After getting to level 58 in my first try following the steps in my previous guide, I unlocked windmill and steam engine. So, it was time to make a new layout with them. If you still didn’t unlocked those two, refer to my other guide.

A layout is more efficient when a tower is surrounded by 8 boosters. If you still don’t think it’s true, click one of the links above and see the images & calculations there. Therefore, we will be using a layout where a tower is boosted with 8 boosters.

Ok, but what combination is best? How many attack speed (windmill) and how many damage (steam engine) is needed to get the best result?

Firstly, we don’t want to use more than 4 windmills because range gets longer than 20 with 5 windmills. A tower can damage a minion at most 20 tiles away. Therefore, if we want more attack speed, we will be using cogwheels. This is why I want you to concentrate on the rightermost tables, because their values matter.


This is the table if you don't have/use any items that increase tower damage or have +2 tower damage.With heavy cannon, we want 1 steam engine regardless of windmill/cogwheel ratio (look at the table top right). If we want to use rock launcher at some point while expanding, we want to use 2 steam engines. BUT, if you have +3 tower damage items, you will want just 1 steam engine with rock launchers, too. (see the table below)



And when you got +5 tower damage, we don't want steam engines at all. See table below (look at left and mid tables now).


Secondly, we surely want some more range. Having a range of 10 instead of default 6 means that the minions will be hit with a lot more towers. We can afford to lose some DPS. When compared to a cogwheel, a windmill gives 10% less speed but 30% range. Keep that in mind.

Thirdly, you don’t want to apply the same combination in everygame. And in a certain game, you will still want to use a few different combo depending on your position and expansion size. Also keep that in mind

In the layout:

• T: Tower
  
• W: Windmill
  
• C: Cogwheel
  
• E: Steam Engine
  
• S: Shrine

In the table:

• Count: How many are there in the 11x11 test layout
  
• W: wood cost of a single tower/booster
  
• S: stone cost of a single tower/booster
  
• Wood & Stone: Total cost of one kind of an tower/booster

The DPS in the table is the actual DPS of the 11x11 test layout excluding the shrine. In game, we don't generally get those perfect space to build as we want. Still, we can see how DPS and range changes BUT stone cost remains almost the same. Wood cost increases about 20% when we want to increase range.

These are the 3 layouts we can choose to do. Depending on your starting positions, you may want to go for range or more DPS. Keep in mind that windmill is always better as long as your towers can hit their target.

Also keep in mind that you can steam engine and towers are ALWAYS where they are in the layout. So, if you want to change after you build your core, you jsut replace a windmill position with a cogwheeel.

Change W to C on the rightside of a tower in the 1st layout to get the 2nd layout. Make all vertical lines C with the exception of E to get the 3rd layout.