Survival: Fog (Hard)/Strategies

This is a strategy page about Survival: Fog (Hard). Feel free to add your strategies, but see the rules page first.

Starting - The Beginning (Flags 1-2)
The priorities are: Get two rows of Sunflowers up fast, plant Kernel-pults to later build Cob Cannons, and get Planterns or Torchwoods up in the fifth row.

Start off by picking these plants: The Imitater Sunflower can be used, instead of the Twin Sunflower if you bought it to get the Sunflowers up faster or if you have more seed slots, and add the Winter Melon if you don't have the Imitater, but have nine slots. Note that it is also recommended to use the Potato Mine if you have enough slots, so you could build more and more Sunflowers.
 * Sunflower
 * Flower Pot
 * Kernel-pult
 * Plantern/Blover/Torchwood
 * Melon-pult
 * Twin Sunflower
 * Pumpkin
 * Squash

Start by planting Sunflowers in the third and fourth columns (the first and the second columns are used for Cob Cannons). However, if you don't have the Twin Sunflower, build Sunflowers in column two as well, but dig them up later when you've got enough sun to build Cob Cannons and Winter Melons. The fourth Sunflower should be planted the moment the zombie is killed by the rake or a second before. When the next zombie comes plant a Flower Pot in the fourth column and plant a Squash. By the time the Squash has killed the zombie the third and fourth columns should be filled with Sunflowers except for the Squashes' spots.

When the third zombie comes, plant a Kernel-pult in its lane you, then another one in the same lane after it recharges or you get enough sun. Keep planting Kernel-pults. One per lane can kill regular zombies, but two is recommended for Coneheads. After two columns of Kernel-pults are planted, you should start filling up the fifth column with Cabbage-pults, and try to Pumpkin them as soon as possible.

By now, your defenses are decent already. You should start upgrading your 4th column Sunflowers in lanes one, three, and five into Twin Sunflowers. You won't keep the third column Sunflowers, so don't bother with them. While upgrading, you should be digging up﻿ third column Sunflowers and replacing them with Melon-pults. Try to Pumpkin them.

Your setup should at least look like this: (Note that you may have many Pumpkins)


 * S: Sunflower


 * K: Kernel-pult


 * M: Melon-pult


 * C: Blover (if necessary)


 * A: Twin Sunflower


 * -: Empty

K K M A C - - - -

K K M S C - - - -

K K M S C - - - -

K K M S C - - - -

K K M S C - - - -

Note that you may have Pumpkins around Planterns/Torchwoods or Melon-pults, I didn't include them yet. Do NOT protect with pumpkins Kernel-pults, they have to be unpumpkined to be upgraded. You could have more upgraded Sunflowers, but only in lane three.

Cob Cannon Time (Flags 3-6)
During these flags, you should build your Cob Cannons, as it suggests in the title. Cob Cannons are important in Survival Mode, but although you can eliminate them, Survival Roof almost always need them due to the fact that Gargantuars can't be delayed by Spikerocks on the Roof, and they should be used in case of emergencies.

Flags 3-4
For flags 3-4, pick Twin Sunflower only if you have two upgraded Sunflowers, or upgraded the wrong one in mistake. The normal ones should be Umbrella Leaf, Cob Cannon, Melon-pult, Winter Melon, Flower Pot, Pumpkin, and two extras for instants or Blovers for Balloons. If you needed Twin Sunflowers, you only get one extra spot, but it should be used on Blovers, but only if there are Balloons. Otherwise, you should put an instant, preferably Jalapeno.

You should plant the last Twin Sunflower if you haven't already (see above for the three places Twin Sunflowers should be used). Save up enough sun for a Cob Cannon. Upgrade any group of Kernel-pults you want (doesn't matter), and upgrade Winter Melons while the Cob Cannon is recharging. Cob Cannons have priority over Winter Melons, too so upgrade the Kernel-pults first, but one Cob Cannon is enough for now, so Winter Melons should be upgraded before the second Cob Cannons.

Start to dig up the Cabbage-pults and replace them with Melon-pults. You should finish this by the end of flag 4. Start pumpkining the Cabbage-pults (and their replacements) and Winter Melons. It is very important you get this done before massive hordes of Football Zombies come.

Right before the third flag, dig up the second lane and fourth lane Sunflowers and replace them with Umbrella Leafs. If there are too many strong zombies getting close to munch up the fifth column Pumpkins, use a Cob Cannon to kill them. You should have one Cob Cannon at this flag.

In flag four, upgrade another pair of Kernel-pults into Cob Cannons, make sure all the third column plants are Winter Melons, and replace all of the Cabbage-pults with Melon-pults. All plants in the fifth row should have pumpkins on them. When the wave comes, wait until all of the zombies step onto the roof, and use two Cobs to kill them all.

By the end of flag four, your map at least has to look like this, but the Pumpkins around the Winters aren't necessary yet:

K: Kernel-Pult, M: Melon-Pult, W: Winter Melon, A: Twin Sunflower, C-C: Cob Cannon, U: Umbrella Leaf [ ]: inside a Pumpkin, -: Empty

C-C W A [M] - - - -

C-C W U [M] - - - -

K K W A [M] - - - -

K K W U [M] - - - -

K K W A [M] - - - -

You may have Pumpkins around some Winter Melons and more Cob Cannon, but this is what it should at least be.

Flags 5-6
Pick these seeds: Cob Cannon, Melon-pult, Pumpkin, (an Imitater Pumpkin if you have one) Winter Melon, Flower Pot, Fume-shroom, Coffee Bean, Jalapeno, Squash, and Blovers to rid balloon zombies if they are coming (replace Squash).

Start Pumpkining the Winter Melons, then Column 4. It is essential as Gargantuars usually appear in flags 6 or 7 and beyond, but they still might be in flag 5. Also, start upgrading more Kernel-Pults into Cob Cannons. You will want to have this done by the end of flag 6.

Plant Flower Pots in Column 6 and Pumpkin them. Don't put any plants in the unpumpkined Column 6 Flower Pots. Plant Fume-Shrooms and wake them up in the Pumpkined Flower Pots. The reason the Fume-shrooms shoot off screen is because that way they will be dead few seconds before than if the Fume-shrooms shoot all on-screen, protecting the Pumpkins slightly more.

The last thing to do is to plant more pumpkined Melon-pults in column 7. This will complete the setup.

Make sure you do all this. Be sure that one Cob is loaded all the time to take care of Gargantuars. Don't blast them too late, or else they will land at the Cob Cannons. The only reason you will want to shoot Cobs, actually, is when there are Gargantuars or a bunch of Football Zombies are putting pressure on the Pumpkins.

This should be your final setup:


 * M: Melon-pult


 * W: Winter Melon


 * A: Twin Sunflower


 * C-C: Cob Cannon


 * U: Umbrella Leaf


 * F: Fume-Shroom


 * -: Empty

(Note: all non-Cob Cannon plants should be Pumpkined)

C-C W A M F M - -

C-C W U M F M - -

C-C W A M F M - -

C-C W U M F M - -

C-C W A M F M - -

Surviving the last Flags (Flags 7-10)
During the last four flags, the zombie amounts increase greatly. Skilled performance is required.

Instants
You should always choose these plants: Melon-pult, Pumpkin, and Flower Pot. The others should be used on instants, here is a list on instant priority, based on roof levels (the lower the number, the more useful).
 * 1) Jalapeno
 * 2) Squash
 * 3) Cherry Bomb
 * 4) Chomper
 * 5) Potato Mine (should almost never be used, it will be eaten due to the arming time, since our pots are in column 5 already).
 * 6) Tangle Kelp (useless because there is no water on the roof).

Cob Cannons
Cob Cannons should be saved for certain conditions instead of being used whenever 2 Football Zombies come onto the screen. They should be saved for Gargantuars, massive amounts of Football Zombies, and Imps thrown too late, right to your Cobs. Generally, these are the only places Cobs should be fired:

-: Non-recommended space

X: Recommended space

- - - - - - - - -

- X - - - - - X X

- - - - - - - - -

- X - - - - - X X

- - - - - - - - -

Even if a Gargantuar is in, say, lane 1, shoot the Cob at lane 2 because it has the same effect only with the added bonus of defeating any other lane 3 zombie. Always shoot at the rightmost square (column 9) if there are Gargantuars because that will be able to shoot some Pumpkin-harassing Footballs while also hitting the zombies that have strolled onto the screen so little that they haven't reached column 9.

If you are shooting Pumpkin-harassers, shoot at the column 8 square because the column 9 square's explosion won't be big enough to kill all of the harassing Football Zombies. The column 2 square is solely for Imps that are thrown right to the Cobs.