that are very simple to see, crossing the screen as they go. When they reach the edge, they pick a different "N"-shaped pattern and usually return the other way, although they may wander around the edge for a little while.
Once a knight goes past you, he will not turn around until he reaches the edge of the screen, so you know you're safe. The most dangerous moments are when the two knights' patterns intersect, and when they're changing directions. You should be able to plan for when they're approaching you, and just stay away from the edge of the screens. Once in a while you may get pinned down by arrows and blocked by cottages, but you should be able to earn mans faster than this happens to you.
2. Use burninating peasants to burninate cottages.
As soon as you burninate a peasant, he will run back to his cottage, which will cause the cottage to burninate. This can be a very key element of strategy.
In the figure above, the peasant near the top is running back to his cottage, and it will be burninated. Know which cottage each peasant came out of! As soon as you touch him, you can forget about the cottage he came from. Go for the others.
In order to make this work optimally, you need to do a little planning. When you're at nine squished peasants, don't squish the tenth! Wait for a few others to come out, and ideally you want to be near the middle of the screen so you can head for one side while burninating peasants take care of the other side. No peasants will come out of the houses while you're burninating (because you are far too fearsome!), so you need to get them out before you begin to burninate. Then burninate a peasant from one side of the village, and go burninate the other side yourself.
3. Be aware of your movement blocks.
Some of the levels in the game are quite difficult because you are so hemmed in. Take the level below for example:
The red areas are areas of the screen that Trogdor cannot reach. You can't walk over non-burninated cottages. If you burninate them, you can get through them, but they take a second or two to burn, and that's precious burnination time if you have to stand there and wait.
More to the point, this makes avoiding archers and knights much harder. The knights can pin you into a corner even if you know their patterns, and if an archer pops out at your level at that moment, you are going to get sworded or arrowed.
The best you can do is get familiar with the levels and know where you can and cannot move.
4. BE PATIENT.
There is no time clock in the game. As long as you can stay alive, you don't even have to burninate cottages. (Of course, you'll never reach my lofty scores if you don't.)
It is never worth it to go after a peasant with a knight nearby. The worst that happens is that you go back down to zero peasants squished if you miss a bunch. On levels like the one pictured above, there will be a steady stream of peasants that you can't even reach, so it becomes a race to squish more in the areas you can reach than that wander in out in the areas you can't.
Stay calm. Eventually the law of averages will give you a good run on your side and you'll get your ten. Meanwhile, you get two points for every peasant you squish, so stay sharp and bide your time.
5. Use consummate skills!
It gets hectic once you're above level 30 or so.
It's not unusual at all to have three or four arrows flying on the screen at once when you're in the upper levels. Combine this with difficult arrangements of cottages. There's no strategy for this part, other than: wield consummate skills!
6. Watch for the "Mystery Cottages of Loot"
Once in a while, you might suddenly find yourself inside a cottage, with piles of cash lying around!
Reader Jim Wood contributes this explanation (and the screenshots) to the library of advanced Trogdor lore:
Alright, I think I have it!
The requirments are as follows:
- Only 1 cottage per level could (note the 'could') be a tresure hut. It's always the same one on the same level, never random. So you must know which one beforehand.
- You cannot squish ANY pesents from that cottage.
- You must burninate the rest of the town, and leave it standing:
- Then, you must wait until at least one pesant is absent from that cottage and sneek in without squishing him or ANYONE else. You must not have squished anyone since you achieved burnination.
- Just walk right over and you'll find the money bags. Move quick, there is a short time limit in which you can collect them (maybe unrtil the peasents come home?)
Many Trogdors died for this information, use it well.
Hopefully, others who see this will share their knowledge of the other cottages, and a complete list can be compiled.
Thanks, Jim! If other readers have more information about this, send it in.
7. Cheat
Reader Jason reports:
I know a cool Trogdor cheat! If you pause the game WHILE you see an archer on the screen, that archer can no longer shoot for the rest of the level.
We have not had time to verify this cheat in our Trogdor labs, but it seems plausible. Remember, no cheating!
8. Other miscellaneous advanced tips
Other miscellaneous but crucial tips:
- Your feet can't get arrowed or sworded. Your wing-a-lings can, though.
- You get a bonus man every 300 points. This takes a while at the lower levels, but at higher levels you advance more quickly - by the time I quit my high-score game, I was scoring nearly 300 points per level with bonuses.
- Cottages take about a second to burn down, so it's bad to have a plan that includes going through one to get to another. If you have to do this, plan a route that allows you to get out to burninate something else while the cottage you're waiting for burns down.
- Don't forget to yell "TROGDOR!!!" when the theme music plays!
With these tips, you should be able to advance to higher levels of Trogdor mastery. This has been a public service of tomatoman.net.
