I have improved my performance by not building the foundry anymore.

[Quineloe]

I play nightmare/80 days or 50 days only at the moment, and I've noticed, especially on 50 days, that I do not have the time to build up a nice, large foundry army. So when the final wave hits, I have too little to stop it.

So, thinking about it, what is it that actually kills you in the final wave? Is it the harpies? No, they are #1 priority, even small numbers of snipers take them out. Is it the huge masses of regular infected? No, those are rather easy to deal with, no matter what you use?

it's venoms protected by large numbers of chubbies, which draw the fire. Once they stack up too much, they melt your walls, melt your towers and the regular infected destroy everything. So what does the foundry offer to deal with this?

Executors: Very expensive in upkeep and power requirement if you build them in sufficient numbers to kill all the chubbies and all the venoms before it's too late. Also very large, so it's not easy to get enough of them together to even get that done in the first place.

Lucifers: No.

Thanatos: low rate of fire and impossible to micromanage. Very hard for them to deal with chubbies and therefore they will never target the venoms.

Titans: the only unit that actually works because you can manually target venoms with them and kill them quickly. Downside is their price. It will not be easy to field enough to defend all sides.

So we just keep building snipers. The only downside of snipers is that they can't deal with the regular infected. But the best defense against those is already stone workshop tech: the shocking tower. The downside of the shocking tower? Terribly vulnerable to venoms because they can attack over the walls. Can't even solo a chubby because the chubby will outregen the tower between attacks. Solution to both: Mass snipers. Shocking towers are also amazingly cheap if you have room to make regular mills.

Now look at this 700% map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sa2arepuqwmxfp3/Survival001.jpg002.jpg?dl=0

No foundry, it's all ballista, stone towers with snipers and shocking towers. Because no money was spent on the foundry tech cost and upkeep it was easily possible to build snipers non-stop from 4 barracks. The final wave did not manage to break through any defensive position at all. They only got through the first part of the western wall and the first part of the southeastern wall. Western wall because not enough snipers, southeast because the stupid giant wrecked the shocking tower with his las strike. Or: Not enough snipers.

North got hit super hard and they didn't lose a single sniper tower or the shocking towers. East was not hit quite as hard and the infected there were completely annihilated. Without a single Thanatos, Titan or Executor. Everything that was defended by an absurd amount of snipers easily held. Everything that wasn't had trouble. The amount of AoE defense was not relevant.

You save so much from not building the foundry, it's hard to spend all of the money. You also don't need to build quarries for iron, because 1 quarry is enough to maintain your sniper production for the entire game. Nothing else needs iron if you stay on stone tech. You don't need to build all these hella expensive oil rigs.

In conclusion: Foundry only helps you with what you are already good at - AoE damage. It offers nothing that helps you with venoms. If you skip the whole thing, you have much more money to build the anti venom unit - the sniper. This seems like a bit of a balance issue. Are venoms too much of a threat compared to the rest of the final wave? Is foundry tech too expensive? Are shocking towers too good for their low price?

[amordron]

Interesting build I would still toss a inn between two housing bays in that build as wood workshop tech + can get you a few thanatos for bad chokes + a few titans to help out. While giving a few extra vets before academy of the immortals.

Is it a bit of a balance issue sure. Is it a major one not really just shows multi builds are viable witch is good. That being said snipers as a unit is still a bit to powerfull vs its counterparts. IS it anything like the old snipers that where op as h ell no. But they def are still tuned to high for what they are compared to other t1 units.

Personally I pref thanatos over shock towers I can get thanatos out as early as wave 3 allowing me to keep a mobile force to counter waves vs needing to use a stationary building allowing for less resources to be locked up in stationary early on. That being said due to locking it up in oil rigs and otherwise that you said it is countered quite well. Will prob try your build at some point to see how it is before being able to give any real thoughts as hard to judge based on a screen. Interesting non the less.

In 50 days the above is not really ideal as wave 3 means about day 30 so the final wave is basically there.

This build dose sound like you would have FAR more resources to play around with thou esp as looking you only had 2 about 70% full housing bays only witch is on the "low" side. As such really shows the power of the build.


Shocking towers I don't think are to good as honestly your locking a ton into a tower that cant move but really good if placed well. If anything a slightly higher upkeep id look at vs higher cost.

Foundry tech being to costly would be where I would look at if the devs think its to strong. Other than a slight read slight sniper nerf as they are not broken only slightly to strong still making the other t1 units feel "to weak". Least to me.



The main nerf I would personally suggest for snipers is just doubling there upkeep. Right now snipers are cheap as hell to maintain a massive clump of them. While snipers only really get super string when there is a ton of them. So this would maintain there power level where it is witch is fine but make them more costly esp as massive numbers. While lower foundry tech a bit maybe by only a slight bit of 10%. If the devs think think the above is a issue.

Another idea would be to add a new unit to the foundry that works like a sniper. Mabye a tower that is a off branch from the ballista that rather than adding more aoe and attackspeed like the executor make it have longer range slower attack and more damage to give more ways to counter venoms and specials.

Seeing units get more targeting options would be nice like something that made thing hit venom or ranged type units first.






Side note: I no it dint do anything but just saying you did have a executor its mixed into your north east housing bay near the market.

[Andrewbh2003]

i mean yeah you dont "need" thanatos/executors to win i have myself gotten away with shock tower/sniper spam the thing is thanatos are just "easier" and safer if you wanna take very little risk you will lose just take thanatos thats basically a guaranteed win in that case thats just my take on it

[isakujjang]

https://i.redd.it/xw09ignuqqa21.jpg

https://i.redd.it/n2s44wynqqa21.jpg

It is also possible at 800%.

120 snipers are enough. If you have more than 300 snipers, most of the walls will not be destroyed, and if you have more than 500 to 600 snipers, you do not need an attack tower.

[Beldr]

power plant buff made shocking tower spam a lot easier

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by andrewbh2003:

i mean yeah you dont "need" thanatos/executors to win i have myself gotten away with shock tower/sniper spam the thing is thanatos are just "easier" and safer if you wanna take very little risk you will lose just take thanatos thats basically a guaranteed win in that case thats just my take on it

It's not a question of "need" but a question of what the best use of your money is. And it would seem that building the foundry for 4000 gold, two oil rigs for 2400, an e-bay for 2000 (all of which are also very power hungry and cost like 300 maintenance by themselves and on top of that 2000 research for thanatos could also be spent on 30+ snipers, which are far better at eliminating the biggest threat of the final wave than Thanatos are.

Again, the parts of the wall that held best were those that just had an absurd amount of snipers in them. Thanatos very rarely get to shoot at venoms because of target priority, and if they finally do, the snipers do as well, ending the threat just as fast. But the snipers are far, far better at taking out the chubbies, the prequirement of doing so in the first place.

And if your Thanatos gets hit, that part of the wall has already fallen and you need to raise a second line of defense.

Originally posted by amordron:

Side note: I no it dint do anything but just saying you did have a executor its mixed into your north east housing bay near the market.

This was not a "challenge: no foundry stuff" play, therefore razing a free executor from map generation is not necessary.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by amordron:

Shocking towers I don't think are to good as honestly your locking a ton into a tower that cant move but really good if placed well. If anything a slightly higher upkeep id look at vs higher cost.

Shocking towers are just 600g to build, 30 wood, 30 stone. You can build them for wave defense if you have already scouted the attack path and raze them afterwards. That is not very expensive. You probably even save money over building sufficient walls to let your snipers slowly gun down the wave over time. If you already have reached the spot where you intend to fight the final wave, you can just keep them there anyways and it doesn't matter they can't move

The main nerf I would personally suggest for snipers is just doubling there upkeep. Right now snipers are cheap as hell to maintain a massive clump of them. While snipers only really get super string when there is a ton of them. So this would maintain there power level where it is witch is fine but make them more costly esp as massive numbers. While lower foundry tech a bit maybe by only a slight bit of 10%. If the devs think think the above is a issue.

Snipers have already been nerfed. They get overwhelmed much more easily on the offense than they did a year ago because they are far more likely to overkill. There is a point where you make the game too hard by nerfing the good stuff. I feel like the main issue is how harmless the final wave is vs 3 layers of walls if you have dispatched the venoms. A nerf to sniper upkeep will have no effect on that.

Seeing units get more targeting options would be nice like something that made thing hit venom or ranged type units first.

Frankly that would outright trivialize the game. A single stone tower of snipers would then be sufficient to deal with all the venoms in a wave. The target priorities are clearly intended by the devs, they're probably taken from the zombiecide board game where the dangerous runners are also protected by the fat zombies.

[amordron]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

This thread is what you call noob strat... thanatos make the game ez mode... if you struggle to build them aswell as pumping snipers none stop u just suck at the game... simple as that. Money is only an issue early game after that its ez as fk and you should have zero issues spamming units none stop

I wouldn't call a strat that works and is effective a noob strat esp when setting up towers and filling them takes a lot more effort than just moving a thanatos to a wall and calling it done.

His entire point is thantos dont make the game easy mode as in order to get them you first need to make the game harder on yourself by spending a ton of cash. Vs being able to pump out your final defense right away.

Noob strat is what I would call a strat that doesn't work. Norm because a new player is the one making it not understanding the game.

His strat is clever in that it addresses the game and what is happening to counter it with the least effort.



Not being able to build thaatos while making snipers has NOTHING to do with how good you are at the game as its an option. Not doing so when its less effective IS being good at the game by understanding what you need and not wasting money.

So really by his breakdown making thanatos that are not needed and cost a ton would be the "noob strat" by your definition. Due it it being wasted resources that only makes the game harder not easier. Yes thanatos make the game easy once you have but that was not the question but the difficulty of the overall build.

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

This thread is what you call noob strat... thanatos make the game ez mode... if you struggle to build them aswell as pumping snipers none stop u just suck at the game... simple as that. Money is only an issue early game after that its ez as fk and you should have zero issues spamming units none stop

lol, you don't even have the game. Troll somewhere else, chump.

[Andrewbh2003]

Originally posted by Quineloe:

Originally posted by Hurricane:

This thread is what you call noob strat... thanatos make the game ez mode... if you struggle to build them aswell as pumping snipers none stop u just suck at the game... simple as that. Money is only an issue early game after that its ez as fk and you should have zero issues spamming units none stop

lol, you don't even have the game. Troll somewhere else, chump.

i have seen hurricane on other forums that i participate hes a troll that i have seen around on several other forums that i read regularly so yeah

[Grimxonic]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

This thread is what you call noob strat... thanatos make the game ez mode... if you struggle to build them aswell as pumping snipers none stop u just suck at the game... simple as that. Money is only an issue early game after that its ez as fk and you should have zero issues spamming units none stop

Do you just be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ everywhere you go? Go pirate another game and bother another community.

Anyways, very interesting read and build!

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

To each their own, I suppose. One major gripe that I have about this game is that the unit pathfinding REALLY sucks. Even just moving from point A to point B with a clear path, units will often get stuck on nearby walls and each other. Hopefully, this is something they fix once out of early access

[amordron]

Originally posted by Pondera:

To each their own, I suppose. One major gripe that I have about this game is that the unit pathfinding REALLY sucks. Even just moving from point A to point B with a clear path, units will often get stuck on nearby walls and each other. Hopefully, this is something they fix once out of early access

They have constantly been fixing this. Any spot you still see it happening you should be screenshoting and giving the devs as much info as possible in the bug report forum about it. As pathing bugs are far fewer than before but are still happening the devs needs as much info as possible to fix them all and fix them all.

That being said you shouldn't be moving large groups when possible. You lose a lot of time moving units around its better to leave your large groups clearing the map on the same side vs moving them around in your base witch is the main spot a clear path doesn't exist. The wave attacks on your base don't need a large force to counter only a ballista for the first 2, shocktower for the next 2 and if using the build above a few snipers with a shock after that. Shocks kill the large majority of waves and only have issues with specials that a few snipers are quite able to handle.

If using the "normal" way 5 thanatos sitting in the middle of your base handles every wave after wave 3 with ease only moving 5 units. Save the final witch you din't move units around for as it comes from everywhere.

[Grimxonic]

Originally posted by Pondera:

To each their own, I suppose. One major gripe that I have about this game is that the unit pathfinding REALLY sucks. Even just moving from point A to point B with a clear path, units will often get stuck on nearby walls and each other. Hopefully, this is something they fix once out of early access

All my pathfinding issues come from moving large groups though gates, or like you said large groups in general which get caught on each other sometimes. And I do see Giants still getting stuck on nothing at all, or so it seems - probably the walls.

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

Originally posted by Grimxonic:

All my pathfinding issues come from moving large groups though gates, or like you said large groups in general which get caught on each other sometimes. And I do see Giants still getting stuck on nothing at all, or so it seems - probably the walls.

Thanatos are particularly bad when moving in tight quarters. If more than one of them needs to pass through a single tile wide gap, they'll get stuck on each other too

[amordron]

Originally posted by Pondera:

Originally posted by Grimxonic:

All my pathfinding issues come from moving large groups though gates, or like you said large groups in general which get caught on each other sometimes. And I do see Giants still getting stuck on nothing at all, or so it seems - probably the walls.

Thanatos are particularly bad when moving in tight quarters. If more than one of them needs to pass through a single tile wide gap, they'll get stuck on each other too

Never seen that happen and I move group of 10 thanatos quite often in every game. But as said if there is pathing issue YOU should be posting images and what is happening in bug reports to give the devs data to fix said issues. As the issues you see don't mean anyone else is seeing them or if the devs know about that case.