To sketch a Sketching: 1. Stay healed and refueled to full until you get a Sketching; don't buy any cards and don't do any damage. 2. Play Sketching. 3. Do nothing until you get another Sketching to play, or your HP gets low. 4. Repeat. The first few are very slow, but once you have a good pool of Sketching, you gain full control over your new cards. Curiosity is fuel, Meditation lengthens combo, Inspiration heals/hurts, Gore makes a hilarious Stab sweep. Maintain good ratios.
Took a while, but now I have 120 Sketching, 80 Meditation, and 200 Curiosity as the engine of a self-expanding deck (3rd playthrough). I don't even use Quick Sketching with this setup. :D ( http://i.imgur.com/3gMdyAF.png ) Might be about time to move on to the second battle... Oh, and please give us an endless mode with deck saving. :)
Bug: First load, I check achievements, then click Start, ingame window shows "Pick a card to keep" with constantly changing cards and constantly changing background. I try to click around, stuff changes, still chaotic. I refresh, click Start again; same kind of issue. Used right-click menu to "Rewind" and then "Play," then game plays normally, opens with the tutorial. No idea what happened here. The game itself is amazing, 5/5.
My expansion is only to log all the forests I see, because roads are becoming a bit expensive (14 trillion stone apiece). On the other hand, cable is cheap, because I only use it to support water/oil pumping. I consider my layout pretty efficient; maybe you'll get some inspiration from it: http://i.imgur.com/sUrwLoE.png
Good game. Minor bugs: Rolling can get you stuck. I managed to roll into a stuck position inside the banister in a mayor's house. Unstuck myself by throwing bombs and getting knocked back into normal space.
Also, for the guy locked in the hanging cage: shooting it down and leaving the room, then coming back, causes there to be 2 cages, one hanging and one on the ground.
Toad Bros. are the hardest boss in the game to me; only one that took multiple tries. You have to burst down the top toad to win. Paladin+Shaman can survive a few turns of boulders (heal self + ankh every round), but find it hard to get any damage in once that happens. (On a round when shaman survives, you need to use an ult with one and damage with the other; hope it's charged by then.) Beat the game with Paladin+Shaman and Paladin+Shielder. Yeah, I like playing defensive. xD
Tips: 1. For the early laser-eye boss, put a wall of shields in front. 2. For later chainsaw-arm or saw-shooter bosses, try putting your collectors in front (shielded) and thrusting through the boss before he can break them. 3. For mobs, small = 4 HP, med = 16 HP, large = 128 HP; this continues to the end of the game, so focus on reload to clear the swarms. Lv12 lasers are nice, buy a bunch while you can. 4. Don't worry about missing upgrades by winning+dying or by making bad choices, you will max everything anyway.
Volcano coloring is pretty clear (red/orange/yellow), and so is bumblebee (yellow/black/orange), but what is princess?... I tried cream/peach/yellow, but it didn't put me in the winners.
I kept my fuel costs low for most of the game, and this gave me some nice tough fights with cruisers where I barely survived. :)
Some parts with large surface area fins should probably have a cooling stat, as radiators.
All in all, a great game. Was fun.
500 quadrillion for the last nefastium upgrade?... Do you realize how long that would take? Assuming a very efficient reactor at $600M/t and maxed out tick speed, it would be about 3.8 years. Of real time. Running constantly. Not even considering fuel replacement costs.
No, you do not need to sell your donkeys when leaving the tribal region for the first time. A normal donkey (over 40 capacity) can carry more than enough forage+water for its own crossing; and even if it didn't, going a day or two without consumables is not lethal. Just make sure your movement speed is not less than 4.8 (i.e. heal up, fix leg injuries, fire slow mercs; consider turning off hunting/foraging temporarily). Pullid -> New Serino is the shortest way out, and New Serino has the wonderful lube and small carts. Bring some extra jerboa meat, have spare funds, and hope you can buy a region map.
Tips & tricks:
1) Donkeys are amazing early game. Get every female donkey you can that isn't old/weak, and a male (for impregnation).
2) Make sure everyone walking in your caravan has at least 4 agility; this is 5 speed (donkey walking speed). Try to have 4+ physical too, since max HP is hard tied to it.
3) Loot liquid containers as much as possible. If you can't hold/use them all, store some in your room in the bunker for future use.
4) Build up a reserve of capital in the tribal region before leaving it.
5) Skill-boosting stuff, like Hammer, does not need to be equipped.
6) Discovered prices are linked under Cargo -> item -> See Prices. Don't bother to scroll the list in the Log -> Economy tab.
How I got hard badge: Start in Canada (2 shipyards and airports, and adjacent to the US with the same). Using with a virus, buy infective symptoms. Once the virus spreads to one or two countries, sell everything (except maybe pulmonary edema because it's not noticeable) and wait for the whole world to be infected. Then buy lethal+infective stuff and wait for the world to be wiped. Buy some drug resist when the vaccine starts.
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Wow! you must be very patient and smart, never thought of that cool strategy before!