Glacial Trail
|
| Difficulty | Expert | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Music | Winter Nights | ||
| Default Co-op division | Free-for-all | ||
| Introduced | Version 40.0 | ||
| Entrances | 1 | Exits | 1 |
| Junctions | 0 | Water? | Yes |
| Path lengths (RBS) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Easy | Medium | Hard |
| 22.1 | 20.1 | 17.7 |
Glacial Trail is an Expert map in Bloons TD 6, introduced in version 40.0. It takes place on a glacier near icy cliffs. This map has a unique mechanic which causes all towers except Ice Monkeys and Silas to regularly become frozen.
Mechanics
Every tower that is not an Ice Monkey or Silas on this map will be frozen for 2 rounds every 10 rounds, along with any of their sub-towers. The timing is based on when the tower is placed, not when the game starts, so a tower placed on round 5 will be frozen on rounds 14-15, 24-25, and so on, as will all of its sub-towers, even if they were placed on different rounds. (Sub-towers do not display the ice graphic when frozen.)
Frozen towers are effectively "paused": they cannot attack, spawn collectables, or have their Activated Abilities be triggered, and any of their attacks or abilities that are still executing will stop and resume the moment the tower unfreezes. Frozen towers cannot be selected, which prevents the player from selling them or changing their targeting options. Some towers have special properties while frozen:
- Passive tower buffs, such as the Monkey Village's and Striker Jones's buffs, still apply.
- End-of-round cash generation, such as from Benjamin and Merchantmen, still triggers.
- Monkey Aces and Aircraft Carrier planes will still fly around, but not attack.
- Beast Handlers still provide range and Beast Power to non-frozen Beast Handlers if merged.
- Heli Pilots will stop moving, then resume their movement upon unfreezing if they were in the middle of relocating.
- Heroes continue to gain XP and level up while frozen.
- Geraldo's Shooty Turrets, Creepy Idols, Rare Quincy Action Figure, Pet Rabbit, Genie Bottles, and Paragon Power Totems are considered sub-towers and will all be frozen at the same time as Geraldo, regardless of when the items were placed. Frozen items do not delay the number of rounds for them to expire. These towers cannot be selected when frozen as normal, but their behaviour while frozen varies:
- The Creepy Idol's passive blowback is not considered an attack and continues to apply.
- The Rare Quincy Action Figure still gains value on rounds when it is frozen.
- The Bottle of 'Gerry's Fire' Hot Sauce is considered a sub-tower of the tower it is attached to, not Geraldo, so it will be frozen at the same time as the tower it is attached to.
- Paragon Power Totems can still be sacrificed to Paragons.
- Rosalia will continue moving if she was frozen while relocating normally, but will stop in place if frozen while using Flight Boost.
Layout
Glacial Trail has 3 sections with distinct elevations. The top part is completely blocked off by the small ice cliffs around it, the middle part contains the track with many more ice cliffs and an ice forest in the middle that restrict line-of-sight, and the bottom part contains water and ice, with the water having an elevation too low for most water towers to attack. The freezing mechanic that occurs to most towers every 9+10n rounds after their individual round of placement is shown by the "10" on top of the frozen monkey on the top-left of the water section of this map. Glacial Trail is the only truly single-lane Expert map in BTD6, if Blons is not considered.
Strategy
The freezing mechanic of Glacial Trail makes planning the tower placements for certain rounds very important. If all important towers are frozen at the same time, it will almost certainly lead to a loss. Space out tower placements to there's at least two rounds between your strongest towers.
For most game modes, this map can be made easier by selling towers that are about to freeze if there is no money to purchase additional defense.
On CHIMPS, due to the lack of selling, it is much more important to plan ahead and work out which towers are required to beat specific rounds, and place towers on time accordingly.
- In general, attempt to place most of the late-game towers on a round that ends with a 2 or 4, so the toughest rounds in the 90s and round 100 can see almost all towers in action, while also getting at least 1 powerful tower/hero for the early 90s.
- A tower with Lead Popping should ideally be placed on rounds that end with a 2, as it can pop every Lead Bloon (including Camo Leads).
- A tower with Camo Detection should ideally be placed on rounds that end with a 0, being able to deal with all camo rounds until 59, up which Camo Leads first appear.
- After round 91, the player can freely place any tower without worrying about it being frozen, but this is often mostly support towers like a Sabotage due to the potential money spent on getting to that point.
Glacial Trail is also considered the hardest map for the community challenge/achievement 2MPC, due to the fact that through the gimmick, 99% of all 2MPCs are impossible on this map.
Recommended towers and upgrades
| Name | Icon | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Perma-Spike | 
|
Perma-Spike's ability to have a consistent spike pile remain despite being frozen partially circumvents the freezing mechanic of this map. Since the spike piles last for 4 rounds, the downtime from being frozen for 2 rounds is less of a hindrance compared to other towers. The single-lane nature of this map further solidifies Perma-Spike's strength on this map. |
| Silas | 
|
Silas is the only Hero immune to Glacial Trail's freezing mechanic, and provides great synergies with Ice Monkeys. Ensure to have defenses that handle BADs, as neither he nor Ice Monkeys have enough BAD damage on their own. |
| Corvus | 
|
Corvus pairs well with Perma-Spike thanks to his unique strengths in carrying the midgame, allowing the player to easily save up for the tier 5, as well as clearing large amounts of MOABs during the late game with Ancestral Might and Overload. Remember to place Corvus so that he is active on the rounds Perma-Spike is frozen on so that the spikes do not disappear during the rounds that they are not being replenished. |
| Ultra-Juggernaut | 
|
Ultra-Juggernaut shines on Glacial Trail far more than it does on most other Expert maps due to the presence of many walls for it to bounce off. Due to that, Ultra-Juggernaut cleans up significant amounts of RBE and alleviates some pressure off Perma-Spike, and can take care of the mid-game rounds where most other towers are frozen. |
| Icicle Impale | 
|
Because the Ice Monkey can't be frozen, Icicle Impale can apply ZOMG and DDT stalls for every round, in order to build more time for your other towers to pop them, or to maintain a healthy Perma-Spike pile. |
| Mortar Monkey | 
|
Since 50.0 reduced its base cost to afford it on standard R6 CHIMPS, base Mortar is an effective early-game tower, soloing early rounds thanks to the bends on the map, not taking precious space in the middle while potentially offering decent supports later on. |
| Benjamin, | 
|
On game modes other than CHIMPS, the end-of-round income made by Benjamin and Merchantmen are notably still granted even while they're frozen. This makes them especially effective for farming on this map, as Banana Farms cannot produce bananas while frozen. |
Gallery
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This article or section needs more screenshots. See the screenshot guidelines for more information on what screenshots are needed and how to add them. The editor that added this notice elaborates: Additional interactions related to Glacial Trail, including animated GIFs of: frozen Monkey Ace + frozen Heli (demonstrate that Aces can still fly while frozen, but Helis don't at all no matter what flight setting), non-frozen Ice Monkey (set on R1 and instantly go R10), frozen other flying towers, cursor trying to click on frozen tower, forced unselected menu once frozen |
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Frozen Monkey Ace -
Easter theme -
Fireworks theme -
Halloween theme -
Holiday theme -
Island statue
In other languages
| Language | Text | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | درب جليدي | — |
| Danish | Gletsjerspor | — |
| German | Gletscherweg | — |
| Spanish | Sendero Glacial | — |
| Spanish (Latin America) | Sendero glacial | — |
| Finnish | Jäätikköpolku | — |
| French | Sentier glacial | — |
| Italian | Sentiero dei ghiacci | — |
| Japanese | 氷河トレイル | — |
| Korean | 빙하의 길 | — |
| Dutch | IJzig pad | — |
| Norwegian | Isete spor | — |
| Polish | Lodowcowy szlak | — |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | Trilha Glacial | — |
| Russian | Ледяная тропа | — |
| Swedish | Glaciärstigen | — |
| Thai | เส้นทางธารน้ำแข็ง | — |
| Turkish | Buzul Yol | — |
| Chinese (simplified) | 冰河之径 | — |
| Chinese (traditional) | 冰川之徑 | — |
References
- Path lengths sourced from the BTD6 Index