Gem Tower Defense

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williamh - 2019-01-05, 07:55 PM

GaryLuo - 2019-01-01, 11:00 AM

GaryLuo - 2019-01-01, 10:57 AM

a - 2018-12-31, 04:58 PM

lement - 2018-12-28, 11:19 PM

_mmkay - 2018-12-28, 09:18 AM

lement - 2018-12-26, 10:25 PM

a - 2018-12-20, 08:56 AM

a - 2018-12-20, 08:48 AM

lement - 2018-12-18, 07:50 PM

Toying with pink diamond in sandbox mode (after one downleft stun run ended early by lack of RAM) trying to pin down its value, and came across an odd quirk - I think it's doing bonus damage not only on diamond, but also some on ruby waves and possibly on topaz as well(unsure). Highlights with just -8 armor jumped from 2k to 3k between waves 22 (emerald) and 23 (ruby with the diamond going from level 6 to 7 during that time.

I'm not sure but Enchanted Emerald might be damaging amethyst waves more than expected as well. I.e. hitting for 70-97% of base max damage with partly or fully armored air troops (I use the ! highlights for this.)

It also feels like paraiba + egypt armor reduction is worth about 2x damage boost, going by maxes altering between 2k, 1,6k and 1k for pink diamond depending on coverage on earlier wave. Mind, lower those figures for post-40 frenzy - even when fully de-armored looks like enemies take about 30-40% from pink diamond at, say, 49, while gold does better even without paraiba. Ancient Blood Stone doesn't seem to suffer nearly so bad, going by the 358! hits I see it do on -8s.

...Actually, scratch some of that - I just saw enhanted emerald hit a dearmored 54th wave enemy for 1214! twice with base max 286 damage (no other bonus damage gems attacking it at the time). Pink diamond is probably even worse than I thought - cut that 30-40% by a third to be safe. My level 1 EE is outdoing level 8 pink diamond on the ! hits, near as I can tell.

Conclusions:

Weaknesses might be more complicated than just everything or nothing.

aznist's sandbox maze being near exclusively emeralds makes more sense now.

Pink Diamonds are much better during first 40 waves than the 40 after that....Wait, that sounds familiar (WGW's note about blood stones before/after wave 40).

Of course, independent confirmation could be useful. In particular in regards to EE/diamond, might be easier if you don't do what I did here: https://i.imgur.com/AEzL6l1.png

PS: I'm not sure, but it feels like Ancient Blood Stone's burn might be every half second (had an armored enemy go through the burn at max speed, then drop by over 100 points when hit by flawed aquamarine at the end once).

@WGW: Yeah, it was me - I see Nukumaster has added a bit of content afterwards well. Nice catch there on great topaz only hitting 7 enemies at once.

On that winning maze, I notice my notes mark the two topmost green squares as in range of air troops with 100 range - I take you don't max out those emeralds?

Personally, I'm willing to blow gold to get jade out before 14th (cyan weakness) wave. At that point, I try to minimize exposure to the initial malachite to ensure jade gets more kills. I guess that also explains why my malachites are generally much weaker than yours :p (though I think I still have notes from the build album you once posted).

Pretty small changes you did to your maze, but I think it is more beautiful now :)

WGW - 2018-12-18, 05:24 PM

WGW - 2018-12-18, 11:27 AM

Yup, there's absolutely ZERO chance of ever getting past L196 with my strategy.  Only the emerald strategy stands a chance-- a very, very low chance.  Lots of really good luck with picks is necesarry.  You have decide pretty much from the outset of the game which strategy you're going to use, because with the emerald strategy, you're not going to want to build ANYTHING in the lower left area (wastes attack gems when you need to concentrate all the power on the path air troops follow), and in the non-emerald strategy, you're concentrating EVERYTHING in the lower left to make the stunlock kills as quick as possible.

You can lose an emerald strategy run at pretty much any air troops level after L92, no matter how well it's going, because it's purely luck whether two troops will stack.  Some of the best emerald run layouts have ended earlier than relatively weak runs.  So when you're doing emerald runs, your game can and will end at any random point after L95. With the other strategy, I'm more or less guaranteed a L195 score (but with ZERO chance of doing any better).

Bear in mind that aznist, the only person to have gotten past L196 and and prove that it can be done, only managed to do it THREE TIMES!  And that was assisted by using a program called "Cheat Engine" which enabled speeding the game up, something I never figured out how to do, and which aznist says no longer works.  (Note that despite the name of that software, in NO WAY do I consider this "cheating"-- it doesn't make the game easier, it just makes it so you don't have to wait around as long between turns.  But if you can do, say, 20 sped-up runs for every one game played in normal, real time, the sheer volume of games you can play certainly boosts the chance of eventually getting a lucky enough run.)

Re: leaking all troops being "dishonorable", well, scores in this game are partially determined by how many seconds have elapsed, so minimizing total playing time is a perfectly legit thing to do.  By the point in the game where I start leaking everything (rarely before L160, usually closer to L170), there's literally no worthwhile spots left to put new gems anyway.  Not leaking ground troops at that point just means you have to sit around waiting ~3 minutes between turns, when the gameplay aspect is essentially over, in other words. . . incredibly boring.  Also, you have to play the game in a very specific way (notably, building LOTS more Jades than would otherwise make sense), so it's really a strategic decision, not like, "Well, I'll just leak everything rather than worry about how good the maze is."  :)  I hope this doesn't sound in any way defensive; I totally understand what you meant when you said that.

I'll post a screenshot of the same game as the last screenshot just at the point where I'm going to remove all the rocks.  I'm at L140 now (these games take FOREVER.)  In the meantime, best of luck on those exams!

_mmkay - 2018-12-18, 06:17 AM

Thanks you guys so much for this info, I've copy-pasted it all somewhere else so I wont lose it. I had no idea that the general ethos was to just make it to L196 and having no intention to make it further. I had always assumed that every time I saw a 195 on the leaderboard, it was people's various attempts to make it beyond that level and that it was just a matter of chance if they succeeded. This whole time, I had intended to make it to 196 in such a way that I had at least a dying chance of progressing further.

This is really funny because now I'm going from making massive oldschool mazes, to jamming as many DEs and Egypt Golds near the crossroads, to now putting lots of stuff in the lower left stun area.

@WGW So with your "winning" layout, is there just no chance of beating 196 with that? With the emerald strat that got me to 140, no ground troops were leaking at all and I was killing about 4-6 air troops each time. The biggest problem with jamming all the DEs too near the centre was that like 8 were all ganging up on the one lad. I realised this and started spacing them out a little more and that seemed more effective at maintaining the stun on more of them. If I spaced the DEs out evenly over the map, I could've stood a chance at killing the majority of air troops each time maybe.

I was aware of people purposefully leaking troops so as to save time, but something about that didn't seem "honourable" to me I guess lol. I reckoned that if I did that, I wouldn't be able to properly gauge how well my maze was doing. But that doesn't really matter if I don't want to actually surpass L196.

I think for now I'll continue with my emerald strat with some adjustment because it may very well have taken me to 196, had they not bunched up. I'll defo do the lower left stun thing in the future once I'm satisfied with how it's currently going. That Jade info is really useful, I never knew that because I couldn't read its full description.

Thanks a lot for your help. I'm gonna make my make on that board after my Christmas exams  :)

WGW - 2018-12-18, 03:42 AM

Here's what I would consider a guaranteed "Winning" maze layout: https://imgur.com/a/Bvg3imr

Notes:
(1) "Winning" means getting to L196-- unless you're aznist :).  Once I've got a maze with this basic layout (shape, and placement of special gems), it's almost irrelevant what special gems you add.  I just keep adding high-damage special gems to the lower left stunlock area, keep slow/stun gems out of the path of air troops, and build as many Jades and Dark Emeralds as I can, which is all very easy compared to getting to this point.

(2) Pretty much every game I play has some flaws in the maze, and if anything, there are more flaws in this one than usual. All counterbalanced by the luck of getting a Great Opal around L50.  The two chipped gems on the right, e.g., were "throw away" turns. I knew I wasn't going to do anything with them, but I avoid repicks like the plague until at least L15.  Likewise the extra Quartz in the upper right, the TWO uraniums, and the Malachite near the two Uraniums.  These were all basically forced by not wanting to repick, but otherwise I would NOT have built any of them.  (One Quartz and one Uranium were "naturals", meaning a special gem where you got all the necessary gems to build it in a single turn.  If either of the other two gems in those turns was worth keeping, I'd have kept it and thrown away the "natural" special gems that I didn't want. That's how much I didn't want them.)

(3) I added a dark green outline around the squares where I'd ideally want to build more Dark Emeralds, and a light green outline around the squares where I absolutely WILL be building more Jades.  The 12 squared in lowest-left portion of the maze, the way I play now, will always have one Paraiba, one Egyptian Gold, and 10 Jades.  This is NOT necessary to win, but because I aim to start intentionally leaking ALL enemies late in the game (to speed up getting to the last level), I build as many Jades as I can fit.  You need around 150,000 gold by level 160 or so to be able to afford leaking all troops for the rest of the game.  But this is a sort of "advanced" strategy, and I wouldn't recommend, while you're still learning the game, playing this way.  5 Jades will give you more than enough gold to be free to repick sufficiently through the end of the game, so you can certainly put other special gems in the Jade area instead (as I used to do until I started prioritizing saving up gold.)

(4) I've highlighted the initial Malachite so you can see its placement and stats. The initial Malachite is a super important part of my strategy.  It won't get a lot more kills from this point on-- this late in the game, almost every ground troop will end up killed ONLY in the stunlock area-- but it's super important to build up the initial Malachite's power early on.

(5) I usually aim to place a Black Opal as soon as I can after this stage.  I usually place one or two more, every 40 levels or so, as more special gems get added (any new special gem built within range of an ALREADY PLACED Black Opal will NOT receive a buff, another nuance/bug not noted in the gem descriptions.)

And with that, I'm sure you're all read quite enough from me for a good while.  :) Hope this is helpful to someone!

WGW - 2018-12-18, 02:32 AM

WGW - 2018-12-18, 02:28 AM

WGW - 2018-12-18, 02:27 AM

@_mmkay: For what it's worth, I completely agree with all the major points lement made in answering your questions.  All I want to add is to note how deceptively deep this game really is.  It's child's play for me to get to level 196 at this point (barring browser crashes and power outtages!), but that's only because I've played lord knows how many thousands of GTD games.  A lot of strategies that seem like simple common sense and logic when you're first learning the nuances, turn out to be JUST THE THINGS THAT MESS YOU UP LATER.  The key example of this is having any stun/slow effect gem in range of air troops after level 95.  Anything that can cause 2 air troops to stack can end the game starting on L96, no matter how much gold you have.  But there are other, much more subtle examples of techniques and strategies that work well in the beginning, but will bite you in the butt later on.

Since there's no comprehensive guide out there, other than gleaming what you can from the comments here, you just have to be very persistent and observant.  Even the handful of known bugs in this game create strategic nuances that you're never going to understand till you see it in action.  E.g., there's a bug where if you lay down an opal whose range hits gems already speed buffed by a superior opal, their speeds will bump down to the buff level of the new, inferior opal.  This generally makes it undesirable to place opals near any of the gems that matter once you've already got the area boosted by a perfect, or even a great, opal.  There's nothing in the official instructions of gem descriptions that explains this, because, well, it's just a bug.  But it's a bug that you really need to be aware of to play this game effectively.

So as more general advice, make sure you're observing the stats as you play-- which gems are racking up kills, the cooldown times, etc., even if it seems like there's not going to be anything interesting to observe.  That's how you end up discovering a lot of nuances.  It surprises me, e.g., that bloodstones placed before L40 are super powerful, often racking up 50 kills within 15 or 20 levels.  But if placed after L40, they usually end up "meh", no matter where they're positioned.  I'd never have known this without observing the stats and going by what seems common sense.  The result is that I care a LOT about getting a bloodstone before L40, and don't care much about getting them at all after L40.

The other suggestion I'd make is not to underestimate how important earning gold through Jades is.  The one part of this game that's 100% completely luck is what 5 gems you randomly draw. Because each repick adds another 25 gold to the cost of the next repick, repicking (which is absolutely necessary to mitigate the luck factor) starts to become very expensive very quickly. Without free reign to repick gems, you're completely at the mercy of random chance, and this game seems to enjoy screwing you over with terrible runs of completely useless gem picks. :)

I'm going to post a screenshot soon of what I consider a stable "base layout", the point at which what gems you add really isn't all that important anymore.  But even if you dedicated yourself to duplicating that maze (which, obviously, works), it's not all that big a shortcut to getting there yourself, because the order in which you lay down the stones and create special gems matters a whole lot.  One key part of the way I play involves making sure that an initial malachite gets virtually ALL the kills for the first 15-20 levels.  That means keeping any other killing gems as afar away from it as possible.  Generally, the first malachite gets easily past 200 kills the way I play.  I'm sure there are other ways to do it, too.  But this is just the sort of thing that's not going to be at all apparent from a screenshot of a maze at L70.

Keep at it-- I'd sure be happy to help if I can.  :)

PS-- Losing games to an autoclick problem is just about the worst.  Not being able to submit your high score on top of that. . . that IS the worst.  :)

lement - 2018-12-17, 08:20 PM

_mmkay:

In case you couldn't read the box in-game, Jades have three 1% effects: 4x damage, stun, and level/2 gold bonus (this does scale with odd levels).

The last amounts to about ≃ kills in mid-teens, around 2× kills during end of twenties and more and more as turns get longer - a level 3 jade being enough to outbuy leaking all flyers every wave past 40. You're going to need some damn nice luck to get past 44 without it, and the investment of maxing one is better paid ahead ASAP imho to reap as much kills as possible. Later uses of the piles of gold would be going for better picks or letting last ground waves past freely.

As for Uranium, the slowdown isn't terribly useful when all other slowdowns also reduce the enemy to minimum speed, and on damage it stands as clearly inferior to unupgraded blood stone even before one considers ruby weakness being more common in waves 20-40. Plus see the notes below about armor (which might affect Uranium more than Blood Stone) and Ancient Blood Stone being even better in stunlock. I still like picking one to cover the exit, and early game sometimes makes me get second one i.e. when I go for 2 flawed opals (1 covering jade & 1 malachite).

At some point later on, the ground waves start getting less and less deep, and longer maze length is then just longer they're out of range of main damage dealers.  You can see it in both WGW and aznist imgur galleries where they remove walls when going from 100 to 195.

Jamming all gems into crossroad in the center of the map is (risky) emerald strategy. If you want 195, keeping stunning gems in the lower left corner out of reach of air troops (so they don't bunch up and make you lose when costing 23+ lives apiece) is vastly more reliable. Also mind with your autoclicker that if you only buy 5 lives at once you'll die at 180 as the fifth flier costing 46 lives hits.

_mmkay - 2018-12-17, 04:26 PM

_mmkay - 2018-12-17, 07:26 AM

Hi guys. Firstly I just wanna say that I think it's so cool how yous all continue to play this game and develop your strategies over time. I've been following this discussion for a while, but I'm nowhere near close to getting to 195. I think the highest I ever got to as 100 or something a few years ago but I completely forgot about this game until relatively recently. I'm determined to get to 195 and a lot of what I've read here is really helpful. But that said, I'm somewhat refraining from completely copying all the information here. This discussion is nothing short of fascinating, but it's almost entirely beyond me. I don't even know all the jargon needed to thoroughly understand everything being said. I've been making use out of some of the screenshots I've seen but I keep dying at like 30-50 for whatever reason. I won't give up though, I'm dead set on that 195. I kinda wanna copy-paste all the valuable information in the discussion somewhere, but I'm worried that it may become obsolete as more development takes place.

It's funny how trivial it is to some people to get past 100 (especially WGW), but it's still a challenge for me nonetheless. I was an old-school player of this game, I remember playing this all the time when I was like 8 or something. Back then, getting past 100 was pretty much unheard of, if I recall correctly. I've failed to follow the timeline of how strategies have been developing since then. The biggest shock to me is that nowadays, people aren't focusing on building the longest maze possible. Now they're focusing on jamming as many gems in the crossroad (pardon my noobish terminology). I was a believer that the longer the maze = the longer you'll survive, but evidently, this isn't necessarily the case.

I have a few questions. Well actually, more than a few, but I'll keep them to a minimum right now until I get better.

A. Why do people not use uranium? Couldn't you place one in the crossroad to slow them down twice, giving more time for enemies to be stunned?

B. Since when have people started using jades? I myself don't recall them being all too useful. Back then I tried to avoid them as much as possible, now they're everywhere. They don't do a whole ton of damage and the stun thing is only like a 1% chance.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope yous don't give up on breaking 195

lement - 2018-12-15, 12:31 PM

Hahaha, I have had my pauses - many things I've forgotten, such as the effective fire rate of flame strikes when including mana regen rate.

On 1) (Bloodstone) and lag:

We've talked of this years before, but one thing that has changed my mind is that current incarnation of fox has no burning of cpu when the game is in another tab or minimized. Maybe worth trying for gtd alone, since you never sped up your game like aznist anyway. (Though he leaks ground for some reason iirc.)

I haven't looked if it still affects time scores, though.

Alas, this approach suffers from runs taking longer as I don't have a notification when the run ends.

On 1b (bloodstone in corner):

Taking conservative 135×7 (3 enemies*) for BS damage estimate, and 575 for ABS, BS would deliver 440 less with single and 370 more with multiple, a disadvantegous proposal, made possibly worse depending on how armor-reducing gems play out.

However, I think 635 might be somewhat too high an estimate for Ancient Blood Stone DPS - certainly, the flame strike may harm others as well, but I find the enemy moving out of the way rather more common.

I think measuring it with footage and stopwatch would work best.

* And not necessarily accurate - in current run, I have an Uranium that has gotten 6 kills in 44 waves next to a BS that has gotten 16 in that same time. Doesn't feel like that accurately represents the range advantage (even if it is fair bit more than 18% here), which suggests 135*7 might be much too low an estimate.

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2) (EG VS ABS)
For normal-colour waves, I recall estimating about 3x advantage for targeting weakness.

Thing is, Amethyst dwarves aren't normal, as shown by the 18th wave and 19th wave having a substantially larger gap (ditto for 39th and 41th).

Looking at some shots on 103 now, I have lv 1 jade (60,5-60,5, 1% of 4x) having highlights for..126 I think, on fully armored dwarf, while highest highlights in -14 quagmire go for up to 1235, something that would give my lv7 gold about 82% bonus rather than 48% malus. Assuming the malus is from armor entirely, 82% would give egiptian avg dps of 568, which is about same as the 575 for ABS earlier - hence the question. It feels like it leans towards the gold, though.

(Then again, I get highlights of "12!" from flawless diamond 2 waves later, which is nearly 80% damage reduction. I'm not clear on how armor works - it's not a direct number nor an exact % based on this, but seems like it suggests paraibas are must for unupgrades blood stones even more than they seem to be. If only you could see the 93 radius...Ah well.)

For me, initial golds definitely feel weaker than the component amethysts for air waves as well in the twenties and thirties, when there isn't stunlock capability - I've gone from killing all with the perfect earning multiple kills to leaking to death from one air wave to next in that situation.

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3) (Stun vs damage in corner)

How many kills do your later jades earn? 10 jades is a lot more than I try for; generally I can get enough gold for repicks with just 1 I direct kills to early on, though I am usually forced to pick 3.

(I do this because level 0 jade earns nothing, and as the damage comparision in last point shows struggles to get kills versus gold. Though they still get some somehow.)

Going by your dropping time scores, I can only assume it is enough. Do I recall correctly you having had some times near 20k secs before wipe?

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4) (Early jade rush.)

Idea in the question is to avoid building the last piece for the big 3, stacking kills on jades until leaks force to add damage. I've had experience wheres 1 emerald in corner leaks ground later on (due lack of luck), but I've certainly had enough gold to deal with that in such situation.

In any case, you answered the question by saying you'll not pass up the big 3 for stronger jade.

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5) (Addendum to EG/ABS)

I'm kinda surprised about the "damage doesn't matter past this point" attitude part.

As for Uranium, all the AoE gems suffer in terms of picking up kills versus high dps ones, so imho can't judge them by that alone (though they should suffer disporpotionally without paraiba I think). In current run, I built the jade next to 96 kill malachite on 13th wave - by the 18th, it had 40 kills, with the malachite getting only around four in that spawn iirc. (It got around 30 kills more in next 80 waves after I upgraded it, though main jade always stayed ahead in single-target dps.)

I'm quite surprised you'll always go for paraiba/bloodstone over diamond when there's a choice. Well, I haven't tried a run with them myself, maybe I'll do that now.

Do you build up a gold until you have enough and then just let all remaining waves go to the exit at once?

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6) (lower left quadrant placement)

Hm, I think I'll try silver in range of air on next non-emerald run.

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[Rose Quartz in emerald start] )

Honestly, I find the forcing into lower left corner constricting, slow and low chances of defeat past 50 somewhat boring - as you said, more likely to lose from things unrelated to the game at that point. It's part of why I have many, many attempted central placements runs and no 195s. aznist took weeks for that sandbox run but I personally restart computer more often than that :p

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8) (lower placement of malachite/silver)

Huh, that's some answer! I refer of course the idea that your stunlock and non-stunlock mazes being anything alike (And of course, I like to vary maze designs - I think I have close to four dozen; not for any optimization - just for fun.

But it also answers the 7th, that it is indeed better to hold malachite closer to stun if possible.

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Thanks for spending hour+ putting together an in-depth response. And maybe I will, with yet another new maze - my latest emerald run mentioned here just died at 107, despite autoclick and uranium covering the exit, due near perfect stack.

WGW - 2018-12-15, 09:21 AM

@lement: So here's my best attempt at replying to your many interesting questions. I gotta say again what a nice surprise it is to see that there are actually people other than me still playing this game and commenting, including folks like you who have been playing this game for a really long time too-- it helps me feel SLIGHTLY less OCD about this game. *Slightly*.  :)

Okay, so brace yourself, cause this is gonna be long. . . I do enjoy pontificating on this game.  You'll probably want to copy/paste the text and read it elsewhere rather than squinting at three lines at a time.  Your comments are in brackets.
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[ 1) At what point does the unupgraded Blood Stone lose to upgraded version? For now, I used first for spiraling places with others in edge/stunlock places. ]

I generally aim to get an unupgraded Bloodstone as early as possible-- they're *extremely* powerful in the early game. If you can get one early enough, they keep racking up more kills and getting more powerful very quickly.  In my experience, if you can't get a Bloodstone by level 40 or so, it's probably not going to get a lot of kills and therefore never becomes very powerful.  I don't actively pursue more than one Bloodstone, but I'll take them if I get them, and almost never leave any Bloodstone but the first one unupgraded.

From a strictly numerical hitpoints perspective, I think the unupgraded blood stones ALWAYS beat upgraded ones in terms of total hitpoints against all enemies collectively (far less damage per enemy, but they hit every single enemy in range), BUT, two things lead me to nearly always eventually upgrade even the first Bloodstone: (a) They sometimes slow the game down too much (more of a problem with multiple unupgraded Bloodstones, but sometimes even just one can slow things down above level 70 or so-- depends on how troublesome Chrome is acting!), and (b) Once I have a healthy setup of Jades and Dark Emeralds in the lower left, it becomes more important to do lots of damage to whichever single enemy is stunlocked than to do a bit of damage to everything in range, even if less overall hitpoints are being inflicted.  You want the stunlocked enemies to get killed as quickly as possible.

Both these are considerations intended to shave off total playing time, though, nothing else.  By the time I'm at level 96-- and often considerably earlier than that-- I've already got the important special gems laid down and it becomes pretty trivial which gems you add at that point. (more on that below!)
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[ 2) Provided there's already one present in area, should one pick Egyptian gold over Blood stone in the stunlock situation? (Borne out of the assumption that the flame of the flame strike doesn't get bonus from damage boosts.) ]

I think Egyptian golds are much more powerful pieces, but I can't say I've taken time out to try to "prove" this.  In the early mid-game (say, level 40-80), my main objectives are to build as many Jades and Dark Emeralds as possible out of range of air troops, and to blanket the whole lower left stunlock area with Egyptian Golds and Paraibas so that there's no place a ground troop can get stunned without having armor at -14.  I stop building ANYTHING that isn't in range of the lower left stunlock area after level 40.  So the way I build, I need about 4 Paraibas and 4 Golds to cover the whole lower left area.  I'll always take additional Golds, but try to avoid building more than 4 Paraibas because they take an extra turn to make.

Once I've got that basic skeleton of lots of Jades, a few Dark Emeralds, and 4 each of Golds and Paraibas, I find it's not very important what you add beyond that.  There's much more of a difference in maze effectiveness, I think, in how many Jades and Dark Emeralds you can build than there is in what type of other special gems you add once you have the basic structure laid out. 
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[ 3) How many dark emeralds do I really need in the corner? I recall WGW screenshots using 7 DE+5 jade before, while being more airy. (Also, what's the balance point of air vs extra gems?) ]

My strategy has evolved a bit in certain ways, one of them being that I make it a top priority to build every Jade I can fit, which in the case of the maze/strategy I use, means 10 total.  The last two or three can take a long time to get, but it's worth it for the massive increase in gold earnings over the course of the game-- gives you so much more repick freedom, and also, I usually start intentionally leaking all enemies late in the game once I have enough gold saved up (starting around level 160 to 175, depending on how the game is going).

In my experience, you can get by with even just three upgraded Dark Emeralds, though you'll likely have some minor leaking of a ground troop or two per level eventually. But I try to fit as many as I can, which means up to 5 upgraded Dark Emeralds, and up to 5 more unupgraded ones (but I never have THAT many-- usually 3-5 upgraded ones and 1-3 unupgraded.)  They're not powerful attack pieces, but I find that the combined cumulative stunning power is more important than attack strength, and there's a BIG difference in stunlock power with each additional Dark Emerald you add.
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[ 4) With the rest being damage is the obvious approach, how much value is there in intentionally rushing/holding jades before placing first of main 3 specials to boost gold gathering for leaking ground troops in later waves?

(I know aznist speaks in favour of not giving up jades in favour of main 3 during air waves, but there's easily enough gold to afford that if not blowing avg 332 picks on getting great opal, albeit jades can get 2 passes in some positions where DEs get only 1.) ]

I'm not sure I follow this question. Jades, though, are by far the easiest special gems to build early in the game, and tremendously important, so I don't consider a game to be going well if I don't have at least one, usually two, upgraded Jades by level 40.  I don't think I'd ever pass up an early Gold or Bloodstone or Paraiba in favor of an early Jade.  Not unless I have NO Jades by level 50 or so.  (Games where you can't get any Jades built are intensely frustrating-- you're forever on the brink of running out of gold with almost no margin for repicks!)
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[ 5) Once the corner is filled, what should be used as addendum to EG/(A)BS? I think WGW went for Paraiba coverage with great pink diamonds in the gaps, looking at one old shot. Uranium seems like a good possibility as well. ]

Same basic idea for me as I said earlier-- once I have the skeleton of really important specials placed, I find it doesn't matter all that much what you add.  That's the only reason I ever build Pink Diamonds, when I'm at a point in the game where it doesn't really matter anymore and I'm more concerned about saving up gold so I can start intentionally leaking ground troops as early as possible to make the game end quicker (this can save me about 3 or 4 hours per game.)  If I had total control and weren't always trying to minimize spending gold on repicks, I'd pretty much build nothing but Golds after I have the critical gems built.  But in reality, I end up pretty indiscriminately adding Golds, Paraibas and Bloodstones until I have no place left to put them in the lower left (which takes most of the game).  Then I stop even paying attention to the picks entirely and just dump them on the right side till the game is over.  I will always choose in favor of these three specials over Pink Diamonds if I have a choice. In my experience, Uranium is very powerful in the beginning, but pretty useless after level 40.  It still functions, but you're lucky if any Uranium piece racks up 5 more kills after level 40.  I only build them if I'm handed one on a platter, or semi-forced into building one due to scarce gold for repicks, and almost never build them after level 40. 
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[ The diamond, btw, seems potentially superior to additional egypts on the edge even inside the corner, btw, due 554 DPS with 7 greater range - would have caught the last pass on outer ring from the leftmost edge better. And of course, they'd meant greater choice of picks until gold picks up. ]

Could be!  But again, I find it makes little difference which specials you build beyond a pretty early point in the game, as long as you've got the more critical specials laid out. 
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[ 6) On downleft runs, seems it might be potentially worth risking it to place emerald in lower left quadrant, as to make it keep hitting the nearby stunned gems. ]

You mean just a perfect emerald, not a special?  I've actually had a few runs where I built a Dark Emerald or a Jade in the lower left JUST in range of air troops-- usually by mistake, but a few times as an experiment.  It's RELATIVELY safe-- I have gotten to level 196 a few times with a single Jade or Dark Emerald in range of air troops.  But I've also lost a lot more games before level 196 this way.  So I find it's too nerve-wracking, being based entirely on luck, and not worth the risk, especially since I know this isn't at all necessary to get to level 196.
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[ 7) Remind me again, how did you scroll long gem descriptions/jump ahead waves in sandbox mode ^^;;? ]

I'm sorry to say I can't remember-- I just remember you had to do something weird/non-intuitive, but whatever it was, either I just can't remember what it was, or it doesn't work anymore. :(  I gave it a good old yankee try, though, really.  I thought I remembered it having something to do with the mouse scroll wheel, but I can't get it to scroll anymore. Sorry-- maybe someone else knows. It might also be behvaing differently now due to various Chrome updates, so who knows.
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[ I've gotten past 32 without rose quartz at least once on a quite lucky run before, though that was aided by central silver and four+ lucky pics. ]

Sometimes I can beat level 32 without a Rose Quartz, but I've never, ever gotten past level 36 without one without all air troops leaking.  If you have enough gold at that point, that doesn't end the game, but I usually don't due to spending on upgrading Jades as soon as I can.

If I have a Rose Quartz and a well-placed unupgraded bloodstone (i.e., one near the center), I can usually get past level 44 without leaks. . . but that's it.  Beyond level 44, I never manage to kill more than one air troop, max, and so I stop even trying to.  The key, of course, is to get past level 40, with or without leaks.  If I get past level 40, I have to get stuck with really rotten picks to not be able to get to level 196.  It's almost a lock.

I'm not talking about the emerald strategy here, of course-- but in "normal", non-emerald strategy, lower-left stunlock area runs, I can say with about 90% certainly that any game that gets past level 40 can get to level 196.  As long as Chrome doesn't crash.  :)
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[ 8) in your 12-08 emerald run screenshot I noticed you decided to put initial malachite/silver lower than you used to. Why the change? ]

Mainly because in the older position, the initial malachite had almost no contact with the lower left stunlock area.  In the new location, just a bit lower, about 40% of the initial malachite's range hits part of the stunlock area.  In the old location, the initial malachite became essentially irrelevant around level 60.  I don't think it does much better in the new location, but it does a BIT better, and certainly doesn't hurt anything.  (This was completely irrelevant in the 12/8 game, though, because that was an attempted emerald strategy run. . . The lower left area is useless in emerald strategy runs.  But I didn't start that game intending to do an emerald run.  My maze for "normal" runs is significantly different from that screenshot in several ways.  I'll try to post a screenshot of what my normal run maze looks like soon.)
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I hope the above was, even if not all that helpful, at least not pure torture to read.  As I said, I do enjoy pontificating on this game. . .  :)

Hope to see a level 195 high score from you, lement-- I know you can do it. . .  if you really want to!

WGW - 2018-12-15, 08:17 AM

lement - 2018-12-10, 09:30 AM

lement - 2018-12-10, 02:11 AM

WGW - 2018-12-09, 10:50 PM

WGW - 2018-12-09, 10:49 PM

lement - 2018-12-09, 03:55 AM

With the reset, went ahead to try to 195 with the stunners in corner strat, revisiting and improving a maze I had mothballed before as too slow to complete....I think I died around 112 (if it doesn't show up, need to enable js when playing I guess). Autoclicker got stored in swap space due lack of RAM as I had browsed elsewhere in the meantime, and by the time it unfroze flyers had already passed. Alas, while I had noticed the issue before I figured I was completely safe, so only have plan remaining https://i.imgur.com/qFGE8de.png :(

The run did raise interesting questions though:

1) At what point does the unupgraded Blood Stone lose to upgraded version? For now, I used first for spiraling places with others in edge/stunlock places.

2) Provided there's already one present in area, should one pick Egyptian gold over Blood stone in the stunlock situation? (Borne out of the assumption that the flame of the flame strike doesn't get bonus from damage boosts.)

At a point around 102, I first came to a situation where I ditched a perfect emerald - due lack of room where it'd be safe to place dark emeralds (lucky? run on that front).

At the point I died, I had 1 ABS/1 EG/1 paraiba/2 silvers/3 jade ...and the rest emeralds (all set but for 3 perfects yet combined into), so 12(+3). (extra silver and jades being forced by picks). It certainly pointed out using longer-range gems for edges to catch more passes....

So,

3) How many dark emeralds do I really need in the corner? I recall WGW screenshots using 7 DE+5 jade before, while being more airy. (Also, what's the balance point of air vs extra gems?)

(Though I leaked ground recently with a different, worse maze recently.)

4) With the rest being damage is the obvious approach, how much value is there in intentionally rushing/holding jades before placing first of main 3 specials to boost gold gathering for leaking ground troops in later waves?

5) Once the corner is filled, what should be used as addendum to EG/(A)BS? I think WGW went for Paraiba coverage with great pink diamonds in the gaps, looking at one old shot. Uranium seems like a good possibility as well.

The diamond, btw, seems potentially superior to additional egypts on the edge even inside the corner, btw, due 554 DPS with 7 greater range - would have caught the last pass on outer ring from the leftmost edge better. And of course, they'd meant greater choice of picks until gold picks up.

6) On downleft runs, seems it might be potentially worth risking it to place emerald in lower left quadrant, as to make it keep hitting the nearby stunned gems.

7) Remind me again, how did you scroll long gem descriptions/jump ahead waves in sandbox mode ^^;;?

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@Nohadou: I like to upgrade malachite first, then stall with chipped by getting components for star ruby/silver in hopes of rolling lucky on the ~18% of getting another special pick, then upgrade past 50 or even 80 in one go, aiming for getting jade up ideally for wave 12-13 (getting it earlier is possible but doesn't always survive 12th air wave then), then maxed. For wave 20, if I'm doing downleft corner strat I find having maxed malachite + no rose quartz more effective than maxed out rose quartz, which allows some additional freedom with picking, and having neither isn't conductive to survival without getting quartz and at least one good perfect.

I've gotten past 32 without rose quartz at least once on a quite lucky run before, though that was aided by central silver and four+ lucky pics.

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On the browser issues, might be worth using a dedicated one. I used a local copy until recently (which stopped loading when fox updated (and my chrome no longer has flash), but otoh it doesn't burn up computer when minimized now :) ) You can currently still get firefox 52 ESR, i.e. before they revamped their engine (which I overall like, once I got auto tab discard, despite losing/weakening extensions).

WGW - 2018-12-08, 09:24 PM

WGW - 2018-12-08, 06:02 AM

WGW - 2018-12-08, 06:01 AM

g - 2018-12-07, 04:07 PM

WGW - 2018-12-07, 04:38 AM

g - 2018-12-02, 10:34 AM

WGW - 2018-12-01, 12:47 AM

g - 2018-11-29, 02:25 PM

WGW - 2018-11-25, 02:47 AM

noname - 2018-11-24, 06:01 AM

g - 2018-11-23, 05:23 PM

WGW - 2018-11-20, 04:06 PM

Good to see you, a!  That's a major bummer that you can't speed up the game anymore. . . that's gonna make it next to impossible for you to get past level 195 I sure haven't ever been able to, and I must have played dozens of attempted emerald runs by now without getting past 195. :)  Except each of those attempts takes 10 hours, minimum, at normal speed.  And still no uberstone yet, of course. We've got about two more years left to try before Flash games become totally unplayable.  Time to fill up the newly cleaned high score list. (I *JUST* finished another level 195 game, and after 10+ hours, hit the "submit" button without typing anything, like a complete idiot!)

If you ever do get Cheat Engine working to speed up GTD again, a, please let us know!

Oh, and on the sandbox mode, believe it or not, I spent a fair amount of time trying to play around with the emerald strategy, and I just found it too tedious, the constant repicking.  I think one time I had as many as 30 dark emeralds and still was leaking multiple air troops at level 195+ (would have helped if I had a great opal, but I didn't feel like repicking hundreds of times to get one), so I just gave up. I accept humbly that I may never get past level 195.  :)

a - 2018-11-20, 10:33 AM

a - 2018-11-20, 10:31 AM

WGW - 2018-11-20, 01:39 AM

g - 2018-11-19, 09:44 AM

WGW - 2018-11-16, 11:29 AM

WGW - 2018-11-16, 11:27 AM

Peter - 2018-11-14, 12:00 AM

WGaryW - 2018-11-10, 11:18 AM

New high scores still aren't accepted even after fixing whatever was blocking new comments.  I would love to buy the new iPhone version but my phone is too out of date to download ii (and it would seem from "noname"'s comments that it's nor much more bug-free than the prior version that I paid for and ended up never able to play a single game).  I can't say strongly enough that I will support this game in any way I can (as I have in the past by making donations and buying the first non-functional iPhone version).  But as things stand, while it's very nice that we can add comments to the web version again, nothing else works.  Nothing.  C'mon, Peter.  You're clearly a very talented programmer who (a) can do a lot better than this, and (b) isn't out to scam anyone.  So could you please:
(a) Scrub the web version of the bogus high scores once and for all (you did this once before to my great pleasure)
(b) Make the web version capable of logging new high scores again as it used to be for years, and 
(c) Make the iPhone version playable?

I will gladly make another contribution to show how much I appreciate the game and your work on it, but I await some sort of response.  Flash as a platform will be completely dead in just over a year.  It would be SO GREAT if this site was really working again in advance of that.  Thank you!

Brage - 2018-11-08, 08:16 PM

g - 2018-11-06, 10:59 AM

RithyFFG - 2018-11-03, 10:22 AM

RithyFFG - 2018-11-03, 09:53 AM

Hede1HADIT - 2018-11-02, 12:53 PM

noname - 2018-11-02, 10:49 AM

noname - 2018-11-02, 10:48 AM

noname - 2018-11-02, 06:09 AM

Peter - 2018-11-01, 06:15 PM

_mmkay - 2018-10-30, 05:02 PM

g - 2018-10-30, 02:21 PM

Ruby - 2018-10-28, 11:49 PM

Peter - 2018-10-15, 04:22 PM

christoffer - 2018-10-08, 06:26 AM

WGaryW - 2018-10-06, 10:35 AM

Peter - 2018-10-05, 07:16 PM

a - 2017-11-30, 01:08 AM

WGW - 2017-11-29, 02:19 PM

WGW - 2017-11-29, 02:18 PM

WGW - 2017-11-29, 02:11 PM

WGW - 2017-11-29, 02:08 PM

Nohadou - 2017-11-27, 09:29 AM

Nohadou - 2017-11-27, 09:22 AM

WGW - 2017-11-23, 08:55 AM

a - 2017-11-20, 12:42 PM

RGEN - 2017-11-14, 11:48 AM

Nukumaster - 2017-11-13, 07:21 AM

Nohadou - 2017-11-13, 04:04 AM

SForces - 2017-11-10, 10:40 AM

china TD - 2017-10-25, 01:04 AM

a - 2017-10-20, 10:58 AM

Nohadou - 2017-10-20, 03:53 AM

Nukumaster - 2017-10-19, 09:46 PM

Nohadou - 2017-10-18, 02:02 AM

Nukumaster - 2017-10-17, 07:41 PM

Nohadou - 2017-10-16, 08:48 AM

Brage - 2017-09-25, 06:31 PM

Nukumaster - 2017-09-16, 04:57 PM

a - 2017-09-08, 10:57 AM

MaryaLah - 2017-08-19, 05:29 PM

Nukumaster - 2017-08-13, 01:16 PM

WGW - 2017-08-11, 02:37 PM

Nukumaster - 2017-08-08, 04:34 PM

WGW - 2017-08-07, 02:13 AM

WGW - 2017-08-07, 02:11 AM

Carolynvag - 2017-08-06, 12:42 AM

Carolynvag - 2017-08-05, 07:12 PM

Carolynvag - 2017-08-05, 03:10 AM

Carolynvag - 2017-08-04, 09:48 PM

BigLighthouse - 2017-08-04, 07:51 AM

RobertVogma - 2017-07-31, 11:22 PM

MichaeljeF - 2017-07-26, 10:27 PM