Difficulty: Easy to medium.
Your Portal max: 20 creatures.
Starting forces: 6 Imps (1st level).
Starting gold: 5000
Possible minions:
Attracted from portal: Fly, Spider, Demon Spawn, Warlock, Troll, Orc, Bile Demon, Mistress.
Gained later in the level: Dragon, by training a Demon Spawn beyond level 10.
You can create yourself: Vampire, Skeleton, Ghost
Can gain by sacrifice only: Horned Reaper!!!
Rooms:
Known at start: Basic Five.
Can be researched: Bridge, Guard Post, Workshop, Prison, Torture Chamber, Barracks, Temple, Graveyard.
Spells:
Can research: Sight of Evil, Speed Creature, Call to Arms, Conceal Creature, Hold Audience, Heal, Lightning, Protect Creature, Disease.
Doors/Traps: Wooden Door, Braced Door, Iron Door, Poison Gas Trap, Lightning Trap.
Enemies: Heroes, led by four Wizards and a Knight.
This land is, as the opening text suggests, ruled by four
arrogant Wizards who think they've got everything under their control. In fact, all they
control is the large shaped area to the north containing the four question-mark-shaped gold
deposits: in the southern area, you can build up as much as you like, but don't yet go
through the gold deposit to the north. Your cash flow will be guaranteed, but not very
fast, as only one face of each of the two gem blocks is accessible (one in to the east and
a bit north, one at the end of the maze of corridors to the west in the permanent rock: watch
out for two boulders, a couple of small rooms full of gold, and two Specials - Increase Level
and Resurrect Creature.)
With a portal max of 20, creatures you obviously want are
Bile Demons, Mistresses, Orcs, Warlocks and Demon Spawns. Make sure your rooms are big
enough to attract and keep them all, and your workshop big enough to make all the doors
and traps possible. When you break into the area to the north of your portal, you'll find
a Temple, and three small rooms, containing a Bile Demon, a Mistress and a Troll. Maybe
there's a reason why those three creatures were incarcerated so close to the sacrificial
pool? Maybe you should try sacrificing these three creatures???...
...Oh boy. The Horned Reaper. Yes, he appears if you sacrifice
a Bile Demon, Mistress, and a Troll (in any realm). Treat him with absolute kid gloves. NEVER
slap him. Keep him training (though he's expensive to train), and make sure you can always pay
him. If he starts getting angry, put him in the temple fast before he goes psycho - it's the
one thing he enjoys doing. But if he goes properly mad, all you can do is kill him before he
does too much damage to the rest of your minions, or chuck him back into the Portal.
Two more bits of good news in this level: Firstly, Demon Spawns
can at last be trained into Dragons. Secondly, you can build a Graveyard, and create Vampires
from dead bodies. This includes dead Imps - slap a few imps to death and let their corpses be
dragged to the Graveyard. Vampires are expensive to train and maintain, but they're tough as
old boots and just won't go away. Give them a separate lair from your Warlocks: for Warlocks,
who forever seek eternal life but have not found it, despise Vampires who are immortal.
If you can afford to train all your creatures (which can be
achieved by not training them all at once), this realm is a cakewalk, as the heroes don't
come to you until you let them. The hero fortress is divided into four quarters, each of
them containing a different selection of heroes: and each quarter has a Library, which
contains one of the Wizards, but the Library is sealed off by a locked door which they will
not pass until you knock it down. Bridge to the area where the heroes are, knock down the
door to release them, then pull all your creatures and imps out the way, lock the door to
your realm, and let them come to you.
(Note: Don't miss the Locate Hidden World special in the
heavily-trapped building to the north.)
In the southern quarter: 7 low-level Archers.
In the western quarter: 6 low-level Thieves, 4 low-level Monks.
In the northern quarter: a 9th-level Archer and some low-level Samurai and Thieves.
In the eastern quarter: a 9th-level Archer and two 7th-level Giants.
In each of the four libraries: 1 7th-level Wizard, 1 7th-level Witch, one 5th-level Giant. The four libraries also contain Specials: 1x Make Safe, 2x Resurrect Creature, 1x Increase Level.
In the absolute central area, between all the four gold question marks: there is an enraged 7th-level Vampire who will fight you, and who appears to be allied to the heroes.
(Note: Converted Thieves will become Knights if they train
beyond level 10. In this realm it's not worth it. Wizards, Witches and Monks can heal
themselves in your prison, as can Vampires, Warlocks, Dragons and high-level Demonspawns,
Knights and Avatars., so you can't starve these creatures to death.)
When there are no more heroes left alive - i.e. when you've
killed or captured and converted all of them - the Lord of the Land will drop in with some
high-level followers. It would be fun to capture and convert him, wouldn't it? Alternatively,
let his own former allies, including all the wizards, take him down... Or you can just kill
him, though that wouldn't be half as much fun.
Transfer a creature of your choice to the next realm. It would
be fun to take Horny, wouldn't it? But risky, as you don't yet know you're going to have
something for him to do. Alternatively, you can always take a Mistress, Dragon or Orc - any of
the three would be great. (Hint in advance: Horny is, in fact, the best
choice right now, although this would not usually be the case.)
(Hint: If you know in advance, for any realm, that there are
unaligned creatures that you can claim when you want, then it can often be best to wait a
while before claiming them: that way, they allow you to go over your Portal maximum. In this
case, get 20 creatures before breaking the northern door, claiming the three unaligned
creatures (total = 23) and sacrificing them to get Horny (total = 21)).
(Note: Creating Vampires by burying dead Imps in your graveyard
also lets you go over your portal maximum, as does converting enemy creatures to your side or
turning them into Skeletons or Ghosts.)
(Another hint: In any realm with a Temple and Gems, there really
is *no* excuse for not sacrificing Imps. Each Imp sacrificed knocks 150 gp of the replacement
cost of any imps, so if you want a seventh imp the best thing you can do is sacrifice your first
six and then buying seven. They will cost 1050 GP total, and the eighth imp will cost 300:
whereas, if you didn't sacrifice any imps, the 7th imp would cost 1050 gp on his own, and the
eighth would cost 1200.)
(Hint: If you ever intend to have more than two vampires, it's
well worth creating an extra one - slap ten imps to death, let their bodies be dragged to the
graveyard and buried - specifically for torturing purposes: begin torturing him a short time
before every pay-day, to keep the cost of paying the rest of the Vampires down. Then take him
out again and pay him by hand. Or pay all your vampires by hand. Paying Horny by hand is also
a good idea, always.)