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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 20:26:56 [Permalink]
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74,216 now. And a correction to what I said before: selling off cannons before a level ends is only a good thing on level 39. Before then, selling off cannons only gets you your money back - exactly - if you've got a 35% interest rate, so there's no point in doing it.
Hey, can we work the math of the game backwards from 200K? Relatively speaking, one's score is usually only slightly more than one's gold, so let's just pay attention to the gold. And because the values and numbers of creeps are so variable, we'll ignore them, too. So to end with 200K gold, one needs to finish level 39 with 200K / 1.35 = 148,149 gold (always rounding up for worst case). To start level 39 with 148,149 gold, one needs to end level 38 with 148,148 / 1.35 = 109,740. So one must end level 37 with 109,740 / 1.35 = 81,289. So one must end level 36 with 60,214 gold.
Prior to level 36, the max interest rate is 30%, so one must end level 35 with 60,214 / 1.30 = 46,319 gold. So one must end level 34 with 35,360. Level 33: 27,200. Level 32: 20,924. Level 31: 16,096. Level 30: 12,382. Level 29: 9,525.
Prior to level 29, the max interest rate is 25%, so one must end level 28 with 7,620 gold. Level 27: 6,096. Level 26: 4,877. Level 25: 3,902. Level 24: 3,122. Level 23: 2,498. Level 22: 1,999.
Prior to level 22, the max interest rate is 20%, so one must end level 21 with 1,666 gold. Level 20: 1,389. Level 19: 1,158. Level 18: 965. Level 17: 805. Level 16: 671. Level 15: 560.
Prior to level 15, the max interest rate is 15%, so one must end level 14 with 487 gold. Level 13: 424. Level 12: 369. Level 11: 321. Level 10: 280. Level 9: 244. Level 8: 213.
Prior to level 8, the max interest rate is 10%, so one must end level 7 with 193 gold. Level 6: 176. Level 5: 160. Level 4: 146. Level 3: 133. Level 2: 121. Level 1: 110.
Of course, you're only given 50 gold to start, so the value of the creeps you blow up must be important to your final score. But I suppose the real point is that if you can get above the numbers I just listed and stay above those numbers, you'll get a 200K-plus score.
I know I tend to build too many towers in the earlier levels, 'cause the creeps get nowhere near leaking. Perhaps using the above numbers as a guide, I'll be able to reduce my spending. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
 Posted - 02/26/2007 : 20:34:14 [Permalink]
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| but Dave, are you doing this without investing a wood in the other technologies? Can a bunch of basic arrow towers take out a 10000 hp creep, let alone 20 of them?? |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 20:55:25 [Permalink]
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One time I scored over 70,000. I don't recall the exact number, but I remember noting that it was a personal best. It was the same game on a different site, which has the newest version which includes "boss" mobs.
I've tried a number of strategies, but the one I find works the best is to build primarily cannon towers. Use a few arrow and air towers for the first wave of air mobs, then sell off the air towers and replace them with fire towers, which can attack both land and air and do better damage. Sprinkle in water towers to slow the mobs and a few earth for heavy damage. Use cannon towers and arrow to fill in any blank spaces. If you can save enough, place 2-4 combo towers at the center of the map. These are absolutely essential for killing mobs listed as "Damn Hard" and above.
But really, it all falls apart quickly thereafter. They have too many hitpoints and leak in huge numbers. The only strategy I haven't really tried is sticking with one tower type--say fire--and just upgrading the shit out of them.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/26/2007 20:55:56 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 22:33:51 [Permalink]
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All I do is cannon towers, except for the air-only levels. The first air level gets one air tower, fully upgraded. The second air level gets three, and the third gets something like seven or eight. I sell those off as fast as I can. So quickly that by the time the last air creep gets killed on the later two levels, there's only one tower remaining. Interest on the sale price counts for a lot thanks to the magic of compounding.
For that first 50,000+ score I posted, I didn't even have any overlapping towers at the end. The entire buildable area was filled with cannon towers, and having so few forced me to buy over 200 extra lives total in order to survive to the end of level 39. That's part of the reason for the "low" score.
But I've since found out that a couple hundred cannon towers can make mincemeat out of even a full complement of 15,000-HP creeps. It's those last two stages that always have large numbers of leaks, but by then, blowing cash on extra lives doesn't cost nearly as much in lost interest as it would if the leaks happened earlier.
Of course, if you've spent wood on research into elements - and especially if you've researched all of them to get the combo towers - then you're not so concerned with the interest your money generates. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 13:46:38 [Permalink]
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Okay, using a spreadsheet and letting it go to as many decimal places as it wants, using all your wood for interest gives us these minimums to reach 200K gold (rounded up after calculations, and using an integer for level 1):
Level 1 (and up at 10%): 108 - 120 - 132 - 146 - 160 - 176 - 194
Level 8 (at 15%): 213 - 245 - 281 - 324 - 372 - 428 - 492
Level 15 (20%): 566 - 679 - 814 - 977 - 1172 - 1406 - 1688
Level 22 (25%): 2025 - 2531 - 3164 - 3955 - 4943 - 6179 - 7724
Level 29 (30%): 9654 - 12550 - 16315 - 21210 - 27573 - 35844 - 46598
Level 36 (35%): 60577 - 81778 - 110401 - 149041 - 201205
Let's call the above values our "baseline" numbers for comparison purposes. Remember, these are the minimums one needs to have right before the interest is calculated for each level in order to reach a minimum of 200,000 gold at the end. If you can get above one of these numbers, and then stay above the numbers for the rest of the game, you're guaranteed a score of over 200K.
For those not wanting to spend all their wood on interest, I present below some other scenarios.
If one were to spend the last wood on a single element:
Level 1 (10%): 127 - 140 - 154 - 170 - 186 - 205 - 225
Level 8 (15%): 248 - 285 - 328 - 377 - 433 - 498 - 573
Level 15 (20%): 659 - 790 - 948 - 1138 - 1366 - 1637 - 1966
Level 22 (25%): 2359 - 2949 - 3686 - 4608 - 5759 - 7199 - 8999
Level 29 (30%): 11249 - 14623 - 19010 - 24712 - 32126 - 41764 - 54293
Level 36 (30%): 70580 - 91756 - 119280 - 155064 - 201583
Through level 36, each one of the numbers above is 16.5% higher than the baseline values. At level 37, it's only 12.2% higher; level 38 is 8% higher, and level 39 is 4% higher.
If one were to spend the first wood (after level seven) on elemental research:
Level 1 (10%): 406 - 447 - 492 - 541 - 595 - 654 - 720
Level 8 (10%): 792 - 871 - 958 - 1054 - 1159 - 1275 - 1402
Level 15 (15%): 1542 - 1774 - 2040 - 2345 - 2697 - 3102 - 3567
Level 22 (20%): 4102 - 4922 - 5906 - 7087 - 8505 - 10206 - 12247
Level 29 (25%): 14696 - 18370 - 22962 - 28702 - 35878 - 44847 - 56058
Level 36 (30%): 70073 - 91095 - 118423 - 153950 - 200133
Which just goes to show how important the early interest rates are. In this scenario, through level 8, you'll need 272% more gold to get to the 200K than baseline. At level 30, you still need 46% more gold than baseline.
But, interestingly - and perhaps obviously - the amounts get closer together at the higher levels. In the last scenario, for the last three levels, you only need 11.4%, 7.3% and 3.3% more gold than baseline, quite comparable to the "get all interest but the last one" scenario, above.
This does make sense, because we know that there's more than one strategy for a 200K game (otherwise the thing would be entirely mechanistic and boring).
And again, it's obvious that we need some data on the creeps and their values to be more precise. Such data would drop all the numbers listed above, because the gold they generate gains interest, also.
All I know is that the one time I counted the level 39 creeps, there were 60 of them. But I got the impression, from my early attempts at the game, that the number of creeps is somehow linked to the number of lives one has. Was that impression mistaken?
(By the way, I also ran the numbers for using the first three wood on elements, and one would need more than twice as much gold on level 34 than baseline to get to 200K.) |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 21:42:42 [Permalink]
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Since we're on the topic of online flash games, I've always felt that there was probably some elegant mathmatical strategy to doing well in Splash Back. Some way of telling how to convert all the puddles to "fours" using the minimum number of drops possible. Also, of best predicting where to start "ones" to take greatest advantage of exploding bubbles.
Dunno if you can spreadsheet that one, Dave, but I think the highest I've ever gotten was lvl 27, if I recall.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/27/2007 21:43:54 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 22:51:26 [Permalink]
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Well, here's what I managed tonight, while collecting data on the creeps' value in gold (spoilers, this is a half-assed "transcript"):
Start with 40g
(build one cannon for 9g, no upgrades)
Level 1: 20 sheep, 10 hp, 1g
(upgrade cannon for 15g)
Level 2: 20 rabid dogs, 42 hp, 1g
(upgrade cannon for 26g)
Level 3: 20 small boys, 65 hp, 1g
(do nothing)
Level 4: 20 peasants, 75 hp, 1g
(do nothing)
Level 5: 20 firework throwers, 101 hp, 1g
(build second cannon, no upgrades)
Level 6: 20 drug runners, 87 hp, 1g
(upgrade second cannon once)
Level 7: 20 greedy pigs, 136 hp, 2g
(use wood for interest, buy air tower, upgrade all the way, buy arrow tower, don't upgrade)
Level 8: 20 flying machines, 158 hp, 1g
(upgrade second cannon again)
Level 9: 20 stags, 189 hp, 1g
(do nothing)
Level 10: 20 trolls, 212 hp, 2g
(buy 3rd cannon, upgrade all the way - from here on out, upgrade every cannon bought all the way up right away)
Level 11: 1 angry critters, 2000 hp, 45g (will leak once)
(do nothing)
Level 12: 20 water elementals, 246 hp, 2g
(do nothing)
Level 13: 20 drugs runners, 212 hp, 2g
(do nothing)
Level 14: 20 lizards, 331 hp, 2g
(use wood for interest)
Level 15: 20 battle golems, 384 hp, 2g
(do nothing)
Level 16: 20 harpy rogues, 445 hp, 2g
(four fully-upgraded air towers down right-hand side, try to sell three before interest)
Level 17: 20 albatross, 580 hp, 2g
(buy two more cannons, for five total)
Level 18: 20 fat pigs, 695 hp, 2g
(buy two more cannons, for seven total)
Level 19: 20 drug runners, 599, 2g
(do nothing)
Level 20: 20 goblins again, 806 hp, 3g
(buy one more cannon, for eight total)
Level 21: 20 trolls, 1125 hp, 2g
(use wood for interest, buy eight more cannons, for 16 total)
Level 22: 1 angry critters, 14000 hp, 55g (will leak twice)
(do nothing)
Level 23: 20 goblins again?!, 1075 hp, 3g
(do nothing)
Level 24: 20 dark minions, 1265 hp, 4g
(do nothing)
Level 25: 20 cannons, 1468 hp, 4g
(do nothing)
Level 26: 20 drug runners, 1265 hp, 4g
(buy eight fully-upgraded air towers down right-hand side)
Level 27: 20 albatross, 1615 hp, 4g (about five leaked birds, must build more)
(do nothing)
Level 28: 20 cryptic fiends, 1935 hp, 4g
(use wood for interest)
Level 29: 20 sludge monstrosities, 2165 hp, 5g
(buy two more cannons, for 18 total)
Level 30: 20 ghouls, 2405 hp, 5g
(buy three more cannons, for 21 total)
Level 31: 20 goblins, 2655 hp, 5g
(buy three more cannons, for 24 total - these three go across to the left of the first one)
Level 32: 20 trolls riding drug runners, 2500 hp, 2g (had eight leak through once - must build more cannons)
(I was on the 200K schedule until about here)
(buy 30 more cannons, for 54 total - make second column parallel to first one down right-hand side)
Level 33: 1 angry critters, 35000 hp, 100g (will leak once)
(do nothing)
Level 34: 40 creeps, 5000 hp, 5g
(do nothing)
Level 35: 40 creeps, 7000 hp, 10g (had four leaks)
(use wood for interest, buy 42 cannons in two rows across the bottom for 96 total)
Level 36: 40 creeps, 10000 hp, 15g (had four leaks)
(at this point, I'm about 5000g shy of the 200K schedule)
(then I realized it's midnight, and I can't make up the 5000g anyway, so I said "screw it" and filled the remaining space with 117 cannons, for 213 total, which puts me 13008g away from where I should be.)
Level 37: 40 creeps, 15000 hp, 20g (no leaks)
(do nothing - nothing to do - am now over 16K behind schedule thanks to lost interest)
Level 38: 40 creeps, 20000 hp, 25g (no leaks)
(do nothing - now nearly 21K behind schedule)
Level 39: 60 creeps, 25001 hp, 30g (had 54 leaks after first "lap" - gotta learn to cram three rows of cannons onto land segments consistently)
(sell off as many cannons as physically possible when it becomes clear there will be no third lap)
End with 175,257g and a score of 180,907.
That put me in 21st place on the leaderboard.
Someone posted a score of 290,515 with a whopping 3,458 lives left. What the hell is that all about? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 22:55:47 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Since we're on the topic of online flash games, I've always felt that there was probably some elegant mathmatical strategy to doing well in Splash Back. Some way of telling how to convert all the puddles to "fours" using the minimum number of drops possible. Also, of best predicting where to start "ones" to take greatest advantage of exploding bubbles.
Dunno if you can spreadsheet that one, Dave, but I think the highest I've ever gotten was lvl 27, if I recall.
Well, on my first try, I cleared one level.
If the levels are random every time you play, then there will be no way to "spreadsheet" it. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 12:21:06 [Permalink]
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Well, now that I know how much the different creeps are worth, and how many they are, we can go ahead and calculate the highest amount of gold one could get if, at level one, a player was given a free "kill everything" tower at no cost:
Level Start Creep End Max
Gold Value Gold Int
1 40 20 60 10
2 66 20 86 10
3 95 20 115 10
4 126 20 146 10
5 161 20 181 10
6 199 20 219 10
7 241 40 281 10
8 309 20 329 15
9 378 20 398 15
10 458 40 498 15
11 572 45 617 15
12 710 40 750 15
13 862 40 902 15
14 1038 40 1078 15
15 1239 40 1279 20
16 1535 40 1575 20
17 1890 40 1930 20
18 2316 40 2356 20
19 2828 40 2868 20
20 3441 60 3501 20
21 4202 40 4242 20
22 5090 55 5145 25
23 6431 60 6491 25
24 8114 80 8194 25
25 10242 80 10322 25
26 12903 80 12983 25
27 16228 80 16308 25
28 20386 80 20466 25
29 25582 100 25682 30
30 33387 100 33487 30
31 43533 100 43633 30
32 56722 40 56762 30
33 73791 100 73891 30
34 96058 200 96258 30
35 125136 400 125536 30
36 163196 600 163796 35
37 221125 800 221925 35
38 299599 1000 300599 35
39 405809 1800 407609 35
End 550272
So, since the maximum amount of gold (an impossible amount) is 550K, and people are striving for 200K games, how money gets spent is going to govern the final score.
Just spending nine gold on a single cannon tower on level one drops the final amount by 16,613g. Just doing what I did in my hidden "transcript," above, through level 7 lowered my total potential earnings down to 440,157g, or 20%. Including almost everything I did during that game, including tower purchases, leaked creep penalties, and some tower sell-backs - I neglected to note some extra lives I bought at some point, I know - and we get the following chart:Level Start Creep Gold End Max
Gold Value Out Gold Int
1 40 20 9 51 10
2 56 20 16 60 10
3 66 20 26 60 10
4 66 20 0 86 10
5 95 20 0 115 10
6 126 20 9 137 10
7 151 40 16 175 10
8 192 20 23 189 15
9 218 20 21 217 15
10 249 40 0 289 15
11 333 45 95 283 15
12 325 40 0 365 15
13 420 40 0 460 15
14 529 40 0 569 15
15 654 40 0 694 20
16 833 40 0 873 20
17 1048 40 110 978 20
18 1173 40 54 1159 20
19 1391 40 100 1331 20
20 1597 60 0 1657 20
21 1989 40 50 1979 20
22 2375 55 510 1920 25
23 2400 60 0 2460 25
24 3075 80 0 3155 25
25 3943 80 0 4023 25
26 5029 80 0 5109 25
27 6386 80 194 6272 25
28 7840 80 0 7920 25
29 9900 100 0 10000 30
30 13000 100 100 13000 30
31 16901 100 150 16851 30
32 21906 40 486 21460 30
33 27898 100 1600 26398 30
34 34317 200 0 34517 30
35 44872 400 40 45232 30
36 58801 600 2100 57301 35
37 77357 800 5850 72307 35
38 97614 1000 0 98614 35
39 133129 1800 3780 131149 35
End 177052
Which is nearly a couple grand higher than I actually ended with, probably because of those missing lives. Had I kept track a little better, it should have matched exactly. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 12:28:18 [Permalink]
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Nice work, Dave. I played a few rounds investing most woods in the new guns for fun, but the best you can do is ca. 9,000 or so (though with 8 or 9 maxed out rocket launchers even the high level guys rarely make it through to do a lap. But the lack of interest kills you. So the only way to get to the even reasonable scores is to forego the better guns and just use cannons and pour the woods into interest.
This makes the game less fun for me, since it would be more fun (and more of a challenge) if the superior technology played a bigger role. But it doesn't. Alas. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 15:44:12 [Permalink]
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If you spend no gold at all, and invest the first two wood in interest, the max gold is only 153,839. If you invest the first three wood in elements, the max gold is only 38,463. If you were to do element, interest, element, interest, element, the max is only 77,581g.
Oh, the heck with it. Below, an I stands for a wood used for Interest, and an E stands for a wood used for an Element. Reading left to right, in chronological order, the zero-spending maximum gold is:IIIII - 550272
IIIIE - 473606
IIIEI - 362381
IIIEE - 310192
IIEII - 277213
IIEIE - 237391
IEIII - 215852
IEIIE - 184939
IIEEI - 180635
EIIII - 178525
IIEEE - 153839
EIIIE - 153032
IEIEI - 141220
IEIEE - 120362
EIIEI - 117243
IEEII - 108650
EIIEE - 99997
IEEIE - 92699
EIEII - 90850
EIEIE - 77581
EEIII - 72911
IEEEI - 70861
EEIIE - 62344
EIEEI - 59638
EEIEI - 48327
EEEII - 38463
The lesson seems to be that if you hope for a 200K game, you'd better not use a wood for an Element prior to level 22.
Does this take the fun out of the game? I'm not sure. There are still challenges. I still want to know how the one person got a 290K score with over 3,000 extra lives. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2007 : 15:56:24 [Permalink]
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| I don't think it takes all the fun out of the game. I mean there's still the challenge of knowing just how little you have to spend to survive a round, and just where to place your cannons, and so on. But it's also clear that the superior strategy is interest, interest, interest and not in making cannons and such. And I was having fun playing around with the different advanced cannons before it became clear that whatever advantage came from doing 2000 points of damage per shot was in no way ever going to make up for the lost gold, then most of the variation (and thus fun) of the game was lost. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2007 : 14:33:53 [Permalink]
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Tonight I had a dream in which I and my best childhood friend was participating in shooting a CSI-Las Vegas episode. We were both CSI-technitians, and my friend Peter were co-starring with Emily Procter. Yeah, I know she's in Miami, but for some reason, she was in Vegas, probably because Peter has the same hair-colour as her, long straight latter 80's style, possibly playing her brother, but I'm not sure). I myself had a minor role on the set which was in a gas-station/garage workshop.
Peter was botching his tech-talk, partly because English is second language to both of us, and he points to me and says to the crew "You should talk to him instead, he's the one that knows this kind of stuff".
Weird dream.
The funny thing is... All conversations were in English. Maybe you don't reflect much upon that, but how weird would it be if you kept talking Spanish in you dreams? (I understand that Spanish is the most common second language among native English Americans. Or the appropriate other language, for those who aren't Americans.) |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2007 : 00:15:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by me
If the levels are random every time you play, then there will be no way to "spreadsheet" it.
The levels in Splash Back are random, so there's no way to optimaize a strategy except on a level-by-level basis, as you play.
I'm definitely not grokking the game. In the last game I played, an early level pretty much took care of itself (to my surprise), giving me somewhere around 19 drops to mess with, but they were all frittered away by the 13th level (a personal best). But then, a few games before that, I couldn't even clear the first level with ten drops.
Such tremendous inconsistency leads me to think that I just don't get it and/or that there's a lot of luck involved. It'd be interesting to write a program to analyze a level's starting setup and give you a sequence of drops to maximize efficiency, but at first glance, such a program appears to be on the same order of difficulty as a chess-playing program, given the massive "look ahead" required to do well. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2007 : 04:26:41 [Permalink]
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| The combination of me being a bit of an insomniac the last few days and me reading a lot lately about IDists claiming that ID can make predictions, I wrote an article about that (the predictions that is). Any comments - especially critical ones would be appreciated. The design is obviously crap (no pun intended) and given a few more sleepless night, I just might do something about it. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
| Edited by - Hawks on 03/20/2007 19:14:08 |
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The Water Cooler
Topic Locked
