So, interesting thing, it seems Golem-type monsters are now more vulnerable to losing their shields. Rather than losing them at the last 1/4 or so(which was what I experienced a week ago), they now have a chance to lose them after losing about half of their HP.
Ugh. That Squid fight is HORRIBLE. If you can't OHKO some of the units, or if he summons the blue jellies, you might as well reload the page, because those cheap bastards will just keep raining all over the place. And even if you defeat the main Squid, the arms will continue fighting. WTF.
The calendar does work. If you have a whole bunch of engineers slowly grinding through in a corner where you can't hit them, spam click calendar for about half a minute, then double click them, back to calendar, etc. Eventually, they just drop dead. Don't rightly know why, but that's how it worked with me.
Speed Run Hard Achievement
As with the Medium, this is much easier with the full upgrades for the English
Align a 2*2 Palisades block with each of the 3 arrows in Red Dawn. As you go along, increase it to a 4*3(3 deep from the arrow). Finish with another 2*1 on either side, for a total of 16 per arrow. Now just sit back and let them come to you. Lambs to the Slaughter. Note also that Prussians make the perfect target, due to their weaker engineers.
I think it's time to start downrating Ghurkal's comment. Everybody either knows or should know by now that cannons in the game instant-kill(the identical range is a valid criticism though), it's just the range that changes. If you bothered to read the in-game tips, you would see that it even says that cannons clear out whole lines. In real life, the only time you could survive a single cannon shot is if you're really fat, and the cannon was being fired at extremely short range(so it has no time to finish accelerating), or extremely long range(so that the air resistance/gravity combo slows it down enough).
Didn't think the time achievement possible either, but here's Medium(will post Hard once I figure how).
Mission: Le Marteau
6 Pallisades each side, 2 horizontal, 3 vertical.
Align at least 2 of the vertical(ie, 4 pallisades) are in same horizontal row as arrows.
All Greenjackets.(Finish with England, all gold/Dakka/Rifle Colonel upgrades)
Wave(remember, hold turbo to speed it up!)
More Pallisades/Greenjackets as waves come along.
After Wave 4, should be about 1 min+30s in(if keeping count, must clear each wave under 20s to make 10 minute timing, so may seem behind schedule, but don't give up yet!). Now have enough to put up 3*5 block each side(5 vertical, 3 horizontal). They last whole mission. Now just "Wave", "Turbo". Done right, should finish about 9 min+30s. Kept Clock open just left of browser window, so had an accurate count. Should clear some waves in as little as 12s, which makes up for earlier build lag. No waves should be above 25s. Good luck! I'll try for Hard shortly.
The game is rated low(in my opinion anyway) because among other things, there's a fairly low-level(ie, probably easy to fix) bug where Gardes(French Tier 3) are not getting the proper cost/unlock cost despite what the screen and achievements claim(ie, you still pay 1800 to unlock, and 95 to place, instead of 900/72).
For Calendar complaints: If you have an engineer and all he does is face up, face down, face up, face down, regardless of calendar spam, you can try double-clicking him after a few times, and he will eventually drop dead. I think that's like the final fail-safe. Keep this comment topped if you want. Worked for me.
@Lurdak/Diablownik: Apparently, Gardes are buggy. The other 2 factions' Tier 3s don't seem to face that problem. Either that or you just need to complete the mission with that faction to get the halved unlock cost. Still paying 95 per though.
@Rasojo: I definitely saw an improvement in upgraded cannons' fire-rate. Roughly 1-2s reload faster each upgrade.
@Ghurkal: See above.
@ALL: I simply used Puckle Guns. Once you get the Logistics upgrades(plus the French Gold Bonus), you can pretty much sit back with 3 PGs blocking the main road of Mission 1 to get all the "Kill XXX of each Race"/"Plant YYY Traps" achievements. Makes everything else easier.
My GOD, I hate Mission 3. Like Ardez, I've gone through at least 10 iterations of it, mainly because a) It takes a really long time just getting Urbanowicz to the same position as the rest(couldn't we just start the mission at the same altitude and save everybody time?), and b) The German planes are taking waaaay too long to show up. There's realism, and then there's tedium. Points A and B fall under the latter. :( I can understand having to familiarise the player with the movement commands in the first mission, even in the second, but by round 3, the only thing we should be needing to do is staying alive, and fragging German planes.
Emo_Neko15: Yes. Everything with an element. Therefore, only the Sky Dragon Titan and Meteor can kill them, as the damage those 2 do is "untyped". I had to attack their castle in 3 time-stopped waves, keeping enough mana for a meteor when they're approaching 25-30% health remaining, otherwise the revenge-wave of Black Goblins WILL kill(all other Black Goblins that normally spawn are content to idle just out of range of your Epic tower.).
As of today, 20th/21st July 2010, Spell Timers will flash when there's 5 seconds remaining, and show up in the bottom right corner.
Find it funny how you can just stack a pile of guns on each other without any other base. Once they became available, I just picked the star burst one, with seekers, and depending on the number of Gun Points available, spammed as many of each as needed.
The reason people recommend the Sky Dragon and the Big Meteor Skill is because they're the only things that do "untyped" damage, which is the only kind of damage those evil black goblins are NOT immune to("Resist" is a misnomer and misleading, since it implies that you can actually do enough damage to break through).
Excellent concept, a bit bad in execution. Some combos are a little counter-intuitive, resulting in frustration setting in about the half-way mark, and then you just start trying "everything+everything else", and when that gets you nowhere, you start having to put "everything+itself".
The Dragon Tamer accomplishment bug really needs to be fixed. If it is fixed, I might support adding an "Impossible" badge; getting all the achievements.
Marked Mods are those with the little * beside them, that will prevent you from getting awarded by Kong. Activating them will still let you unlock the in-game achievements(Killer, Assassin, etc.) though, as long as your system saves(set it to "Unlimited" when you right click and choose "Settings"). That makes it easier to make it to Level 10. Also, if you don't plan on playing beyond that, just pick the "Henchman" option every day and you'll probably survive.
I thought it was hard as well, but here's something you can do: Hire the henchman(the one in the inn who will eat half of your prize money tomorrow). He fires grenades, and at a pretty good pace. Totally worth the money for getting that pesky 10th level(so you can unlock the "better" classes). I started with Hunter, but I've found Sheriff to be waaay better. Shotgun hits more often, which also means it scores headshots more often, thereby negating the lower damage. Additionally, being able to fire after reloading no more than a couple of shells(rather than waiting for the full reload) is a lifesaver, when you're staring down all those pesky chickens(the RNG on those things needs tweaking so they don't fire until at least 5 seconds have elapsed, IMO.), or the suicide runner comes dashing in.
Figured out the problem with the saves(for whatever reason, the thing was refusing to let me allow unlimited storage of information from chat.kongregate.com). Chickens need to freaking die. Sometimes they go 10 seconds without doing anything, other times, if you don't kill them within 2 seconds of their appearance, they make you fail an otherwise perfect round.
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