Difficulty: Medium to hard.
Your Portal max: 30 creatures.
Enemy Portal max: 14, 14.
Starting forces: 8 Imps (1st level)
Enemy's starting forces:
Blue keeper: 4 imps (1st level).
Green keeper: 4 imps (1st level), 1 imp (3rd level), 1 Dragon (7th level).
Starting gold: 20000
Enemy's starting gold: 10000, 10000
Possible minions:
Attracted through portal: Fly, Bile Demon, Dragon, Warlock, Troll, Orc, Dark Mistress, Hellhound.
Rooms:
Known at start: Basic Five
Can be researched: All others.
(Note: only the player can build Scavenger Rooms, the other Keepers cannot.)
Spells:
Can research: Sight of Evil, Speed Creature, Call to Arms, Conceal Creature, Cave-In, Heal, Lightning, Protect Creature, Disease.
Doors/Traps:
Can be manufactured: All Doors; Alarm, Gas, Lightning, Boulder Traps.
Enemies: Two allied Keepers.
If you are to judge this realm by appearances, it looks as if
there is only one keeper in this realm against you. However, you know better: there are, in
fact, two keepers allied against you, and one of them was here early enough to claim a portal
and hide it from you. The good news is that you outnumber them, even when they are combined
against you, and you have access to no less than two portals: the even better news is that
you can scavenge, while they cannot. The bad news is that they have much more available space
than you. The worse news is that one of them starts off with a level 7 dragon.
You yourself have laid claim to a large abandoned fortress with
ready-fortified walls, which is perfect for building rooms in. Don't be entirely constrained
by the layout of the rooms, especially not by the presence of the pillars in the large rooms
at each end of the fortress: be prepared to knock down a couple of internal walls to increase
the size of your rooms, and in at least one case the external walls so your Dragons' lairs can
be next to the lava. Spend as much as you can of your starting capital on imps, then get mining
those gems and lay down rooms - Treasure Room (around the gems, but you'll need at least one
more tile, so dig out the wall separating it from the corridor and enlarge to 7x5) and Library
first. Put your transferred creature (you do have one, don't you?) straight into the library.
Then, build Hatchery and Lair, 25 tiles of each.
As soon as you get the Bridge, bridge over to the large open
area surrounded by gold as soon as you are able - interrupt whatever else you are doing to
do this, and try to claim the entire area (if necessary, unflag the gem tile and get *all*
your imps claiming and digging!) and dig out the earth behind the last line of gold, and
fortify. If the enemy breaks in, withdraw immediately to your realm and resort to Plan B,
which is to sit tight and train your creatures up until you can beat the enemy. However, it's
preferable to wall the enemy away from the wide open space if you can: you get more space,
and he gets less, and it is you rather than them who choose the time and place of the first
encounter.
Ideally, you should be able to get away with the Increase Level
to the west, and the Reveal Map to the east. If necessary, distract his creatures with a fight,
even one in which you lose, which is more central, while your imps claim the ground under the
Reveal Map: the Increase Level is in less danger of being captured by the enemy, as it is
protected by lava traps which the blue keeper will for some reason fail to bridge over, so you
should be able to get it by stealth.
Once the destiny of the big open area surrounded by gold has
been decided one way or the other, the next step is this: Four unaligned dragons wander around
in the lava, and you want them as your minions. Possess a fly and fly it around the lava to
encounter them. Then throw all flies back into the portal, you no longer need them. Mine all
the gold you can reach: if the enemy controls the open space, mine the gold along its northern
edge from a bridge over the lava, then mine whatever else is left around your realm fortress
on the far side of the lava. Keep at the gems. Train creatures and imps - especially imps, so
you can set 3rd-level imps on the gems. Make sure you get a lot of high-level Dragons, Bile
Demons, Orcs, Mistresses and Warlocks. When you've hit your portal max, sell off the Barracks
and build something else there instead. Build a graveyard and slap some imps to death to make
vampires. Scavenge like crazy. Build up a fantastically large store of gold. If you managed to
get the Reveal Map, zap the enemy imps to death with lightning while they mine gems. If the
enemy bridges to you, claim his bridge with an invisible imp, and sell it. Use the two massive
rooms on each end of the fortress to your advantage, building whatever rooms you want - large
workshop and auxiliary treasure room in one, for example, and the combination of scavenger,
temple, graveyard and auxiliary lair (to be used by, among others, vampires) in the other, or
convert one of them into nothing but a workshop and hatchery.
You already outnumber the enemy. However, the big danger is
that you may have too many creatures to train them all at once, and one or both of the enemies
will be able to train faster than you, and have more powerful creatures than you. So be
cautious. Go for overkill. Whenever fighting the enemy, Speed and Protect them all, and be
prepared to Heal them as well. One keeper at a time: if the enemies have the central area,
invade down the western or eastern edges, rather than down the centre. Remember, you're facing
a maximum of 14 creatures, while you have nearly double that, and the thing to worry most about
is the enemy's Lightning spells and his Boulder traps. Build up a vast amount of spare gold in
a treasure room, so that you can reply to enemy Lightning with lightning spells of your own, so
you damage your enemy's creatures as fast as he damages yours. You should win the fight, if
you've prepared properly: don't bother imprisoning, just go straight for the kill at the enemy
Heart. Then stop, regroup, rest up, and demolish the other enemy. You have conquered this
realm...
(Note: One of the enemy keepers, most likely the green keeper,
will probably have a Transfer Creature in his library, for you to use. If neither has it, then
find it and get it. In this case, you want to transfer a bile demon or a dragon, though anything
really will do.)