Post by Dyrkabes in Incremental RTS comments

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Haha wow that's a very clever hack you have found, I would never thought of it! First I developed the Big Bertha to be long enough to destroy enemy base on purpose so in case player loses on a high level the way back is then a bit faster + some prestige farming. But with the surrender button it is indeed crazy :D Even though I really appreciate such hacks I'll change the mechanics a bit :D

Talking about ants - that's actually very interesting. My idea was that they would still be powerful with all the upgrades but.. not as powerful lmao! Maybe I have a bug somewhere, gotta check. And was it ok performance-wise with ants only on later levels? I guess you must have real swarms of them

Thanks for playing and sharing your findings :)

Foxi13x23 days ago(+1)

I had about 40 Ant Factories, it produced like 4 ants per seconds

PJOZeus23 days ago

Shields + flat damage upgrades, invalidates their low hp and low damage
Works better with Mossies imo (had up to 180), because no air splash

Dyrkabes22 days ago

I am still giggling when I realize that this idea works. And that I never realized that till I released the game.

I could not reproduce the win scenario with ants so far, I get stuck around level 15. But yeah, I am quite sure the 180 Mossi factories will destroy anything even up to level 30 (if there were so many levels)

Found the reason for that though. I was implementing better pop ups today and the small units got way overpowered due to flat upgrades - as you say. Ants are at 100 DPS, Mosquitos at ~130 DPS at max upgrades. Units like ranged and sniper are at 100 DPS. Which is fine - they compensate with the range.. but still

I think I won't touch it much though, I love this development way too much. Maybe I add a bit power to AoE units and add a new one to counter that

PJOZeus21 days ago

Cost scaling makes it inviable until you've basically won the game, let alone war cost - was going to suggest low dps burst-fire splash but, that would honestly be a bad idea. Splash in general just scales far better, it might need some better targeting/reaction time until they fire, but they're still the ultimate tool (excluding possibly the updated bamboo)
Sniper has good survivability and stacks up easily, ranged is easier to get and better early on (by the time Ants would be good, you'd have better units than ranged anyway)
Also, it did go to level 30, ish
Once you win, if you press start on the menu, it puts you in level 21 (as it says it will) - this isn't a bad thing to me, some extra levels, still has a 'win' screen, and just lets you mess around a bit for fun (eg don't remove it please)

And yeah, thanks for making a fun little free game, it's one of the better small ones i've seen on itch lately

Dyrkabes21 days ago

Yeah the splash units like Siege performed too well in mid game so it now has the lowest DPS and still stands strong I feel

Actually, I love this twist. In mid game player has to abandon the ants completely but then in the end game it is one of the best ways to win. It would be fun to make it even more enforced (make them even better) but that feels too blunt

> Once you win, if you press start on the menu,

Ah yes, I have it on my list :D I will definitely keep it. Maybe I'll change the button and text so it is not perceived as a bug

And thanks for your kind words, I appreciate it a lot! I am glad that this game got interesting and fun in the end. It is curious that I considered it as a short break/test before another incremental. This one is not very marketable with the current graphics.. but that graphics is somehow dear to my heart haha. Now the other prototype will have to wait it seems

PJOZeus20 days ago(+1)

The graphics are certainly dear, even if they were refined and optimised the style should stay and be embraced
And hey, it doesn't have to break the internet to still be a success, bring more eyes to your work, or if you did choose to sell it even make a few quid for an endearing little project (or hell maybe some donation page others would use- baby steps)

Last thing to say about balance - even if ants or mossies didnt have the damage, the shields make them good tanks, that's the basis of their use, this is also mixed with units staying at the absolute limit of their range, or units walking past mozzies and mozzies lose targeting etc - trying to crawl forward with snipers, vs a swarm, is agonisingly slow - if they (snipers) did something like shoot, move, shoot, move, until a target was at say 80% of their range instead, this could make artillery more useful - unsure if they may become too strong though

itch.io

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