Domain Guardian II — Player Guide

For anyone just starting out. Every number here comes from the game itself. Plain talk, no jargon.

1Getting Started (all the controls)

Building a tower

Tap a tower card to pick it, then tap a tile next to the road. Done. Terrain tiles change how a tower behaves — tap the tile first to see what it does.

Cancelling a selection

Tap the same tower card again to unselect it, or just tap empty ground.

Starting a wave

When you're ready, hit Start Wave. Towers fire on their own, and you can keep building while enemies walk. There's an auto-wave toggle if you'd rather not tap it every time.

Upgrading a tower

Tap a tower on the map to select it, then tap Upgrade. Upgrades add damage, range and attack speed, and some towers open up a branch route.

Selling / undoing a tower

Select it and tap Sell — you get a confirm prompt first. Selling refunds 60% of what you spent. If the tower is brand new, hasn't fought, hasn't been upgraded or repaired, you can Undo Build for a full refund instead.

Clearing obstacles

Tap an obstacle to select it. The panel has a "Clear This Cell" button — pay gold and the tile opens up for a tower. You can only clear from the outermost edge inward, so clear the outer one first.

Game speed

1–5x is free, drag it whenever you like. Above that sit two separate locked steps: 7x and 10x. Locked steps show a padlock.

• 7x: watch 1 ad on a level and 7x opens for that level;
• 10x: 2 ads.

That unlock lasts for the rest of the day on that level. There's also a permanent route: three-star a level and it keeps 7x forever; clear the whole chapter and that chapter keeps 10x. You can always drag back down to a lower step.

Zooming the map

Big maps zoom in and out with a pinch or a mouse wheel. There are on-screen zoom buttons with a percentage too, and the first wide battlefield shows a hint.

2Tower Families and Element Reactions

There are seven families:

There are 40+ towers, unlocked level by level (Ember Tower is available from level 1).

Element reactions

Five of them; the bonus is smaller against bosses:

• Brittle: physical hits on a slowed enemy deal +20%
• Conduct: shock hits on a slowed enemy deal +20%
• Ignite: fire hits on a poisoned enemy detonate the remaining poison at once, plus a bonus chunk on top
• Corrode: physical hits on a poisoned enemy only count half its armor
• Focus: holy hits mark an enemy; the next arcane hit deals +30% and spends the mark

Slowing is worth it on its own — a slowed enemy sits in your kill zone longer.

3Enemy Types and How to Handle Them

Line units: Scout, Infantry, Heavy Armor, Speeder, Flyer, Elite, Giant, Elite Flyer, Demon, Phantom, Colossus. Later ones have more HP and more armor.

Specialist enemies

Each one does one annoying thing:

• Field Medic: heals the most wounded nearby ally. Burn or poison cuts its healing in half.
• Shield Guard: shields nearby allies. Kill it and the shield goes away.
• Sapper Engineer: locks the nearest tower within 3 tiles and stops it firing. Kill it during the lock to cancel.
• Fracture Core: splits into two Scouts when it dies.
• Gold Courier: the further it runs, the less bounty it pays. Stop it early.
• Null Siphon: hands out shields to nearby enemies.
• Tunnel Borer: digs a shortcut once it drops low enough.

Bosses

Mini-bosses (Iron Wolf, Rock Dragon, Lich King, Titan God, Demon Satan) plus a map boss each level. Bosses have high HP, resist slows, and use skills — tower-breaking locks, summons, shields, haste auras, brief invulnerability, rotating armor, regen. When a red lock line appears, sell the locked tower (60% refund) or focus the boss down.

Handy trick: set a long-range tower's targeting to "Specialist" and it will pick these troublemakers out of the crowd.

4Difficulty

You pick it in the menu and it's locked in for the run:

The gold column is the base value: 230 / 160 / 120 are the per-level rising starting points, and early levels add an easing bonus on top, so you actually begin higher than this. The life totals are base values too — some levels run lower.

On Hell, from wave 3 onward, regular enemies also carry an extra trait (regen / haste / extra armor).

There's also New Game+, unlocked after clearing level 40: enemy HP ×2.2, +12% move speed, +8% armor, about 18% less starting gold, −2 lives, −15% kill bounty. It isn't ranked and only awards cosmetics. The tutorial level runs on 12 lives and 420 gold, so you can get the feel of things.

5Chips — How to Get Them and What They Do

Chips are the game's spendable currency, used on cosmetics, tech, lottery tickets, shards and support tokens.

Where they come from

• First clear pays 4 chips, first three-star pays 5 (one-time, 432 total across 48 levels)
• Replaying a cleared level pays 2 chips per verified clear, capped at 10/day
• Daily contracts: 3 a day, 2 chips each (6/day max)
• Weekly tasks: 3 a week, each 6 chips + 3 shards + 60 pass XP
• Sign-in: a 7-day cycle handing out chips/shards/tickets (missing a day doesn't reset it)
• Endless: 3 chips per 10 waves, capped at 6/day
• Achievements: 20 of them, 172 chips + 35 shards combined (needs login)
• Watch-an-ad chips: 2 each, up to 4 a day
• Starter pack: 30 chips + a starter cosmetic + 3 tickets (once per full account, guests can't claim it)

What they buy

• Tech — fall behind and it gets rough
• Cosmetics
• Lottery tickets (10 chips each)
• Shards (6 chips for 5 shards) to craft cosmetics
• Support tokens (4 chips each, hold up to 3)

One note: chips still under review can't be spent on lottery tickets or shards yet.

6What Ads Give You (Ads Only Save Time)

The headline first: watching an ad only saves you time — everything in the game is reachable without ads. The game itself says so.

What ads can give

• Ad-for-chips: 2 chips each, up to 4 a day
• Settlement doubling: 1 ad makes this run's first-clear / new three-star chips ×1.5; 3 ads make it ×2
• 7x speed: 1 ad per level
• 10x speed: 2 ads per level
• Mainline support: up to once per run — supply gold, an opening strike, repairs, a revive
• Daily reward bar: each ad adds 1 point; at 3/6/10/15 points you claim a reward

And here's the no-ad path (this is the important part)

• Want 7x? Three-star a level and it keeps 7x for good
• Want 10x? Clear a chapter and it keeps 10x for good
• Want chips? Replay cleared levels for 2 chips each, up to 10 a day
• Want support? Buy a support token with chips instead of watching
• Want the premium pass line? Either watch 10 ads or reach 4000 pass XP — your choice

Ads never appear during combat, in tutorials, in weekly challenges, on defeat screens or while loading. Every ad button spells out what you get and how many are left today — watching is always your call. Ranked runs don't allow ad support at all.

7Weekly Action

It rotates every Monday (UTC — that's 8 AM Beijing time). The rules are fixed:

• one fixed level (picked from 6/10/…/38)
• a fixed tower set and a fixed doctrine
• the same seed for everyone worldwide
• plus one mutation: Fortified / Haste / Scarcity

It's a high-score chase. You can replay it, and your best time and score are saved. Your best result each week earns a medal: no leaks = gold, 60% lives left = silver, anything else = bronze. Medals don't pay chips — they're collectibles. Weekly action has no tech bonus, no ad support, and 5x speed at most.

8Seasons and Leaderboards

Seasons

Eight weekly-action weeks in a row make one season, and every player switches at the same moment. Weekly bests reset each week and the season medal tally restarts each season; medals themselves, cosmetics, campaign progress, tech and mastery are all permanent.

Season pass

56 days, 30 levels, 150 XP per level.

• Free line: 3 chips every 5 levels, shards on the other levels, tickets at levels 7/14/21/28, cosmetics at 15 and 30, a B-tier cape at 25.
• Premium line (two ways to unlock): watch 10 dedicated pass ads this season (up to 3 a day), or reach 4000 pass XP. It gives 3 shards per level, a ticket every 3 levels, and chips plus an exclusive cosmetic at levels 10/20/30.

Leaderboards

Signed-in players only — guests can play everything but can't rank. Only verified scores show (new ones read "under review" first), and only the top 100 appear. Mainline and Endless boards reset each season with the old board archived; weekly boards keep going. The top ranks get honor titles and badges, not chips, deliberately, so nobody farms the board for resources. Leaderboards never show how many ads you used.

9Lottery Odds and Rules

Tickets are bought with chips only: 10 chips each, up to 5 per UTC day, and a ticket expires 24 hours after you buy it (no refund, no carryover). Only confirmed chips can buy them.

Once a draw runs, here are the odds for each prize:

Pity: go 29 draws without an exclusive and the 30th is guaranteed (the game shows how many draws you have left).

Return rate: about 92.38% overall — over the long run you slightly lose out.

There are 8 exclusive cosmetics in total; once you own them all, a duplicate pays 25 shards.

Lottery exclusives can't be bought in the shop. The odds are published right in the game, and the draw animation has no ads.

10Account vs Guest Mode

Guest mode

Just open it and play, no sign-up. Your progress lives on this device and isn't uploaded. Guests can play all the content.

What guests can't do: claim the starter pack, use the lottery, appear on leaderboards, or claim achievements. Those screens are visible, but tapping them just says you need to sign in — with a one-tap login button. Any ticket a guest receives converts to 5 shards.

Signed-in account

Google, email+password, Microsoft, GitHub, etc.: unlocks lottery, leaderboards, the starter pack and achievements, and stores progress in the cloud. Guest progress is kept and merged into the account once when you sign in — nothing is lost, and you're never forced to log in.

In short: you can finish everything as a guest. Signing in mainly gets you the leaderboard and the lottery extras.

11FAQ