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This level took me FOREVER. I captured all three siege shrines then just started fighting him by mining through his walls next to his perception shrine but he kept making thousands of workers and recapturing everything I captured, so it was a stalemate for like 20 minutes  I ended up winning by just building lots of Bombards in any land I took to kill the workers before they could change things back, and eventually made like 5 around his dungeon core where his traps were. By this time, his inhibitor was long dead, so I didn't even get to mess with the huge dungeon I got
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Mar 10, 2019 01:13
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Gloomy Rube posted:This level took me FOREVER. I captured all three siege shrines then just started fighting him by mining through his walls next to his perception shrine but he kept making thousands of workers and recapturing everything I captured, so it was a stalemate for like 20 minutes Oh yeah, any level where you have to fight another keeper can go on forever if you let it! Workers are so cheap and easy to create for both you and the other keeper that I've never found a good way of winning the tile claiming battle, other than a slow battle of attrition where you guard the front with the monsters. In this mission, you can get away with just charging past the frontline and into the dungeon core chamber if you have enough gnarlings - I had like fourteen by the end. In later missions, I'll be forced to be a lot more cautious.
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Mar 10, 2019 02:11
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Yeeeah, I think I needed more gnarlings in general. By the end, I had a few level 1 Skargs and like, three level 6 or 7 Oculus, while just having three of each of the others since I only had 3x3 rooms I feel like an Oculus shouldn't be my main damage dealer, huh?
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Mar 10, 2019 02:37
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Looks like they fixed the problem with flies/occuluses flying around the map, annoying enemies and making them all rush to your base to attack you well before you're ready. I think that got me killed more than anything else in the original game. And you've convinced me to buy this one now.
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Mar 10, 2019 13:59
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Megillah Gorilla posted:Looks like they fixed the problem with flies/occuluses flying around the map, annoying enemies and making them all rush to your base to attack you well before you're ready. Yep, it's fixed. You'll constantly bleed occuli to the enemy's forward defenses but they never trigger attacks on their own.
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Mar 10, 2019 14:42
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Gloomy Rube posted:Yeeeah, I think I needed more gnarlings in general. By the end, I had a few level 1 Skargs and like, three level 6 or 7 Oculus, while just having three of each of the others since I only had 3x3 rooms It's not impossible for them to kill things, but really, they want to set things up for others or ambush something. Constant stun is constant stun.
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Mar 10, 2019 14:56
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Episode 5: The Rear Guard We've destroyed all of the Inhibitors, and can now begin our invasion of Kairos proper. Before getting into the next mission, I just wanted to show the effect of our campaign on the strategic map. We've devastated the southern island, but there's still a lot of unspoiled land left for us to put to the torch.   It's time to kill two Dwarves with one stone. The miserable midgets of the Dwarven guard have bested Rhaskos and sent him back to his own realm… where a counter-assault to our own war has been launched. They're sure to send hundreds of their own to crash against your dungeon walls… make bloody waves then follow Rhaskos to his own domain.Rhaskos, another underlord, has failed miserably, and we have to come to his aid. Let's not waste any time!  Rhaskos has been forced back to his realm by the Dwarven allies of the Empire… fortunately for you his dungeon remains relatively intact. By claiming his Dungeon Core you will be given control of all that he once owned. In the meantime I'll learn more of the situation within his own realm. Taking over Rhaskos' old dungeon will save us a lot of time. It's just to the north of our Dungeon Core, so I have our diggers get on it right away.  While digging towards Rhaskos' Dungeon Core, I claim his old archive, and I discover that he had an infinite gold shrine. Don’t ask me how he let his dungeon get overrun by the dwarves when he had infinite gold for cannons and other defences. These gold shrines are one of the few things I don't like about War for the Overworld. Some of the missions from Dungeon Keeper 2 gave you access to a gem vein for infinite gold, but it wasn't that common, especially in the earlier missions. This meant that digging through the map for gold was an important part of the game—and a fun part of the game, in my opinion! In these early missions of War for the Overworld, I literally never have to think about digging for gold, and I think that's to the game's detriment.  I seize Rhaskos' old base, which had this giant sanctuary room. We need it to perform a ritual to enter Rhaskos' home realm, where he is fighting the dwarven vanguard. This eldritch ritual taps into the thread of power that remains within a vanquished Dungeon Core. This nebulous thread can be followed back to its source, allowing you to enter the realm of the Underlord who created it. In addition to the sanctuary, Rhaskos' dungeon also had another new room type, the alchemy lab, which can be seen on the left, as well as a gateway and an archive. Begin channelling the ritual now, so you may enter Rhaskos' realm and repel the Empire forces that assail him. A Crackpot has entered your dungeon. Attracted by the reagents in your Alchemy Lab, these Gnarling-kin will spend most of their time concocting viscous brews… and tinkering about your cauldrons.The alchemy lab attracts these mad scientist gnarlings. You can spend gold and have them work in the alchemy lab to produce consumable potions with various effects. Although I like the design of the crackpots and the alchemy lab, I'm not really a huge fan from a gameplay perspective. There are some interesting potions that we can unlock later in the campaigns, but in general, you're probably better off spending your gold on traps and cannons. Still, in this mission, we have infinite gold and get the alchemy lab for free, so I see no reason not to try it out! I queue up some potions and start the ritual to enter Rhaskos' realm.   An evil force rears up to strike at us! Ready yourselves, lads!Once we start the ritual, the dwarves take notice and prepare to attack us. Similarly to the level where they introduced traps, we are supposed to hang back and defend against the dwarves' attacks while we channel the ritual. Once the ritual is finished, we win the level. This time around, I won't be able to just charge at the dwarves and beat them all before they come to us, for a couple of reasons. For one, these dwarven attacks are trickier to deal with than the ones we faced earlier. But a more important reason is that sanctuary rooms attract cultists, and a ridiculously huge sanctuary will attract a ridiculously huge number of cultists. The majority of my monsters this level are going to be complete dead weight.   To make sure we at least get some usable monsters, I build a beast den and a large barracks. With some beasts and a good number of gnarlings, we at least won't be defenseless.  Shove you and your black magic, you bloated dingleberry!Well, that's just rude.   The dwarves launch a small attack against the western part of our dungeon, but we easily repel them. I already have eight cultists   Since the attack went down without much trouble, I try to strike out against the nearest dwarven outpost.  The heroes are starting to step up their defences a little bit. The outpost is actually guarded and has a couple of traps placed. That evil bugger is making headway out there! Ready up! We are making steady progress, but the game is notifying me that the monsters are getting angry about pointless, trivial little things like not getting paid and not being able to rest. I reluctantly give the order to fall back for now before our next push.  Upon our return to the base, I notice that I kind of sort of maybe also forgot to make any food for the monsters, so I build a pigsty. Maybe this will satisfy at least some of all the monsters' unreasonable demands.  While we're recuperating, the dwarves launch another attack. This is a good chance to show off one of our new potions:  Flash Freeze. This potion instantly freezes all units in a pretty large area. It's pretty cool, but unfortunately it only lasts a few seconds, can only be used in your own territory, and it also freezes your own units. This reduces its utility from "near-mandatory" to "ehh".  The dwarves keep attacking more and more frequently, and they've now penetrated the sanctuary. This is unacceptable, because if they keep interrupting our cultists, we'll never finish the ritual to win the mission.  The dwarves attacked through the caves to the east. To prevent this from happening again, I dig out a larger space around that entrance to make room for defence cannons.  This should do the trick. To speed this up, I unlock a new very important spell in the Veins of Evil - "Forge". Each cannon is made from three "defence parts", which are built in the forge room one at a time. The Forge spell allows us to magically create defence parts for 250 mana each. Since mana regenerates very quickly, this is a fantastic way of getting your defences up in a hurry. You can take your rituals, and your magic, and shove them up your incorporeal arse!The dwarves are unimpressed.  The cannons work admirably, though, and the dwarven attacks from the east are halted.  But not for long! The dwarves respond by simply blowing a hole through the northern wall of our sanctuary!  The remedy is the same as last time. Add more cannons.  The ritual is complete, Underlord. Activate it now to join Rhaskos in his Home Realm. Ah, right, there's a bit of blowback when this ritual activates. Here it goes - Rhaskos here we come!   Welcome to my home, Underlord. Or what's left of it. That should teach those ruddy stonemunchers a lesson they'll not soon forget. If you've still got a bit of bloodlust, send your unholy consciousness across the Aether and enter the realm of Rhaskos, for there are plenty of Empire dogs that still need to be put down.
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Mar 17, 2019 00:11
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Episode 6: Behind Enemy Lines The Empire seems to think that this war is best fought on our own territory, for they enter Rhaskos' realm in droves. Before you lies the portal through which they mount their assault, destroy it and you will cut off their supplies… and their single path of retreat. The Empire continues to put pressure on Rhaskos' realm, many of his defeated minions have been brought here and imprisoned by the Empire. This domain has been entirely overrun, and still more reinforcements spill from the portal to the north. While they are well supported, they've made the mistake of imprisoning Rhaskos' minions… these minions will happily join your cause… if you can liberate them from their greasy jailors. The dwarven jail and the first hero fortress are just to the north of our dungeon core. Small problem, though: we have no gateway.  So first things first, we'll want to build a large beast den. Beast dens don't need a gateway to attract beasts, so it's useful in missions like this. You can attract more powerful beasts by upgrading your Beast Den, open the Veins of Evil and unlock it now.You know what, that's a good idea. There's a new upgrade for the Beast Den, and since I start the level with one Sin, I might as well get it.  A Shadow has entered your dungeon. The Shadow slinks along darkened corridors and seeks out the strongest foes it can find, and when it strikes it will do so with deadly precision, leaving them a crumpled mess of giblets… before vanishing back in the dark.Mendechaus might be overselling shadows a little bit, but as long as they're stronger than oculi, I welcome them  The Bafu is a winged terror who will aid your attempts to free my minions, its terrifying screech heralds my revenge. As Rhaskos suggested, the Bafu is indeed a terrifying force of wing and claw. While sightless, it has no trouble finding foes, and will easily slice your enemies to ribbons with its terrifying strikes.Rhaskos, buddy, I appreciate your input, but we already have two narrators.  Now that I have a few beasts, it's time to spring Rhaskos' minions from the dwarven jail. I built this big training barracks  The prison itself was undefended, but soon a small force of dwarves shows up.  After dealing with them, we break into this small treasure chamber. In addition to not having access to a gateway, we also don't have any gold ore, so it's useful to claim these little treasuries on the way to make sure you can pay your monsters.  I notice a large wall of brimstone to the north. It's usually worth cracking open brimstone to see if it's hiding any goodies inside.   You've discovered an Incantation Shrine. This shrine reduces the cost of your spells significantly, allowing you to cast more frequently. Have you still not destroyed the Portal? Time is short for me Underlord, please get a move on.Shut up, Rhaskos. This is an incantation shrine, and it's awesome. It reduces spell costs by 40%. A big part of winning fights between your monsters and enemy heroes in enemy territory is spamming heal spells on your monsters whenever your mana recharges. Reducing spell costs by 40% means I can cast ~67% more heal spells before I have to stop and wait for my mana to recharge, which is a pretty big deal.  I go back to check out the prison. After we claimed the prison and defeated the dwarves, our workers picked them up and threw them all behind bars. If your pockets feel a bit light you should unlock Blood Money. I find that gold made of flesh gleams just a tad brighter than the rest.Mendechaus has a lot of really good ideas this mission.  I follow his advice and unlock the Blood Money spell. We can use it to turn creatures under our control into gold statues. Our workers can then mine the statues and bring the gold to our dungeon core. We're going to run a for-profit prison!  I turn all the prisoners into gold. This statue contains over 6,000 gold, which is a very large amount when you're strapped for cash! Blood Money is an excellent spell.  Now that the war has become extremely profitable, I immediately attack the dwarves once again. Inside their next base, I discover a new room type. You've claimed a Torture Chamber. This room can be used to corrupt or execute imprisoned enemy minions… or your own if you woke up feeling particularly nasty. These racks have two modes. The first will allow your Succubi to corrupt enemy units and bring them under your own dominion. Alternatively, you can click the prop to toggle it to its execution mode, which will burn the unfortunate victim to a crisp, spawning a Spirit for you to command.Hey! Quit bitin' my style! Looks like those uppity dwarves wanted to get in on the evil game, because they built a large torture chamber for our minions. Is this like, a reverse "are we the baddies?"  Then out of nowhere, a large force of dwarves charges right through my base!  I'm so surprised that I don't even have time to mobilise before they've reached my dungeon core. I drop a bunch of monsters on them and manage to hold them off. Honestly, I don't know what they were expecting, this attack seemed unusually suicidal.  There were so many of them that I couldn't even fit them all in my prison.  Some Succubi have joined your dungeon. These vicious temptresses are happy to ensure that guests of your Torture Chamber are comfortable during their stay. In battle they will seduce their targets with a charming wave of their demonic hand, leaving them helplessly infatuated.Suddenly, some succubi appear! I don't have a gateway, so I actually have no idea where they came from. But succubi are really good. They deal a ton of damage and have some handy combat abilities. Unfortunately, torture chambers are really expensive to build, so unless you have an infinite gold shrine or something, it'll be hard to attract significant numbers of them. Succubi work in the torture chamber room. If you drop prisoners on the racks, you can try to convert them to join your side. This is very useful, as the heroes tend to have some powerful units, and it's much quicker to convert powerful enemy heroes than to attract and train up your own units. I could start converting the dwarven prisoners, but I have a better plan.  I found this guy in one of the dwarven prisons. I don't know what he did to end up there, but he's a level 10 bard, which means he's very powerful. We'll try to convert this guy while we assault the final hero stronghold. But first, an observation from Mendechaus.  In a distant shard of another reality, an Underlord is making his dungeon look like a huge dong.I'm surprised that I haven't done that yet, honestly. I should have done that in like, episode 1.  All right, enough messing around. Let's take down this fortress!  I'd apologise for leaving no gold for you, but I never really expected another of my kind to come here. We advance on the inner sanctum of the dwarves. Our succubi managed to convert the bard really quickly, shown here rocking out. Clearly, he didn't have much sympathy for his captors.  Your minions are rebelling!No, they're revolting. Individual minions will rebel against you if they get very angry for one reason or another. I'm not sure what they're angry about here, but we're so close to the goal that I don't want to call a retreat.  You rock that lute, bard!  Excellently done, that's two brothers downed in a single day! I do so love this job. With no way out they're sure to increase their pressure against Rhaskos! Move swiftly, or I fear your victory here will be a hollow one indeed.
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Mar 20, 2019 19:12
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Ah, the torture chamber. Both fun and useful.  I absolutely love amassing as many converted heroes as I can. Their hate makes them powerful.
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Mar 21, 2019 20:51
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Yeah, the HR department in this game receives some excellent upgrades and amassing a pile of prisoners lets you do some great things. Blood money is only the start of the new and improved prisoner economy. If you build a sanctum you can also start loving around with the power of sacrifices, though it doesn't get completely wild until the end-game. There are a few prime targets for conversion from the Empire's side- priestesses research and do rituals just as well as cultists but are much better supports in a fight due to their healing and revival spells, and the Empire's dedicated tank units are usually better at the job than your equivalents (dwarven vanguards especially so considering how early you can get them). Also of note if you're familiar with the old games is that you don't have to heal anyone in your dungeon or on your rack- prisoners eat rats and a rack in conversion mode doesn't lower the target's health.
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Mar 21, 2019 22:37
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Yeah, the torture chamber is super useful. At this point in the game, we can't really attract any great fighting units, so being able to convert the most powerful hero units makes winning fights much easier. I wouldn't convert priestesses because I already hate my cultists, but some of those tanky dwarves are really nice.
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Mar 21, 2019 23:03
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LightWarden posted:Yeah, the HR department in this game receives some excellent upgrades and amassing a pile of prisoners lets you do some great things. Blood money is only the start of the new and improved prisoner economy. If you build a sanctum you can also start loving around with the power of sacrifices, though it doesn't get completely wild until the end-game. Blood money alone seems like an amazing spell. I never wanted like 500 skeletons in DK2, so being able to change the stuff I don't want into gold would be so useful.
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Mar 21, 2019 23:21
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Oh, I'd heard they did a revamp on the main campaign at some point. Back when I played through it, it didn't have the fleshy wall texture. Still had rivers of blood, they just ran through rock. I think the snow theme from the last level was new too.
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Mar 21, 2019 23:28
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Episode 7: Heart Attack Rhaskos is all but defeated, for the Empire have made use of a rare artefact that limits his considerable powers… they stand to launch an assault upon his final Dungeon Core. Defend him with all of your might and paint his realm red with the broken bodies of these impetuous scum. Here lies Rhaskos' final Dungeon Core. The Empire forces to the north channel the power of Aum - a holy shard that can be used to inhibit an Underlord's powers, and their ability to create new Dungeon Cores. Time is short Underlord! Defend Rhaskos by attracting and training as many minions as you can. I suggest you excavate north and cover your side of the bloodriver with defences and traps.All right! We have a defensive mission this time. We have twenty minutes to prepare before the dwarves send a huge force against us from the north. As you can see, we start with a huge amount of treasure to spend on rooms and static defences. We also have two gateways and plenty of room to build.  Let's start with a new room: the garrison. What does the garrison do? The Garrison is a defensive room that will strengthen the surrounding walls and Defences of your dungeon. It will also attract the impressive Augre to your dungeon, who will gladly bash in the heads of any would-be sappers.Thanks, Mendechaus. In truth, what the garrison does doesn't matter at all, because it attracts augres. Augres are awesome. They're big and they're tough and they hit really hard. Supposedly the garrison boosts the strength of your walls and your defences, but as far as I'm concerned, it could do literally nothing at all, and I would still build it just to get those augres.  In order to train your Beasts you will need to build an Arena, open the Veins of Evil and unlock it now.I also unlock another useful new room: the arena. The arena is a combat pit that you can drop your monsters into to have them fight each other. Although monsters can train and level up by training in the barracks, they can only get a few levels doing this. In order to get high-level monsters, they need real combat experience, either from fighting heroes or from fighting each other in the arena.  I start excavating to the north to make room for our new arena and garrison. All of my power, stripped from me. Tumbling memories course through my mind… unable to be grasped. Muttered memories of another life, one where I was not as I am… what madness awakes within me!? Halt your blabbering, you old woman! You have work to do!  How curious that the thread of your fate has led you here… Come, Underlord; bear witness to the snipping of your friend's string. Hello Kira, is it still necessary for you to use those weak vessels to speak to me? Mendechaus, your plays have grown far too predictable. It's time to eliminate your pieces and wipe the board clean. Quit your meddling, this is no place for you or your lying tongue.It cannot be healthy to hear this many voices inside your head. I believe this is the first time we're hearing from Kira, the goddess protecting Kairos from, well, us. Her confidence is severely misplaced!  This is the new garrison. I believe it's designed for you to build small 3x3 rooms with one of those pylon things in the centre. It looks a bit goofy as a 5x5 with four pylons. I want more augres, though! This room will only attract two augres, but that's fine. I can build more garrisons. In the top left, you can also see a traditional big block of cannons. This is the main entrance to the base, so it pays off to fortify it.  The Augre is a master of metallurgy, and so obsessed with the skill, that they build into their own bodies weapons and armour from the metal they so expertly craft. In battle, the Augre will smash the front lines of your foes with its huge hammer. Outside of battle they will gladly work in the Foundry or the Garrison.Oh yeah, I didn't mention this earlier, but augres are cyborg bigfoots.  I was starting to worry about running out of gold, which would have created tension and forced me to make tough choices about how to best spend my remaining gold to defend my dungeon from the heroes' assault. But then the game gave me a gold shrine, so whatever.  Flush with cash, I build a large prison and a torture chamber. We will need this.  And a big arena. In addition to letting you train your units by making them fight each other, it also attracts beastmaster units. Beastmasters aren't all that great, but they can train your beasts, which is useful, as beasts can't train normally in the barracks. Since we start with two gateways and tons of money, I haven't bothered with a beast den this mission, but it'll come in handy later.  I've built most of what I need, but there are still five minutes left until the heroes' assault. To pass the time, I throw our augres into the arena along with our gnarlings. The augres are absolutely wrecking the gnarlings, which used to be our best combat units. I love augres.   One downside to our gold shrine is that it is extremely exposed, being situated far outside our dungeon along one of the paths that the heroes will use for their attack. I build a ton of cannons around it, but it will be difficult to defend.  Here they come, for Rhaskos' sake and your own… I hope you're well prepared. It's havoc time, lads! Leave no stone unbloodied! Why don't you leave and go home to your… oh, that's right, all of your family is dead. The first one to draw blood gets a pint on me! The first wave of heroes reaches our gold shrine. For some reason, they start their assault with a wave of regular miner dwarves, which are equivalent to our workers. They, uh, don't do very well.  I didn't expect them to have such a large force… and while I don't believe in luck… I wish you the best of it.Thanks, Mendechaus, but I think we've got this so far.  The heroes are attacking with real units now, and have managed to smash the first row of cannons. We're doing all right for now, but I don't plan to hold them here at the gold shrine. I'd rather fight them by the main entrance to our dungeon, which is more defensible. I see a glimmer of a truth, hidden behind so many twisted words and venomous lies… There is no truth in deranged, blithering cowardice! Pull yourself together! Stay steady Underlord, now is not your time to die. Although we may lose the gold shrine, all this fighting is doing wonders for our prison economy! I should probably have made an even bigger prison, our workers can only drag a fraction of the heroes attacking us back to our overcrowded jail.  From Solitary to Statuary: one weird trick to control your prison population and your balance sheet at the same time!  Some of the heroes have started going around our gold shrine and attacking our main entrance directly. Since I'm paying their salaries anyway, I drop our army of monsters on them to support the wall of cannons.  But I end up having to pull them back very quickly: some of those devious dwarves have tunnelled through the eastern wall of our dungeon, going around all of our defenses! Also, please note the garrison in this picture, which was supposed to reinforce the walls of our dungeon against this specific danger. Bloody useless.  Luckily, very few of the heroes were smart enough to go around, so our monsters manage to take them out.  The Empire forces are all but defeated, rally forth and destroy this miserable midget and put an end to the holy magic of the Aum. The heroes have exhausted all of their reserves, and now all we have to do is break into their fortress and take out the Aum.  There are a few high-level defenders in the fortress, but nothing our army can't handle.  In the end, they only have one defender left: their immensely powerful level 10 champion.  Who, um  Who manages to take out our entire army single-handed.  This calls for dirty tricks! I drop some defeated dwarven warriors into our torture chamber and bring in our succubi. If an army of monsters can't take out their champion, how about an army of dwarves?  We quickly build up a nice force of dwarven elites. We lost all of our augres and most of the gnarlings in the first assault, but a war of attrition is my favourite kind of war! We have reinforcements, and they don't.  We then return to the hero fortress, our fresh army bolstered with dwarven traitors. Their champion puts the hurt on us, but there are just too many of us. Only a bit longer! Hold that door! I'm sorry, bothers… hope you've not drunk all the mead without me. I do so love the smell of a burning family tree. Our workers drag their defeated champion back to our torture chamber. Their greatest warrior will kneel before us yet.  With their defenders gone, we can now break into the chamber of the Aum. Victory is ours. This is my time… but fear not Underlord, for the Aether will greet neither of us when all is done. That snivelling rat… Pay no mind to his mad ranting, Underlord. There's much to do. What sorcery is this? A guiding light, and nothing more. This holy power is too much for you to challenge. I've a feeling we're about to return to Kairos. With a bang! Close your eyes, and think to yourself: there's no place like home…  Farewell Rhaskos! You have disappointed me. They've claimed a minor victory, but we shall make them pay a hundredfold for their schemes. Let us return to Kairos to teach them an unforgettable lesson…
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Mar 24, 2019 23:27
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I think there's more going on with Kira than really come through in the game. See her comment about wiping the board clean, then how she's pretty clearly just blown up her own priests (and presumably would have all the dwarves if Oberon hadn't done it first). We don't get to see much of Rhaskos' dungeon theme in these levels, but it's unlocked as a reward when you complete the main campaign.
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Mar 25, 2019 02:01
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Nice how you made it look so easy. I got completely stomped on this mission and gave up out of frustration. By the way, do we get spike traps soon?
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Mar 25, 2019 08:20
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Tenebrais posted:I think there's more going on with Kira than really come through in the game. See her comment about wiping the board clean, then how she's pretty clearly just blown up her own priests (and presumably would have all the dwarves if Oberon hadn't done it first). With the dwarves building torture chambers and now the goddess using suicide bombing priestesses, it feels as if they're trying to imply that the heroes aren't actually more noble than the Underlords, they just have better branding. Poil posted:Nice how you made it look so easy. I got completely stomped on this mission and gave up out of frustration. I credit it all to the traps, they really make everything much easier on defensive missions. It'd be interesting to try a "no traps" run of that mission, it would probably be very hard.
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Mar 25, 2019 09:24
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So the garrison I thought the wall reinforce abilty only worked if the room was manned? I remember playing the game then seeing augurs whack that goofy pillar thing causing the reinforce effect.
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Mar 25, 2019 12:36
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Enchanted Hat posted:With the dwarves building torture chambers and now the goddess using suicide bombing priestesses, it feels as if they're trying to imply that the heroes aren't actually more noble than the Underlords, they just have better branding.
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Mar 25, 2019 12:53
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tankfish posted:So the garrison I thought the wall reinforce abilty only worked if the room was manned? I remember playing the game then seeing augurs whack that goofy pillar thing causing the reinforce effect. It's quite possible! I've never really tried to master garrisons because I want those augres training and fighting 24/7, not playing with their pylons. Poil posted:So kinda the same as in Dungeons 3 then. For example the dwarf "hero" is a total Coolguye about elves. The paladin you spend the campaign fighting takes quite a short step to being openly crazy and starts burning and murdering everyone who isn't fanatically willing to give up everyone and everything to fight against The Ultimate Evil. That sounds pretty interesting. I'm not totally sure, but as far as I remember, this game's story doesn't go too far in the direction of "the good guys are the bad guys". It does have a few other tricks up its sleeve, though!
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Mar 25, 2019 21:23
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Garrisons are great, though you don't really need one larger than 3x3 since the towers don't stack, it's better to spread out a bunch of them to cover your perimeter. Basically what the aura does is strengthen all walls, doors and traps so that they not only take much less damage from attacks but also automatically regenerate health in the process. While the aura is up your enemies basically cannot chew through your defenses without either siege units (firebreathers for the Empire, high-end things for other Underlords) or having a ton of guys (which is totally manageable if you use AoE traps like the blade lotus, chilling traps, and the two traps you'll get later). The aura runs out after a few minutes and requires an augre (or juggernaut if you caught one) to wander up and smack the belltower to recharge it, but against a computer a garrison plus a good trap killzone makes that front basically a garbage disposal for your enemies giving you all the time in the world to play with your dungeon and convert/train/research your way to victory. Since you need to make sure the aura gets recharged regularly, it's good to put your killzones + garrisons on the perimeter of your dungeon so your augres can still wander over and deal with it rather than sticking them in the rear end-end of nowhere. Similarly, if you're trying to hang onto a gold shrine that's far from your dungeon, it's not a bad idea to wall it off (leaving maybe one door if you're in the habit of grabbing imps) and then stick a gold vortex next to each side so your workers can teleport the gold directly to your treasuries without having to run back.
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Mar 25, 2019 22:17
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Episode 8: Desecration This one should be right up your alley, Underlord… if you fancy a bit of necromancy. The Imperial Crypts are before us; the burial ground for their most sacred heroes. The Emperor himself is entombed here… and we're going to make him dance like a puppet on a string. The Royal Crypt; tombs and effigies to the feeble warriors of a dying Empire! Look to your Necromancers, Underlord. Their death-magic will be the trick to success in these pits. Keep them alive at all costs! This is going to be a short but really fun mission! We start off with nothing but four necromancers. No dungeon core, no workers, nothing. So since don't have to do any admin work this episode…  …there's no reason not to get up close and personal! This mission can be played almost entirely in first person by possessing one of the necromancers, should you want to. Later on, it's a good idea to jump out on occasion to cast a few spells, but for now, this'll work perfectly.  As your Necromancers go about their defilement, they'll raise Ghouls from the buried dead. These rotting husks will serve you well as a fighting force. Hold your nose, Underlord!Of course, being necromancers, we'll be able to create a few friends to help us out in this crypt. As you would expect, the ghouls are individually not very strong, but they become overwhelming if you are able to raise a whole bunch of them. SPOILERS: we will raise a whole bunch of them.  The Empire's Temple Guard is a member of the Church of Kira, who guards the crypts of their inglorious dead.Surprisingly, this crypt is really heavily guarded. That's no problem, though—it just means more ghouls for us to raise from the dead.  In addition to being able to resurrect the guards and a bunch of regular coffins, there are also special crypts belonging to renowned heroes of Kairos scattered around the map. Seizing these crypts will allow us to resurrect those heroes, which are more powerful than our regular ghouls. It's a good idea to pick up at least a few of these heroes before we head for our ultimate objective. These dwarven guards are guarding one of these special crypts. Dealing with them would be a lot easier if Necromancer Greg here would get out of the way and stop photobombing my screenshots.  Somehow, the dwarves got permission to install a lava lake around this crypt. That seems unnecessarily hazardous, but on the other hand, if you have to build something that's very dangerous and likely to kill you, I guess it's efficient to build it inside a crypt.   You… You craven dog! You Godless bloody savage! First, m'entire family heritage, and now you drag my corpse out of its rightful tomb?! Stuff you, Underlord, and all the hellborn like you!We reach our first special crypt. The owner's a little cranky.  He will serve us regardless. They all will! Hah! An entire bloodline of greasy little midgets, all hideously defiled! You're a piece of work, Underlord… masterfully done. I barely manage to turn a corner before I stumble across another of the special crypts. This one is a lot more modest than the previous one, just a regular tomb with a statue on top. Ah, Jen Squishy, known better by her moniker, "Bloodfeet". This Huntress was most feared by the Vampires and undead she hunted. With bare feet she would track her kills, silently striking and killing them once and for all, before she would wander into the black of the night, her feet slick with the blood of her latest victim. Down the hall from Bloodfeet's—I'm sorry, "Bloodfeet", really? That's the name?—Down the hall from Bloodfeet's tomb, we find another tomb.  drat you! My service to the Empire is done! To the hells with you, demon, and back where you belong! This metal lummox won't look so high and mighty when his corpse is doing the polka… I briefly cancel the possession to help reorient myself. The layout is not very complex here, but it feels more confusing when you're navigating in first person. It's also a good idea to drop out of the possession if you're fighting a more difficult battle so you can heal your minions, and I've also been occasionally cancelling the possession to set rally flags for the minions when I'm having difficulties trying to corral them in first person.  I definitely recommend spending most of your time in first person, though, as it's just more fun! I fell in love once, you swiftly reminded me there's no point to anything.Some of Mendechaus' lines just plain mystify me.  Arcanists have always been a cocky bunch of banshees. Teach their order the value of a little humility! We picked up a wizard.  With these heroes, we should easily be able to take control of our final objective: the Emperor's crypt.  One of your minions thinks this game's writers are a bunch of idiots.I mean, I probably wouldn't have been quite so harsh. But "Bloodfeet"?  We attack the elite priestess champions defending the Emperor's not-so-final resting place.  Come on, then! Bring your abominations to me, and see them purified in Kira's light! They put up a fight, but they're totally outmatched.  In the end, only their level 10 champion remains, cowering in the corner in disgusting sewer water.  That harpy stood no chance against your tide of undeath! I'd say we put her to better use…I get what Mendechaus is implying, but I have never actually been able to resurrect their champion as one of my undead. It's possible that there is a cap on the number of undead servants that you can have at one time, and that I'm always full when I defeat her. Regardless, it doesn't matter too much, as we've defeated the last serious guard force of this crypt. The Emperor's tomb lies ahead.  Hahahahah! You've successfully offended an entire culture! This abomination will shake the Empire to its very core. Bloody fine work, Underlord.  A lifetime of work, turmoil… The unity I brought to the Empire, and the waves of holy fury I brought crashing down upon your like. And now this? If Kira watches, I hope she appreciates the irony. You Aetherborn are a pox upon the worlds, rampaging through reality as if it were your damned plaything. To hell with you all. I've done my work in this world… do with the rest of me what you will. Nothing like a good bit of sacrilege to brighten up your day! Their most exalted heroes, defiled and corrupted… You're quite the vandal, Underlord. Let's leave them shambling down here, and press on with our campaign! And now the surface knows not one of them is safe! Not even their most revered warriors can escape your unholy zeal… and we leave behind what was once their Imperial Father, hobbling around the Underworld as a mindless husk!
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Mar 27, 2019 21:39
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Filling a tomb with lava is very much a dwarven thing. But it does look alarmingly safe however. No falls or fountains or anything.
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Mar 27, 2019 23:54
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Poil posted:Filling a tomb with lava is very much a dwarven thing. But it does look alarmingly safe however. No falls or fountains or anything. The Underlord can fix that 
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Mar 28, 2019 02:14
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Episode 9: Lambs to the Slaughter Your last act of profanity has baited them to rash action, Underlord! The Empire are moving the bulk of their forces through Belmorne's Pass, an old Dwarven routeway. If we trap them here, and force them to break against your defences, we can wipe out the Imperial Army in one fell swoop! Welcome to Belmorne's Pass, Underlord. The Imperial Army are itching to reform their forces, and they mean to use this Dwarven passway to speed up their traverse. They'll enter the Undermountain from the east, and march straight for the western passage. Flay them down to their bones, Underlord, and make sure they don't reach their objective! If they get through your defences, the Empire will rally their forces and offer up some stiff resistance. Get cracking, Underlord! This level is very simple. Heroes will spawn on the right side of the map, go through this pass and try to exit the level on the left side. There's a very similar level in Dungeon Keeper 2 where you have to do the same thing, and they're both very fun levels! The main difference between the Dungeon Keeper 2 and War for the Overworld versions of this level is that the level is very easy in Dungeon Keeper 2. In this game, it's, uh, not.  There's a small Hero outpost blocking the pass. It's covered with traps and steel gates, so it'll be a real pain to get through, but if we can take it out, we can use it to create a nice chokepoint. Prepare your traps and defences! Entomb them at the moment of their salvation, and crush the morale of these Imperial stragglers! I dig out a big hall for the usual starting rooms, as well as a sizeable beast den. There's not too much gold around, and beasts are very cost-efficient.  Now that we have them, I also make a tiny garrison and a torture chamber. There's some weird maths behind how War for the Overworld determines how many units you can attract, but the rule of thumb is that you can build one tiny 3x3 room to attract a couple of units, and then you won't attract any additional units of that type unless you invest really heavily in that room type. So if you're just looking to attract units, 3x3s are usually the most cost-efficient option. I also build a large prison. Converting enemy units will be very important in this level.  While digging around to the south, our workers discover an incantation shrine, which will reduce our spell costs. Spells are very powerful already, so this is going to be a huge deal.  To the north, we find another gateway. The heroes will be sending the first wave of troops soon, so I don't have time to dig around and explore normally. So let's get some mileage out of that incantation shrine and use our spells to scout the map for more goodies.  I find a magical artifact hidden to the north, as well as a passage going further east.  A vein of brimstone. This usually hides something pretty good! I blow it up and find…  …oh come on, another gold shrine?  Just for a change, I decide to wall off the stupid gold shrine instead of mining it, so I will actually have to worry about gold for once. This is surely not a decision that I will regret later.  With everything set up, I launch an attack on the small hero outpost to the east. Now that we have augres, succubi and a bunch of beasts, our army is a lot more effective than when our gnarlings had to carry the load.  We clear out the outpost without too much trouble. This is good, because the first wave of heroes has just spawned to the east.  The heroes spawn inside this very heavily fortified base to the east, defended by high-level units and lots of traps. After we take out the first wave of heroes, we should take a crack at the fortress. If we take over the fortress, we can fill it with cannons and take out the subsequent waves of heroes within seconds of them spawning!  I withdraw my units so I can fight the heroes on my territory. The first few units of the first wave of heroes cross the bridge to the east. A very brave level 1 bafu is slowing them down by trying to take them on single-handed.  Once the heroes get into the outpost that we captured, I drop our monsters on them.  The first couple of units go down, but more units arrive. A problem I face here is that our units keep trying to charge out onto the bridge, where they are horribly exposed, so I keep having to pull them back.  One huge benefit to fighting on your own territory is that you're able to target enemy units with spells. Since we have the incantation shrine that reduces our mana costs, we can cast lightning bolts for days. The outpost quickly gets very messy with knocked out heroes.  Our workers do their best to drag wounded heroes back to our prison. One hero type that I want to point out is this one: the huntress. Huntresses are surprisingly great. They're good ranged attackers that are also great at avoiding damage. They're incredibly annoying to fight against, but they're very useful to have on your side, so I'd recommend converting them as a priority.  In the meantime, heroes keep streaming in. There are so many of them that I had to withdraw from the outpost, and we now have to fight the heroes' vanguard just outside my base. This should be the last of the first wave of heroes, however.  By the time I finish fighting the last units of the first wave, the second wave of heroes spawns to the east. The constant stream of heroes has meant that I haven't had time to properly fortify the outpost, let alone try to take their fortress. Our beasts are making a valiant attempt at it, though.  Our beasts actually manage to break down the steel gates and enter the heroes' fortress just as the first units of the second wave enter the room. Our beasts' attack on the fortress is not wholly successful.  We face the heroes at the outpost across the bridge. Our army has been bolstered by a large number of traitor knights and huntresses, making it much more powerful than before.  The heroes keep coming, though, and the fighting becomes real ugly. We're not only outnumbered, but the hero units are higher level too.  Our defence eventually crumbles, and I pull back as many units as I can save. We've weakened the heroes' force, but there are still a lot of very tough units left.  I then realise why the heroes' attack force was so powerful - by breaking through the steel gates to the fortress, our beasts managed to pull out the fortress garrison to support the attack wave.   We lost the battle, but we still managed to take loads of captives. Our succubi get to work converting their best units to our cause.  Meanwhile, since there are a few minutes left until the final wave of heroes, I try to send our army against the fortress to the east.  We break through the frontline defences and start smashing up traps. High-level heroes stream into the room from within the fortress, but we're managing to hold on. Unfortunately, since this is enemy territory, I can't abuse lightning spells, so we have to rely on our army's own strength.  We clear out all the traps, but powerful heroes keep streaming into the room, seemingly out of nowhere. We can just about hold out, but the next major wave of heroes spawns in eighteen seconds!  Soon there are just too many of them, and I have to break off the attack. Now my army is exhausted just as the heroes are at their strongest.  I pull all the way back to our dungeon entrance, where I set up a nice chokepoint. Of note: the five huntresses in this screenshot who fought at the hero fortress and who are still standing and ready to fight. Huntresses are great.  But then a lot of heroes arrive.  Like, a lot of them. And now they're in my base.  I do my best to support the few fighting units I have left, but there are so many hero units. If you look at the corridor on the left, they're still coming.  Have your Workers invented mops yet? No? I suppose they'll just have to clean this up by hand…Mendechaus, that's only funny when it's the enemies that have to be cleaned up.  I don't know what's stranger: a. that I'm not dead yet, or b. that the tide actually seems to be turning.  In the end, the heroes somehow manage to throw the most ridiculously one-sided battle ever. An eerie calm settles over our dungeon as all of our units and all of the heroes have been killed or incapacitated.  The halls are littered with bodies. Our workers can't even bring them to the prison because most of our workers are dead, and the prison is totally full anyway.  At this point, I'm not actually sure why the level hasn't ended. The objectives say that I've defeated 32/35 out of the last wave of heroes, but I don't know where the last three units could be. A couple of dwarves have spawned in the fortress to the east, maybe I have to kill those?  I launch an attack and finally manage to crack the fortress (now that it's totally empty). The level still doesn't end.  Bloody well done. But there's more yet to come…In the end, I just try saving and loading the level, and the level recognises that there is absolutely no one left to kill on this map and grants me the victory.  A crushing victory, Underlord! The Empire's forces are broken, and the stragglers can merely huddle in fear as they await our final strikes!That was really rough! I should have built some cannons. This kind of inadvertently became some sort of challenge run without traps. Don't do that if you ever play this level!
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Mar 30, 2019 23:17
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I remember really struggling with this level, even while hammering traps and setting up mazes with soul traps in single tile walls, next to freezing traps. Because I didn't know that the infinimine existed.
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Mar 31, 2019 03:56
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quote:There's some weird maths behind how War for the Overworld determines how many units you can attract, but the rule of thumb is that you can build one tiny 3x3 room to attract a couple of units, and then you won't attract any additional units of that type unless you invest really heavily in that room type. So if you're just looking to attract units, 3x3s are usually the most cost-efficient option. It's one/two per prop.
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Mar 31, 2019 04:45
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Bloodly posted:It's one/two per prop. It very much depends on the room, as a 5x5 Garrison (and thus 4 props) still only attracts 2 Augres. Just off the top of my head.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:00
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Gargoyle traps are a nice foundation for making a murderbox, since you put a gargoyle 2 tiles away from the entryway, put a freezing trap right in front of that, then a wall of three blade lotuses that all get to attack whoever comes through the doorway. The gargoyle ramps up the damage, the freezing trap (and nearby garrison belltower) prevents them from killing your traps unless they're a siege breaker, and the blade lotuses blenderize anything that gets close. Just make sure the hallway beyond the door bends away at the maximum range of the gargoyle so you don't have anything standing out of reach and shooting your blade lotuses. Then you just add in the bombards and the final trap to taste. AoE murderholes are really good at handling the blobs of enemies the game like to throw at you, and with enough overlapping AoE you can just melt heroes as they reach the doorway.
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Mar 31, 2019 05:13
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This was the level that really stopped me in my tracks back in the Early Access days, since the campaign as a whole was balanced around the player acting much faster (WftO was made by enthusiasts of DK's multiplayer, where being faster than your opponent is a big advantage). By release it was much better balanced.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:29
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Bloodly posted:It's one/two per prop. Lord Koth posted:It very much depends on the room, as a 5x5 Garrison (and thus 4 props) still only attracts 2 Augres. Just off the top of my head. Yeah, augres in particular are hard to attract in large numbers. Someone on the dev forums tried experimenting with this, and I haven't tried to verify these numbers, but this is what he came up with: Gnarlings/chunders/cultists: 1 per prop Crackpots/necromancers/succubi: 1 per 1.5 props Augers: 1 per 2 props Building a tiny 3x3 room typically attracts 2 units by default. To attract a third unit, you need sufficient props. This is fine in the case of gnarlings, where building a 5x5 room will give you 4 props, attracting 4/1 = 4 gnarlings. But with a more advanced unit like crackpots, building a 5x5 room will attract 4/1.5 = 2.67 units. This rounds down to 2, so building a 5x5 room will not attract more units than a 3x3. You need at least 5 props for 5/1.5 = 3.33 units, rounded down to 3. This makes mid-sized rooms horribly inefficient - you want to go either really big or really small.
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Mar 31, 2019 16:50
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LightWarden posted:Gargoyle traps are a nice foundation for making a murderbox, since you put a gargoyle 2 tiles away from the entryway, put a freezing trap right in front of that, then a wall of three blade lotuses that all get to attack whoever comes through the doorway. The gargoyle ramps up the damage, the freezing trap (and nearby garrison belltower) prevents them from killing your traps unless they're a siege breaker, and the blade lotuses blenderize anything that gets close. Just make sure the hallway beyond the door bends away at the maximum range of the gargoyle so you don't have anything standing out of reach and shooting your blade lotuses. Then you just add in the bombards and the final trap to taste. AoE murderholes are really good at handling the blobs of enemies the game like to throw at you, and with enough overlapping AoE you can just melt heroes as they reach the doorway. This sounds devious. I'm a big fan of the classic big block of cannons, but I'll give this a try!
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Mar 31, 2019 16:52
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This is like the DK2 level, almost down to having a source of infinite gold readily available. Looks like fun though.
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Apr 2, 2019 21:32
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Episode 10: The Kenos I've long waited to assault this place. Far beneath the earth the Empire has long kept our unholy prize a secret. You must break through their defences and steal back the Kenos, which will give you the powers once held by you and your kind… you will be as a god if you seize victory here. The Arcane Fortress! Our objective is imprisoned here, beneath the surface, where the Empire hopes it can do them less harm… You can almost taste it… The Kenos. The moment is now, Underlord. We must seize the artifact and move to end our campaign! These Obelisks trap the Kenos beneath the face of the world. Destroy them… and our weapon will be ripe for the taking. The Underlord Mira, one of our eldest, will help you crush the enemy's resistance. Our triumph is close at hand, Underlord! Do try to enjoy the moment.I don't know what the Kenos is, but I want it! This mission, we've finally made an Underlord friend who will actually do stuff. Mira will be assaulting the fortress from the north. She also has a really swanky dungeon design. Love that necro-cubism. The Kenos is kept at the centre of the arcane fortress, protected by four inhibitors. There's no time to waste, so I use the vision spell to quickly scan the area around the dungeon core. There's a gateway to the west and plenty of buildable space. A very nice starting location.  I dig out a big room for all the usual starting buildings, as well as a small garrison.  To the west, I discover the ubiquitous gold shrine. The last mission was pretty rough, so I'm not going to pass on free gold this time.  Now that I have lots of money, I'm free to expand to bigger, more exotic room types. Big prison, big arena, and a little alchemy lab just for fun. The empty room will become a torture chamber, but torture chambers are really expensive, so I'll have to let the workers mine for a bit first. Your ally's minions are under attack! Mendechaus alerts me that Mira's minions are in combat. I am going to hear that line quite a few times this mission, and it's as annoying as you would expect. I don't know what he expects me to do about it, as Mira is literally on the opposite side of the map. Apparently a couple of Mira's oculi have discovered the northern entrance to the arcane fortress.  Since I'm already up here, I take a look at Mira's base. Mira has been really busy! Her base is a fair bit bigger than mine, and she is already testing the defences of the arcane fortress!  Not to be outdone, I dig to the southern entrance of the fortress and set up a line of siege cannons. Hopefully this won't provoke the heroes into attacking or anything.  Oh wait, they're all here. The Empire's Arcanist is a powerful sorceress who channels the energies of the Aether into her formidable assaults. But she is pathetically frail, and should fall with ease. She's better off staying in the Archives with her books.I don't think I like you, Mendechaus.  Luckily, these Empire troops are fairly weak, low-level units that are easily dealt with by dumping all of your guys on top of them. The Empire's Templar is their core foot soldier, dim-witted and pure battle fodder for an Underlord - despite his training in the barracks. Since we have the momentum after that fight, I press on against the front door of the arcane fortress. It's guarded by a couple of traps, but nothing too worrying, even for our low-level army. Now that our assault is well underway, let's go and check on Mira and see if she's managing to keep up.   She's smashed down the front gates, seized the hallways and antechamber and already destroyed one of the four inhibitors protecting the Kenos. I don't want Mira clearing the entire level without us, so I rush our army through the southern defences and into the inhibitor room. There's a handful of Empire troops defending the inhibitor. We outnumber them slightly, but unfortunately they're very high level.  Luckily, these particular troop types, the templar and the arcanist, are not very strong, so we manage to overrun them.  Meanwhile, our prison is filling up nicely with high level hero units. I plan to be converting heroes constantly throughout this mission, as I expect we will be getting many prisoners.  The last two inhibitors are to the east and west of the Kenos. I strike out to the east. Your ally's minions are being attacked!Yes, I know. Thank you.  The arcane fortress is very large, although the layout doesn't really make any sense. To the east of the inhibitor, I pass through this small torture chamber in the middle of a hallway. Heroes are weird.  North of here is the third inhibitor. Unforunately, there are also a lot of strong hero units.  Like, a lot of them. The fight goes poorly.  As a desperate gambit, I try sending in a bunch of workers to bring back our knocked-out units. If they can drag our units back to the dungeon, our army will be ready to fight again after a bit of rest.  This plan also goes poorly. They all die.  That's fine, though—we've got more fighters in the oven. The torture chamber is constantly pushing out new volunteers for our army.  Soon enough, we have enough soldiers ready for another assault. Fifteen traitors are supporting our army in this screenshot.  Where there are now more of us, there are fewer of them. The remaining defenders don't stand a chance.  Only one Obelisk remains! Tear this final idol down! I immediately turn the army towards the western inhibitor. A few defenders show up, but nothing major.  Then something major shows up.  Your minions are being wiped out! This mission has a certain rhythm to it. You make a breakthrough, a giant wave of heroes shows up to break your army, you rebuild, and then you try to make another breakthrough. We are like the tide, rising higher and higher each time the waves hit the beach.  We return again, renewed. Another thing that contributes to the pace of this mission is that once you have unleashed a giant force of heroes, they will spread around the fortress so you can defeat them piecemeal.  When we reach the fourth inhibitor room, only their level 10 champion remains. And although she's powerful, she can't stand against an entire army.  Solid work, Underlord! The Kenos is ours for the taking! It's… Beautiful. That power… No! The Kenos belongs to ME! Mira, what the hell are you doing? The Kenos is not for you, you impudent witch! Underlord… You will be the implement of my justice. We will invade Mira's home realm, and take the Kenos back from her smouldering ruins! Now get to work, while I think of an appropriate punishment… Another turncoat emerges! Enter her realm and send her the way of Marcus and Rhaskos… then claim what is rightfully yours.We'll never make a real Underlord friend. 
Enchanted Hat fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Apr 5, 2019 |
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Apr 4, 2019 23:47
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Mira's dungeon theme is so cool. Kind of a lovecraftian vibe to it. It's my favourite of the lot, though it's pretty tricky to unlock since you need to do all the optional mission objectives. I forget, can you drop stuff on her territory? I remember there's a way to get at least workers up there (since to do the optional objective here of smashing all four inhibitors yourself requries you to actively wall her off to stop her contributing) but I don't remember what it is.
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Apr 5, 2019 00:26
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Tenebrais posted:Mira's dungeon theme is so cool. Kind of a lovecraftian vibe to it. It's my favourite of the lot, though it's pretty tricky to unlock since you need to do all the optional mission objectives. It's such a good theme. Luckily, we'll be seeing more of it! And I never even thought to drop units on her territory, but I've just tested and can confirm that you sure can. Not that she needed the help, mind!
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Apr 5, 2019 01:04
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I hope you can use her dungeon theme as a skin. That's awesome.
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Apr 5, 2019 06:00
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Deadmeat5150 posted:I hope you can use her dungeon theme as a skin. That's awesome. From memory all of the dungeon themes are unlockable; This link is both extremely spoilery, insofar as it shows themes we've not seen, contains images for each theme, and tells you how to unlock each theme so uh, click with caution
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Apr 5, 2019 11:20
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Episode 11: Desperate Power On the cusp of final victory, Mira has stolen the vitally important Kenos (whatever that is), which threatens to ruin everything that we have worked for! If we want to set those last bits of the map on fire, we've got to get back the Kenos.  The cretin, Mira, lies holed up within her dungeon armed with the power of the Kenos, but you have some time before she will be able to tap into its dark core and enhance her own abilities. Finish her before she is capable of sending you back to the Aether! This power is immense… I see, now. But it's too late! The Kenos is mine, and mine alone! This fool knows nothing of the Kenos' true power! She threatens to undermine our entire campaign… destroy her! Mira is a weak, conniving child… but the Kenos is indiscriminate in its powers. It will attune to her, and when it does, things may become… Difficult. Destroy her quickly, Underlord. He will lead you astray, as he has done to countless others! You are nothing to him!Unfortunately, destroying Mira quickly is going to be somewhat difficult. Mira is another Underlord, imbued with the same powers that we have. More powers, in fact, since she controls the Kenos! But crucially, this means that she can freely summon an infinite number of workers in order to claim territory, just as we can, and she can attract more minions through gateways. In earlier missions, we could just win through attrition since the heroes did not get reinforcements. This time, we'll have to be a bit more clever.  Mira's realm is very weird. I hope you like cubes, because this realm is all cubes and bottomless pits, and I don't recommend the pits. The map stretches out north, south and east from our dungeon core. To the south I find our gateway.  To the north, I find a perception shrine which reveals the edge of Mira's base, where she has rallied her beasts here in order to deal with my intruding workers. She also appears to have build her bedroom right on the frontline, which seems, uh, questionable. Look at her, tunneling about with her little minions… soon to be corpses… exterminate them and their deceitful leader. I need fighters quickly, so I build a sizeable beast den. Mira! Return what you stole from me, and you may yet get off lightly! You don't understand! With this power, I can… I can… Get the hell awway from me, Underlord! Go back to your master, and wither under his deceit! Enough of your blabbering! You had your chance, Mira! After digging out what gold I can find around my dungeon core, I expand the base to attract some augres and gnarlings. I haven't found a gold shrine, so I have to be a bit careful with my gold. That said, there isn't actually much more room to build on near my dungeon core. drat it, Underlord, there's no time for dawdling! Get out there and take back the Kenos!Yeah, yeah, I get it. If you are very good at reading compressed, tiny font, you may notice a timer in the top right corner. We have 28 minutes left to defeat Mira before she masters the power of the Kenos and banishes us to the Aether, instantly putting an end to our campaign. If you can read that, well done, because I didn't actually notice the timer while playing!  Some of Mira's flying beasts show up to contest our control of the perception shrine. Our brave gnarlings arrive on the scene and just kind of stand there, since Mira's beasts are hovering safely out of reach over the bottomless pit.  My suggested remedy? Cannons!  That corner on our side of the perception shrine is just perfect for a couple of cannons to support our army. We manage to drive off the beasts, and I launch a counter-attack with our augres and gnarlings into Mira's bedroom (  ). Your insolence has already cost me dearly, Mira! Don’t make your situation worse! Meanwhile, while digging for gold in the western part of our dungeon, I stumble across another bridge leading into Mira's dungeon. This could be very useful, as it will allow us to put pressure on Mira on two fronts instead of just one.  We advance to the other side of the bridge. To strengthen my hold on the territory, and to make it harder for Mira's workers to reclaim tiles, I build a blade lotus trap to block the path to my dungeon. She'll have to destroy the trap before she can push back across the bridge. You have to kill Mira before the Kenos attunes! There's no time to waste! Since there's going to be a lot of skirmishing before we can assault Mira's dungeon core directly, I build a prison and a torture chamber. The prison will allow my workers to drag her minions off the field, denying her the possibility of resting them back to health, and the torture chamber will turn them to my side, inflicting double the injury! Get in there and destroy her Core… before she guts you like a Micropiglet.On the other hand, Mendechaus thinks I should just get on with it.  The bedroom at the front of Mira's dungeon is becoming a bit of a meatgrinder, and we aren't making much progress. To put more pressure on Mira, I task my workers with digging additional tunnels into Mira's dungeon. This way, I will either create more points that she will have to defend, or she will have to divert workers to reinforce her walls to stop my tunnellers.  At this point, I notice something very good: while everyone was fighting in the east, my workers have managed to sneak across the bridge to the west and claim Mira's training barracks! This is big, because that means…  …I can sell it! Sneaking in and claiming an opponent's room is not a big deal in and of itself, as your enemy can just as easily claim it back. But as soon as you get control, you can sell the room in order to inflict permanent economic damage on the other Underlord. Bye bye, barracks!  To the east, we are steadily pushing on towards Mira's dungeon core. It seems like nothing will be able to stop us.  But at that moment, Mira uses the power of the Kenos for the first time. She summons a titan! Titans are big, horrible super-units like this demon. It does devastating damage, has a ton of health, and is going to instantly put a stop to my invasion. Your time is half up, Underlord. She masters the power of the Kenos as we speak.Yes, I noticed.  Hah! With this power, nothing can assail me, and I am becoming the void's champion! To hell with you, Mendechaus!I throw some minions at the titan, but they barely touch it.  Really, my only way to deal with Mira's titans at right now is to throw dozens of lightning spells at them until they go down. It's working, but slowly, and while I deal with her titan, Mira's army and her workers are regaining ground.  I finally banish her titan. Just to annoy me, Mendechaus immediately points out that she is already summoning a replacement.  We have a brief window of time before Mira summons another titan. I sell her frontline bedroom and build cannons on the spot to make the territory harder to reclaim, and to support our army in the constant ongoing skirmish.  Just north of here, over a narrow chasm, is Mira's dungeon core. We are so very close!  I move up our army, but it's still weak after taking a beating from the Mira's titan. We're just inches away from the dungeon core when Mira summons her second titan. I'm forced to pull back.  Luckily, this titan is much less threatening than the previous one. This is some kind of weird tank titan that is even harder to destroy than the previous titan, but which is much worse at destroying our army.  Curiously, this defensive titan is much more aggressive than the previous one. It smashes right through my defensive traps and charges right into the middle of our dungeon, where it is easy prey for our army and our lightning spells.  With the titan dead, I launch another attack against Mira's core. We only have seven minutes until Mira has mastered the Kenos. You're my last real hope to win this war, Underlord; with only a few minutes left I can't help but feel a bit… defeated… Mendechaus is being a baby, but we have reached the dungeon core! Mira is still offering resistance, but her army is considerably smaller than before. Selling off those rooms that we captured must have really messed with her dungeon. What point is there in anything you have done? You are in the service of a liar! You will always be expendable! I will burn you from the realms like the parasite you are! I… I was mistaken! The Kenos has twisted my mind! Underlord, help me! Oh, you want to negotiate? Don't insult me! This Underlord will sever your Core, and I shall trap you in a hell of my own making! No… No, it's not possible… I was so close… Shut it, Mira! You betrayed our entire campaign, and now you will pay the price! Pack your bags, wench; you're going straight to hell! I've created a special little hell for Marcus and her to spend their exile in… Right, now that you are armed with the Kenos you should have no trouble challenging any threat in single combat… unfortunately for us the remaining Underlords have already realized this…
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Apr 7, 2019 23:42
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 09:46 |
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A special little hell for Marcus? Wasn't he the dude the heroes waxed?
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Apr 8, 2019 04:34
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