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DragonsLover
June 22nd, 2012, 07:01
Hello all again!

I'm just wondering about something with the latest PostAK level: Dig. Simply, what's your solution for solving the level?

I'm asking this, because I want to see what are the intentions of the level's author to actually solve that level. I'm also asking this because of things I wouldn't have think about, which would have surprised me.

This is because I think there are a few flaws on that level that should be fixed, but I want to ensure I'm not doing a mistake.

Thanks for your answers!

DON'T FORGET THE SPOILER TAGS EVERYONE!!!

DragonsLover
June 23rd, 2012, 23:29
BUMP!

Come on, nobody has played this level before???

Metal Gear Rex
June 24th, 2012, 04:27
BUMP!

Come on, nobody has played this level before???

Hey now, it's barely been two days since you posted the thread, and on a quiet forum at that. I don't think a bump of any sort is necessary,

I myself have not touched AK in general and from what I know of it, I probably will never.

Enker-Zan
June 24th, 2012, 06:38
Hey now, it's barely been two days since you posted the thread, and on a quiet forum at that. I don't think a bump of any sort is necessary,

I myself have not touched AK in general and from what I know of it, I probably will never.


It's not that quiet, it's just that there isn't anything post worthy coming up in here is all.

Oh, and BUMP!

trolololol

Metal Gear Rex
June 24th, 2012, 12:09
It's not that quiet, it's just that there isn't anything post worthy coming up in here is all.

It is rather quiet. At least to the point where a double post asking for others to respond after only two days of idle time is a bit unnecessary. I've seen DL do this a few times so I figured I might as well bring it up to him.


Oh, and BUMP!

trolololol

Oh how clever. :rolleyes:

DragonsLover
June 27th, 2012, 03:40
*Sigh* Fine then. I didn't know this forum is slightly dying. Afaik, everyday, I see you participate to this forum so that's why after a day and 22 views, I did a BUMP, but if it takes more time to get an answer, I can wait. But now, the way it is going, I don't think I'm gonna get an answer that soon.

Toledot
June 29th, 2012, 22:53
what level from what mappack etc? I'll give it a try if I have the chance

DragonsLover
July 1st, 2012, 09:10
Last level of Post Ancient Keeper campaign

pawels
August 23rd, 2012, 02:49
Last level of Post Ancient Keeper campaign

Dig is my favorite post-AK level. It's rather slow, so probably isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I like levels which unfold slowly and require thorough preparation and careful execution. Vampires - my favorite creatures - are the key to this level's final assault, but a couple of warlocks are needed to survive through the beginning. I won't talk about trivial things like claiming rooms etc. I only outline the truly relevant bits.

So, I start out by possessing a warlock and killing enough of the other warlocks to create two vampires. I train at least 1 vampire to level 2 and the remaining warlocks to level 4 by hitting my own creatures in possession mode. It's been years since I last played, so I hope I remember right. Then I fly a vampire over the lava and hero guard post to the white dungeon trying not to kill any heroes, but sometimes it is unavoidable. When the path is clear I destroy the door leading towards my (red) dungeon and trigger the lava trap that is behind the door. Now I can dig to the white dungeon and claim some rooms in there. Before I can do that, there will be a small wave of heroes coming to get me. They can easily defeat my low level creatures, so the trick is to take advantage of the shape of my dungeon. When a melee AI-creature is attacked by ranged creatures (warlocks), it will turn back home unless it can quickly get to the attackers. Now in this case they'd have to go around the central lava pool, which is too long a way for them so they prefer to turn back. While they are walking back, they do not defend themselves, so I drop my two vampires on them to hack away and train freely. Now I feed my warlocks before the heroes come back and the whole process repeats. It doesn't take too many round trips like this to kill the heroes and make more vampires. Now I can take over a few rooms in the white fortress, but I DO NOT break the doors to the hatchery and lairs yet. Instead I go around and dig to the second lava pool, claim the workshop with the 2 trolls and build a new bigger graveyard above it. My vampires scavenge a couple of level 10 vampires and now I have means to deal with the heroes. I do not remember exactly when, but there is an attack of 3 (?) horned reapers (or were they hidden by the gems?) and in the original game reapers are no match for high level vampires. May not be quite so easy in KeeperFX. Regardless, I deal with the heroes and make vampires. Now there are some heroes on the other side of the white fortress, I blow them in small groups into my dungeon with a vampire. When they are dead I claim the white fortress entirely. Now I'm safe until the next phase and it's up to me when I start it. I train my imps to level 3 in possession mode and dig gems. Pay my high level vampires by hand. Then I slap a low level vampire and let him fight another one to conserve money. This is also the only way to train before claiming the training rooms during the next phase. I also sell the doors that my trolls make. There are several winding paths to the next hero fortress. I open one and make creative use of doors and boulders to kill the heroes. There's a lot of them, so it is quite difficult to get their bodies to the graveyard in time, but it's doable. Otherwise the second hero fortress is pretty straightforward, but there is a boulder trick that is required to destroy some of the white guard post in order to claim the fortress. The new vampires can be trained in the training rooms now, though care must be taken not to run out of money. Before the grand finale I claim my last soldier and use the multiply creatures bonus. Then I assault the final hero fortress. This last battle has always turned out pretty epic, and I have also lost it a few times. But if managed to create enough vampires, it is usually a win. Again may not be quite so in KeeperFX.

Well, I guess this is all I remember; hope it helps.
Ta

DragonsLover
August 24th, 2012, 00:34
Pawels? As in Pawel Simbierowicz? God, if that's you, you're more than welcome here! :D If really, it is you, I have a few questions about this level.

Good walkthrough by the way. That wasn't really the way I did it. In my case, it was slightly more complicated and long at the beginning, but it worked. Some of the parts were mostly the same.

pawels
August 24th, 2012, 08:52
Pawels? As in Pawel Simbierowicz? God, if that's you, you're more than welcome here! :D If really, it is you, I have a few questions about this level.


Yes, it's me and thank you for the welcome. :) Now, your questions?

Wait, I want to answer one question before it's even asked. Can I do that? :) So, where have I been all these years? My interest in DK has waned somewhat from the top days (around 1998), but it hasn't ever disappeared completely. I've been playing DK on/off all this time, even making maps every now and then. I've been watching KeeperFX development from the very start and even lurking in this forum as a guest every few months. However - and I've been blamed a lot for this in my real life - I'm a quiet, maybe even shy type, and don't usually speak out, unless I'm sure I have something valuable to share. In this case I could feel your frustration for not getting any answers about "Dig" and as the person responsible for its existence, I felt it falls to me to do something about it.

Ta

DragonsLover
August 24th, 2012, 18:24
Yaaaaaay!!! :D

In short, you remained in the shadows like would do a true Keeper. :p

Now, for my questions about Dig:
1. As you probably surely knew, when creatures are killed, they return to the creature pool. Was it intended, when you claim the Scavenger Room to be able to scavenge the dead Warlocks in order to bring them back to life?
2. Was it also intended to be able to attract all the heroes on the actual level toward the enemy Keeper's dungeon? It's a bit tricky to apply, but possible. Should it be avoided?

Also, in "Thor's Diplomat", there's a "Increase level" magic box located at the East of the level, but inaccessible without a bridge that you only can obtain for getting to the bonus level. What was the intended way to get it if you remember? Was it a mistake? Actually, I fixed this by giving a path for the imps to claim the path.

In Post-AK "Imps", the level seems sooo easy, especially when you can again attract all the heroes of this level toward the enemy Keeper's dungeon. I have fixed this, but the level still remains a bit easy in the part of the enemy Keeper's dungeon. I mean, you can claim the vital rooms and let the creatures perish by themselves. Was it intended again? What was your solution? In my case, I just assured you can only claim the Library, the Guard Posts and the Torture Chamber in order to build an army and kill his minions to be able to reach his Dungeon Heart.

I've been working on your Ancient Keeper campaign along with Post-AK campaign in order to fix some mistakes you let, causing some levels to be solved more easily. I explained some of them in a recent post. I hope you don't mind I altered slightly some of your levels to make them more harder to solve (and some slightly easier because of some KeeperFX changes). We know that some things in KeeperFX aren't really compatible along with your campaigns, but we're working to make them work the way it was intended by you the best we can.

pawels
August 24th, 2012, 21:26
Now, for my questions about Dig:
1. As you probably surely knew, when creatures are killed, they return to the creature pool. Was it intended, when you claim the Scavenger Room to be able to scavenge the dead Warlocks in order to bring them back to life?
2. Was it also intended to be able to attract all the heroes on the actual level toward the enemy Keeper's dungeon? It's a bit tricky to apply, but possible. Should it be avoided?

Also, in "Thor's Diplomat", there's a "Increase level" magic box located at the East of the level, but inaccessible without a bridge that you only can obtain for getting to the bonus level. What was the intended way to get it if you remember? Was it a mistake? Actually, I fixed this by giving a path for the imps to claim the path.

In Post-AK "Imps", the level seems sooo easy, especially when you can again attract all the heroes of this level toward the enemy Keeper's dungeon. I have fixed this, but the level still remains a bit easy in the part of the enemy Keeper's dungeon. I mean, you can claim the vital rooms and let the creatures perish by themselves. Was it intended again? What was your solution? In my case, I just assured you can only claim the Library, the Guard Posts and the Torture Chamber in order to build an army and kill his minions to be able to reach his Dungeon Heart.

I've been working on your Ancient Keeper campaign along with Post-AK campaign in order to fix some mistakes you let, causing some levels to be solved more easily. I explained some of them in a recent post. I hope you don't mind I altered slightly some of your levels to make them more harder to solve (and some slightly easier because of some KeeperFX changes). We know that some things in KeeperFX aren't really compatible along with your campaigns, but we're working to make them work the way it was intended by you the best we can.

Alright, here you go:

Scavenging back the warlocks didn't bother me, I even did it during playtesting, because I don't think it's feasible for very long. You get the bridge only at the very end, so putting gold by hand into your treasury and selling doors is the only way to get income until the very end. Sure you can get a couple of warlocks if you want, but getting an army of them would require an awful lot of micromanagement. I consider it pretty boring if done for a long time, so I didn't even bother to try to prevent it. If you want to disable it, go right ahead, I don't mind.

Yes I know you can send the heroes after the enemy, but I didn't think, there is enough of them to defeat the AI keeper. I thought if the player does that, then it will be a stalemate, because he won't have enough vampires for the final battle (unless he spends a few days scavenging back warlocks for vampire production). Either way IMO it leads to rather uninteresting scenario which is against the best interest of the player. Maybe KeeperFX changes the balance so much, that this should be disabled, I'm unsure. In such case the entrance to the AI keeper's dungeon could be redesigned, so the heroes can't go there. Again if you want to change that, be my guest! :)

Honestly, I do not remember, what was my intention with that bonus. But knowing my wicked mind, I think I wanted the player to get the bridge first. :)

Yes, I know that you can defeat the AI Keeper by taking over their hatchery. I did it myself too. I think I left it there as a safety valve, if the player cannot defeat them otherwise. If this makes the level too trivial, please do change it, I'll trust your judgement.

I'm happy that AK still seems to entertain a few people, even after all these years. Making it playable with KeeperFX is something I'm all for, so by all means, implement all and any changes you deem necessary for that to happen. My only request is that you don't radically change the way how the levels are played. Multiple solutions aren't a bad thing, but their difficulty level should be comparable. Should my assistance be required, I'll be around.

Ta

DragonsLover
August 25th, 2012, 19:17
Scavenging back the warlocks didn't bother me, I even did it during playtesting, because I don't think it's feasible for very long. You get the bridge only at the very end, so putting gold by hand into your treasury and selling doors is the only way to get income until the very end. Sure you can get a couple of warlocks if you want, but getting an army of them would require an awful lot of micromanagement. I consider it pretty boring if done for a long time, so I didn't even bother to try to prevent it. If you want to disable it, go right ahead, I don't mind.

Not if you scavenge them when you get the Training Room, but of course, during that time, you'll already get an army of Vampires that sucks up all the gold. At some time, I couldn't even afford to pay all my minions even by selling doors and putting gold in the Treasure Room by hand so, I simply kept a few of them. I'm gonna leave it that way then.


Yes I know you can send the heroes after the enemy, but I didn't think, there is enough of them to defeat the AI keeper. I thought if the player does that, then it will be a stalemate, because he won't have enough vampires for the final battle (unless he spends a few days scavenging back warlocks for vampire production). Either way IMO it leads to rather uninteresting scenario which is against the best interest of the player. Maybe KeeperFX changes the balance so much, that this should be disabled, I'm unsure. In such case the entrance to the AI keeper's dungeon could be redesigned, so the heroes can't go there. Again if you want to change that, be my guest! :)

If I remember well, heroes aren't strong enough to defeat the enemy Keeper, but they can weaken their army enough so that, with your small army of Vampires, Avatar and Warlocks (doubled with Multiply), you could kill the rest of them, especially when the Training Room is available and you can Scavenge the Warlocks.


Honestly, I do not remember, what was my intention with that bonus. But knowing my wicked mind, I think I wanted the player to get the bridge first. :)

But the thing is, once you get the Bridge, you have completed the level thus making the Increase level bonus useless.


Yes, I know that you can defeat the AI Keeper by taking over their hatchery. I did it myself too. I think I left it there as a safety valve, if the player cannot defeat them otherwise. If this makes the level too trivial, please do change it, I'll trust your judgement.

So far, I just make sort that you can torture all the heroes you previously captured in order to build an army to defeat his creatures since you cannot kill his minions otherwise, excepted if you steal the hatcheries, since you cannot send your multiple Imps to kill them one by one because they're too strong and you cannot lead them to your dungeon heart.


I'm happy that AK still seems to entertain a few people, even after all these years. Making it playable with KeeperFX is something I'm all for, so by all means, implement all and any changes you deem necessary for that to happen. My only request is that you don't radically change the way how the levels are played. Multiple solutions aren't a bad thing, but their difficulty level should be comparable. Should my assistance be required, I'll be around.

I did my very best to make the levels to be played the way YOU intended them to be played. I just corrected some things perhaps you didn't consider. For example, for Red Carpet, you disable the use of Guard Post, but not the Temple (which also serves as a Guard Post). I also disabled to get the Torture Chamber early on because you could torture your only Warlock to turn it as a Ghost. And a Ghost has Rebound, and Rebound combined with Archers means they kill themselves without even using Disease. In your solution, that wasn't the way you wanted it to played, was it? It's things like that I took care about in order to prevent the levels to be played the easy and lame way. In T'Kaan's Mistress, you forgot a Guard Post for the Yellow Keeper so that you could easily break the door, bring an Imp there to dig a path toward the Yellow Keeper and leave the Hornies to kill the weak Vampires of his army. Was it intended again? Or again, In Salaar's Test, you can make sort to blow the heroes of the middle small fortress by using a Ghost's Wind spell inside the enemy Keeper's dungeon through a corner, causing you to win rather more easily than intended. For Rescue the Avatar and Entomology, you can destroy the enemy Keeper's dungeon heart very easily without doing a single fight. I had to alter the levels to force the player to fight the creatures as you wanted. I even had to alter the order of bonus levels to avoid transferring a Ghost because it would compromise the solution of a few levels. For the bonus level Crusade, you don't have to defeat the Keepers' dungeons in a certain order. You can already dig neutral walls manually. I had to alter the level so that only the "destroy your own dungeon after winning" trick applies, followed by the manual digging trick. It's small things like that I had to alter, but in all cases, it doesn't alter your intended solution.

pawels
August 25th, 2012, 21:04
But the thing is, once you get the Bridge, you have completed the level thus making the Increase level bonus useless.


Yep, that is exactly what I meant by wicked mind. :p


So far, I just make sort that you can torture all the heroes you previously captured in order to build an army to defeat his creatures since you cannot kill his minions otherwise, excepted if you steal the hatcheries, since you cannot send your multiple Imps to kill them one by one because they're too strong and you cannot lead them to your dungeon heart.


Have you noticed that all the heroes are of healing variety? I meant that you keep them in prison (without converting them) until you have all of them and then drop them all at once on the enemy keeper. Should they fail to defeat the keeper, then you have the hatchery theft method as the last resort.


I did my very best to make the levels to be played the way YOU intended them to be played. I just corrected some things perhaps you didn't consider. For example, for Red Carpet, you disable the use of Guard Post, but not the Temple (which also serves as a Guard Post). I also disabled to get the Torture Chamber early on because you could torture your only Warlock to turn it as a Ghost. And a Ghost has Rebound, and Rebound combined with Archers means they kill themselves without even using Disease. In your solution, that wasn't the way you wanted it to played, was it? It's things like that I took care about in order to prevent the levels to be played the easy and lame way. In T'Kaan's Mistress, you forgot a Guard Post for the Yellow Keeper so that you could easily break the door, bring an Imp there to dig a path toward the Yellow Keeper and leave the Hornies to kill the weak Vampires of his army. Was it intended again? Or again, In Salaar's Test, you can make sort to blow the heroes of the middle small fortress by using a Ghost's Wind spell inside the enemy Keeper's dungeon through a corner, causing you to win rather more easily than intended. For Rescue the Avatar and Entomology, you can destroy the enemy Keeper's dungeon heart very easily without doing a single fight. I had to alter the levels to force the player to fight the creatures as you wanted. I even had to alter the order of bonus levels to avoid transferring a Ghost because it would compromise the solution of a few levels. For the bonus level Crusade, you don't have to defeat the Keepers' dungeons in a certain order. You can already dig neutral walls manually. I had to alter the level so that only the "destroy your own dungeon after winning" trick applies, followed by the manual digging trick. It's small things like that I had to alter, but in all cases, it doesn't alter your intended solution.

As I said in my previous post, I think multiple solutions are a good thing. The temple in red carpet is likely an oversight, but ghost's rebound is just another creative way of solving the level. It is also possible to kill all the heroes with disease without ever taking the portal. I consider it also a valid solution. Most other things that you mention are likely really my mistakes, so I guess they should be corrected. One thing in particular I wish to confess, so the reason for many of my errors is easier to understand: when I made my AK levels I did not know it is possible to dig through neutral walls! One player asking for my advice on University of Hades, pointed this out to me, and I was indeed very surprised. Another trick I didn't know about is that you can slap a ghost through a corner just like with the wind spell. Third one, you can run a slapped and hasted imp through a gold corner in possession mode. And there's a few others that escape me at the moment. All in all I wasn't such a DK guru as I liked to believe! :) Took me some time to learn a little humility.:) One more thing I just now remembered: a few years back there was a guy (Jonathan Ellis I believe was his name; his posts are probably still readable is some archives of usenet newsgroups) who converted the entire AK campaign to free play format of the Deeper Dungeons. I don't know if this piece of information is of any use to you, but here it is anyway. And before I sign out for today, I want to thank you for taking the effort to make AK-FX happen.

Ta

DragonsLover
August 26th, 2012, 19:01
Have you noticed that all the heroes are of healing variety? I meant that you keep them in prison (without converting them) until you have all of them and then drop them all at once on the enemy keeper. Should they fail to defeat the keeper, then you have the hatchery theft method as the last resort.

Good point. I never thought about that. I'm gonna check this out.


As I said in my previous post, I think multiple solutions are a good thing. The temple in red carpet is likely an oversight, but ghost's rebound is just another creative way of solving the level. It is also possible to kill all the heroes with disease without ever taking the portal. I consider it also a valid solution. Most other things that you mention are likely really my mistakes, so I guess they should be corrected. One thing in particular I wish to confess, so the reason for many of my errors is easier to understand: when I made my AK levels I did not know it is possible to dig through neutral walls! One player asking for my advice on University of Hades, pointed this out to me, and I was indeed very surprised. Another trick I didn't know about is that you can slap a ghost through a corner just like with the wind spell. Third one, you can run a slapped and hasted imp through a gold corner in possession mode. And there's a few others that escape me at the moment. All in all I wasn't such a DK guru as I liked to believe! :) Took me some time to learn a little humility.:) One more thing I just now remembered: a few years back there was a guy (Jonathan Ellis I believe was his name; his posts are probably still readable is some archives of usenet newsgroups) who converted the entire AK campaign to free play format of the Deeper Dungeons. I don't know if this piece of information is of any use to you, but here it is anyway. And before I sign out for today, I want to thank you for taking the effort to make AK-FX happen.

Ta

Therefore, should I leave the Torture Chamber available for Red Carpet? Actually, you only get it when you claim the portal. And don't worry, some levels still have alternative solutions. I also know about the cross-through-corners trick. It's not only on gold blocks, but on anything. All it requires is a creature that is very fast enough so that he can cross through the corners without using :whirlwind:. I didn't know about slapping Ghosts though. I wonder if the same applies to other creatures too. Others than that, I must tell you that I respect your work so that, if there's anything, ANYTHING about my changes, you disagree on, do not hesitate to tell me. It's your campaign and I don't wanna ruin your stuff.

pawels
August 26th, 2012, 21:06
if there's anything, ANYTHING about my changes, you disagree on, do not hesitate to tell me.

Oh no, no, there's nothing to tell really. Truth be told I don't even have any point of reference, as I have never seen your work. But it probably isn't even necessary, as long as you stay close to the original mood of the levels while you iron out the bugs, either those originally left in by me, or new ones i.e. those generated by the differences between KeeperFX and original DK, I trust the end result will be just fine.

Something else caught my attention as I was browsing the forum the other day: about "Sloth". I got the impression that many people seem to have problems with this level. In original DK I used to solve the level by training a single avatar to level 6 and then assaulting the white dungeon heart in possession mode. Avatar trains very fast against hornies and as long as you use all his spells as soon as they are available, he can kill all the reapers without problems. I realize this tactics likely doesn't work in KeeperFX, so I want to point out that the player can have several avatars on this level: just creatively train, throw away and resurrect them and there'll be a small army of avatars if done correctly. Another thing (probably trivial, but here it is anyway) concerns controlling the tunnelers: they must be given exactly one job at a time, otherwise they will just ping-pong between the jobs and get nothing done.

Ta

DragonsLover
August 28th, 2012, 01:21
For "Sloth" (and for all the levels of your campaign), you based everything on the original Dungeon Keeper game. Well, there were some bugs in the game where the Strength of creatures couldn't exceed 255 and if the Dexterity value would go beyond 255, it wrapped back to 0 so that if a creature trains too much, he may have difficulties to hit his enemies. Once we have fixed these problems in KeeperFX, we realized that it causes some problems in your campaign since you based everything on these bugged values. This is why, actually, we're making sort that for your campaign only, it respects the same bugged mechanics like before. Otherwise, if you wanna adapt your campaign on the corrected game, some major changes will need to be done to your levels or it would become way too much difficult to solve some of your levels.

Not only that, some changes have been done to some creatures and it wouldn't be compatible with your campaign as well.

As you can see, it's a bit complicated.

Popelku
April 3rd, 2016, 13:44
A very old post but it didn't quite help me

After I killed the archers, I dug the 5 paths in which there are boulders
But now I'm stuck with a neutral wall on each of the path

Is it a bug or it's intended ? How do I get past them ?