For the "Special Agent Pro" quest, is it really as simple as buying 50 of any of the special agents? In that case, I don't think the badge is really "hard," then. It's tedious, maybe, getting a minimum of $2,000 ($40 x 50), but you'll be racking that up just trying to get the other quests. I'll probably go with the Bloonberry agent myself, but I suppose it doesn't really matter.
For "Spiritual Leader," I went into Free Play after completing a normal/medium level, and then around Level 80 I sold most of my buildings to get $90K. That Sun God Temple is pretty impressive, btw.
Leedade -- True, but when you have to beat 30 maps, any time you can "kill two birds with one stone" is a good thing. I'm not going to mess around with Sandbox at all; the amount of time to complete 30 maps is already more than enough time spent here.
I strongly recommend playing all maps on easy (except the required hard+extreme). Level 50 takes about 15 minutes to beat; level 80 takes more than 30 minutes(ZOMG lag + more stages overall). I'm not sure why, but it looks like I'm earning double cash, and some of the special scenarios are a quick 500-1000 monkey cash (e.g. fast upgrade)
Double-cash might be for this weekend -- like a Halloween promo? I don't know.
But to go back to Leedade's suggestion on "Spiritual Leader" -- I was a bit curious so I checked out Sandbox mode, and you can create a Sun God Temple in about 10 seconds. I'm assuming that if you don't have the quest by that point, this shortcut would work?
Also, for the "Special Agent Pro," it looks like you have to buy 50 special agents and then use 50 special agents while playing. Don't know what happens after that point.
Well, the extreme quest is not very hard if you shell out 500 for the double cash perk. I also invested in long range beacons(and a ton of unnecessary upgrades that I won't mention), which made life very easy planning wise. It's totally worth it if you're like me and unlikely to continue with the game after 30 stages. I was running around with ~20 factories + 1 maxed monkey god + 800k cash by the end of the game. I opened with a double shuriken ninja and a mage before plopping a beacon. First banana factory was about lvl 50; I recommend having a plasma monkey first to handle ceramics before tossing money into factory spamming. The stage is huge and has a lot of land for banana-ing, so it should be trivial to earn cash.
Bakkart's suggestion of Bloonberry Bushses is pretty good - you may as well plop 10 down, and then as you are about to win, plop 40 more(at this point, 500 cash shouldn't bother you, and laking/pontooning is kinda boring). As a bonus perk, Bushes stack infinitely for easy placement.
To make something pro, you have to use it the stated # of times(over all games). It doesn't have to be in a single match, but since you can buy them during a battle, you might as well.
Well, finished up all the other quests, and just have the last "extreme" one left. I'll have to grind for a bit since I'm only at Level 45 (the only map that I had to repeat was the Intermediate "Golf Course"; that just threw me for some reason).
So, @randomblah, you're saying that once I get an Extreme map unlocked, I should spend $500 on the "Double-Cash"; anything else to get in preparation?
I think I had around 9500 monkey cash by the time I tackled the extreme map (aka street, the one that unlocks at lvl 50). Since you only need 2500 for pro bushes, and attempts on extreme maps each cost money, I would consider it an excellent investment. I would totally invest in double cash(500 monkey cash)(basically breaks almost all maps, especially because you can focus firepower onto one region in the street map), and probably monkey beacon(300 monkey cash) (basically doubles the range of villages, so that one village supports your towers and provides cheap banana farms). Of course, if you really rely on a single unit (e.g. boomerang) for your openings, then I would invest money into that unit upgrade. You have enough cash this way to go for 3-4 attempts, so you might as well maximize your chances(unless of course you are super-pro at this game, which I'm not).
Thanks! I played it through once without any upgrades apart from the Dart Monkey building, and two squirrels and got to Level 37.
So then I switched to a Ninja building, and bought 10 more Bloonberry Bushes, and purchased the Double Cash and the Beacon upgrades.
I kind of followed your advice in general, with a few changes:
- since I had squandered my Bloonberries already (I was eager for the "Pro" quest), they were all Pro now, and the ten I put in place seemed to creep all over the map. Fun effect -- and a good firewall for the two exits.
- I didn't know if you truly meant ONLY a double ninja and a mage before buying a beacon, but I felt a little naked without more, so I had some others, like a sniper, a couple of cannons, etc. I also really like the Spike Factory, so I had a couple there as well.
- I didn't do nearly as many banana plantations as you, and upgraded my 11 to only the 2nd level on Path 1 (13 bananas per round); in general, I'm not entirely sure how much you really make/save through bananas as compared to spending it on other things, but whatevs.
- I ended up with 4 Sun Gods, 3 spike factories, 4 cannons, 2 snipers, 2 mages, 3 ninjas, and -- because I hate my computer -- 1 aircraft carrier.
So, thanks again for the general direction. I had zero damage for the round, have a shiny new badge to show for it, and can finally go to bed.