Gem Tower Defense

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Rupert The Great - 2020-01-26, 02:08 AM

dubman - 2020-01-26, 01:57 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-25, 08:36 PM

emq - 2020-01-24, 09:34 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-23, 01:18 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-23, 01:12 AM

@EZE, Well done! I start to use auto click about level 100 when two air troops superimposed can kill you.  WGW probably told you the perfect opal is very important.  Try and get all gems covered by it.  If you can get great opal, this is stunning.  When selecting gems be careful not to race through.  If you get a perfect opal (during selection) then strategically place the other selections near the middle in case it gives you another perfect opal (then you have the great opal - best gem ever).  Black opals are also critical.  Get first one around lvl 100.  Try to get the easiest gem last when selecting gem recipes as this give you the best chance of getting it where you want it.  Also get 1 aquamarine as it speeds up the game as ground troops get hammered.  It also has big attack for air troops. Get 1 of each gem recipe except perhaps star ruby. Try to have them near the cross in the game.  massive kill zone.  The gems u want multiple are Dark Emerald, Egyptian gold, lucky Jade and red crystal only.

EZE - 2020-01-22, 02:42 PM

EZE - 2020-01-21, 07:55 PM

EZE - 2020-01-21, 07:28 PM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-19, 09:34 PM

WGW - 2020-01-19, 06:33 PM

@a: Thanks for the pointer to the code for the Dota 2 version of GTD.  I'm sorry for taking so long to respond to about this point, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't get much out of viewing the raw code, especially considering that it's in a language I don't even know.  But even if it were in a programming language I understood decently well, puzzling out the conceptual LOGIC of the pathfinding routine by looking at raw code would be pretty difficult-- not impossible, but difficult, if I had no sort of handle on the underlying concepts.  But. . .

You did, though, give me the encouragement I needed to just do a general internet search on pathfinding algorithms, and it didn't take me more than 5 minutes to find what I was looking for.  I'm in only the earliest stages of poking around with this, but I completely GET it, logic-wise, have already done a good amount of testing in the one programming language I'm really fluent in, and my first stab at coding a pathfinding routine seems to be working well (I need to do a lot more testing, but it's looking good).  The rest of recreating GTD is a piece of cake compared to figuring out how to replicate the pathfinding-- pathfinding is just not a concept I ever had to think about it before in any prior programming I've done-- but unsurprisingly, much smarter people than me figured this out a very long time ago, using pretty simple logic.  So maybe I can get an alternate version of GTD before Flash disappears.  We'll see.  Figuring out how to recreate the pathfinding is just one of the obstacles.  :)

Bad enough we're facing the end of GTD when Flash support ends this year, but my main PC runs on Windows 7, which is now officially no longer supported by Microsoft, so my whole computer is a ticking time bomb. . . at least, so I've been led to believe by Microsoft.

WGW - 2020-01-19, 06:19 PM

AAAARGH!!!!  Literally a half dozen games in a row over the last couple of weeks ruined due to Chrome crashing== crashing not just the browser, mind you, but hard crashing Windows entirely, reuiring a full system reboot.  I finally got a run going yesterday where Chrome seemed to be behaving itself, smooth sailing through level 182, only to lose at level 183 due to some sort of inexplicable autoclick glitch.  There was no reason whatsoever I should have lost that game before level 196.  Sigh.

In the meantime, I'm becoming completely hooked on Plants vs Zombies 2, another tower defense game I've not yet played till now because it's mobile-based and I don't play games on mobile devices (I finally found out that you can easily emulate the android OS within Windows!)  The only problem is, while PvZ2 is far more entertaining than GTD ever was, it requires full, complete attention to play it, while a huge part of what I love about GTD is that it requires so little attention due to the long down times waiting for levels for finish playing out. . .

WGW - 2020-01-19, 06:12 PM

wandering shost - 2020-01-17, 12:14 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-16, 09:13 AM

eze - 2020-01-14, 06:25 PM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-10, 05:00 PM

Alby - 2020-01-10, 12:45 PM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-08, 08:00 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-08, 07:54 AM

WGW - 2020-01-07, 06:20 AM

So many typos, due to sleep deprivation, and a dying keyboard battery. . . so I'm reposting the last comment! :)

@Rupert the Great: I share your fstration on how Black Opals work in this game!  I tried the same thing you described, early on in my learning how to play this game, which is to say, having all three gems to create a Black Opal placed ON the maze, but not actually combining them until many turns later, because I knew already that Black Opals only boost gems already placed.  But as you saw, the Black Opal bug is even worse than that, because only the gems already placed as of the turn when you put down the last of the three gems needed to make the Black Opal will get boosted, no matter how many more turns you wait to actually do the "Combine Special".  It honestly baffles me how the game's code could have been written to create such oddball behavior.  In most of the games I play which get to level 196, I end up building at least two, very often three, and sometimes even more Black Opals.  But mostly this is for the purpose of reducing the overall TIME it takes to get to the "end" (level 196 for me), it's not really necessary to build more than one (and sometimes not even one) if you just want to GET to level 196.

@Mooper: I've been using the same basic maze layout for so many years now, it's not at all an issue for me to remember it.  But if you're having trouble remembering your maze layout. . . I'd suggest taking a screenshot! :)

WGW - 2020-01-07, 06:17 AM

@Rupert the Great: I share your fstration on how Black Opals work in this game!  I tried the same thing you described, early on in my learning how to play it, which is to a having all three gems to create a Black Opal placed on the maze, but not actually combining them until many turns later because I knew already that Black Opals only boost gems already placed.  But as you saw, the Black Opal bu is even worse than that, because only the gems already placed get boosted as of the turn when you put down the last of the three gems needed to make the Black Opal, no matter how many more turns you wait to actually do a "Combine Special".  It honestly baffles me how the game's code could have been written to create such oddball behavior.  In most of the games I play which get to level 196, I end up building at least two, ery often three, and sometimes even more Black Opals.  But mostly this is for the purpose of reducing the overall TIME it takes to get to the "end" (level 196 for me), it's not really necessary to build more than one (and sometimes not even one) if you just want to GET to level 196.

@Mooper: I;ve been using the same basic maze layout for so many years now, it's not at all an issue for me to remember it.  But if you're having trouble remembering your maze layout. . . I'd suggest taking a screenshot! :)

a - 2020-01-06, 10:19 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-05, 09:53 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-05, 09:50 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-05, 08:28 AM

a - 2020-01-04, 07:45 PM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-04, 05:43 PM

Mooper - 2020-01-04, 10:11 AM

Mooper - 2020-01-04, 06:38 AM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-03, 04:17 PM

Rupert The Great - 2020-01-03, 04:16 PM

a - 2020-01-02, 10:23 PM

WGW - 2019-12-31, 09:19 PM

WGW - 2019-12-31, 09:06 PM

@Rupert The Great: Bummer you didn't have better luck (which is all it comes down to, really, when you have a emerald run maze layout as good as you described).  You got further than I ever did in an emerald run-- the best emerald run I ever had I lost at level 184-- with a great opal and a great amthyst right in the middle of the maze, and at least 24 dark emeralds.  That was. . . frustrating.  :)

If you continue to make attempts, I'd love to see a screenshot of any good emerald run.  In most of my attempts at doing emerald runs I've tried to *bunch up* dark emeralds in clusters, to increase the odds of a total stun lock.  But you had a better result spreading out the dark emeralds.  Which is better (spreading out or bunching up dark emeralds, and how many jades you build) feels like the kind of thing that you can't calculate/figure out in advance, but can only determine by doing lots of emerald runs and seeing what works out best.

Thanks for the further info-- and happy new year! :)

Rupert The Great - 2019-12-30, 09:39 AM

Rupert The Great - 2019-12-30, 09:35 AM

WGW - 2019-12-25, 04:14 AM

@Rupert The Great: I just realized, one of my earlier questions to you makes very little sense, when I was asking why your mouse cursor would have been anywhere near the center of the screen-- I now understand that, if you were using the emerald strategy to get PAST level 196, you'd have had no reason whatsoever, none, to have positioned the mouse cursor to buy more lives once you got TO level 196, since buying more lives at that point becomes totally useless! I'm really sorry you lost out posting a high score on that run.

@a: You know, I *have* taken a look at the GTD games developed in Starcraft (from what I've read, it seems very possible that the first iteration of GTD was not necessarily this site's flash-based game), but for lots of reasons doubtless best left unexplained, I haven't ever checked out any alternatives to this version.  I'm fairly certain I'd be able to program a replacement of this game which mimics its functionality in almost every respect *except* that I can't quite figure out the pathfinding algorithm used for ground troups.  If I could crack that, I think I could re-create the game on whatever platform; but I also would NEVER do so without Peter Holko's complete consent and cooperation.

@FML: Two main points to keep in mind, I think-- (1) You'll need an "autoclicker" to reliably replenish lives quickly enough.  "Autoclicker" means software that will map gamepad buttons, in this case, mapping them to turbo-charged repeated mouse clicks that no human would be able to click fast enough to manage.  I use a very, very old program called "rbjoy", but there are plenty of freeware "autoclickers"/gamepad button mapping programs.

@Mooper: I wish I had an answer on your question (I've wondered the same myself), but getting a good answer requires faffing about for quite a few hours in GTD's sandbox mode, something I have little patience for.  @Lement (if he/she is still playing/reading comments here) was always much more scientific than I ever was in measuring the damage of gems, etc.  What I basically go by, is simply observing how many kills special gems rack up over the course of the game, which is most certainly NOT the most scientific method of observation.  But it has certainly worked for me.  :)

My feeling, based on observing accumulated kills, is that both uranium and star rubies are bad gems to build for long term games.  They do continue to inflict damage even in late levels (despite what I originally thought), but only very, very rarely rack up further kills past level 40.  So. . . regardless of whether their "burn levels" increase (and I don't know if they do), the pagmatic effectiveness of these special ghems is so low after level 40 that I consider them almost worthless.

Hope that's at least somewhat helpful!

Mooper - 2019-12-20, 04:40 AM

a - 2019-12-19, 11:38 AM

FML - 2019-12-19, 09:42 AM

WGW - 2019-12-18, 02:49 PM

@a, @lement, or @ANYONE else who might be interested in communicating outside the comments here: I set up an alternate email address just now:  wgwzxz-GTD

yahoo dot com

(The only reason I'm not too worried about spam coming from posting an email address publicly this way, if that I can always just delete the account if I never get any real messages!)

I've been spitballing ideas in my own head, without having discussed any of them yet with the site's creator, Peter Holko, on how to preserve this game past the death of Flash at the end of 2020-- I don't know if he'll be interested. But it might be helpful if we could establish some sort of small network of the folks like me who actually care about this before (I expect) the site goes down entirely a year from now.  Hopefully @Lement (who started on a Wiki on this game) will see this-- I haven't seen any comments from him/her in a long time.

No worries if there's no response, but I figured I might as well the notion out there before it's too late.  :)

WGW - 2019-12-18, 02:29 PM

@Rupert the Great: That sucks!  :(  I'm wondering, though, why your mouse cursor would have been anywhere near the "Submit High Score" button in the middle of the screen, when the "Buy Lives" button is located on the bottom right. . . ?  Not doubting you, *honestly*-- just a bit surprised.  I've stupidly ended dozens of games that should have been high scores in one silly way or another without actually posting a high score, so I definitely know it happens!  I think my favorite stupid way of accomplishing this was by accidentally hitting the broswer "refresh" button on the way to hitting the "Submit High Score" button, due to nothing more than a finger twitch.  I'm also curious how many air troops were leaking when you finally lost at level 196?  Obviously, the game ends when even the first enemy escapes, but was your setup otherwise killing all or most air enemies prior to level 196?  If so, I think you're in a pretty exclusive club of folks who have gotten that far in survival mose with the emerald strategy.  I've only ever managed to get to level 184 before losing, even with what I considered to be a particularly lucky run.

I just lost out on another high score due to a 2 second power failure when I was on level 160.  The lack of any features to save or continue in any fashion does make this game quite punishing.  :)

a - 2019-12-18, 01:25 PM

Rupert The Great - 2019-12-17, 04:56 PM

WGW - 2019-12-12, 10:29 AM

@a:  Hi again, a!  I certainly feel your pain when it comes to emerald strategy runs ending way too early. . . And you really have to make the decision on whether to pursue the emerald strategy as of the first level, no room for dithering about it.  About once a month I take another shot at an emerald run, generally lose by level 120 or so no matter how well I seem to be doing, then I curse very loudly and swear off ever trying it again.  But I still try every now and then.  I had one run last year where I had a great opal AND a great amethyst right in the middle of the maze, with 25 or so dark emeralds, and I still lost on level 184.  Intensely frustrating-- I'd imagine it's even MORE frustrating for YOU, though, since you know you've actually managed to beat level 196!

I saved a copy of the original high score list before it was wiped clean a while back.  In case anyone reading the comments never saw your high scores, I put a copy on dropbox here as a saved webpage:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2a4g4rti35yfdv2/AAAb8N-VhRONoqvR5t-Z-M5qa?dl=0

. . . and as a screenshot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0cmpouowu9m470e/GTD%20High%20Scores%2C%202018.jpg?dl=0

(For anyone else taking a look at the old list, please note that all the other high scores for games going past level 196 are complete fakes EXCEPT for a/aznist's!)

It's truly insane that I'm still playing this game given it holds no surprises for me at this point, but I still find it's the perfect game to play while I'm watching TV since there's so much downtime.  And I enjoy thinking up text for new high scores, given the 32 character limit-- it's more challenging thinking up new high score text than it is to play the actual game.  ;)  I don't know what I'll find to replace it when Chrome drops Flash support at the end of 2020.

@ItDoesn'tMatter: There's definitely no way to get past level 196 with any strategy but the emerald strategy, except POSSIBLY if you get the ultra rare uberstone, but I really doubt it's powerful enough to kill all 10 air troops with no leaks.  I've never gotten an uberstone-- but yes, they do exist.  There are some videos on YouTube of GTD runs with an uberstone, but these are all in sandbox mode.  I've never gotten one, after lord knows how many thousands of runs!  Here's one of the YouTube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyxd75GLxqI&t=75s

ItDoesn'tMatter - 2019-12-10, 02:20 AM

a - 2019-12-08, 11:26 AM

ItDoesn'tMatter - 2019-12-08, 10:49 AM

a - 2019-12-06, 11:57 AM

Chr3y - 2019-12-06, 07:56 AM

WGW - 2019-12-06, 05:58 AM

WGW - 2019-12-06, 05:49 AM

Chr3y - 2019-12-06, 03:29 AM

Chr3y - 2019-12-06, 02:48 AM

Sheraf - 2019-12-05, 08:14 PM

WGW - 2019-12-04, 03:54 PM

WGW - 2019-12-04, 03:53 PM

ItDoesn'tMatter - 2019-12-04, 01:13 AM

WGW - 2019-12-02, 08:18 AM

@GodSama: I'm always thinking about uploading a YouTube video outlining the strategy I use, but it would really be a great deal of work-- I'm honestly not being coy here--.  It would require LOTS of editing, along with lots of explanations of various decisions throughout the course of any given game.  I would probably have posted something to YouTube by now were it not for the fact that this is a Flash-based game, and Flash will no longer be supported by Chrome (and therefore the rest of the world) as of the end of 2020. . . It would mean I'd end up putting dozens of hours of effort into a video about a game that will be basically unplayable a year from now.  :(

I'm always checking comments here every few days, though, an delighted to offer any helps/answers to questions from newer players, just cause I love this game so much.  :)  I did make a sort of guide outlining how I start any "winnable" game (meaning, in my terms, getting to level 196), which centers around building a very strong malachite.  This will get you a good deal of th way towards undertanding how to get past level 40, and ultimately, up to level 196 (without ANY chance of ever getting PAST level 196).  Here's the guide:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv4bpn2h2nn3tcb/How%20to%20build%20a%20powerful%20malachite.doc?dl=0

Hope that's somewhat helpful!  If you have more specific strategy questions, though, please do ask and I'll try to answer them.  I completely love this game.  :)

WGW - 2019-12-02, 08:07 AM

ItDoesn'tMatter - 2019-12-02, 04:57 AM

GodSama - 2019-11-26, 03:47 PM

WGW - 2019-10-31, 07:17 AM

common - 2019-10-30, 07:47 AM

The_NSW - 2019-10-25, 01:51 AM

ruby - 2019-10-20, 09:09 PM

Daniel - 2019-10-17, 10:32 AM

WGW - 2019-10-08, 12:19 AM

Christian - 2019-10-06, 01:16 AM

Matt - 2019-09-30, 08:04 PM

WGW - 2019-09-28, 07:26 PM

@mmkay: Tell me about it. . . I completely dread the discontiunation of Flash support, for one and only reason-- this game!  I don't know whether there other browsers will still support Flash, but I do know that in prior experiments using other browsers, I can't reliably count on autoclicking to buy lives on air troop levels after 150 or so.  So unless I can find a broswer that responds to autoclick software as Chrome does, or can figure out a way to stop Chorome from updating itself so I can still use it for Flash games, that may (finally) be the end of my totally obsessive playing of this game for the past 10 years+.  :(

@ffnfcn: Keep plugging!  I can't claim with absolute, objective certainty that choosing an initial malachite is better than choosing an initial silver tower; I can just say that I've personally found malachites scale upwards in their power much more effectively.  Plus which, after level 95 you don't want any gems with slowing/stunning effects in the path of air enemies, as that can cause them to stack up and leak two or more simultaneously, which will automatically end any game after level 95 where two air troops stack (a mathematical certainty!)

fknfcn - 2019-09-28, 01:28 PM

_mmkay - 2019-09-13, 04:40 PM

Calena - 2019-08-27, 11:01 PM

WGW - 2019-08-21, 03:16 AM

WGW - 2019-08-21, 01:41 AM

Replying to a bunch of comments in one comment here, since individual replies would only push more comments off the bottom of the page. . .  :)

@a: So great to see you back! I hope you're able to get a working setup going again, assuming you still have interest in playing this game.  If anyone is going to break level 196 again, it's you.  I've given up on emerald runs-- too frustrating at normal speed!!!  I'm just contenting myself to post as many L195 high scores as I can, replaying the same basically "guaranteed to get past level 195 but no further" strategy.  :)

@NewPlayer: I couldn't agree more about the "community" aspect of this game.  I seriously doubt I'd have kept playing it all these years if not for the great discussions.  Adding a comments page was a stroke of genius by Mr. Holko.  I've started to save snapshots of the comments page offline so there's at least some record somewhere of the comments that get pushed off the bottom of the page, but stupidly, I didn't think to start doing this until a few months ago.  So many great conversations lost. . .

@noob: I'm really surprised to read that you can't get past level 24 WITH a red crystal.  I don't even usually NEED a red crystal until level 28, and sometimes not even until level 32, and I never, ever, ever waste a turn to build more than one red crystal unless the game hands me a second one in a single pick.  Bear in mind that by level 40, you don't need to (and shouldn't) put any effort whatsoever into trying to kill the air troops.  You need, instead, to have enough gold to be able to afford buying more lives when you they (inevitably) leak.

If I had to take a guess at what might be going wrong. . . It's not so much that your maze would be the problem, considering that you're losing to AIR enemies that ignore the maze.  So I'm guessing the problem is more likely in the placement of your gems (rather than the maze LAYOUT) and the order in which you're building them.

I always start with a 1st turn malachite (I just restart the game if I get a 1st turn silver), and place later gems in such a way as to PREVENT them from getting kills. This allows the initial malachite to get SUPER powerful.  I always fully upgrade the initial malachite at level 13 or 14, and by that point, it's so powerful by virtue of racking up nearly all the kills that it will continue to mow down all the enemies on its own for another dozen or so levels.

So I expect that you're allowing the kills to be spread out too much amongst the gems in your maze, rather than making sure you've got one super-powerful gem (presumably, the special gem from the first turn). And of course, you need to have that super-gem's cooldown boosted by at least a normal opal.

If you allow that first gem to rack up all the kills in the beginning, and make sure it's boosted by an opal, you shouldn't need a red crystal to get past level 24, and won't need a second red crystal to get past level 36.  From level 40 onwards, you forget about killing air troops enitrely and buy your way past the leaks with gold.

But much of this goes out the window if you're using @a's alternate "emerald strategy".  If you can post a screenshot, I might be able to make more specific suggestions.  Hope this is helpful!  :)

a - 2019-08-19, 12:14 PM

a - 2019-08-19, 12:13 PM

noob - 2019-08-18, 01:48 PM

NewPlayer - 2019-08-10, 07:26 PM

WGW - 2019-08-10, 08:46 AM

@NewPlayer: It's a shame older comment keep getting pushed off the bottom of the page when new comments are left, because there have been so many detailed discussions that would be so helpful for new folks to read that are now lost to the ether. . .

The basic idea in the strategy I use (which will get me TO level 196, but guarantees never being able to get PAST level 196) is that I make sure to have enough gold to buy my way past leaking all air troops from level 40 onwards; to reliably kill all the ground troops, I focus on "stun-locking" them in the lower-left quadrant, while keeping all Dark Emeralds and Jades out of range of the air troop path.  There's basically no chance of killing more than a few air troops past level 44 unless you're using the alternate "Emerald strategy", where you're trying to flood the entire maze with as many Dark Emeralds and jades as possible in order to be able to kill air troops past level 44.  The Emerald Strategy is the only way to get past level 196, but only ONE person has ever managed to do so, because there's a great deal of luck involved beyond the skill and knowledge of the game also required.  I've never gotten even close to getting past level 196-- only a/aznist ever has!

WGW - 2019-08-10, 08:39 AM

WGW - 2019-08-10, 08:34 AM

This Game Is Now Rigged - 2019-08-08, 10:22 PM

noob - 2019-08-08, 08:14 AM

Christian - 2019-08-07, 11:17 PM

NewPlayer - 2019-08-07, 07:21 PM

Otanes - 2019-08-05, 04:21 AM

WGW - 2019-08-05, 01:26 AM

Otanes - 2019-08-04, 01:05 PM

WGW - 2019-07-22, 08:59 AM

Calena - 2019-07-13, 05:27 PM

Calena - 2019-07-13, 05:18 PM

Calena - 2019-07-13, 04:44 PM

Smotr - 2019-07-06, 02:55 PM

Smotr - 2019-07-05, 11:55 AM

Crystalncauldron at gmail - 2019-06-12, 12:42 AM

WGW - 2019-06-03, 06:48 AM

Sp32 - 2019-06-01, 05:12 PM