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It's the regular game mode, but if you make your units just strong enough (approx 15 damage/health) then they will always die in the later rounds, but they will clear enough of the units that you can finish the rest off with max level bat spells. This means you take no damage and the king takes no damage and you can technically play forever, although it would get very repetitive so I stopped at round 120.

Infinite round strategy

The mail ghoul is object type 0 on the browser and I think it just thought the invalid instance with id 0 returned by the summon script was a mail ghoul.

Replicated. This happens when skull lvl 2 has bone and there are no spots left in row.

I looked at the code and there is a bug in gml_Script_EffectTypesAfterDeath. The issue is that when the skull has a bone, it first creates a boner directly under the lvl 2 skull that died. This succeeds. However, after this happens, it will attempt to create a lvl 1 skull. This fails since there are no spots left. (the return value of gml_Script_Summon is invalid). However, the code then tries to apply the effect of the skull - namely to give the lvl 1 skull the bone item. To do this, it attempts to access the skull instance with the return value of gml_Script_Summon. This return value was invalid though since there were no spots left. Hence, it will crash.

Problem snippet:

This same error should effect lvl3 skull also.

Yep, definitely did look into this stuff.

After a little bit of digging, my current understanding of how it works is:

The enemy units from previous turns actually carry over to the next turn. However, at the start of each turn, a 'summoning' occurs which inserts some number of new enemy units or replaces old units with a different type. The exact number is based on a bit of randomness, turn number, player health and king health.

Each turn, some new units are added or replace old units.

• For the first three turns, only Supporter can be added
• For the next two turns, Supporter, Royalist, Snitch can be added 
• For the next three turns, Guard, Royalist, Snitch can be added
• For all remaining turns or when the king life is less than 12, Archer, Knight, APC, Guard can be added.

Then, an enemy type is chosen uniformly at random from the possible options.

This enemy will then be inserted randomly at the end of an available row.

If no space can be found, the weakest enemy in the lane is replaced. 

Finally, if this is the round when the king comes out, the princes and king replace the units in the first spots.

For reference,

tier 1 bones starts first turn

tier 2 starts third turn

tier 3 starts sixth turn

tier 4 starts 11th turn (or when king health drops below 12)

These do not align exactly with the stages of more difficult enemies, hence you seeing some archers and knights or snitches early.

I definitely can find this out for you, but it's been a while since I've dug into the code.

Yeah, I was doing some napkin math trying to figure out how likely it is to get the 5 round run properly and gave up lol. Nice job on the 6 round run!

Some probabilities:

Round 1 damage:

5 damage: 2.5% chance

4 damage: 36.4% chance

Round 2 would be similar, but slightly better because you have stuff from round 1.

Getting 4 or more summon spells in rounds 3-5 is ~3.7% chance

Getting 7 or 8 or 9 rats/skeletons/summon spells in rounds 3-5 is ~7.5% chance.

These aren't all independent probabilities and I wasn't too thorough checking them, but you're looking at a 1 in 5000 chance to get what you need and even after that you need to play well to actually win. This does seem in the realm of doable legitimately though.

For the record, I haven't gotten a 5 round run without twiddling probabilities, so the challenge of being the first legit 5 round run is still open ;)

The probability of getting the market selections you need for the 4 round run is 1 in 40343846 alone. It's probably just as rare to get the enemy spawns you need so that's never happening.

Update:

4 turns is actually possible too but it's probably never going to happen in an actual run. You need the best luck in the market and the enemy spawns:

This is definitely the minimum you can do.

Turns out winning in 5 turns is possible. 

Strat: 

Rounds 1&2: Add 2 level 2 skeletons and anything else OR 1 level 2 skeleton and 1 level 2 skull. Best is 2 level 2 skeletons and archer/stone thrower. A level 2 archer is good for rounds 2-3 when you don't spy since it can target any lane. Always get skeletons first if they're there so you can afford everything. You can afford having some inefficiency, with a 4 castle damage combo instead of the ideal 5 damage for one or both of these rounds if you get lucky later.

Round 1:

Round 2:

Rounds 3-5: You want summon spells, rats and more level 2 skeletons (with the aim of getting at least one level 3 summon book by round 4/5). Bones are good if you already have skulls, but you probably don't want to make a new skull unless it's the best option available. You can probably afford 1/2 other buys if you must and they can protect the castle damage dealers. Use the summon spells as fodder to protect the level two skeletons/skulls as they do more damage to the castle. Rats should be protected the most as they do the most damage to the castle vs their ability to take out units. Level two rats are better than two level 1 rats, but level 3 isn't useful until fighting the king. When you get the level 3 summon book, potentially buy the tier 3 unit produced (ideally it's a summoner). For rounds 4-5, use the spy as you may need to sacrifice a lane to deal more damage. Don't merge summoners into level 2.

Round 3:

Round 4:

Round 5:

King Fight: 3 of any: summoner, bard, rocker, rats, bat spell to remove shield. Use spy to make sure you don't die and pick the best options. Don't bother with princes or knights in other lanes.

(Note that I altered the market probabilities to reduce the number of retries I needed when I was testing out the strategy, but it is still doable if you get extremely lucky. Using this strat across 6 rounds is much more likely and gives some leeway in terms of luck.)

I think five rounds is the best possible as the only way (I think) to do 60 castle damage in 4 rounds even if no units die is:

Round 1: 2 level 2 skeletons + 1 level 1 skull = 5 damage

Round 2 : 4 level 2 skeletons + 1 level 2 skull = 11 damage

Round 3 : 1 level 2 rat + 1 level 1 rat + 4 level 2 skeletons + 1 level 2 skull = 18 damage

Round 4 : 3 level 2 rats + 4 level 2 skeletons + 1 level 2 skull = 26 damage

Total : 5 + 11 + 18 + 26 = 60 exactly, but I can't think of anyway for all units to survive every round without losing more than 9 health.