Yes, with the two keepers on the sides.
If you want the special you need the bridge, but if you don't have that anymore (because you went the easy route of winning :P ) then the AI might build one for you.
That one's easy - the one in level 15 it is a lot more difficult - because level 16 has the early duplicate creature special.
Question: Did you understand the condition from playing the level, or did you check the script?
Last edited by YourMaster; November 21st, 2014 at 18:33.
At 14 I got it when I reached a certain area and my bridge went missing. So if you really want to transfer a creature prepare for a big battle all level long.
In the end transferring a creature was not necessary cause with 50 level 10 vampires and one suicidal keeper (Green, this time.. Thought that blue was scripted to die?) level 15 was a walk in the park.
I didn't bother with finding out how to get the special at level 15.
Level 16 will be interesting I guess. (Haven't started that yet)
I didn't really notice much difference from level 16 and on.
The AI in level 16 killed itself over the traps that were there from the start, my Horny's were level 5 when he attacked the doors. His (level 10) orcs walked into the boulder trap and he didn't have much strong creatures left except the vampire (at level 7) which was no match for 2 horny's.
Getting the transfer special is kinda hard though. Not sure if you can get it if blue suicides himself so soon.
Level 17 went a lot faster, but wasn't that much harder (without a transfered creature)
Level 18 felt unchanged for me, it's still pretty easy to win without claiming a portal.
Level 19 didn't feel that different either except for a moved special box.
Level 20 was a walk in the park, blue only had 2 vamps and didn't get any more than that..
Thanks for the feedback! Did you try the two imp-killing-secret levels? Overall, did you enjoy it, and would you sooner play this one again or the original campaign?
The last few levels I didn't change too much on, true, as I felt they are already quite ok on the difficulty front.
16 - That shouldn't happen of course, I feel the main challenge on this level are the heroes and they come sooner. If blue kills himself that won't matter. I think I'll update to remove some of the traps, that probably makes a big difference.
17 - Big difference next to the no transfer creature being no early access to prison. Did you find it an enjoyable level like this, or too boring?
18 - Very little changes here yes. I think 18 is already quite reasonable in difficulty, especially early on. Big difference is that the respawn-party now harasses you instead of crowding the heart.
19 - This should actually have some big changes:
- You don't start with a level 10 creature anymore
- You can't use the temple anymore to create a lot of reapers/orcs
- You can't scavenge all the heroes to your side
But most importantly, when you try to mine the gems of the blue keeper, he will attack you. Also, when you mine the gems where to monks are, he will attack the heroes with a delay and transfer them into more skeletons.
How did this play out for you? Which gems did you go to, and how did blue respond?
20 - What do you mean he didn't get anymore? Did he end up with just 2 vampires, or do you mean I didn't boost blue?
It is true, I did very little to level 20 compared to what DragonsLover already did to it. I hope the original is reverted to not needing to kill the blue keeper - as it originally was. And then this one as a boost has you killing blue. I did change some of the ingame messages.
I would play this one instead of the original. (if the maps after 15 get a little tougher )
The hero patrol came at around the same time blue decided to attack me, I easily killed the party with just the Horny's (level 5) and then cleaned up blue who as mentioned weakened himself too much on the traps. I'm not sure if blue's attack gets triggered by something, but maybe that can be delayed or just removed so you have to attack him?
I guess you have to let the hero party take it's course to get the transfer box? (If blue doesn't interfere)
I've never used the prison (or skeletons for that matter) on this map, I open the map up as soon as possible so that I can kill the hero parties before they even start digging.
The multiply creatures box could be removed for some more challenge but even without it you can win the map.
When I first played it as a kid I was stuck for days, because I kept turteling and let all the heroes spawn before I'd attack (and lost most of the time) Killing them one party at a time is much easier.
The start is quite challenging indeed, but after that it's very easy.
Removing the boulder trap and magic door would make things a lot more difficult, cause you can't kill the heroes that easily then.
-Which level 10 creature do you start with? There was a level 4 vampire in the library, but I didn't even miss that haha, now I think of it I noticed it wasn't there. :P
-I made 2 reapers out of the temple to kill and convert the heroes to the east to reach the gems. So I guess something went wrong here?
I've never seen Orcs come out of the portal on this map and I'm not aware of a temple recipe to get them? (maybe added later in KFX?)
-I've never used the scavenger room cause of gold shortage, so didn't really miss it. Blue's scavenger room was a bit useless though, cause he gets creatures I don't get (except if you go for skeletons out of the heroes)
-Normally I would've gone for blue's gems and starve him to death, but I did some scouting with the Sight Spell to notice just in time that that wasn't a smart idea to do. So I walled him in (to stop him from workshop spamming and not to bother me while I was killing white and training up)
Then I easily overrun him with the converted heroes and some vampires I made.
Some Ideas:
Remove the Thiefs from the map or remove the option to turn them into knights.
Give blue vampires instead of warlocks (5 or 6 or so, not too much)
He had 2 level 10 vamps when I attacked him and he got some more cause of the deaths that happened while fighting. But they stayed low level or died instantly cause of the ongoing fight. He didn't scavenge them like he used to do. (no vamps in the creature pool?)
I had to kill blue first before the hero invasion came. (which was kinda easy to kill with 2 level 10 reapers and some smartly placed traps) The Avatar died instantly (both times) even with imprison on (that should go out imo, but that's another discussion)
In this level there are some really strong hero parties after a while (level 9 samurai, level 8 Wizard, Level 8 Barbarian, Level 7 Giant), which spawns up to 3 times, and sooner then it the original campaign. That should be enough to give two low level horny's a run for for their money, but not if Blue dies before they spawn of course. I see about helping out blue a bit, so the level won't end too soon.
The transfer special you can earn some other way:Spoiler
Kill blue without letting a single of your creatures get annoyed
Yes, that is now the way to beat the level, you have to take initiative to win. In the original you can sit back a lot more, and your transferred creature could mop up everything alone letting the other creatures train unhindered.
I'll like to hear from other people on this as well, if other people are now a lot more challenged you can just give yourself a compliment for being really good and I'll keep it like this, but if other people have similar experiences I'll up the difficulty a bit.
I see,... I'll look into the endgame on this map.
Normally you would start with a level 10 creature from one of the two secret levels. A level 10 Vampire/Mistress or Hellhound. That alone was enough to get you to the gems right away. You may have noticed those secret levels have undergone some big changes,...
In KFX two trolls transform into one orc, and as you have trolls from the portal in 19, you can have as many level 2 orcs as you like(until portal limit). I changed this that once you have more than 2 orcs, you won't get any trolls anymore. If you get a single horny, you can't get any more bile demons, so no more horny's either. You can get 2 horny's, if you sacrifice the bile demon first, wait for a second one to spawn, before sacrificing the mistress/troll. A third one would be impossible.
You walling him in was the right thing to do, or he would have moved out and take the heroes for himself. I did disable the workshop-spam on this level and caused him to train up faster.
You seem like a patient player,... I would never train up my vampires to level 10, nor my thieves to knights because I would get bored and attack long before that time.
I don't want blue to have vampires on this level for two reasons:
- He would scavenge your vampire
- Level 20 has a rival keeper with vampires.
I'll take your feedback on this level on board - to see how to make the final fight a bit more interesting. I'd love to hear the experiences of some others as well,... to see if you just got lucky or if nobody got bothered by blue.
I double checked,... I made no changes to blue in level 20 at all. Same pool, same availability, everything. So I don't know why he only had two vamps, but I recently discussed level 20 of the original campaign on this board where somebody also mentioned blue hardly having any vampires. I then played it, and blue attacked really soon before I even dug out of my dungeon, so that level ended quickly.
So I'm not sure it has anything to do with what I did,... perhaps simply changes to the game made this happen.
What do you mean the avatar dying instantly, do you mean when he got transported to the prison? If that happened twice, I made a scripting error. Or did he die during the fight? If so, then that would be dragon fire or bile demon gas. Those things kill even with imprisonment on.
From the original campaign I know that the (same) hero party spawned at least 2 times, but I usually cut them of by surrounding the herogate. This time I just waited till they reached my portal and I broke the wall open and dropped both horny's, they easily slaughtered the party. The second and third never came.
I'm not sure if helping blue is the right thing to do, he's strong already. It's that the AI doesn't respond well to traps, which makes it a suicide mission when he attacks. Removing the traps would make it quite hard to beat him I think, especially if the heroes join at around the same time.
From the original campaign I remember that blue reacted different each time I played the map, sometimes he attacked fast, other times he turtled and started digging around me instead of attacking my doors.
Haha thanks.
In my opinion you can raise the levels or amount of heroes of the parties a little. (just 1 level up should be quite a challenge already I guess)
The hero party that keeps coming until you've claimed the gems, can be made a lot stronger. (it's just an easy way of getting vampires now..)
Btw, did you move that spawning point or was this moved already? I remember that these guys kept spawning at the hearth until the creature limit was reached and the map would crash or became unplayable..
I hate the secret levels, so I did not play them. I like to make dungeons, not having timers and being forced to do a specific thing. So I can't give feedback on those.
So I didn't know about the level 10 creature. :P
I did not know that recipe, and did I know, I wouldn't have used it, cause low level Orcs aren't that strong.
I guess I was lucky with the reapers, but even with the limit in place, just 1 reaper is enough to clear the gems.
I always wall him in, but in the original campaign I would take his gems and let him dry out. So giving him the gems is a good thing, makes him a little tougher and harder to beat.
Frameskip is the answer here. If I know I'm safe I just raise it to 4 times above normal and creatures will be at level 10 in no time.
You have a good point, having two keepers of the same kind in a row is a bit repetitive.
But he does need a buff (or the player a nerf) somehow, having 2 reapers, a couple of vamps and knights will make short work of him.
When the scavenger bug was still present he would get the maximum amount of vampires within seconds. But now he reaches his portal limit faster than he can scavenge the vampire pool. If the player doesn't make a graveyard he doesn't get extra vampires until the fights break out. Which by then it's too late for him to make use of them.
I'm not sure what happened exactly cause blue interfered by dropping a lot of creatures when I attacked the Avatar. But his death looked scripted to me. (Also got the message that his body was vanished etc..) The second wave I didn't even saw him alive cause he got slaughtered by my Reapers and vamps before I even noticed the parties had dropped. :P But I was sure I had imprison on at both times. Reapers and vamps don't have gas or flame breath so he couldn't have died from that.
Oh and I didn't get the ending movie when I won the map!
Yes, I'll have to look into this. I can keep a lot of the traps, but for example taking out the boulder trap might help, it is impossible to balance having blue potentially losing up to 10 of his strongest creatures without a fight. I can also tweak the AI and Gold level to keep him from attacking for too long, although him claiming your hallway does leave you open to the hero attack.
I moved it. In DragonsLovers patch which is included in the game, the party keeps spawning on the heart and the numbers keep growing till it is just plain silly. No challenge either, because you can still kill everything with a few lightning strikes. I moved the AP, added a hero gate, caused the party to move out and harass the imps mining, and also caused the spawning to stop when you reach the gate. This motivates the player to just attack the heart when he reaches the gems, as the map is basically over at this point.
Two of the secret imp killing levels are really easy, especially the one where you have to kill all imps but have access to locked rooms and the collapse spell. You can kill them in 20 seconds and have over 4 minutes of time left and get a level 10 creature to transfer. The other imp killing level you can dig out an enemy hound that simply kills all your imps for you, and there are 3 boulders to make it easier. No challenge at all. So anybody who wanted could start every level with a creature strong enough to beat each level alone. This is especially bad for level 19, as the whole challenge here is to do things without trained creatures. In the original campaign that is.
Level 2 orcs aren't that strong, but 6 level 2 orcs are still a whole lot stronger then 6 level 1 trolls. And strong enough to take out many of the heroes up until the gems.
This level simply is a strange level. To me it is more about managing to build up an army without a training room, strong enough to take the fortress then it is about the rival keeper. This is now too easy, but this is very hard to make more difficult, as removing heroes will make reaching the gems really easy, and adding heroes will end up feeding your torture chamber and making the rest of the level a snooze.
I think I'll try to make walling him in a bit more difficult.
Good point about the scavenging bug! Now that is fixed, the balance of the map is completely different of course. Having a 30-vampire rival or a 2 vampire rival is not quite the same. I'll see about getting blue back into the game.
I really did not script the avatar dying in combat. The message 'his body is vanished' is simply triggered by there being no avatar around. The 'Death' command is triggered when the first avatar is in prison. You should be able to move both avatars to prison, and be able to convert the second one(to win the game).
I'lll look into the ending movie, we want that of course. I know recently there have been some changes to the campaign-files related to the cinematics.