The Castle Doctrine Forums

you were wireless exploiting before. seems your house is much much weaker now.

you kept going back in his house and dancing around? lmao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRCxO3LmKtg

It's LiteS! he's a zombie! You said you were leaving the game... I made you a grave and everything
http://thecastledoctrine.net/forums/vie … php?id=970

ah, C'est la vie

One of the things I find most interesting about this game is that it closely resembles a social experiment, both in the game and in the forums. Perhaps by way of design and that it's based on real life experiences and meant to replicate those feelings and experiences in some fashion (see Jason Rohrer youtube interviews). How would each of us react to and handle such situations as the threat of imminent danger to the things we hold dear? It's interesting to watch people responding and reacting as a whole, watching the trends in reactions and the changing of how the game is played. and maybe giving a little push here, a little poke there, just to watch what happens. When there was a flood of people from the steam release the lower class was prevalent and people told their stories of despair from the poverty line because they kept dying and didnt know how to build well. Now people have generally learned more and a heavy middle class has formed as people know the dangers of leaving their house and losing everything and so turtle up and tell their woes of that predicament.

So here's some help to get out of that one.
How to escape the middle class: at some point you will no doubt grow weary from the effectiveness of your home design, if it's particularly good you can end up chilling so many people that you go for long periods without any adventurous/desperate souls encroaching on your land at all, as their previous incarnations have already come and died. There's also yet another gap between too high for suicide robbers and too low for bruteforcers. So you look around and see everyone else in ~10-15k range just sitting there turtling too. If you wish to climb higher, here's a strategy you may find useful:

sorry for the book, it gets a little more complex up here.

1. scout the houses 5-10k above yours. Just like earlier in the game some houses are high strength/low money, some are low strength/high money. Go in, look for the general layout/traps employed. Take notes. Find one that seems to suit you and you think is the best chance you have of successfully robbing. Make your way to the first commit or possibility of death. take note of the persons name and leave.

2. Get the right amount of item to pass that section safely (dog drug for dog commit, doorstop for pdoor commit etc. if its something more expensive dont bother, there's better targets out there) and go back into the house for further scouting. Fearing for your life yet? you were the one who was bored. During your second scouting run you should get deep enough in to decide whether you want this house or not. If you're not sure, do some more scouting runs, you'll be able to tell the difference after a bit. Look around for the family. If you can find them, then this house is perfect, otherwise take your chances or not but it will be more difficult if the family isn't involved.

3. Once you find a house you want to go for (for me, it has almost always been the first house to make it to the second scouting phase) you need to leave and go load up on your tools. I broke down a couple tiers of tools and their prices at first to wrap my head around it all. Here's a tier that's in this general price range:

tier 1 - $14,335 (make a lower tier if you feel like it, leave yourself with > $2k as usual)
    saw x 25 = 8,000        brick x 7 = 1,050       wirecutters x 1 = 400   
    dog x 15 = 1,500           water x 30 = 3,000        (gun x1 if wife spotted)

Modify these a bit based on the house. saws because you're in someones place who likes to use a lot of electricals, bricks for badly designed magic dances/cat and chihuahua electric floor traps/and opening doors that may have a insta-pitbull or shotgun wifey behind them. you know when to be wary because you are careful to watch for any pets or family appearing at the edge of the map when you move, especially ones behind windows. If this is a house with a family you saw then don't bring the really expensive items like ladders yet. This is because you will shoot the wife in the head with a gun (walk over her to pick up her allowance) and spare the other family members for later. Now continue on and track the most logical path where his vault could be. Saw around blind corners or pdoors, strategically drug dogs to block other dogs mindful not to lock yourself in. Turn back and leave if things get too dangerous. This shouldn't happen much if you did the first two steps right. By now you should have a good idea of his house. Get as close to where you think the vault is while still being safe. Usually this will take you right up to a relatively hefty amount of ptrapdoors trap that needs to be passed, sometimes just pdoors. you can usually tell you're close to the end, however. Either finish it here or if you need more items (ladders, crowbars, explosives, the expensive stuff usually at this point) then feel free to turn around, leave, and go get those items. You killed a family member this time in so your damage through his traps won't reset.

4? Get just what you need to continue including a club, if you're still not far enough in this time around go club a family member you saved to lock the house again and get a couple more tools you need. A house is only so big, so by this point you should be right there or extremely close. Maybe turn that one corner and...yeah, the vault. just sitting there in all of its victimized insecurity. ripe for the pluckins.

here's the notes on one of the houses I broke recently:

Successful    - Anthony Benjamin McMillin. House value: $23,300
    intel:  house damaged. wife killed?
N: 2 dogs in commit trap, drug 1 to block.
E->N: door 1left, door 1Up->dog/dead end, right1->window with wife, assume safe robbed. pass window with dog on N, corridor immediately after then door all the way up , (bricked door, remember wife in window? yeah shes standing there with a shotty) came back killed wife w gun only $741. one child remaining other child must have been killed locking house dmg, damnit, safe still active.
bitlock guessed: 1 1 0 1 1 (if you test one button at a time then check door your chances are greatly improved. I've simply guessed correctly 3 times now. not that it mattered with my tools)
S:doorstop 2 doors, E->chihuahua/sticky deathtrap?, saw into wall to view dog, yep. trip it and use waters.
S->W: 2 more doors, need two more doorstops and wirecutters to be safe.
vault must be just beyond, perhaps need ladders. bring club too, if need more tools kill last child on way out to save new house damage.
need: 2 doorstop, 10 dog drug, 10 saws?, 10 water, 1 club

This strategy will put you on page 1. which is another list of dangers and strategies... go for #1 or bide your time and play around awhile. Don't want things to be Too easy do you? then it would be over.

hope some of this helps ya out in one way or another. have fun

you sir, are one of the lucky intruders who can count squares what are you doin on such cheap houses lite? arent you supposed to be out expanding your painting collection? (edit: up to $4806, don't rob me)

those are the best ones. the fun thing about this game is it's directly mind vs mind. you don't need to practice muscle memory or reinforce game mechanics four hours a day to stay competitive (require additional pylons), its your head against theirs and that's it. you can use that to your advantage. get into their head. whats a simple example? most robbers are very cautious, make a trap that they have to run straight through to pass. any stutter-stepping, movements in another direction and they die. This can be implemented with a magic dance setup, only, if they magic dance they die, if they bravely (stupidly?) run straight through they will survive. throw things in just to confuse the hell out of them and get them to second-guess themselves. even randomly placed pits along their path can unnerve them into pressing the wrong button.

don't worry about dying if you have nothing, take advantage of that fact. rob just to learn new tricks. let them have your tools, theyll come to rue the day. the more you rob the more you can recognize what theyre up to and the further in you'll get. saws are good, i usually grab 3. sometimes you can land on top of their chest with a couple well guessed saw points. usually a saw to break outside into the open, then 1 or 2 to strategically place yourself back inside is one of the lucky draws you can stumble on. plus bricks, dog, water, occasionally a doorstop is good. when starting off with $2k to rob you get nicer houses with lower money (5-15k) because they just upgraded, and you also get low quality houses with higher money(5-15k) because theyve accumulated kills and havent come back yet. the second one is where youll likely find a score. of course... if your skills keep staying the same despite practice and reading the forums, perhaps a more peaceful existence of slowly tending your budding domicile is the path for you. piece by tender piece. one minimum bounty roughly equaling one concrete wall...

thats a cool trick. a line of electrical walls functions just like a safety bridge to a bruteforcer tho. I dont think a good one would step foot on a power trap door thats not covered by a ladder in the first place. I think a good bruteforcer (the kind you'd expect to be in your house when at the top of the list) isn't going to die ever unless they just get unlucky. mispressing a button, cat on keyboard etc... the whole point of bruteforcing is never having to roll the dice. so if you build to drain their resources, you have the same chance of killing the good ones only you're focused on a more effective objective.