Need some tips

[Tman]

Loving this combination but darn I'm having a hard time getting very far. Now I may just be giving up in frustration, because I'm throwing the towel in on the 2nd breech. It just pisses me off that everything seems good, I'm continually building out towers, but inevitably the problem is juggling citizens to the right job.

Have 300 wood, move that lumberjack over to another job ... problem is I forget about it and then I'm in deep without any charcoal and everything churns to a halt.

This constant need to juggle citizens because I'm trying to staff to many buildings. I frequently idle my research just so I can throw that person at farming or something else for a few seasons.

What I need is some way to remind myself to put that stupid lumberjack back to work when the wood is at some predetermined amount - say 50. I don't think there is a way to do this?

I've got a decent maze, but trying to get *enough* iron to get the tall arrow towers up is just killing me.

Just forget about gems because the upgrades require steel and I just don't make it before I get my 2nd breech.

Are breeches / destroyed buildings just a fact of life? Because I hate it when they leak.

I've got over 50 TD games and probably have played 8-10 city builders, so I"m very familiar with all this, but for some reason this game is just kicking my ass. Maybe drop the difficulty down?

I'm flummoxed that not a single person has stepped forward to write a guide for this game.

[Mike of Smug Marmot]

First tip is to use production limits. it helps from having to remember to toggle jobs as much.

The second tip is breeches happen! This isn't a standard tower D where you permanently lose some health that can't be recovered. Once the severity of a breeches start ramping up, that is when you need to be worried. The games dynamic difficulty ramps up quicker when you are going a long stretch without a single invader getting though, and will calm down when a breech happens. I have thousands of hours in the game with all the play testing I've done and it's quite hard for me to even get a zero breech run. If you change your mindset that a single invader getting past isn't a big deal, i bet you find it's much easier.

And whatever you do, don't save scum. if you keep retrying days until you stop the breach, the dynamic difficulty will think you are crazy good and keep spiraling up the difficulty.

Yeah, most strategy discussions have been limited to the Discord, I've not seen anyone make a video on the subject.

[Tman]

Thanks so much! In all the TD games I've played, it's never good to allow a leak, so knowing this will allow me to reattack with more fervor.

Thanks for the detailed response!

[Tman]

So I've made it quite a bit further, but my love <-> hate is trending towards hate again with all the questions I've got queued up. I'm in year 9 or 10? This summarizes where I was at year 8:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2469732370728494612/508341DC02D52B079954E19E01DDEBC5C8D1D598/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

then at year 10

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2469732370728489533/A0EACAB1FCB79B18E02A10D0E9F328BA318DA1B5/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

I haven't lost, but a win seems impossible at this juncture.

Questions:

1) I'm living with the leaks, but they really piss me off. I don't know if I'll be able to overcome this hatred without being able to redirect the horde to buildings I care less about. What they attack is so random. It's typically my farms and they bypass my weaver hut to go after them. Which is typically pretty bad b/c these are 2 year crops. Once it hit my cook house, taking all my prepared meals with it. Set me back a lot. Then it got hit AGAIN a while later. This is where I"m at right now, having saved the game and coming to the forums to get some answers.

2) Many times the defense building tab up top is greyed out, no idea why, it eventually becomes normal again, through no effort of mine.

3) What gets built when is so random. I would expect things to be built in order of laying them down, but that isn't the case at all.

4) Things take FOREVER to build. Arggghh, so different than my typically TD where if I have resources they sprout right there right then. So much time just waiting. So I try to plan things out by laying down things, but #3 just side eyes me. I'm reminded of The Colonists (another game), where I can see all material demands / status of those material demands and I can't for the life of me detect any such thing here. I mean if I click on a building it will say "10 wood / 3 iron needed", and I look at the iron and I have way more than that and plenty of wood and I guess it's not being carried to there? Really frustrating not being able to track down where the slow down is and kick that worker in the butt to get them to get it there faster.

5) I finally research the victory building when I go to build it, it is asking for a resource that is not anywhere that I can see. It's some name, but it isn't listed ANYWHERE that I can assess. So I'm at a point where I have no idea how to actually "win" because this is a unknown resource that isn't shown in the research or inventory.

6) you said I could set production limits. I'm completely missing how I would do that anywhere.

7) I researched something that said I would be able to give a gem to the gods and they might give me another one in return. WHERE do I do the sacrifice? I didn't see any special buildings that sounded like that and it's impossible to click on a gem in inventory that I can see.

And sorry, but the hundreds / thousands of other devs have so poisoned the well on Discourse it can go die in a fire. I'm going to ask my questions here where at least some others can benefit.

[Mike of Smug Marmot]

Originally posted by Tman:

all the questions I've got queued up

Alright, let's give this a go:

1) You can't redirect them, they have their targets from the get go. They will target less important buildings earlier, but if you have repeat leaks, they will target more important buildings. While an occasional leak is fine, but consecutive leaks escalating the severity (as showing by the flag) get rough quickly.

2) You can't build defenses while an attack is ongoing, there was too much ability to cheese the invader pathing otherwise.

3/4) They will prioritize what is the most efficient way they can bring resources and construct a building. So a tower with wood on the ground close by will get prioritized over that home way far away. This is where setting priorities allows you to control. But keep in mind, if you make everything high priority, nothing ends up being a priority. I'd recommend only setting a few buildings to be high priority at a time. The citizens will prioritize those over the more efficient construction. Likely the largest issue is there are not enough workers dropping off resources, getting production limits working will help with this.

5) The final item you need is from a boss, once you kill a high enough level wave, he will come.

6) Under the Job Management tab, there is a production limits button in the upper right. This should help your issues with construction being slow as when workers meet their quota they will help with transportation of goods (prioritizing goods in their sector first, then all goods).

7) After unlocking Gem offerings in the City planning research path, you can upgrade statutes to be gem statutes, which will offer the gems to the gods.

If you are trying to salvage a colony that has been struggling a long time, where the destructive power flags are reaching high severity, you might find it's easier to start a new one applying all the new things you have learned.

Also, ensure your defensive setup is making good use of elemental synergy. If you have towers all negating each others elements, it will be near impossible to brute force a winning defense.

Good luck!

[Tman]

I'm not really following the whole synergistic thing. For example, in my year 8 pic, it shows all these numbers on the wheel next to elements, and at that point, I think there is only 1 in a tower? In year 10 pic, it shows far less on the wheel, but I did have I think (1) fire, (1) ice and one sun (I had queued up a terra?), but the numbers in the wheel are are fewer? What is that wheel supposed to show me? How can I have more in year 8 and fewer in year 10?

You mentioned some sort of flag twice. The only thing I'm seeing on the map is a red triangle with a exclamation point. Is that what you mean or is it something else? I never had consecutive leaks. There are usually 2-4 waves where I don't get a leak, then I get a leak. The numbers of creeps just keeps increasing so your previous statement where YOU WANT a leak, doesn't seem to be applying here. I maybe get 1-2 waves of respite. Can you go into more detail here on this flag thingy and when I should get concerned?

"Whats on the ground and closer" doesn't make sense. I rarely see anything on the ground (I think it's because I'm colorblind? I don't know) but I do see villagers wonder off and bend over, so they are picking up something, but having that drive what gets built seems random. I placed my warehouse with the tower materials close by the towers. If villagers are taking wood and placing it near a close tower regardless of where my storage is, that feels off.

Speaking of wood, I build all these tree nurseries and my lumberjacks keep venturing afield to cut when there are much closer 100% trees nearby. What gives?

Another Q on warmer clothes. I only have 17 worker villagers, how frequently will they consume warm clothes? Will they last a year or one season or ??

When you say I have to kill some enemy at high enough wave, what does that mean? Does this occur in some year or is there some other criteria for it? How would I have known this without me asking the question and you answering it?

[Mike of Smug Marmot]

Originally posted by Tman:

Round 2!

The synergistic and negation thing is essential to understand... it is one of the most important things to account for when setting up a defense. The elemental aspect towers is all about building up large stacks of elemental effects. For instance, If you have several fire towers hitting a enemy, the damage they tick for gets higher and higher, to absolutely crazy levels. But, if you hit it with a negating element (elements connected by red lines on the wheel), it will remove all the fire stacks and you are basically doing only base arrow damage to enemies, which will NOT be enough later in the game.

You will want to set up elements so they are clustered in synergistic groups in the maze. Maybe the first part is doing light, life, and ice. Then later you are hitting for terra, fire, and electricity. I you have a random splattering of elemental towers, this is likely the root cause of lack of progression. Try looking at screenshots in the community hub to see how people are grouping elements.

The flag is an icon that shows up immediately after a leak until the next attack, if you mouse over it it will show the severity.

Sorry, by resources on the ground, I'm including in storage too. They will prioritize the resource based on how long to get to it and how far to deliver it.

Lumber jacks will chop wood near where it is needed, so that may be going to trees further away, but closer to a building in need.

Cloths have a chance to decay after a few years, a rule of thumb is they last on average 3 years or so.

It is purposeful to not explicitly state the level you need to get to for the boss, there is meant to be a sense of progression and have him start showing once you have made it far enough. I'll just give the clue it is in the 1000-2000 range.