Difficulty: Easy.
Portal max: 20 creatures.
Starting forces: 4 Imps (1st level).
Starting gold: 3000
Possible minions:
Attracted through portal: Beetle, Demon Spawn, Warlock, Troll.
Found elsewhere in the realm: 3 Spiders (2x2nd, 1x7th level)
Rooms:
Known at start: Basic Five.
Can be researched: Bridge, Workshop.
Spells:
Can research: Speed Creature, Call to Arms, Heal.
Doors/Traps: Wooden Door, Poison Gas Trap
Enemies: Heroes (Dwarves, Thieves, Archers, Barbarians, Knight)
Look at those sparkly purple bits of rock on the
southern wall. Gems - an inexhaustible supply of wealth! In this realm, you're
going to be able to pay for everything
you could possibly want. Build your
treasure room to the south, as near to the gems as you can make it. However,
mine the gold first, as it is quicker to mine gold than gems. The extra good
news: One of the things you can afford to do, when you have gems, is train your
imps. Imps at 3rd level learn to haste themselves, and will run, claim, fortify,
dig and mine faster. At 10th level they learn to teleport, but this ability is
really more trouble than it is worth as they keep teleporting into trouble: so
it's not really worth training them up that far. A collection of 3rd-level imps
is always good enough. (You will be annoyed, however, that in this realm the
Demon Spawns do not yet mature into Dragons but stop at 10th level. Apparently
the climate conditions are wrong for metamorphosis, or something like that.)
If you look carefully at the rock formations, you'll see
that the realm is basically divided into two parts (many realms are like this,
in Dungeon Keeper.) The northern part is controlled by the heroes: however, in
this realm they will not come and attack you (having learned from the mistakes
of the three previous - and now "late" - Lords of the Lands that you have now
conquered), but will sit back and wait for you to come to them. They are helped
in this resolution by the fact that there is a lava lake between you and them,
and several Archers are conveniently placed to shoot at anyone trying to cross
it or occupy the land just opposite. If you go north too early, your Imps will
be in danger from the Archers as they claim the land: so don't try to head north
yet, just stick to the gems and the four gold deposits around the heart.
You can now afford to make rooms of a decent size - say,
5x5. Build the basic five rooms, and sit back and let a few Demonspawns and
Warlocks appear. (There are only five Warlocks in this realm, it is no use
waiting for more.) And Beetles if you want them (you mean you really do?
Idiot...) Once again, there is not much to research, and you have both time and
money on your side, so you can afford to let your Warlocks complete their
research entirely before training them. It is, unfortunately, an annoyance that
you have to re-research every room (apart from, usually, the basic five) and
every spell (apart from Create Imp) on every level, with only a few exceptions.
So the first thing researched will be Speed Creature.
The next spell, however, is of greater interest: Call to Arms. Cast it once to
gather your creatures together, then a second time to tell your creatures to
march there and do battle. This is especially useful, as it allows you to make
your creatures go where they normally would not, such as enemy territory where
you cannot drop creatures. For instance, you could march a collection of Demon
Spawns north over the lava (once you do get around to venturing north) to deal
with the Archers on the far side, although you're not ready to do that yet...
...what you can do is research the Bridge. For Libraries
are not only places of magic: more mundane texts on dungeon architecture are to
be found there. When the Archers are gone, your imps can claim up to the lava's
edge, so you can then build a Bridge into the lava and eventually claim the land
beyond, in the hero fortress.
(Note: if you first build a Bridge to the east around
the castle, and look along the south wall, you will see an Increase Level
special, which is well worth using. Bridge to the land it is on, and then set it
off.)
After that, the next thing you research will be the
Workshop, in which doors and traps are built. After all, what's a dungeon
without diabolical traps to hurt the enemies, and doors to set as a barricade
against them (and keep them at a standstill for a while, just long enough to set
off one of your traps)? And you need creatures to make them: and the first
decent manufacturers you will find are Trolls, who really
enjoy manufacturing.
Their love for manufacturing, as with the Warlocks' love for research, is a
two-edged sword: because while they're working, they're not training and
becoming more powerful. And Trolls, more than other creatures, really need that
power: they don't have many hit points, and aren't much use in a fight unless
you're really desperate or they're really high level. In fact, if you can find
other tougher manufacturers who are nearly as good as trolls (nobody is
quite as
good), you're better off using those instead. 4th-level trolls can haste
themselves, so they become more useful then, but you don't really need much in
the way of traps in this realm.
The last bit of research is the Heal spell, which you
can cast on creatures in the middle of a battle to heal them. For full effect,
build a really massive treasure room, let it fill up completely, and use that as
your gold reserve so you never run out of gold from casting spells. Let all your
creatures train as high as they like (you can get them all to 10th level, though
4th or 5th is quite good enough for this level) before venturing north. Kill off
the archers by getting your Demon Spawns to cross the lava following a Call to
Arms, and your Warlocks to shoot fireballs over the lava: then bridge to the
enemy castle and start claiming land. As you go through the castle, you will
trigger off a couple of hero attacks: deal with them one at a time before
setting off the next one. (To batter down an enemy door, drop your creatures
next to it.)
In the hero castle, you can find two more Specials -
another Increase Level (so, with the other one on the southeastern shore of the
lava lake, you don't need to train your creatures higher than 8th level, then
use both of them to get them to 10th) and a Steal Hero, which will subvert any
hero except a Knight or Avatar (in realms where such a hero exists) to your
cause. (If you have any trouble, pull your creatures out and sell the bridge
over the lava, so the heroes cannot enter your territory, then let your
creatures recover their health and numbers.)
Eventually, you will reach the room containing a Dungeon
Heart belonging to the heroes: entering this room will cause the Lord of the
Land to come to protect it, with his minions. With your collection of highly
trained goons, it shouldn't be difficult to win, and then destroy the Heart to
win the level.
(Note: There are three Spiders, one of them high-level,
trapped in a small enclave in the extreme north: but they won't be of much use
to you, as the easiest way to get to them is straight through the hero Heart
room, so you will have won the game by the time you find them. You can find them
earlier by not entering the Heart room but digging through the northern wall of
the fortress, but there is little point in doing so. Of more interest is the
"Transfer Creature" Special in the same area, allowing you to take a creature to
the next realm: a Warlock is the best choice here - and as you can continue
training creatures after completing the level, there is no excuse for him not
being 10th-level before being transferred.)