Guide ·
Co-op tower defense solo: AI teammates
The Last Maul is built for up to 8 players defending together, but you don't need a full group to play it that way. AI teammates fill empty seats: they pick a race, build their own lane, upgrade, send gold and vote to start waves, so a co-op game works even when you are the only person online. This guide explains the two ways to play with them and what to expect.
Quick Play: an open table
The fastest way in is Quick Play on the home screen. It seats you at an open table: a public lobby the server keeps waiting at all times, hosted by one of 8 AI characters. Each table starts with 2 AI players already seated, so the moment you join there is a team.
When you join, you become the host. You can change the difficulty, the map and the AI seats like in any lobby you made yourself. Pressing Ready starts a countdown of 45 s; when everyone seated is ready it drops to 10 s, and as host you can start at once.
Open tables also show up in the lobby list for other people. When more people join, the table's own AI players make room: from 3 people on, the AI seats the table started with step aside so the people play together. If someone leaves again, they sit back down.
Adding AI to your own room
You can also press Create Room and fill the seats yourself. In the lobby, the first open slot lets the host add an AI player:
- Race: pick one, or let it choose at random.
- Strength: normal or strong. Strong plays tighter mazes and upgrades harder.
Add as many as you like, up to the seats the room has, and remove one with the × on its slot. A common setup is one AI for every race you aren't playing, so that the team covers flyers, bosses and all three elements between you. The races page lists what each race is good and bad against.
What the AI does in a game
An AI teammate is a real player in the game: its own lane, its own gold and its own race. It uses the same rules you do, with no hidden bonuses:
- It builds a maze in its lane and upgrades it between waves.
- It votes Ready like a person, but the wave still waits for every human.
- It accepts gold you send it, and it pauses when the team pauses.
- A creep killed inside its lane pays it, the same as in your lane.
Lives are shared, so a struggling AI lane is your problem too. Towers near the edge of your lane can reach into a neighbour's lane and help there. Helping never costs the neighbour gold, because a kill inside a lane pays that lane's defender.
Chat and honesty
The AI players at open tables have names and personalities, and they talk: they greet you, react to bosses and big leaks, and answer when you speak to them. Every line from an AI is marked with an AI badge in the chat, and if you ask whether one is a bot, it says so plainly. They are teammates, never pretend people.
Rankings and progress
Games with AI teammates count for experience and race mastery, but they are not ranked on the leaderboards, so the boards stay a measure of what people did on their own or together. The debrief after the game says so. If you want a ranked solo run, play alone; for a ranked comparison with everyone, play the Daily Challenge, which is always solo and the same for every player.
When to pick which
| You want… | Do this |
|---|---|
| A game right now | Quick Play: an open table with AI already seated |
| A specific team of races | Create Room and add AI to the empty slots |
| A ranked solo run | Create Room, play alone |
| The same challenge as everyone today | The Daily Challenge |
| A game with friends | Create Room and share the 5-digit code; add AI for empty seats |
New to the game altogether? Start with the beginner's guide, then how to maze. The co-op guide covers rooms, codes and playing with friends.