Dungeon Keeper: Hints and Tips

The Majordomo.
Clicking the c on the control panel by the minimap activates the automatic Majordomo, who will tag the gold, plan and build your rooms, slap your creatures and even control fights, all faster than you can do the same. But he can be a bit brutal and slap Imps to death (and who doesn't?) so you should keep an eye on his actions and be ready to take the reins back when he starts killing your creatures.

Room Efficiency.
Two rooms can be the same size and yet one of them produce ten time the amount of the other. Why? One word, Efficiency. Build your rooms square for maximum efficiency and then fortify the walls and put doors on the entrances, Your minions will feel safer and do more in an efficient room. Try to avoid building rooms that are one tile wide, or a strange shape. Graveyards are unaffected by efficiency and can be any shape you want.

Free Experience .
Warlocks, Dragons and Tentacles can gain free experience while they are in their lairs. If the Lair is next to a Gold seam ie no walls separate the Lair from the Gold, Warlocks gain experience while sleeping. Dragons and Lava and Tentacles and Water are the same.

Lair Enemies.
Some creatures will attack each other if they are forced to share a Lair. To avoid fights amongst your minions, build two separate Lairs and place Lair enemies in different ones. Once they are in separate Lairs, all new arrivals of that type will go to the Lair is the others of the same type, if there is enough room, so you only have to do this once.
The following creatures are Lair enemies:
Flies and Spiders
Warlocks and Vampires
Bile Demons and Skeletons
Dark Mistresses and Samurai
Horned Reapers don't have Lair enemies but it is worth placing them in their own little complex of Hatchery, Training Room and Lair with its own door to keep them separate from the rest of the Dungeon just in case you upset it.

Imps.
Learning to use you Imps correctly can be vital to the success of the game. Knowing where they are going to go next, what tile they will claim next, which wall they will fortify next. Some time, you have to get them to do what you want and quickly. So take time to learn to control your Imps. Pick them up and drop them, get use to controlling them.

Gold.
Each Gold Square contains 1024 Gold to go in your treasure room. Gem Squares contain infinite gold but take longer to mine, so get the Gold squares first, to tide you over. You should build your treasure rooms as close to the gold and gem squares as possible, so your Imps don't have so far to run. Not as a kindness to your Imps, but because they can get back to digging out the gold quicker. If the Gold seams are small and dotted around the map, build small treasure rooms close to the gold being mined and, once a seam has been mined, sell the treasure room.

Pay Day.
To reduce the cost of your wages bill, pickup and drop gold in your treasure room. You can eventually get your handfuls of gold down to 50 gold, and when pay day come, use these little piles to pay you expense creatures. Such personal attention distracts them from the fact that you short changed them a few thousand gold.

Chickens.
Your creatures need to eat. Your Bile Demons need to eat a lot. While eating, your creatures aren't working, which isn't good. Keep your essential creatures working by getting a handful of chickens and finding those creatures and dropping a chicken on them, so they don't need to go to the Hatchery. Even if that creature eats more than one chicken for lunch, your personal feeding of them impresses them so much that just one chicken will fill them up. The fools.

Sacrifices.
Throwing some creatures down the temple well will persuade the Dark Gods to Bless or Curse you and your minions. These are the combinations of creatures to sacrifice, and what you receive.
Sacrifices that are generally good:
Imp- Each on sacrificed reduces the cost of buying Imps by 150 gold. Minium cost of Imps is 150 Gold.
Fly and Spider- Get Warlock.
2 Flies- Current Research completed.
2 Beetles- Current Manufacturing completed.
Beetle and Spider- Get Dark Mistress.
3 Spiders- Get Bile Demon.
Dark Mistress, Bile Demon and Troll- Get Horned Reaper (might not be good for you)
Sacrifices that are generally bad (for your that is. It's always bad for the creatures):
Horned Reaper- All your creatures become angry.
Ghost- All your real chickens are killed.
Vampire- All your creatures become Diseased.
2 Bile Demons- All your creatures are Chickened (but see Armaggedon spell).

Graveyard, Imps and Vampires.
If money isn't a problem, you can use Imps to make Vampires. Make an Imp and slap it to death (10 slaps). Make another Imp to carry the dead one to the Graveyard and then slap that one to death and make another Imp etc. Ten dead creature in your Graveyard makes a Vampire. If you don't fancy slapping Imps to death (it can become repetitive), try making short corridor with a door at one end and a Boulder trap at the other, lock the door and drop (or make) Imps in the corridor and slap the Boulder. Pureed Imp in an instant.

Dungeon Specials.
There are a number of Dungeon Specials that can be found on some levels. These should be sought out were ever possible. Use Sight of Evil to find the Dungeon Specials, usually placed in unusual rock formations. The specials are:
Increase Level: Raises the level of all your creatures by one. Use once you have reached the maximum number of creatures on that level, or just before a fight.
Ressurect Creature: Brings one of your creatures that have died on his level back to life. If there are two Ressurect Creature on a level, your can use them to bring the same creature back twice.
Steal Hero: When you use this, a hero joins your Dungeon.
Reveal Map: Once used, the entire map is revealed to you, allowing you to see the lay out enemy dungeons and their creatures and any specials and wandering creatures on this level.
Make Safe: once you use is, your entire Dungeon is immediately fortified, increasing room efficiency and making your dungeon safe from outsiders.
Transfer Creature: This lets you take one of your creatures to the next level. Once you use it the selected creature disappears from the current level. You can only take one creature to the next level. That creature can be ressurected.
Locate Hidden World: See Special Levels below.

Special Levels.
On some of the maps, there are Locate Hidden Realm specials. These Hidden Realms sometimes have powerful creatures that you can transfer to the level. You don't have to go to the Hidden Realms immediately. Use them to help you on the harder Levels.

Know The Enemy (and the Map, and the Surprises.)
Download the Dungeon Keeper Map Editor and use this to check the maps before you play them to get an idea of the terrain before hand, noting were and what the enemy is, any unaligned creatures your could grab and specials. Is can give you an edge in the game and allows you to plan ahead. The accompanying level text lets you know what you and your enemy can have (what creatures, what spells, what traps and what rooms.) This can allow you to plan your Dungeon better and with no waste. Of course, unscrupless Keepers could use the Editor and level texts to make suitable changes to the level and give themselves an unfair advantage. Usually by more creature and Gems at the beginning of the Game. A Reveal Map special is useful to.

The Battle Box.
In the battle box that appears during fights, you can control your creatures. Cast spells on their icons (like Heal and Protect Creature) and it is cast on them. Cast spells on the enemy icons and it is also cast on the enemy. Left-click to pick them up, Right-click to zoom to them.

Conquering.
Always remember what your objective is. If you are meant to destroy another Dungeon you are meant to destroy the Dungeon Heart. It does not mean killing all the creatures or taking all the rooms. Winning will mean destroying the Heart. The best way to the Dungeon Heart is with invisible Imps claiming tiles there. Distract the enemy and send an invisble Imp to claim territory. Just remember that Imps are craven little cowards who run away if they think they are going to be turned into puree. While the goal is to destroy the Heart, you shouldn't pass by the opportunity to claim his Portal and Library. He'll weaken and die if he can't get get creatures, and die all the faster if he can't cast spells.

One Player Mode (Dungeon Keeper).
You can play the multiplayer levels in Dungeon Keeper. If you are playing the MS-DOS version of Dungeon Keeper, go to the Dungeon Keeper directory, e.g. c:\keeper. Then type the following:

keeper -1player

If you are playing the Windows 95 version of Dungeon Keeper, click on the Start button on the taskbar and select the Run program on the menu. A dialog will appear. Type in the name of the keeper directory and also add keeper95.exe on the end, e.g.

c:\program files\keeper\keeper95.exe.

Then, on the end of that, add the following text: -1player For example:

"c:\program files\keeper\keeper95.exe" -1player

Don't forget the "quote" marks.

Creature Text.
Hidden on your hard drive in the \Keeper\Data folder, are two .TXT files called creaure.txt and dd1creat.txt. These are the settings for the game. Modifying these can make the game harder or easier. Use with care and keep a backup of the originals.
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