New Tower Defense Game

ok -- yeah, that's what i'm doing. selling off assets to get to the big honking lasers. i just ended one at 36,441 points. that's with two maxed out lasers left on the board (along with the three maxed out research stations) and a financial center upgraded once (it costs 2400 to upgrade it again, but at that point i didn't think i'd get the return on my investment).

ok...back to the killing board...

 

Just wrapped up Desert Platform with 46k and change. Perfect kills, $13k cash at the end. I was just slightly over what I needed for the final level, but it was very good. I could have made another 1400 by not upgrading the 3rd laser tower, and maybe this was the first time that the upgrade to the financial center (the first $1600 one) would have made sense - I had $5k in the bank every level from like 30 or so.

Build order: gun tower, upgrade all the way, gun tower, upgrade all the way, grenade, upgrade all the way, second grenade upgrade once, gun tech center, upgrade guns, big gun tower, upgrade big gun tower.

After that I can't remember, but I only had 2 grenade towers (eventually fully upgraded), 2 big gun towers (fully upgraded), and 2 small gun towers (fully upgraded early) until around 35, then I added electricity and did the shock and awe tower and fully upgraded it quickly, then tossed in a single laser. I think I did a second laser, then upgraded the gun and bomb techs to 4, then upgraded one to big laser.
The final level always has me dropping in tech as needed, if it looks like it's getting away from ya drop in a laser, upgrade a laser if needed, etc.

Building at choke points is key, as is making sure you have gun towers near the bomb towers to kill stragglers - you want the bombs always hammering a single spot, not chasing one random straggler and missing the mass of units they're good against. I pick one angled spot (for the electric spot eventually) and cover it up, then the big guns in the later game go into middle spots that can cover several paths as needed but are always able to hit the main build-up point - I want to know that if things get past that one point, I need more guns...but for bosses it's nice if the really big guns can keep the fire up for a long time on that single impossible to kill unit.

 

ok, i kept the low-level assets on the board and got over 40K -- 42,876.

here's how i let the final wave play out.

 

Sweet!
I just did 46864 on that map, trying a new tactic that worked but doesn't score like I thought it would.
I ended with over 16k in cash, perfect kills. But I upgraded the lasers to level 2 (2 of them) instead of just dropping more basic ones, and tossed a ton of cash into research to support that (level 5 tech = nearly $3k that I normally don't spend). But I was able to do it with 2 gun towers, 2 bomb towers, and 1 big gun tower, and then just the two upgraded laser towers.
Given the extra $3-4k in cash over my normal performance, I was hoping for 50k points and the #2 spot on the scoreboard, but it appears upgraded lasers count for shit for asset value. Tons of bomb towers and gun towers, my old strategy, cost more for the same damage output but get asset value and don't require as much research...

Anywho, time for bed.

 

dang. 41,529 on this one. i sold the laser in the SW corner right before the game ended to see what i could get. i ended up with $12K+.


i wish it had a running point total and a way to drop an asset -- like you click on it to plant it somewhere, but you changed your mind. i can't figure out how to drop it and go back and select a different asset.

yeah. bed.

 

Press ESC, it will let you cancel an item before placing it...

 

yay. a high score!

http://www.freeworldgroup.com/score/index.asp?game=rd_desertzig

i didn't realize i was that close to being done. i was building some maxed out gun towers there at the end that i could have saved for more $$. dangit.

on this one, i built a wall of alternating gun/grenade towers along the opening strip, through turn one and just past it. i upgraded those along the way, adding in a missile tower and a heavy gun tower in the triangle on turn one. i just kept upgrading those.

dangit. now i have to play again and keep a watch of what level i'm on.

 

i played again and made it up to #17 with 45,644 points.

here's where i ended up. all gun/grenade towers maxed out. the research centers were only upgraded once, so the missile and big gun towers were only upgraded as far as that would take them.

i didn't need the last two gun towers on the strip -- they only occasionally fired. i may have been able to do without the final two grenade towers, too. but that would be cutting it close on some of those runs.

i grabbed this pic just as the last guy was exploding.

 

i should have done a financial center!

 

Bam - 47256 for 10th place on Desert Zig Zag!
Ended with like 15-16k cash