Conclusion first: If you want to win fast in 'Riding to Defend Tian Pass,' the key lies in aligning your opening pace with your hero's skill rhythm. This game can't be won by just piling up towers; the later the level, the more it tests your control over the hero's micro-management.
Upgrading the main city level at the start is the top priority investment. In the first few levels, there are few tower slots, and if the main city level can't keep up, troop deployment will be slow, making 'one-shot kill' strategies impossible to pull off. My personal habit is to invest all the resources from the first wave into upgrading the main city, and for defense towers, I start with arrow towers even at level one, because arrow towers offer unbeatable value early on. After enduring the initial waves of weaker enemies, then supplement the map with magic damage towers and slow towers; don't rush to build top-level towers right away, as that is actually less efficient.
Let's talk about the dungeon part of the treasure-seeking levels. There are many small monsters inside but they are spread out. To clear efficiently, don't rely on auto skills; manually dragging skills to hit grouped monsters like stone golems is the most efficient. The order of skill use is also very important: use crowd-control skills like stuns first, followed by high-burst AoE, which can save a lot of time. After each dungeon run, check the attributes of the dropped items. Do not dismantle green and blue items in the early stages; keep two or three pieces with health and damage reduction, as they are very effective for boss fights.
Remember this approach when fighting a BOSS: beating a BOSS is not about grinding it down; it's about skill rotation. Before entering the map, make sure your team has at least one armor-breaking effect, one displacement/control skill, and one burst ultimate. When fighting the BOSS, apply the armor break first, then use control to interrupt its casting skills, and finally unleash your full burst. As long as your skill rotation is continuous, the BOSS's health will drop in chunks, much faster than standing still and using basic attacks.
Another operation that is often overlooked by everyone is manually sending troops. In the gameplay of countering tower-stealing units, if you keep sending troops automatically, the opponent who slightly understands unit counters can drag you into a war of attrition. An efficient strategy is to hold back a wave of resources at the beginning without sending troops, wait for the opponent to deploy their first wave, then look at their units and use your resources to counter with corresponding units, quickly taking down their tower. While the opponent is still dealing with minor units, you can already have the tower's health reduced by more than half.
Finally, let's talk about stamina planning. After achieving three-star clearance in the main stages, prioritize farming the stages that drop hero shards, as this is key to gaining an early advantage. Do not leave the Three Kingdoms heroes obtained from the seven-day login rewards idle; choose one to focus on based on the number of shards, and do not distribute resources evenly. Complete the daily maximum attempts for the shard stages, and once you have enough, upgrade their star level. The stat increase from upgrading stars is much more beneficial than equipment of the same level.
Another somewhat surprising point is that the game's 1v1 ranking mode isn't purely about overwhelming numbers; the equipment is quite strictly limited, so it actually emphasizes skill and timing of troop deployment more. Those who want to practice their skills can play there more, and the rewards for winning are pretty good. The treasures used to clear the game can also be obtained there.
Once you really get into this game, you can discover many clever designs in the numbers. There are hidden interactions between each tower and hero skill. I'll add more when I come up with new strategies next time.