Haha what the hell! I couldn't figure out why I was able to win as Dem, but not the same map and difficulty as Republican... and there it is - the hp bias.
Sad.
At first I thought the game was too hard, then after a few more plays I realized it was the opposite - just spam basic towers in the beginning of each map and then upgrade them later, and boom - no leaks.
And yes, the mortar tower is pretty ridiculous. I go half and half, mortar and artillery, and just slaughter everything.
nvg - 2 hints for you (and these apply to most maps.)
1. Upgrade your mana pool. By the time the epic boss comes in that map, you should have a pool size of like 10-30k or even more.
2. Don't worry about color management, build one super mutt gem of whatever color, but combine it into multiple level 1 gems repeatedly. (like combine it into 50 or so level 1 gems one at a time, always big into small.) this upgrades damage, range, and firing speed. I've had level 7 gems using this technique that put the level 11 gems i've seen to shame, because they literally fire like 4 times a second.
I read like 20 times faster than average speaking speed... tutorials bored the crap out of me. What's wrong with putting it down in readable format too?
Phenomenal game, highly polished, great play value.
Hints: The bigger your mana pool, the more mana you get per kill. As you progress in level, you'll want to upgrade your mana pool further and further each map. The later levels I finish with anywhere from 30k-300k (yes.) capacity. At the higher capacities, one single wave of monsters can yield enough mana to create a level 6 gem.
Big gems. Even though you lose special power, on a lot of maps the best way to beat the map is with one "super mutt" gem. Combine all your gems and aim for level 8, level 9, even level 10. Then combine that high level gem INTO low level (1 and 2) gems multiple times, to increase damage, range, and firing rate. With a level 9 or 10 gem with a firing speed of +150 or higher, it can take down anything, including the elites, very quickly. To control what specials the gem DOES use, combine those first, then combine the resulting gem into the colors you don't want as specials.
I like the premise of this game (choosing exactly what upgrade a tower gets) but the execution is pretty poor compared to XT 1 and DTD-anything.
I also think it's crap that you pretty much have to play a map 5 times to figure out where each air wave is going to come from, because they go north to south (at least on the first map) as opposed to west-to-east.
Interesting ideas for the sequel but too much irritation for this to be entertaining. I don't even want to beat the first map.
I'm not going to be as harsh as some of the other commenters - I mean, DTD is a great game and more like it would be great... but maybe not SO MUCH like it. ;) You definitely have game design skill, put it to use with a little originality and you'll likely create something awesome.
This game is just awful. It has a complete lack of balance between health progression of creeps and the gold/xp progression of your units. I find that typically no matter what combo or strategy I use everything goes fine until about 2/3 of the way through a map and then it all goes to hell because my 4 of each unit can't take down the suddenly super healthy mob, or my 3 of each unit, or my 2 of each... You get the idea. I feel like this hearkens back to old games where you have to find the exact pixel to stand on to find or do something, except here you have to have the exact right combination of mages to complete a map, and if you're one or two off you're screwed. That's not good game design, that's sadism.
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