5 Beginner Mistakes in Sir, We Have an Orc Problem

Last reviewed: 10 September 2026 · Newest game update reflected: 2026.08.18.12.05 (18 August 2026). The mistakes that stall new players in Sir, We Have an Orc Problem aren't about aim or reflexes — the game is a placement puzzle, not a shooter. Five specific habits come up repeatedly across player discussions, and all five are fixable without replaying a single level.

1. Buying more of a turret instead of unlocking a new one

A player named John, in the same post cited on our orc flow mechanic page — Quick and Easy Guide to Orc Problem — flagged this directly: "I highly recommend unlocking new towers and buying more of them whenever they become available first as there is no cost/max capacity implemented yet." He also estimated the self-sustaining upgrade cost climbing past 70,000 in-game currency once you're relying on duplicating existing turrets rather than diversifying.

The mistake this corrects is intuitive but wrong: pouring resources into your best turret so far, rather than unlocking the next type. Our turret roles page explains why this fails mechanically — a defence built from one role (power, support, or cleanup) stalls regardless of how upgraded it is, because the other two jobs simply aren't being done. Unlocking breadth early gives you access to all three roles sooner, which matters more than any single turret's tier.

2. Front-lining the tesla coil

This is common enough that our own tesla coil page and all turrets page both call it out specifically: the tesla coil's fast rate and full 360° aim make it feel like a main gun, but its 12-jump chain gets burned on the front of a wave instead of on the survivors it's actually good at catching. If your tesla coils are dying to focus fire or feel like they're "not doing much" for their damage stat, the fix is almost always to move them behind your main damage line, not to upgrade them further.

3. Spending limited abilities as soon as a wave looks scary

Every level-specific page on this site that mentions abilities repeats the same warning, because every source we've read repeats it independently. Strafing runs and nukes are capped at three uses per map (see the abilities page for the exact numbers), and a player named Григорий, whose guide is cited on our 6.1 page, describes the discipline required plainly: spend the cheaper resource first, and only reach for a nuke once cheaper options are already gone.

A related, more specific complaint came from a different thread: a player wrote that "once I got to level 4 the missiles were pretty useless compared to the airstrike," and another player independently reported the same drop-off in usefulness. The missile launcher fires automatically once clicked and never runs out (see the abilities page for its full numbers), which makes it easy to treat as a background tool and forget to fire deliberately once stronger options unlock — but it's still the only unlimited-use ability in the game, and letting it sit idle wastes free damage every wave.

4. Fighting the wave instead of the chokepoint

This is the single most repeated correction across every hard-level thread we found, to the point that we gave it a page of its own: our orc flow mechanic page covers why killing orcs in open ground before a chokepoint does almost nothing, while the same turrets aimed at or past the chokepoint can hold a level comfortably. If a level feels unwinnable despite a fully upgraded build, check whether your turrets are actually aimed at a bottleneck the map creates, rather than at wherever the crowd happens to look biggest.

5. A turret-placement double-click issue, reported but unconfirmed as fixed

A player named deothor reported, in a feedback thread from mid-May 2026, that "placing turrets often double clicks, which skips the part where we set their targeting," and suggested a short cooldown after placement as a fix. That thread is here: Feedback + Suggestions + 2 possible bugfinds.

We checked both post-launch patch notes on our update history page and found no line addressing turret placement input handling specifically, so we cannot confirm whether this was fixed. If you find yourself placing a turret with the wrong targeting mode more often than seems intentional, this is a known report rather than something unique to your setup — and it's worth trying a deliberate pause between clicks rather than assuming it's a game-breaking bug.

What ties these together

None of these five are execution mistakes in the traditional tower-defense sense — nobody is failing to click fast enough. They're all resource-allocation or attention mistakes: spending currency on the wrong axis, positioning a turret against its own strengths, spending a capped resource too early, aiming at the wrong point in the map, or fighting an input quirk without realizing it's reported elsewhere. That matches the game's own design, described directly by Mumpitz Games in the store text quoted on our upgrade grind page: resources come from every run, won or lost, which means there is no permanent failure state — only an under-corrected one.

What we have not confirmed

We have not verified the double-click placement issue against the current build ourselves, and we don't know if it was silently fixed in either post-launch patch. We also don't have a source confirming exactly which level the missile-to-airstrike power drop-off becomes noticeable at beyond the "level 4" estimate given by one player — treat that as an approximate, not a confirmed threshold. If you're hitting this page before placing your first turret, the where-to-start reading order puts these five mistakes first for a reason, and the FAQ and myths page collects the other misconceptions that trip up new players the same way.