You may have noticed the new color scheme. I was experiencing long load times from my computer and decided to get rid of some of the fancy Blogger In Draft features that I was playing around with.
Somewhere in that process, comment posting was disabled. It was probably a template problem and it appears to be fixed now. If you still cannot post a comment, let me know...umm, by posting a comment...HAHA!
Or you can just send me an e-mail at dignfight(at)gmail(dot)com or message me on the English server - moxSapphyre.
BTW: any comments on the black background and grey text? I like the darker theme, but readability doesn't seem as good as black text on a white background.
Here is a spell that has great potential. I'm not much of an attacker and I haven't studied the numbers enough, but Wall of Fire looks like a great way to increase the damage that you do in combat.
This spell costs a lot more time and money to research than Berserker. It costs nearly twice as much to cast as Berserker, but Wall of Fire will always do damage to every enemy creature. By the time you can use this spell, you should only be attacking with level 15 creatures (94% chance to hit) and your creatures should be hitting almost every time. My point is, that if your creature misses, Berserker won't do any extra damage. Whether your creature hits or not, Wall of Fire will always do damage to the enemy.
Casting a high-level Wall of Fire for 4000-5000 gold gets you a 2-3 hour attack window. I'll let you figure out whether or not you can turn a profit with this spell.
Description: All enemy creatures on battlefield suffer X damage.
| Level | Research Time (hours) | Research Cost | Requirements | Casting Cost (gold) | Duration (h:m:s) | X |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1000 | 1500/Wizard | Berserker lvl 5, Lightning Strikelvl 5, Library 13x13 | 1500 | 1:00:00 | 1-2 |
| 2 | 2000 | 3000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 1 | 2121 | 1:24:51 | 1-3 |
| 3 | 3000 | 45000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 2 | 2598 | 1:43:55 | 2-3 |
| 4 | 4000 | 6000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 3 | 3000 | 2:00:00 | 2-4 |
| 5 | 5000 | 7500/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 4 | 3354 | 2:14:09 | 2-4 |
| 6 | 6000 | 9000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 5 | 3674 | 2:26:58 | 2-5 |
| 7 | 7000 | 10500/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 6 | 3969 | 2:38:44 | 3-5 |
| 8 | 8000 | 12000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 7 | 4243 | 2:49:42 | 3-6 |
| 9 | 9000 | 13500/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 8 | 4500 | 3:00:00 | 3-6 |
| 10 | 10000 | 15000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 9 | 4743 | 3:09:44 | 3-6 |
| 11 | 11000 | 16500/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 10 | 4975 | 3:18:59 | 3-7 |
| 12 | 12000 | 18000/Wizard | Wall of Fire lvl 11 | 5196 | 3:27:51 | 3-7 |
This is what happens when you don't scout. If you don't know what the Keepers around you are up to, how can you expect to make a profit by attacking?
Keep in mind that this attack takes place in the Top 100 on the English server. What in the world was he thinking attacking with level 6 creatures?
- Scout a little. Use a Glowworm to attack each potential target once (see puzzle #4). A Glowworm only costs 300 gold and will detect 0% defense ALL the time.
- After you scout, attack with appropriately leveled creatures. Gronk9 could have very easily lost 3 more Devilers. That would have been expensive and time-consuming to replace. Notice the damage difference, his creatures took 5x more damage than my defenders took.
- At least Gronk9 attacked with a full squad of Devilers. A squad of mixed creature types would have resulted in more deaths.
Call me narrow-minded, but I really do not see the value in a spell that damages EVERY creature on the battle field. This reminds me of Pestilence from Magic: The Gathering, maybe if there was another spell that you can combo with, Earthquake might be useful, but I just don't see it.
Description: ALL creatures (including yours) on the battlefield suffer X damage.
| Level | Research Time (hours) | Research Cost | Requirements | Casting Cost (gold) | Duration (h:mm:ss) | X |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 900 | 1000/Wizard | ??? | 1000 | 1:00:00 | 1-2 |
| 2 | 1800 | 2000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 1 | 1414 | 1:24:51 | 1-3 |
| 3 | 2700 | 3000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 2 | 1732 | 1:43:55 | 2-3 |
| 4 | 3600 | 4000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 3 | 2000 | 2:00:00 | 2-4 |
| 5 | 4500 | 5000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 4 | 2236 | 2:14:09 | 2-4 |
| 6 | 5400 | 6000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 5 | 2449 | 2:26:58 | 2-5 |
| 7 | 6300 | 7000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 6 | 2646 | 2:38:44 | 3-5 |
| 8 | 7200 | 8000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 7 | 2828 | 2:49:42 | 3-6 |
| 9 | 8100 | 9000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 8 | 3000 | 3:00:00 | 3-6 |
| 10 | 9000 | 10000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 9 | 3162 | 3:09:44 | 3-6 |
| 11 | 9900 | 11000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 10 | 3317 | 3:18:59 | 3-7 |
| 12 | 10800 | 12000/Wizard | Earthquake lvl 11 | 3464 | 3:27:51 | 3-7 |
Heh, this is yet another attack by my favorite attacker. If it wasn't for Gronk9, this article series would not have lasted this long. ;)
Bring it on. What's wrong with this? What would you have done differently? Or how would you have avoided making this kind of attack?
Rather than say that this week's puzzle was wrong, it was a good example of a common bad habit.
Don't mix creature types. Notice how the only attacking creatures that took damage are the Dark Elves. My Dark Elves have a certain attack priority: Sprinter, Battle Supporter, Blocker, Flanker.
Dark Elves are Battle Supporters, Devilers and Trolls are Blockers...the Dark Elves will take ALL of the combat damage. The next target priority will not take any damage until all of the Battle Supporters are dead. When you mix creature types, a small number of your battle squad will end up taking all of the damage. This is a great way to "execute" some of your own creatures.
mame81's Dark Elves have less than 20 hit points left. This not too bad, but should be a warning to you NOT to attack again, otherwise you risk losing a Dark Elf.
One the other hand, I was very surprised to see that 3 level 9 Dark Elves can take all of the damage from a full squad of level 10 Dark Elves and still survive. In my experience, a full squad of creatures can survive combat against a full squad of the same creatures even if they are 5 levels higher (without any spells or traps). example: a squad of level 9 Dark Elves should be able to survive combat against a full squad of level 14 Dark Elves. Your mileage may vary, post a comment if you think differently.
I'm not a big fan of spells. Most of them are just too expensive to research, expensive to cast and I don't see much value in using them. Except for Berserker.
My lack of interest in spells has delayed the posting of spell information. All of this stuff has been on TheEliteImps public forum for a long time, but I didn't update Lightning Strike on this blog until today.
This week's puzzle is more of a conversation piece. There are a handful of things that can be learned from this screenshot, be sure to leave your thoughts as a comment.
There is a new set of "beta" features called Blogger in Draft. They look like fun, so I changed the design template and added star ratings.
Right now, there is no way to find top-rated posts...hopefully, Blogger.com will develop that in the future. For now, go ahead and rate the posts. Let other Keepers know which posts you find useful.
I needed to step back and think about the Clan Affiliation List. The whole point of it was to highlight which clans had the most high-end keepers. Since I revived the Clan Affiliation List in May, I got carried away and started sorting the list strictly by Total Score.
Starting with this week, I will return to my original intent of putting the clan with the most keepers at the top of the Clan Affiliation List.
Sigh, this one is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin. But this is all about learning, so here goes:
- attacking with less than 12 creatures
- mixing creature types
- attacking with low level creatures (compared to the defenders)
Another point to learn is how durable creatures are. 4 Dark Elves going up against 12 level 10 Dark Elves only ends up with one casualty (I was surprised). In my experience, your creatures can survive being attacked by the same creature 5 levels higher. You will take a lot of damage and you have no chance of winning, but your creatures will usually survive. The level difference changes when you go up against different creatures - level 5 glowworms will NOT survive against level 10 Dark Elves.
Mixing creature types is a big no-no. Piccolastella was almost guaranteed to lose at least 1 Dark Elf or 1 Deviler. This is how Target Priorities can work against you.
The only loss was 1 level 4 Dark Elf. 6000 gold and 2 days of training time...not too bad. But still painful. If you spend the time to train your creatures, then take the time to scout your targets properly, you can avoid wasting resources. With high level creatures, your attacks will also be more effective.
Yesterday, I noticed that theEliteImps have posted stats on training creatures up to level 18. I don't know how long the info has been in the public section of their forums, and the highest training level I can reach on any of my accounts is still 15.
Can creatures really be trained beyond level 15? or are they just extrapolating the numbers according to how many "level graphics" have been found on the DignFight site?
Does anybody have info on what the requirements are to train creatures past level 15?
This one is a little harder to explain without giving away the answer right away.
This attack takes place on one of the non-mainstream servers somewhere in the Top 300. For now, I consider the English and German to be mainstream (but that's not very important).
The funny part is that piccolastella is the clan founder. I guess a clan is best described as a group of friends, rather than an organized group of dungeon keepers.
Bring on the comments.
I think just about everybody in my clan (Nightlords) is gone. Our forum and website don't work anymore, but somehow, there are still 34 members in our clan.
Well, my main account on the English server is in need of some social interaction. I want to find a clan that has active members, preferably with a few members in the Top 100 so that we can talk strategy and share reconnaissance information.
I can help train your clan members, I can be a flunkie and take orders, I may even consider deleting my English account and starting from scratch (you better have a really good reason for asking me to do this). Perhaps you need a clan leader or a clan webpage...I can do that too.
Anyway, I am looking for a new clan to join. Leave a comment if you like. E-mail in private if your prefer - dignfight(AT)gmail(DOT)com
The next Clan Affiliation List has been uploaded.
Hell Slayer [H.S], a one-man clan popped into the Top 300 this week.
I've been taking hits from a few Keepers for quite a while (that's one thing that sucks in the Top 100). Since I don't have adequate defense, they regularly steal handfuls of gold. Like I've said many times before, I don't really care about the gold, since I can dig up gold MUCH faster than they can steal it.
The problem is one of them regularly uses Berserker level 8. Check out this battle report (I am defending):
This is not quite ordinary, but you get the picture. Twelve level 15 Black Riders attack, my twelve level 15 Black Riders defend. My Riders do LOUSY damage and his Riders to quite a bit. Normally, equal level creatures should NOT even come close to killing each other, but notice how dangerously close one of my Black Riders comes to dying.
Note: I currently am not receiving any combat bonuses for field coverage (coverage is obviously below 50%). Things that can help you defend against Berserker are:
- activate Burning Eye
- have adequate dungeon coverage (I recommend at least 75%)
- Make sure that your Training Room and Arena are upgraded as far as possible
- Train your defenders well
- With these combat bonuses, you may be able to win more battles and prevent attackers from stealing gold. If they can't steal anything, they may give up on you and attack somebody else
Casting a level 8 Berseker costs 2121 gold. Even if you manage to steal over 600 gold, the damage that you receive will probably cost close to 600 gold to heal (without the First Aid Kit premium). You may not earn much, but if you are able to kill one creature, that means your enemy just lost a lot more than 2121 gold.
- researching Berserker to high levels is expensive and time-consuming.
- casting Berserker at any level is expensive (compared to how much gold you will steal)
- The extra damage that you will do with Berseker is amazing.
So what's it going to be?
I am pretty sure that unless you are relatively low on the High Score List, you will NOT be able to turn a profit by casting Berserker and attacking. Even if you are low on the High Score List and you have good targets near you, you might not be able to turn a profit (there's still healing costs).
The damage that you can do to your enemies, however, will probably be worth it. High level Berserker spells are the first time that I have seen a squad of attackers come close to killing an equal-level defender. Any time that you can kill a level 10 creature or higher, is absolutely wonderful!
Oh, so much confusion.
BTW, the Watcher traps are not the problem...even though you might think so. My excuse is that my Trolls were restless and didn't have anything better to tinker. LOL.
In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this week's screenshot. In fact, sending in a lone glowworm is my preferred method of scouting a target. It's cheaper and will find out more information than Evil Eye at any level. Wouldn't it be funny if he learned this strategy from reading this blog? Well, before I strain anything by trying to pat myself on my back, let's review once more why a lone glowworm is such a good method of scouting.
On second thought, just go back and read the post.
Welcome to another episode of DignFight Puzzles. This week's screenshot comes from my main account, which is in the Top 100. Take a look at it and tell me what is wrong with this attack.
Post your thoughts as a comments. Hopefully we can all learn from your input.
This week's Clan Affiliation List has been posted.
Diggaz with Attitude wasn't on the list back in January, but they are now in 4th place with 20 members and 1.7 million points. Brotherhood: Delta (#42 this week) is also crawling it's way up the list.
I also need to recognize a new 1-man clan: [Orc] Shadowclan. They debuted on this list last week, but I didn't notice him/her. Congratulations for jumping onto the Clan Affiliation List last week at #28!
I added a new poll today at the request of one of my loyal readers. Go ahead and vote in the sidebar and tell us how long you've been playing DignFight.
Is there anything that you would like to see in a poll? Add a comment or e-mail me at dignfight(at)gmail(dot)com.
Puzzle #2
The truth is, since the attack was successful, nothing was really wrong with it.
HOWEVER, this is NOT something that I would have done.
Sending in Imps to attack is a high-risk/high-reward situation. Creeping past clueless defenders and making off with 1200 gold may have been a good move today, but the odds are stacked against you.
Here's what is wrong:
- This was jacki's first attack against me for that day. Jacki may have used Evil Eye on me, but I can't tell.
- Even if the Evil Eye was successful, jacki would have known that I have some defense.
- If I had been defending with Devilers, all 4 level 15 Imps would have DIED!
- jacki attacked me 4 more times in the next 3 days with the same group of Devilers and Imps, but did NOT lose any Imps
- At the time, I was ONLY defending with Dark Riders
- By studying Target Priorities, jacki would have lost Imps ONLY if he ran into defending Devilers.
Lessons Learned:
- Don't send Imps to attack unless your are absolutely positive that your target has ZERO defense
- Study Target Priorities, there are times when it is a good idea to mix creature types
- Learn to read the Defense Report or Attack Report, the message at the bottom will give you clues to your target's defenses
Here's your next DignFight puzzle. This time, it is a screenshot of a successful attack. What is the problem here? Nothing has been edited out of the screenshot.
The solution has been posted.
Climbing the High Score list. Our Movers and Shakers list recognizes Keepers in the Top 300 that have risen 50 spots or more on the High Score List in the past week.
| Keeper | Last Week | This Week | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Werewolf | 218 | 157 | 61 |
| Jazcobo | 208 | 151 | 57 |
| GraveRobber | 198 | 142 | 56 |
The distribution of top players remains relatively unchanged in this weeks Clan Affiliation List. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Elite Imps own the top of the high score list. In the number 1 spot, Kayo can only be attacked by 3 non-EliteImps players. Even if they wanted to attack Kayo, the strongest Keeper only has half the creature score of Kayo. Unless there is a civil war within the Elite Imps, they will continue to sit atop the English server for a long time.
No Matter [NU], a single-member clan has climbed onto the Top 300 list as of this week.
Here we go, it's been nearly 6 months since the last Clan Affiliation report.
There are only about 10 clans worth looking at, every other clan contains less than 4 members. Things have changed over the past 6 months, but not by much. Diggaz With Attitude has emerged and grown to a formidabble clan since the beginning of the year.
An amazing 190 Keepers in the Top 300 are clan members, while 110 don't belong to any clan. These are the same numbers as January.
Next week, I should be able to bring back the Movers and Shakers list.
Thank you to all of the handful of users who posted a comment! I hope you had fun trying to figure out our first DignFight Puzzle.
The problem with this attacker is creature types. All of his creatures are leveled-up (lvl 10-13), but his lone Dark Elf is the only battle supporter and his 2 Salamanders are the only flankers.
My 12 Dark Elves have the following target priority: sprinter, battle supporter, blocker, flanker. There aren't any sprinters in the attacking group, so my Dark Elves go after the battle supporter first (the lone Dark Elf). In this screenshot, the attacking Dark Elf gets killed, then the rest of my damage goes to the next target priority: blockers. Black riders, trolls, and devilers are all blockers, so my remaining 40 points of damage is split between 9 creatures (only 3 creatures get hit though).
If I was defending with Devilers, both of his level 13 Salamanders would have died. 39k gold and 26 days of training for each one.
I don't care that he won the battle and stole 434 gold, my Imps can dig more than that in 10 minutes. Losing 1 level 12 Dark Elf just cost him 15 days of training time and possibly as much as 45,000 gold! Even if he used the Home Training Made Easy premium, it would still cost 31,500 gold to train a level 12 Dark Elf. Who do you think really won that battle? On top of that, there's still the 2000 gold to recruit the Dark Elf.
Lessons learned:
- Attack with appropriate level creatures
- Do NOT mix creature types when you attack
- Take care of your high-level creatures, you spent a lot of time getting them there
Explanations:
Attack with appropriate level creatures. If your creatures are too low, they will die. That should be obvious.
Do NOT mix creature types when you attack. It is perfectly alright to mix creatures. My attacker would have been fine if he used ONLY Devilers, Trolls, and Black Riders. When you have 1 or 2 of a creature type in your attack group, they often become the first target for the defenders.
Take care of your high-level creatures. Do you want to recover 15 days of training time and dig up 31,500 gold? I didn't think so.
Here's an interesting strategy tip for you. This tip works better for lower level Keepers, up until you build a Training Room.
Before the Training Room arrives, all creatures are stuck at level 1. By looking at their Dungeon Score, the type of creatures that a Keeper has is VERY predictable. In fact, by looking at somebody's Creature Score, you also get an idea of how many creatures a Keeper has (we'll save that for another post).
The following is the minimum dungeon points required to recruit a specific creature.
Glowworm 190
Goblin 880
Salamander 2025
Wizard 4930
Deviler 6530
Troll 9430
Dark Elf 10730
Black Rider 20480
If a Keeper has LESS than the points listed, they can NOT recruit the listed creature. Most beginning players will only upgrade their rooms far enough to get their next upgrade - to recruit a new creature or to build the next room. This strategy leads to a very predictable dungeon composition.
example: If you have Salamanders and one of your neighbors has a dungeon score less than 2025, you can be sure that the best defense they have is goblins.
I have been concentrating on training creatures lately. When I have extra gold, I research spells and tinker traps. There has been one Keeper that his been hitting me with a level 8 Berserker, he can't kill anything, but with my current defenses, it's pretty much a guaranteed win.
The Elite Imps seem to have updated their Berserker information recently. It now contains full stats for Berserker up to level 12. I have updated my original Berserker post accordingly.
A few months ago, I used to be active on the DignFight forums. I used to post a lot more often on my blog too. It became tiring to see the same questions coming up on the forum and honestly. People don't know how to search for answers before they ask the same question.
Recently, a few "new keepers" tried to attack me and I could not believe the dumb mistakes that they were making. Please read the DignFight forums and this blog. There's lots of good information.
Here is an edited screenshot of an incoming attack. Both the attacker and my account are in the Top 300 on this server. Tell me what is wrong with this attack.
Post your guess/answer in the comments. The answer to this DignFight Puzzle will be posted later this week.
To answer a recent comment: "Yes, I have multiple DignFight accounts."
However, I am NOT duping or cheating. There are currently 13 seperate DignFight servers.
- English
- Spanish
- German
- Italian
- French
- Netherlands
- Serbia
- Hungarian
- Romanian
- Poland
- Czechoslovakia
- Greece
- Portugal
According to the game rules, RedMoon Studios does not allow multiple accounts on the same server, but you are welcome to create one account PER server (see rule #5).
I currently have 4 active accounts running on DIFFERENT servers. I do NOT have more than one account the same server. I have listed a couple usernames here on this blog in some of my posts. The Walkthrough series of posts follows my German account: MoxJet which is no longer actively being played.
I have a couple of legitimate accounts which I have not shared on this blog where I practice other strategies.
If you look at some of the top players on any server, there is a good chance that you will find the same username on another DignFight server.
There isn't much to do tonight, so I'm going to talk a little about game theory in DignFight.
Just like chess, there's an opening, mid-game, and end game.
The opening in DignFight is difficult because:
- You probably don't know how to play the game and you might quit before it get's interesting
- The forums and websites are probably a little too complicated for you to understand
- When you look at the Top 50 players, you think it's impossible to get that high
Things to remember about the opening:
- Look around you when you first start, there are tons of other low-level Keepers
- The most important thing in the game is GOLD. It can be profitable to attack, but it is much easier to dig for gold
- Exploring is fun, recruit different kinds of creatures, research spells and traps, tinker doors and traps when you can
Once you get into the single-digit thousands (rank 9000 and higher) you're in the midgame (this number varies on different servers). The mid-game sucks because:
- You are going to run into Devilers, Dark Elves, and Black Riders here
- You will probably attack a Keeper and they will make it their goal in life to get revenge, even if they steal nothing and have to constantly heal their own creatures
The mid-game also rocks because:
- Now you understand most of the forum posts (and this blog)
- This is the area when you will find the richest Keepers with the worst defense
- If you take your time and train your creatures, you can build a strong army and stay low in the High Score List
The end-game is from about rank 300 and up. It can suck here because:
- All of the Keepers here are the same, you can't run from the bullies anymore
- To climb higher, you MUST deal with high-level Black Riders (lvl 12+)
- If you haven't trained your creatures to at least level 8, you're not going anywhere. Level 10+ is preferable, and a HIGH coverage helps too
- You need to wait forever for your creatures to level up (3 days or more)
- Black Riders will cost at least 10k gold to train without using any premiums
- Most Keepers don't attack much in the Top 100
The end-game is cool because:
- Being in the Top 100 of anything rocks!
- Other than that...I dunno
It's a bit obvious that I've been taking an extended break. Things in real life have been piling up and my computers at home have been giving me trouble.
I haven't even logged on to any of my DignFight accounts in at least 2 weeks.
There isn't much about the game to write about right now, so I'll just ramble about RL for a few minutes.
It all started when I picked up some malware from a website. I swear it was a pop-up ad from Veoh, I could be wrong. Things went from bad to worse when I decided to try and fix it myself by deleting a few infected files. My WinXP machine was so screwed up, I couldn't even open up My Computer.
Then my Network Attached Storage box died. It's an Infrant Ready NAS NV (Infrant is now owned by Netgear). There's a known issue with a specific range of serial numbers that causes the power supply to die prematurely. Lucky me, I got one of those lemon serial numbers. If Netgear would just send my the replacement power supply, I would be in great shape. Naturally, their customer service is lousy. The customer service rep very politely said that the part would be replaced for free and shipping would be covered. That was on February 15. The power supplies still haven't arrived at Netgear's warehouse and they can't tell me when they expect the part to come in.
In DignFight, doors can give you a big advantage. I prefer traps, but that's not the point.
It's really important that you understand how to calculate your bonuses with doors, otherwise, you may be severely disappointed. Most of this is covered in the official DignFight forums.
Let's use an imaginary dungeon that is 200 fields big. Let's also imagine that you have enough creatures to give you coverage of 100. 100 coverage in a 200-field dungeon equals 50% coverage.
Now, we tinker 1 Wooden Gate. The Wooden Gate gives us a +5% coverage bonus. This does NOT mean that you will have 55% coverage after tinkering 1 Wooden Gate.
The gate bonus is calculated like this: receive +5% bonus based on your current creature coverage. Our coverage is 100 fields. A 5% bonus is only +5 fields. 55 coverage in a 200-field dungeon equals 52.5% coverage (this will probably be rounded up to 53%).
Not impressed? Neither am I. But think about this. If you recruit 12 more Salamanders and eventually get coverage of 148 fields, your +5% bonus becomes 7.4 fields. Oooh, exciting, isn't it?! You paid the same price for the door, but now your Wooden Gate is giving you a bigger defense bonus.
Defense bonuses from multiple doors are added together. 1 Wooden Door gives you +5% bonus, 2 Wooden Doors gives you a +7% bonus. Tinkering many of the same door gets expensive and the bonus is not as good. Your best strategy for using multiple doors is to build one of each type of door. You will combine the best bonus of each door and end up with: wood, reinforced, steel, magic, and secret gate with a combined coverage bonus of +55%. Not bad for only 5 doors.
Just for practice, if your creatures cover 100 fields of your 200-field dungeon:
- What would your field coverage be after adding the 5 doors from the previous example?
- What would your coverage percentage be with these 5 doors?
Post a comment with your answer.
With my walkthrough account, I've decided to take it slow. Getting into the Top 100 isn't very important to me as it was with my first account on the English server. As I have mentioned in previous posts, one of my goals with the walkthrough account is to train a few squads to level 10 before upgrading my rooms further.
I'm going to outline my dungeon strategy and my attack strategy. Hopefully, some of you will find this useful.
- My German server account is at about rank 2300
- I have 10 training slots
- Maximum creature level is 10
- Defense is not very important to me right now
- Except for Chicken Farms and Sleeping Quarters, I don't intend to upgrade my dungeon until I have at least twelve level 10 Dark Elves
- I hate Internet Explorer (version 6 AND 7)
The setup:
I typically need 3 browser tabs to get enough surveillance information.
- Attack Screen
- My recent Attack reports
- The high score list of Keepers near me
Before I decided to start attacking, I made sure that my creatures were leveled up (for me this was level 10). Once I started attacking, it is better to attack regularly. Skipping a few days can have consequences (I'll get into this later).
From the high score list, make a list of Keepers near you with lots of gold. I prefer 200 points of more, but I will go as low as 100 points. If your target has anything less than that, your chances of bringing back a lot of gold are SLIM!!
I also check my recent attack reports. It's good to remember Keepers that have no defense. It's also wise to remember Keepers that have good defense, don't waste time trying to scout them again. Use the search function to see if you have recently attacked your target list.
Deciding the best targets...The 2 indicators that I use to find a good target are Battle Points and Creature Points. Keepers with low Battle Points, don't have much fighting experience. Keepers with low Creature Points USUALLY don't have good defense. Some Keepers with low Creature Points actually have the BEST defense, so be careful.
Once you have found a tempting target, it's time for reconnaissance. Forget Evil Eye! It's a waste of money! Research it to get your spells/traps, but I never use it to scout enemies. Hire 1 glowworm for 300 gold, put it in a 1 creature group and attack one of your targets. If it gets through, you have 10 gold. Follow-up with an attack with your Devilers (you shouldn't be attacking with anything except Devilers).
If your glowworm runs into defense, it's definitely dead. BUT, take a look at what he runs into. If the opponents are low level, attack with your Devilers anyway. If your opponent has a Defense Bonus, think before you send in your Devilers.
+5% chance to hit = target has 50% - 74% coverage
+10% chance to hit = target as 75% - 99% coverage
+15% chance to hit = target as 100%+ coverage
I still attack if my target is getting a +5% bonus.
Using a glowworm (300 gold) to scout is cheaper than a level 3 Evil Eye (348 gold). My glowworms usually last for more than 1 attack. They bring back 10 gold quite often, and they are GUARANTEED to detect 0% defense.
The magic is seeing the phrase "Muahahaha, the enemy is a WORM! You were able to enter the enemy dungeon with no resistance and looted XX". This means that your target does not have ANY defense. Send in your Devilers right away. If you're feeling confident, send in your Imps too! Believe me, it feels great when your Imps come back with 1000+ gold!!! Muahahaha!!
* I take no responsibility for you losing Imps. I have made multiple attacks with my level 5 Imps and none of my Imps have ever taken any damage since I started following this strategy. Your results may vary.
I have no fear of repeatedly attacking the same Keeper. If a Keeper has zero defense and if he is near me for 2-3 days, he can expect to get hit at least 2-3 time per day (sometimes more often). It's easy money.
When your Devilers return, be sure to HEAL them. You worked hard to train them, don't lose any of them because you got careless. Check out who is in attack range and repeat the whole process. Sometimes, it is a good idea to spend some money on training so that your rank drops back down and you can keep attacking a good target.
About attacking regularly...It's good to attack regularly so that you constantly know who is a good target near you. The consequence of not attacking regularly is that you will have to spend MORE money on glowworms to probe your potential targets.
That's about it. This has worked well for me and it should be a profitable strategy for you also. If somebody out there wants to experiment with attacking Keepers with a high Battle Score or if you have any comments on how I interpret Creature Scores, go ahead and post a comment. High Battle Scores might mean that the only thing that person is doing is attacking. Just because they attack a lot does not mean that their defense is any good. Likewise, a very high Creature Score often means that a Keeper has lots of low-level creatures. It's fun to kill 3 or 4 low-level creatures in one attack. Muahahaha!!
It's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. I've forgotten when I posted the last set of stats. The trip I took was awesome, then there was school...so much to do, so little time.
The Top 100 section of the High Score List seems to be slowly creeping up without me. My main account on the English server just dropped out of the Top 100 this week. I've been slacking on my gold digging for a while. It gets pretty expensive to level up a whole squad of creatures...
I will be out of town for the rest of this week. My chances of having an Internet connection are slim. If I'm lucky, I may be able to grab the high scores on Friday, but otherwise, no new posts until Sunday, January 27.
Now that the damage charts of most of the traps have been revealed, it's time to take a look at effectiveness. The cost of building traps will vary a lot, depending on how many wizards researched it and how many trolls are used to tinker each one. Don't forget that the more traps you have, the more expensive it becomes to tinker the next one...<sarcasm>that makes TOTAL sense, since your trolls are going to need MORE money to make the 12th trap...the more quantities you mass produce, the more expensive is becomes.</sarcasm>
The Indy Trap immediately caught my eye because it damages all 12 opponents with only 1 trap!! After doing some calculations, the Indy Trap is surprisingly, not the best trap for causing damage.
If you can afford the 25x25 Workshop necessary to support 12 active traps, then this post may be an interesting read.
Nest of Thorns is the winner in my book. It's relatively low on the tech tree, it's cheaper to tinker than the Trigger Trap and regardless of the quantity of active traps, it averages about the same amount of damage as the Trigger Trap.
The Poisonous Gas and Trigger trap are tied for 2nd place. Both attainable and both do more average damage than the Indy Trap.
The dream trap is the Fire Trap. With a build cost of nearly 20,000 gold per Troll for the 12th trap, it will be pricey. But you cannot argue with a minimum damage of 204.
The Elite Imps have posted stats for the Vampire in their public forum. The stats appear to have been submitted by Odissey, the #1 player on the Italian server and leader of the clan "Odissey & DarkAngel".
Vampire Requirements:
- Torture Chamber 15x15
- Graveyard 11x11
| Level | HP | minDmg | maxDmg | toHit | Range | Coverage | Capacity | Cost | Training Time (days) |
| 1 | 30 | 5 | 10 | 60% | 3 | 8 | 10 | 3500 | 0 |
| 2 | 34 | 5 | 10 | 60% | 4 | 10 | 10 | 5250 | .33 |
| 3 | 38 | 6 | 11 | 65% | 4 | 12 | 15 | 7000 | .66 |
| 4 | 42 | 6 | 11 | 65% | 5 | 14 | 15 | 8750 | 1 |
| 5 | 45 | 7 | 11 | 70% | 5 | 15 | 20 | 10500 | 1.33 |
| 6 | 49 | 7 | 12 | 72% | 6 | 17 | 22 | 12250 | 1.66 |
| 7 | 53 | 8 | 12 | 74% | 6 | 19 | 24 | 14000 | 2 |
| 8 | 57 | 8 | 12 | 77% | 7 | 21 | 27 | 15750 | 2.33 |
| 9 | 61 | 9 | 12 | 79% | 7 | 23 | 29 | 17500 | 2.66 |
| 10 | 64 | 9 | 13 | 82% | 8 | 24 | 32 | 19250 | 3 |
| 11 | 68 | 10 | 13 | 84% | 8 | 26 | 34 | 21000 | 3.33 |
| 12 | 72 | 10 | 13 | 87% | 9 | 28 | 37 | 22750 | 3.66 |
| 13 | 76 | 11 | 14 | 89% | 9 | 30 | 39 | 24500 | 4 |
| 14 | 80 | 11 | 14 | 92% | 10 | 32 | 42 | 26250 | 4.33 |
| 15 | 83 | 12 | 14 | 94% | 10 | 33 | 44 | 28000 | 4.66 |
I was reading a fews posts on the Official DignFight forums today about players complaining about Evil Eye. The spell is too expensive to be useful. One of them wanted a better spell to find out what kind of creatures are defending. That's when I had a brilliant idea.
At level 3, Evil Eye costs 346 gold and has a 78% chance of telling you the defense percentage of 1 enemy. Why not use a Glowworm? It's cheaper, if the Glowworm gets through, you will easily steal 10 gold, the Glowworm might survive for more than 1 attack, by observing the battle report you can identify zero defense opponents.
Koc, one of the commenters on this blog, wanted a screenshot of the scores of Keepers around the Walkthrough account. Koc was curious to see the total scores and battle scores of the Keepers. Until now, I never realized that Keepers with low Battle Scores will probably make good targets.
I will try a new attacking strategy. Review the high score list for Keepers with a low Battle Score and high Gold Score. Use this to find Keepers that are NOT actively Attacking. If I use 1 Glowworm to attack, I may be able to see some of the opponent's creatures. I will not be able to see the defense percentage, but even if I lose the Glowworm, that's only 300 gold. If the opponent looks easy, send in the Devilers. The high score list moves around a lot here, most of the time I won't be able to make more than 1 or 2 attacks anyway. Wasting 1 attack to scout somebody is the wise thing to do.
I have stopped training Imps for now, instead, I am concentrating on leveling up the Devilers (for offense) and Dark Elves (for defense).
Strategy:
- Recruit 3 Glowworms to be my "Evil Eyes"
- Attack with 1 Glowworm to scout opponents
- Finish training Devilers to level 10 -- SOON!
- Use Battle Scores and Glowworms to find easy targets
- Train all Dark Elves to level 10
Current Rank: 2205
Imp Status: 12 Imps trained to level 8
Research Status: 2 Wizards (combined level=11) researching Reinforced Gate
Recruitment Status:
- 15 Imps
- 8 Wizards
- 12 Devilers
- 12 Dark Elves
Combat Status: I have not made any recent attacks. I have not been attacked recently
I have 2 Devilers trained to level 10 and will finish training 2 more in the next 24 hours. There is no rush to climb the High Score List, instead, the plan is to level up my creatures as high as my Arena will allow BEFORE doing significant dungeon upgrades.
- My goal of training 12 Devilers to level 10 is getting close (as many as 8 Devilers are in training at 1 time)
- Train 12 Imps to level 10
- Get my level 3 Dark Elves to level 10
- Train 4 Wizards to level 10
- Somewhere after I complete my Devilers, I will upgrade my GuardRoom to get Black Riders
Recruiting 12 Devilers without premiums: 10,800 gold. Cost to upgrade those Devilers to level 10: 243,000 gold. Not worrying about retaliation because your creatures are twice the level of your target: priceless.
Welcome back to the Movers and Shakers list. Now that the holidays are over, I have more time to sit in front of my computer.
Making it into the Top 300 of the DignFight High Score List is an accomplishment. By the time you reach this point, you will already have developed your own style of playing. Some Keepers like to rise in ranks as quickly as possible, and this list recognizes them for their hard work.
This short list is made up of Keepers who have jumped 50 or more ranks in the high score list in the past week.
| Keeper | Last Week | This Week | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madmax | 192 | 118 | 74 |
| zuzzurellone76 | 262 | 205 | 57 |
| Ellion | 189 | 133 | 56 |
| Dreco | 288 | 134 | 54 |
| butterfly | 195 | 144 | 51 |
Here's the first Clan Affiliation List for 2008. I grab the scores of the Top 300 Keepers on the English server and group them into their respective clans. Since there are so many clans with the same number of members, I also totaled their scores and ranked the "same # of members" clans by highest score. For example: Dungeon Keeper 2 has 5 players in the Top 300, those 5 players have a combined total score of 394,185 points. This places Dungeon Keeper 2 below Under Construction and above The Last Legion.
Clan Affiliation List for 2008, week 1.
When the Spells, Doors, and Traps update went into effect at DignFight, a whole new world of gold-spending opened up. Wizards, Libraries, Trolls, and Workshops are now an important part of the game.
Each spell, door, and trap needs to be researched by a wizard(s). Once a spell's research is complete, it can be cast from the Attack screen. After a door or trap is researched, trolls have to tinker it (build it) in your Workshop. After your new door/trap is tinkered, you have to assign it as an Active Trap.
As you build a larger Library, the number of Wizards that you can have researching increases. As you build a larger Workshop, the number of Trolls that you can have tinkering increases AND the number of active traps that you can have also increases.
There are 2 types of traps: The Barricade and all of the Doors are considered Passive, their bonuses will always be in effect when you defend your dungeon. The rest of the traps are considered Active, each time you are attacked, one of your active traps will be chosen and it's effects will be applied to the attacking forces. If you have activated more than one of the same trap, refer to our tables to see how their effects "stack".
Example:
Let's say you have 2 Wooden Gates, 2 Watchers, and 1 Poisonous Gas Trap. The 2 Wooden Gates will always affect your defenses and will combine to give you a +7% field coverage bonus. Each time you are attacked, one of your active traps will be randomly chosen. If the Watchers are chosen, the attacking forces will suffer 2-3 damage to 2 creatures. If the Poisonous Gas Trap is chosen, the attacking forces will suffer 1-3 damage to 1 creature. Only one active trap will take effect each time you defend your dungeon.
Combat spells cancel your active traps. You will receive the bonus of your combat spell and your passive traps, but you will not receive any bonuses from active traps during defensive combat. After the spell's time limit is reached, you will lose the bonuses of the combat spell (obviously) and one of your active traps will take effect each time you defend your dungeon.
I haven't upgraded any dungeon rooms for a while, just concentrating on leveling up my creatures. I have not been attacking either. I do not intend to spend any cash, so I only have the free 20 sapphires that came with the account.
It has been surprising that nobody is attacking me. At about rank 2000, my creature score is lower than most other Keepers near me. However, I have been spending most of my gold before I log out. There is rarely more than 5000 gold in my dungeon when I am offline. Even though my dungeon coverage is 0%, there must be enough rich targets close by that nobody is messing with me.
- I have recruited 10 Dark Elves so far
- Most of them have been trained to level 3
- All of my Devilers are at level 8 and I am slowly moving some of them to level 9
With 10 training spots, it's more important that I play regularly so that I can constantly have enough gold to utilize all of my training spots.
I will continue to:
- Train Devilers to level 10
- Train Imps, then Dark Elves to level 10
- Aim for 75% dungeon coverage with Devilers and Dark Elves
- After all of that is done, resume dungeon upgrades towards the Black Rider requirements