Gentleman's Wars 2: A Tower Defense LitRPG Series Page 5
License Level 1 Golems
Berserker Golem
Cost Per Unit: 100 Mana Crystals
The Berserker Golem is a significantly upgraded Stone Golem, designed to deal high amounts of damage while ignoring most enemy attacks.
Strengths:
Overwhelming Attacks: A single Berserker Golem is strong enough to take down a Siege Golem by itself. They deal significant damage over time and do not slow down.
Structural Integrity: Berserker Golems can continue fighting as long as they have one hit point left, regardless of the amount of damage they take.
Weaknesses:
Unyielding: Berserker Golems do not stop attacking a single target until it is dead. They cannot respond to any orders during a fight.
Solitary: Berserker Golems cannot attack a target already engaged with one Berserker Golem.
Frost Golem
Cost Per Unit: 100 Mana Crystals
The Frost Golem is capable of generating chilling vortexes, slowing down targets or outright freezing them. In addition to their Vortex ability, Frost Golems have a short-range ice blast attack.
Strengths:
Polar Vortex: When commanded, all Frost Golems within an area will create a polar vortex. The more golems contributing, the stronger the effects. Any enemy unit trapped within the Vortex is slowed by 50%. Staying within the vortex for more than ten seconds causes the unit to become Frozen, removing all armor and causing all incoming damage to be tripled.
Frost Spikes: Frost Golems are able to shoot out high damaging ice spikes towards enemies up to 3 squares away.
Weaknesses:
Prompts Required: Frost Golems cannot use the Polar Vortex without a direct command.
Recharge: Polar Vortex can only be used once per wave, regardless of how many Frost Golems you own.
Overheating: Any form of fire or explosive damage is doubled to Frost Golems.
Chase Golem
Cost Per Unit: 25 Mana Crystals
Chase Golems are rapid moving golems designed to target and kill specific enemies. Unlike other golems, they are able to move through occupied spaces, bypass Shield Golems and even move over barricades to hit their target.
Strengths:
Relentless: When Chase Golems have been ordered to attack a target, they can pass through any active obstacle or golem to reach their target.
Numerous: Chase Golems can be grouped into squads containing up to as many as 10. Selecting one Chase Golem from a squad will select all of them, and any orders one squad member receives will be undertaken by the entire squad.
Weaknesses:
Brittle: Chase Golems aren’t terribly strong due to their size and quickly fall to pieces if directly targeted by an attack.
Numbers Required: A single Chase Golem will deal very little damage. At least 5 are required to do a Stone Golem’s worth of damage to a target. Any lower and the damage will be significantly reduced.
Banner Golem
Cost: 500 Mana Crystals
The Banner Golem is a powerful unit that is able to rally nearby golems, granting them special bonuses based on the Rally Marker placed down.
Strengths:
Rally Marker: You may place down a rally marker of your choosing on the square the Banner Golem inhabits. All golems within 50 feet of the rally marker gain one bonus based on the Rally Type of your choosing. As long as the rally flag is up, the bonus is conferred.
Defensive Rally: All units gain 50% damage reduction.
Overdrive Rally: All units gain increased attack speed.
Resistance Rally: All units gain 75% resistance to a chosen element.
Regeneration Rally: All units begin regenerating health at a rate of 5 points per second.
Banner Defender: The Banner Golem deals a heavy melee attack to any unit attacking the Rally Marker.
Weaknesses:
Unique Unit: You may only have one Banner Golem on the battlefield at all times.
Banner Vulnerability: The Rally Marker is a physical item with a high capacity crystal attached. The crystal can be destroyed, rendering the Banner Golem inert for the rest of the round.
Switch Limit: You may only change the Rally Marker in between rounds.
These were quite excellent! The Banner Golem would give a much needed boost to the Stone Golems, which were cheap but fairly useless so far in terms of hitting hard. Granting them extra combat speed would give them considerable boosts. And Chase Golems might help me deal with the constant Siege Golem problem. A swarm of those little buggers should make short work of such a slow-moving enemy force.
I had precious little time to think of all the uses for such things, however, for the enemy was still impending. It was time to begin developing the map, as cheaply as I could.
There were some advantages to this situation. I was fighting off ruffians and scoundrels who had access to golems, sure, but no other special abilities. They probably had little idea how to deploy such tools tactically and thus meant I had the upper hand. However, ignorance could be dangerous. An enemy with no idea how proper strategy was formed might prove to be ruthlessly efficient, an idiot savant if you will.
Surveying the battlefield, I took notice of the farm’s unique design. Since the battlefield was composed of four lots in total, there were four corners of the map where the enemy could enter. The outskirts of the farm had lanes four squares wide. The farmlands themselves served as obstacles, unable to be passed directly. Instead, the exterior lanes all led to a small central area where a Mana Sphere had already been placed. This central area was twenty squares wide.
From the looks of it, enemies would be coming from all directions, from the top, bottom, left and right entry points. They’d move to the long center lanes in between the gaps of the four farmlands, creating a large tic-tac-toe type of path. Immediately, I could see the trouble with such an open design.
Towers worked best when enemy forces were clumped together and forced to walk the same pathway. A single tower dealt a considerable amount of damage if it were able to hit all passing enemies. However, if there were two entry points, the tower would become half as effective, since it would only hit half the enemy golems. And with four entry points…well, I’d need to set up a proper maze here.
The four unpassable squares created an opportunity for an interesting design. By placing barricades at the entry to three center lanes, it would force all enemies to move downwards to the one available lane in order to reach the Mana Sphere. Enemies that appeared at the furthest point would have to go all the way around the farmlands in order to reach the open point, breaking up the groups considerably. Then, I could just invest placing towers in a single choke point, knowing that all enemies would be hit by those towers regardless of their starting position.
I decided to test this theory out. I placed three barricades in each center lane, except for the bottom one. Immediately, I could see a line appear from each corner of the map, showing the enemy’s path. No matter where they came from, the line moved all the way down to the open lane, in between the two patches of farmland.
“Fantastic,” I muttered. The path line seemed to still be taking the fastest route possible to reach the center of the map. The two upper corners of the map would come down and join the golems coming from the bottom corners. But…if I cut off access to the middle on the left, the upper left golems would have to go all the way around, taking the most possible amount of time. Wait! If I moved the opening to the bottom left lane, it would take everyone except for one group even longer.
I quickly shuffled things around a bit. By blocking off every possible route except for the opening on the bottom left of the map, it would divide the enemy golems up into four groups. The first group would move the fastest, the second group would reach the core at a moderate pace, the third group would take twice as long, and the fourth group would arrive long after the rest of the enemy golems were destroyed. This design would
maximize the time enemy golems were exposed to my towers.
Ultimately, this wasn’t a complex maze design. Three blocked entrances to the center and a scattering of barricades to ensure the enemy couldn’t just break one and come flooding in. The lanes were wide enough to fit plenty of towers on the way into the center square. Now, I just needed to figure out the right combo to decimate the enemy before they destroyed this farm…
Chapter 9
My first area of concern in the enemy attack would be flyers. The map was brilliantly able to slow down terrestrial enemies but flying golems would have an easy time making a beeline straight for the Mana Sphere. And if enough of them came my way, I’d be overwhelmed. So, the first order of business would be to set up these brand new Repulsion Towers.
Since there were four points of entry and any flying golem would go directly towards the Sphere, I’d need to place four Repulsion Towers. For 600 silver, that wasn’t a bad deal. The Repulsion Towers would be placed on each corner of the central section, creating an effective barrier against flying units. Anything that tried to get close to the core would be thrown back. Unfortunately, the towers were too far from the entrance to the single opening to hit enemy forces, but maybe that was a blessing. Their sole purpose would be to deflect flying golems, and they’d have nothing to distract them.
With the airways secure, it was time to focus on attrition. Longer travel times meant longer exposure to my towers. Enemies in the back would take the most damage from Ballista Towers, and with the increased shot speed I’d be hitting six golems per minute per tower. For only 50 silver each, I could create some serious trouble with these things.
I placed four Ballista Towers on each side of the central square except for the open area, making for a total of 12 ballistae. They would be firing nonstop, hitting all manner of targets. Their range easily covered most of the map, though the bottom could not reach the top squares and vice versa. Still, all in all, the coverage was excellent for the cost.
Now, there was no reason to waste good golems. If my attrition strategy worked to maximum effect, most of the lagging enemies should be at very low health by the time they reached the entrance to the Sphere. It might cost 1,000 silver, but the Enervation Wall would be well worth the cost. First off, it instantly disabled enemy golems, so any stragglers who had a few hit points left in them would just shut down. Second, it would give me double salvage! And while this fight might be at the behest of someone else, I figured they wouldn’t mind sharing the extra mana crystals, right?
After putting up the rather expensive wall, I turned my attention to the only path that every golem had to cross in order to reach the Sphere. There was very little time before the bottom left golems would be at their objective and that meant I’d have to create a heavy kill zone to decimate their forces as quickly as possible. Fortunately, there were a few ways I could achieve this.
First and foremost, I’d force the approaching golems to form a single file line as they marched forward. Reducing four lanes to one was rather easy; I’d place two barricades diagonally on both sides to create a choke point. The diagonal design would allow me to place Karrack Towers behind each barricade, while using the second box to cut off enemy golems from striking it as they passed.
Once the Karrack Towers were positioned, I continued the funnel design, but instead of using barricades to block the enemy from spreading out, I placed down Thorn Towers on each side, two each. That cost me 2,000 silver, bringing me down to a measly 500 left in my budget. Money enough for the cherry atop this destruction cake—the Boulder Dispenser!
At the end of the choke point was one extra square, not particularly in the way of anyone. The enemy would turn to the right in order to reach the Mana Sphere. But before they could turn, they’d have to deal with a massive boulder rolling their way. Best of all, the boulder wouldn’t hit any of my own stuff, since it would just crash into the end of the map. Since all golems would be forced to march in a single file line, they would be annihilated by such a heavy concentration of power.
There were imperfections to this design, of course. The choke point towers were dangerously exposed here, allowing enemy golems who attacked buildings to have a field day with the Thorn Towers. I wasn’t worried about the other three groups, since they would be targeted mostly by the ballistae. But the exposure time for the fastest group was short and they could heavily damage the towers if we didn’t have guardians in the way.
Five Shield Golems would solve that problem. I placed one in front of the main entrance to the choke point, blocking it off completely. The other four were put directly in front of the barricades, just to add some extra protection.
Wait…no, I couldn’t put the Shield Golem in the main path, because my boulder would obliterate it. Come to think of it, any golem would take damage being in the front lines…hmm. Well, there was still some space before the enemy made it to the choke point, so I could place some heavy hitters down there to soften up the group.
While I had been given no budget for Mana Crystals, I could see that Esha only had a thousand total and I couldn’t very well spend all of their crystals. So I’d have to be a little careful with the budget here. Four Shield Golems to protect the barricades, two berserkers to meet the enemy where they emerged from, two Frost Golems to hold the center and hopefully avoid the boulder, and five Chase Golems hanging back in the center field. 605 crystals total. A little more than half their existing amount. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to spend more in between rounds.
The unrelenting passage of time finally caught up with me as the enemy wagons arrived. My eyes grew wide at the sight of how many there were. At least twelve vehicles were rolling up. While they were in about the same condition as the previous ones I had seen, these wagons had large steel crates attached to them. These were the typical golem containers that were used to transport much larger armies. A chill ran up my spine as they all rolled forward at once, thundering towards the farms.
“Here it comes,” I muttered. “Let’s see how it goes.”
Much to my surprise, a prompt appeared in the Grid. Outlaw Battle impending, it read. Unregistered Participant is invading. This attack is unsanctioned by the Institute of Warfare and by extension, the Crown. No titles may change hands, nor will the Crown recognize the invaders’ right to own captured territory. If the landowner loses their territory, they will still be responsible for collecting taxes from the Outlaw Participant and paying the Crown its rightful due.
I scoffed as I read the large disclaimer. Of course the government was more concerned with getting their taxes paid, as opposed to showing up and helping us out. I searched for some kind of Summon Judge button, or some way to alert law enforcement, but no such option existed. I guess defending this land was our responsibility alone. Typical.
For the first time, I could see actual people approaching the battlefield. Would the towers fry them on the spot? My stomach churned at such an idea. Sure, these men were thugs and fiends, but I wasn’t about to hand out a death sentence for trespassing. Fortunately, one of the men spotted the sudden appearance of crates, golems and towers, and began quickly retreating. It was at that point when the golem crates opened up.
The moment the crates opened, however, my vision became locked to only the battlefield. My perspective became fixed and I couldn’t look past the actual warzone. It seemed that the Grid didn’t allow participants to peek, even at unlawful opponents.
There was that customary lull that happened right before the Grid’s horns bleated in my ears, heralding the beginning of the first wave. I took a deep breath, tensing up. I felt someone grab my hand and squeeze it, reassuring me.
“You can do this, Blake,” Esha whispered.
I didn’t reply, for fear that my nerves would betray whatever empty bravado I had in store. It was fun spending someone else’s money in order to set up a defense, but having to actually stick around and watch your investment? Terrifying.
Wave 1/4
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nbsp; Enemies Remaining: 16
Total Enemies: ?????
The first wave arrived as the horns blared. Four golems appeared in each corner of the map, just like the pathway marker had predicted. They were all Karrack Golems, arms crackling with mystic power, ready to blast away at any enemy in the area. Immediately, my ballistae began firing in all directions at once. My eyes grew wide and my heart swelled with pride at the sight of dozens of bolts firing, wave after wave, at the invaders. The random targeting systems had plenty to work with and the enemy golems in the back rows took heavy damage.
Unfortunately, four Karrack Golems proved to be more than enough to handle the two Berserker Golems I had placed on the field. These large, earth-colored titans with red streaks running down their arms and legs carried mighty axes meant to hew the enemy to pieces. But range beats melee every time, and Karracks were intelligent enough to stay put instead of moving to engage. Four beams focused on the first Berserker, melting it to pieces in a matter of seconds.
The second Berserker rushed forward, undaunted by the death of its comrade. It swung an axe and cut the first Karrack in half, the stone axe sending bits of rock and mana crystal everywhere. The other three Karracks were helpless to fight back, for they still had a cooldown after getting the upper hand on their first target. Thirty seconds was an eternity in a battle and by the time the Karracks had the ability to shoot again, only one remained. It didn’t last long against the sole Berserker.
Meanwhile, I could see that my long walk strategy had worked wonders. The ballistae had a bit of a damage multiplier effect with each golem they killed. One less golem meant more damage distribution to the other damaged golems. The heavy concentration of bolt fire quickly annihilated the remaining enemies, with only one Karrack able to get a pot shot off at the remaining Berserker before it was riddled full of holes. The round was over, and no one even made it to the choke point.