@Darches same, got to master in less than a week. I did it before my first tier-upgraded piece, too (mostly by abusing poisonmage and bombers against the AI, and also because I mostly kept fighting AI). Now I actually struggle because I need to fight player opponents more often, so it might take me a few weeks to reach grandmaster.
@coochieman420 have you tried basic kiting? It seems obvious but if you didn't try it properly yet that might be why. You also need to practice what timing it's safe to loop back around by guesstimating the distance sometimes.
Most players (the ppl most frequently online) are grandmasters, so pvp just forces you with them. I'm like: bruh I barely have t1 pieces, stop bullying me w/ ur t3 greed and t3 fire elemental!
Dealing with fortress/archbishop/[annoyingPiece]: use cheap champions (8-12pt. range). If the opponent trades with you, you sacrifice a 10ish pt. champion for their fortress, and you benefit. Fortress is just a big bully that can't actually do anything to you.
Tips on dealing with expensive pieces. If you have a piece cheaper than them, you can practically ignore them (the opponent will LOSE if they trade pieces with you).
Other tips: You can lose to the daily challenge on purpose to lower the win ratio.
Dryad is ridiculously underrated for its current value (as of the Aug16,2020 update).
The Bot AI sucks at calculating poison effects and bombers. It will even use the king to attack snakes and bombers (much to hilarious result, especially during puzzle-challenges).
A protected cheap piece can ignore attacks from expensive enemy pieces, simply because the opponent will not be willing to trade attacks in those situations.
If you win without the opponent making a move, you get a +100 intimidation bonus. (I have no idea why, but I got it and it's cool!)
Expensive and powerful pieces usually do better late-game than early-game (+35 turns).
That was the most epic game ever. We are down to final move in Move Decay, while I have 5 pts left. If they take any of my pieces, they win. I check their king. Instead of taking any random one of my pieces, they move their king out of check and I win via Move Decay. Daaaaaaaaaang I LOVE THIS STRATEGY GAME!!!!
I don't know if this is a glitch or not, but behemoths die when killing a bomber. The AI seems programmed to thing behemoths kill bombers safely too, so are bombers' death ability supposed to beat behemoths?
On ways to abuse strafe attack+swiftness combo: When fighting towers/ballistas/ranged enemies, you can go behind cover, step out, strafe attack, return to cover, repeat. You can keep attacking without ever getting hit because of the strafe+swiftness. Alternatively, you can do two attacks a turn using the strafe+swiftness. It's so OP.
Why player doesn't have resistance to their native element: Resistances are based on your armor, the game assumes enemy mages have colored dragon armor I guess, but the player can be a red mage with blue dragon armor.
If you get both swiftness and strafe attack, you pretty much auto-win. You can do two attacks a turn, and the combo is even better as ranger because you do two ranged attacks per turn. Unless you do a really dumb mistake, you almost never lose.
Best game, but it takes ~30 min to learn. Decent strategy, and lenience to play campaigns above your level lets strategic overachievers have fun too. Not play to win at all, well balanced. Top game I've ever had that's free.
Four Endings: Missed, Hope, Forgiven, Survivor.
Really well written dialogue, realistic. Feels great to be able to distance myself from stuff I relate to. It's a coping mechanism I've developed over the past few years. Just ignore and move on... The suggestions in the game are way better, though. Multiple types of antidepressants? Wish I knew that a long time ago.
There should be a separate category for actions that will branch the story, at least to warn players it is an important decision compared to the "click everything and upgrade everything" actions. Other than that, I can tell this is really well designed with the UI and the currently existing categories of "Instant Action", "Loop Action", and so on. Thank you for creating this game, @SamuraiGames !
Quick run-over on game:
Don't stay near top row, or you die due to pawns.
Faster you beat a level, the more gold you get.
Buy all cantrips, disregarding cost. These speed up level-beating, and hence give you more gold.
Buy straight splash for knights, and diagonal splash for pawns/bishops. Otherwise, don't buy splash.
Buy all shields that cost 10 gold.
You can get to levels higher than 7, if you move around the win-screen board and find something.
If you don't get far in the gauntlet, don't feel bad. Most of the game is RNG due to how getting gold works, so it might take you about 20 takes to get to floor 12+
OK THIS IS THE FOURTH TIME IVE DIED TO THE BULLSHOT PAWN RULE ABOUT THE END ROW. SERIOUSLY, MAKE IT SO YOU CAN USE PAWN CARDS ON THE LAST ROW SOMEHOW PLEASE. PLEASE DEAR F GOD
Please make it so you can't get stuck with pawns on the top row (such as making them ALL queens, not just one random pawn a queen)! It is INCREDIBLY INFURIATING that my only option is to commit suicide because my shield pawn is not usable because I can't move forward.
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Thank you for your feedback!!! I'll rethink the UI.