In the design menu, there ought be a second indicator for if the salesman has the required materials in stock that day; and if so, the ability to buy all missing items needed *from the design book*.
A disappointment over previous installments. This game showed me the importance of a simple level progression map. Choosing levels and modes strips everything away but "the grind". New features are sparse, and varied strategies are unnecessary. Every level I found myself funneling the various zones into the exact same AoE Square of Death, with no need to evaluate the new towers. Still a solid TD game over many, but the painful step backwards leaves it with a 3/5.
I struggled long and hard giving this game a 4, because I live in a prosperous country and don't have any real problems. It deserves a 3.5, but a 3 just doesn't do it justice. The essence of the game is great, it's just lacking that last bit of polish. I would also like to see this series move into a more tactical realm (instead of spam building) where time management is of greater essence. Without getting winded, I would like to see shipyards that can retool to different ships mid-map, and a user interface that tracks your ship yards and lets you produce ships by clicking a +/- button rather than hunting down every little shipyard. While I don't want to manage each ship, some simple priority settings would be welcome, such as "Guard Base / Attack Nearest / Attack Enemy XYZ"
At first I was disappointed with this game. Then I realized it is not a direct clone of previous MD games. When I stopped playing it like MD1 and MD2, and started playing it like MDC, it got a lot better.
For the "Doomed Heroes Badge". I had quite a few false starts, and did not find tips in the comments section wholly useful, so here are my recommendations (abridged for 1000 character limit):
Warrior - Front center. Stat=End. Gear=HP Reg, AC. Weapon with strong status effects. Skills=Ins, Adr, SW. Consider Cleave. Dump into +AC
Cleric – Rear center. Stat=Int. Gear=Pow Reg, Res Stun, End. Skills=Heal, Anoint, Pur, Rev. Consider Holy Light. Get at least 30 Pow Reg. +5 Benediction mandatory to cure blindness.
Ranger – Rear side. Stat=Dex. Gear=Acc, Dex/Dmg, 18+ total Pow Reg. Hard hitting Xbow. Skills=HoA, NB, Pin, Swift. Dump into Creature Lore.
Conjurer – Rear side. Stat=Int. Gear=Assorted. Skills=WG, Ban, EA, CS, RE. Dump into Aug Health.
General Strategy: Anoint + HoA. Mop up. Leave an enemy each round to recover before next fight. Watch out for armor piercing enemies (Dwarf Xbow, Undead Wraith). You’ll get the hang of it.
Flawlessly defeats 50 levels on Hardcore with full party of immortal Clerics for "Impossible" badge. Restarts the game with same Cleric party to obtain "Beginner" badge - dies on level 1.
The object of this game is to AFK grind levels while figuring out which units, heroes, spells, towers, and items are useless. ***SPOILER*** (almost all of them)
If you suffer (like me) from graphical lag slowing the game to a crawl, note that tabbing away from the game screen will cause it to run at full speed. You can verify this simply by listening to the "pops" speed up to a blur. You can't see or control the action, but by the time video lag becomes a problem around level 65+, boards are hands-off anyway. I find it takes under 10 seconds for most high level stages to run their course.
Great game! However, it is too easy. I was pleased when I loaded up Hard mode and lost a few rounds, but the ability to replay levels for infinite experience trivializes this game. Playing the first board with a few multiplier modes easily nets 10-15k exp for a 15 second battle. Maxing out speed, attack, and agility makes every board trivial. This game could be amazing by tweaking experience gain. For starters, you should only be credited an amount of exp for a board equal to your highest amount earned, like in every other game of this type. I should only be able to get 15k exp off the first board one time. If I try again and get 16k, then I should only be credited an additional 1k to my total.
(Hint 1: No level is impossible) (Hint 2: If what you're doing isn't working, try something different) (Hint 3: On level 16 epic, the beast cannot hit units directly underneath him)
Tip for lag: tab over to another window. Your computer should process the game in real time as long as you're not looking at it. For proof just listen to the pops :)
@killingspree26
Correct, the lightsaber disappears after popping 70 baloons. The same goes for all projectiles and explosions. Every tower has a max pop count, which isn't always displayed. Fire towers have a max count of 60 iirc.
A useful feature would be to turn off the graphic of certain kinds of bloons. After so many levels, I don't care about anything but special bloons - black, lead, zebra, ceramic, BFB... Anything less than those will be annihilated by mortars, so I don't even want to see them.
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