Deeper Dungeons Level 6: Pladitz

Difficulty: Nominally Hard. Actually pathetic.

Your Portal Max: 13 creatures.
Enemy Portal Max: 25 creatures.

Starting forces: 6 Imps (2nd level).
Enemy's starting forces: 6 Imps (1st level), 4 Dark Mistresses (10th level).

Starting gold: 35000
Enemy's starting gold: 15000

Possible minions:
Both Keepers can attract: Troll, Warlock, Bile Demon, Dark Mistress, Orc, Dragon, Spider, Fly, Beetle.
Can be found elsewhere in the level: Skeleton (2x 5th level), Dark Mistress (1x 6th level).

Rooms:
Known at start: Basic Five.
Can be researched: Barracks, Guard Post, Torture Room, Temple, Workshop, Bridge (Player only).
Enemy can also research: Graveyard, Prison.

Spells:
Can research: Must Obey, Call to Arms, Speed, Cave-In, Chicken, Destroy Walls (Player only).
Enemy can also research: Lightning.
Can be found elsewhere in level: Heal, Protect Monster, Conceal Monster.

Doors/Traps:
Can be manufactured: Wood, Steel, Magic Doors; Poison Gas, Lava, Boulder Traps.

Enemies: Powerful heroes lead by a Lord of the Land, and one enemy Keeper.

There are several ways you can defeat this realm. The way the you are intended to defeat it is to spend several hours slogging through the Heroes' winding dungeon playing a door-to-door game of trick or treat, and then turn your attention to the enemy Keeper afterward. Everything about how the realm is laid out seems to reveal that you were meant to be required to do this. However, you are not. You can ignore everything you are told and turn your enemies against one another to achieve utter annihilation without directly fighting either at any point.

If you did not know exactly how to do this, you would likely fall into the trap of doing it the slow way, and that's why I call this level nominally hard. Because the easy way of doing this level is so short, I will provide two separate strategies. The second takes a little longer, but it is more fun.

For the first part of the realm, both strategies involve the same actions. You begin in a dungeon made up of six empty rooms, and there is a large gold vein to your immediate east. Build your Basic Five to full size as quickly as possible, except for your Training Room. Hollow out the corners of one of your middle rooms and nestle a 3x3 Training Room in one corner. The resulting efficiency will allow only two creatures to train at once, which is ideal under your currently limited cash flow. Do not dig through the outer walls of any part of your dungeon for now.

You will hopefully receive some Dragons right off, followed by Warlocks and a few Bile Demons. Start the Dragons and Warlocks researching. If you get Flies, throw them back immediately, but keep at least one Spider and Beetle to sacrifice for a Dark Mistress once you have the Temple.

Build the Barracks, Torture Room, and Temple to 3x3 size in the same area as your Training Room as soon as you research them (hollowing out the corners allows you to build all of these rooms in one area without having them touch, which reduces their efficiency more than having empty space next to them). Sacrifice your Spider and Beetle immediately if you have them, and throw out a few of your Warlocks. Hopefully you will get some Orcs and Mistresses, and you should start having them train. You will need to train them to at least level 5, and level 6 is preferred since Mistresses acquire Lightning at that level.

When you research the Workshop, build one as large as you can make it - the area where you mined out the gold would work well. Put your Bile Demons and your idle Dark Mistresses, if any, to work in here. Do not allow any Trolls to stay in your dungeon, since your portal maximum is so low. You will now be able to sell Boulder Traps and Magic Doors to help keep your cash up.

Once your money starts getting low and you have researched the Guard Post, dig out one tile on the western side of your dungeon anywhere except the tile in the dead middle of the center room (you'll see why it can't be there...). Slap a Guard Post tile down immediately, then build a Bridge out and very quickly sell the connecting tile as always. Like the previous level and many levels before it, we will keep the dungeon permanently isolated from the rest of the realm.

Bridge to the far west at point 1 and you will find an additional large gold vein. Do not dig through any of the earth near it. You can safely mine out all of the gold except the very last western-most tiles - heroes dwell behind them. Gradually build a treasure room in the area where the gold is mined out by your Imps. Mining this seam will bring you up to over 100000 gold and will provide a comfortable cushion no matter what strategy you choose to use from this point onward.

Once your Orcs and Mistresses have trained to level 6, you will make your choice. From here, you can take one of three paths, only the latter two of which I will discuss in detail:

  1. Defeat the realm in the intended manner. This would necessitate the first part of the second strategy I will discuss, and then an additional slog through the entire hero dungeon, followed by a traditional and boring fight against the Blue Keeper.
  2. End the level now with some additional research and some clever tunneling. Fast, but extremely unsatisfying.
  3. Take a middle path between the two extremes which allows you to do some fighting and still turn your enemies against one another.

Let us assume for the time being that you want to end this level as fast as possible. I recommend reading this even if you intend to use the second strategy, as some things are still applicable then.

The First Strategy

You will need to research the Destroy Walls spell, which you have most likely not accomplished by this point. Sell your Training Room, since you are finished with it, and place your Mistresses into the Library along with your Dragons and Warlocks (since your Warlocks are untrained, they will not object to the faster Mistresses researching alongside them). Use Speed at 100-dollar level, and you will speed up research while still conserving money. If you get low on cash, you can open up any of several caves and hero keeps in your area (points 2 through 7) which contain level 5 heroes and numerous gold pots. You can pick up the gold pots in the caves without claiming the area underneath them because they sit on neutral territory. Just let one of your minions see into the room and the money is yours for the taking.

(Note that the gold pots at point 6 spell out the word "DIE" - Oh, how they wish!)

Once you have the Destroy Walls spell, start bridging to your southeast to point 8. Here you will find a small hero shack which contains several level 5 heroes, a Steal Hero special which will figure prominently in the second strategy I'll detail, and two annoying Poison Gas traps. Cast a free Call to Arms on your bridge near the door and drop your Mistresses and Orcs. They'll take down the door, then grab them up. Drop only your Mistresses back down and let them pick off the heroes one by one from a distance with their lethal Lightning - you did this before in Caddis Fell to great effect, so you should be an expert at it by now. When the heroes are dead, use a possessed Bile Demon to take out the Poison Gas traps, and allow one of your Imps to claim the hero shack.

Now the fun will begin. Dig westward along the rock wall and you will quickly dig into a large cave full of powerful Barbarians. You'll need to get them out of your way. The best way to do this is to temporarily build a bridge tile next to your Guard Post. Heroes will start running from all over the place to try to get into your dungeon. Before any do, sell the bridge away. If the Barbarians are not lured far enough out, open your dungeon up in a new place far away from the first opening (with Guard Post and bridge) and repeat this process.

With the Barbarians out of the way, continue tunneling around the solid rock as far as you can until you hit a hero wall to the south. Use one shot of Destroy Walls and you will open the room at point 9, which contains some strong heroes and a Resurrect Creature special. None of these heroes are too much for your Mistresses to take on, however, especially if you divide and conquer by luring them out one at a time.

Once the heroes are cleared, have your Imp claim the inside of this room, then continue digging through the south wall until you break out into the river. This is now almost over. You just need to do the following:

  1. Bridge to the southeast to point 10, but do not yet dig into your enemy's dungeon.

  2. Bridge to the west along the wall of the hero keep until you see the back door to the heroes' dungeon heart at point 11. You will receive an interesting but irrelevant message at this point. Lure away any enemies that are near the door by teasing them with abortive Mistress attacks, and then have one creature under possession bust down the door and run into the heart room until you hear "BEWARE! The Lord of the Land approaches!". Quickly de-possess and grab up your creature.

  3. Return to the southeast and tunnel directly south into your enemy's dungeon. If he has completely walled himself in, use one additional shot of Destroy Walls. Very soon, any loose heroes in the entire realm will stream toward your opponent's dungeon. But this attack will likely not be enough to finish him off. Wait until you receive a message about the Lord of the Land falling in battle.

  4. Now, cast a free Call to Arms on your bridge at point 11 and drop all of your trained creatures nearby. Draw their attention to the heroes' dungeon heart and then cancel the Call. Let them destroy the heart, and then pick all of them up and sit tight. About a hundred more heroes will now pour into your already weakened opponent's dungeon and utterly destroy him. You have conquered this realm! WHAT!?!

Yeah, that's it. That's all you are really required to do to defeat this realm. It's pretty lame, isn't it? It's evident to me that the designers didn't intend this to be possible, at least not with such ease. And the shame is, it could have been prevented very simply with more creative use of Impenetrable Rock, or by withholding Destroy Walls until after the heroes were defeated. However, we can only take what we've been given.

The Second Strategy

Let us now suppose that you'd rather do at least a little fighting and earn the satisfaction of that victory in the traditional Dungeon Keeper spirit. Starting off at the same point, with your minions trained to at least level 6, you will again attack the hero shack to the southeast at point 8, disarming the traps with a Bile Demon and then claiming it. Now, save your game, and begin using your Steal Hero special until you receive either a level 8 or level 10 Samurai. Build him a small separate lair anywhere you can fit it to prevent him from fighting with your Mistresses.

If you receive a level 8 Samurai, you will need to train him. However, you can save one level of training by bridging to point 12, where you will find a convenient Increase Level special. Once he is level 10, you are prepared to launch an attack against the hero keep to your northeast.

Open up the cave at point 13, which contains the same sort of mid-level heroes you've already been dealing with up to this point, and clear them out using your new Samurai and your other trained minions. You may also clear out all of the other hero areas in your vicinity at this time, but that is strictly at your option. If you do, you can find not only the gold pots I mentioned earlier, but the Heal spell at point 3, and the Protect Monster spell at point 7. With the heroes cleared from your area, you can safely connect to your dungeon long enough to retrieve these items.

Now, tunnel northeast inside this cave and you will break into a short river. Bridge across it and you will be ready to launch your assault on the northern hero dungeon. Take it one room at a time, and beware of Gas and Boulder traps. You definitely cannot afford to lose your Samurai or your other trained minions, and you will also need to spare your Imps for now. Work your way through the keep one room at a time and in short order you will reach a large cave at the end at point 14 which contains the Conceal Monster spell and a gem tile which will finally end your tight-belt season. Clear out any remaining resistance and claim the two nearby unaligned Skeletons (put them in your Samurai's lair to keep them away from your Bile Demons), then build a gigantic Treasure Room and begin mining. You can restore your Training Room or build a new one at full size, and you may also want to build a larger Workshop in this area as well.

After this, you will use your Samurai to launch an attack on the central hero keep, but you will defeat as few of the heroes as possible. Use a concealed Imp to claim the hero dungeon while your Samurai follows behind under Call to Arms. Go door to door and have him release the heroes, but try to avoid killing any of them. Once you reach the heroes' dungeon heart, this strategy becomes the same as the first - break through the back side of the hero dungeon and connect it to your opponent's dungeon by bridging to point 10 and then tunneling straight south. While the heroes attack your opponent, you can use your own creatures to destroy their dungeon heart.

While this strategy is longer running, you still get the satisfaction of waging some battles and exploring the realm, as well as the thrill of allowing your two powerful opponents to negate one another.

Other dubiously useful areas of interest include points 15 and 16. At the first you will find a solitary level 6 Dark Mistress imprisoned within a cave, and at the second you will find another Steal Hero special guarded by some level 8 Monks and level 7 Thieves. These could only possibly be useful if you use the intended strategy.

(You could, of course, beat this level in the intended manner by using many of the same strategies I have outlined here, but by taking on the heroes and Blue Keeper on your own terms. However, that is painfully obvious and needs no additional discussion. It is a real shame that this level was not executed properly, as it had the makings of a truly epic battle.)