Hints for Doom Hill? Lavalumps take forever to kill

[Britt]

Hello, I'm getting frustrated with the Doom Hill mission with the Volcanic stuff going on. I can find the charmelion things, use them to protect my troops and then also to kill the lavalumps, but after a while the dungeon keeps opening and I can't even kill all the lavalump nests and before I know it I'm getting torn asunder from all directions.

Is there a faster way to kill the lavalumps? I set the chalice nearby so I don't take lava damage, I build as many undead as I can but still.. me get stomped

Help me sam and max, you're my only hope

[bpACH]

Try using horde units with demon troops providing ranged support.

Undead troops are relatively squishy until you put enough research into the vampire unit's healing ability. Also, horde units can be used as cannon fodder more easily (when they die, they free up unit cap space)

[tomorrowandtomorrow]

They're basically a stat check, from what I remember. Your creatures need to be decently strong to be able to kill them fast enough to be able to destroy the nests.

I also tend to go heavy on undead, but it takes a bit for them to come online because their damage isn't great early game and they need vampire queens to be able to heal in combat. I normally start with the standard starting mix of orcs, nagas, imps, and banshees, because all those units just cost gold, letting you save evilness for more substantial tech upgrades. Then I rush the mana room and the first batch of spells, mainly for portal and bat swarm. Portal, of course, lets you be more aggressive on the overworld because you can easily teleport back to the dungeon to defend against heroes or to get your army out of a losing fight, and bat swarm is surprisingly powerful and is pretty easy to spam. Early game it dramatically boosts your damage output, and even late game its so cheap you can throw them out to speed up fights. At that point I get vampire queens and skeleton knights and drop the horde units entirely (unless I'm doing something with the ghost heroes perk). Once I feel like I need more damage, I start adding more of the demon unit types (aside from succubi, which I never find all that useful). And when evilness allows, expert spells provides another big damage bump from meteor swarm.

The resilience of an undead frontline supported by vampire queen healing and ranged damage from demons and spells can handle basically anything on normal difficulty, in my experience.

[wildmick]

ignore the achievements and take your time. play it on easy. didn't do above ground till i'd cleared below ground. use the lavalumps against the heroes, create pathways so they encounter each other. put in traps n doors. Often my traps are so effective my army never fights till i'm ready to go above ground. but each to thier own.. i prefer to take my time, and laugh evilly along the way.

[Britt]

Thanks ya'll gonna try it now

[Britt]

I hate this level. Focusing on demons seemed to help though, but I keep getting swarmed by lavalumps. AAgh. I'll keep trying.

[Britt]

.....I forgot easy mode existed. I wussed out.

[wildmick]

when fighting them, slapping the nest, makes your units focus down the lair. slapping individual lavalumps.. focus fire. but be careful, slapping them twice turns it on then off.

[Jet City Gambler]

Once you know where they are you can avoid triggering them except for the 2-3 that pop automatically. They rarely venture out of their lava pools, especially with that freeze crystal in their vicinity.

Rush your research to unlock Gorgu, he lays waste to those lava lump lairs and you can clear them in no time.

[Britt]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Jet City Gambler:

Once you know where they are you can avoid triggering them except for the 2-3 that pop automatically. They rarely venture out of their lava pools, especially with that freeze crystal in their vicinity.

Rush your research to unlock Gorgu, he lays waste to those lava lump lairs and you can clear them in no time.

yeahhh would have helped me a lot. I forgot about him. Dang. Thank you fellas for your help, I finally beat it and I'm just gonna finish out the game on easy

[intenselygoodtime]

For future readers playing Doom Hill, perhaps these tips will help:
1. Immediately dig a large new replacement Graveyard just above the starting Graveyard. Sell the original graveyard, and bulk-drop all units into it.
2. Extend the guard room to the right, such that it's big enough for ~30 units, and has a door directly connected to A) the Dungeon Heart, B) the new Graveyard, and C) "the outside path." Pick up all units, drop them all into this larger Guard Room.
3. Dig straight down from your Dungeon Heart, and a little to the left, to uncover the first Charm. Drop it in your Guard Room. Overlapping the Throne and the outer hallway a bit is a good thing. (I also enlarged my Gold and Evil storage rooms down to take over the spaces on either side of this hall; the gold room thus had add'l gold mine tiles.)
4. Dig a little up from your Guard Room exit, and you'll uncover the 2nd Charm. Place it in your Graveyard.
5. Buy more Vampire queens and take out the nearest Lavalumps that are likely trolling you. Their shared healing is crucial in this level.
5. Quickly dig a path UP from each Dungeon Exit / lava area, AROUND your base entirely, so that both sides now meet outside your Guard Room. Then fill-in/close off your base entirely.
6. Focus o leveling up Thalya to 6, so she can use Gorgu. DON'T dig out a ton of your dungeon, but do lay traps to slow and injure invaders on both sides as usual.
7. Then focus on leveling up the Snots ASAP! Get to max level, and drive to that 3rd token ASAP -- it'll stop all the nonsense downstairs.
8. Then focus on leveling up your Undead tree, leaning heavily into Vampire Queens. Take lots of quick trips up top to claim Evil, as usual. The patrols are trivial. Buildings in the South and West are easy pickings too. The NE corner requires a leveled army.
9. Clear LavaLumps with a full complement of troops. In most of the areas, you can dig out a land foothold nearby. Follow the Slap-targeting advice above to focus-fire.

[Britt]

8. was especially a problem of mine. I didn't realize that the creatures max levels were tied to their faction level, so I kept investing in all the wrong areas and even though I had plenty of creatures they weren't doing much damage

[barkadoodle]

Use the charmelon artifacts to protect your troops while you kill the lava lump nests. Make sure to kill the nests at quickly as possible. I think the lavalumps increase level the longer they stay alive, so an earlier attack is better. Once you clear all the nests, the level gets significantly easier