I am so ♥♥♥♥ing bad at this game -- some tips?

[Metro Ranger]

I've played 13 hours, after the tutorials i played Skirmish on Punyville or Averagetown, and i have lost every single game. It just gets to the point where heroes overwhelm my defences and massacre my army. Usually I win a phyrric victory in one wave and my army hasn't recovered by the next wave so they make it through.

So, yeah. Not really sure what I'm doing wrong, but some tips would be great.

Some basic questions:

Should I be focusing one of Horde/Undead/Deamons or going for a mix?

What is a good army composition? I usually go with a Orc + Demon core for tanking and ranged DPS then round it out with some Goblins, liches and a Succubus for whipping enemies to my side.

How 'quickly' should i be getting things? I feel like i might be taking a too long-term planning/turtle approach. I usually run out of gold.

[CloudSeeker]

You obviously should go a mix. There is no way you can use all features without all types. Undead are great for numbers and keeping the heros away from the units you do not want to die. Demons are great for range as well as charming enemy units. Horde is the sluggers and tanks.

A sure was to win is to simply create a lot of automatic traps with magic tool boxes and force all heros into those traps. A couple of Ice cruchers followed with a room of a magic rotating flamer as well as ice spikes and wall arrows can kill all heros that even get close. When you got that you have won the game, it just takes time.

[Blake Walsh]

You should use simple, focused strategies, and invest heavily into whatever you're focusing on.

For example a simple strategy is Mass Arachnids. Setup a strong gold economy (getting 2 or 3 gold veins, and 5x5 treasury around each is always a good start, with 8 levels in "More Snots", also get a small Workshop). Hire 5 Arachnids and go capture an Island of Evilness. Get a large Gobbler Farm, Vortex and Arcanium.

Then invest in "More Creatures" until you have about 12 Arachnids (also get Relaxation Chamber) while continuing to overrun the Overworld, using the "Demon Portal" spell to come home to defend (it can also be cast at Islands of Evilness flags, allowing you to quickly bring your army across the map).

Once the Overworld is conquered, dump all evilness into Improved Demons and kill the Boss, it might take a few waves but most Bosses can't heal. Some bosses have really strong area of affect attacks and best defeated by unlocking the Pit Fiend.

There are quite a lot of very viable strategies, but mass Arachnids is a very good choice to master thanks to its simplicity and effectiveness.

To make this strategy even better, but requiring additional attention, you can add spells: Demon Strength, Meteor Swarm, Frost Bomb and Mana Shield are all strong in combat. Magic Room is pretty amazing, it can make nearly all rooms perform their function twice as fast (for exampe, Vortex ressurecting demons in half the time, Mana Shrines generating mana twice as fast).
You can also mix in Liches or Succubu, but really try to start with as much focus as possible, and mix in more stuff as you spare more attention span.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

1. set diff to easy
2. hire monsters
3. profit

[Dragon]

I beat the Campaign and all of the DLCs campaigns. This post is based on that:

IMO you should not go for a mix until after you've first secured the Dungeon and /or the Overworld map fairly well first.

For the first couple of dozen hours I played, I started out doing a mix, and I kept getting owned, or barely getting by.

Then I changed my gameplay style and teched straight into Demons right away (but I also built a workshop for toolboxes needed for the Arcanium's work units). The difference was night & day. All of sudden, I was doing way better and almost never getting owned any more.

The problem with doing a mix IMO is that it takes forever to get all the stuff up that you need to do a mix properly, especially the Crypt, the resurrection chambers, and Sinister lab, etc. The invading Hero mobs aren't going to let up so you have time to do that.

[Fergnatz]

I can give you a piece of advice too, those strategy worked in hard mode so i suppose they are not bad,

You can maybe focus on either demon, horde or undead

For all strategies:
1) first goal is to get up to upgrade 8 workers (the two that cost 1000g) and some gold only upgrade for having more creatures
2) find at least 2 gold "mine"
3) now you should focus on getting at least 1 evilness location for getting new upgrades
4) almost always rush the room that allow to level up past level 3 (beer for horde, temple for undead, mana pool for demons)


A demon strategy
Go arachnideas (yellow spiders)
Make a LOT of mana
Research spells
Get mana pool very quickly too ^^
Be careful to never run out of mana, then use your spells to enhance your troops, use portal to get back quickly to your dungeon core if it gets attacked and enjoy ^^

Tip: Other spells are very powerful too, but with a LOT of mana, its possible to spam frost bomb spell, that will prevent completely an army from attacking you ^^


Horde trap strategy
Start: Just buy a lot of orcs, they are strong first units so you can take 2 evilness location and develop traps as fast as possible !
You will need a lot of boxes very quickly (i would recommend 3 or 4 box builders)
Then use manual traps like the big rolling ball that wreck any heroes ^^ Its extremely effective
If you do it well, you can redirect all ennemy units into two or three large corridors where you will send the big rolling rocks

Some tips:Later in the game, don't underestimate goblins because they can be upgrade into mecha goblin which does a lot area damage, also get one or two resurrection machine for your slains horde units...
For this strategy its important to build strategically your room so everything will run smoothly, also building a door to reach 100% room efficiency,


Undead rush temple strategy:
After a lot of painful defeat, i finally managed to find a viable way to play undead:
Prioritize almost only the undead tree at the beginning, save every evilness point you can !
Vampire => Temple=> Lichs (lich have an freeze aoe that stacks and can be very powerful)
Discard one or two vampire so you have 4 at least lich; protect them in combat and they will destroy the ennemy ^^

Lich attack adds up each time they hit an ennemy, slowing the ennemy in an area very effectively

[Tenshin51]

Just focus on horde there easy to use. Get the Nagas or the snake lady healers in the tech tree first.

W/ hordes I suggest get more goblins than orcs. Spamming Orcs early on is expensive. Sure Orc spam is a durable strategy but goblins will give you more damage in your horde in early campaign.

Goblins are cheaper than Orc. Also Goblins have a higher damage than orc and goblin can build traps faster than Orc. I suggest don't bother recruiting an Orc except in one campaign you don't have Thalya.

If you upgrade Thalya, Thalya can tank w/ the help of two Naga.

My usual strategy in most campaign in the game. I will send my party to gather the 1st evil node to get evil resources. After getting that node. I will send my party back at my dungeon due hero mobs will attack my base.

A goblin party w/ Thalya tanking is the fastest way getting a node w/ proper micro. After I get the node, I will start upgrading my workers and getting the demons and magic tech.

Getting magic and more mana early on will make the game really easy due you will gain a return spell for your dungeon.

I suggest get 2 imps to make mana in your magic room. Don't recruit a ton of Imps. Sure there long range damage is amazing but there expensive to have them and there not tanky. Get the spider demons due there tanky and can help Thalya to tank.

W/ Undead get the Lich in later campaign. Lich are the best long range damage dealer in the game. Banshee aren't bad defending your dungeon with traps. Purpose of the early undead unit is to delay the hero mobs in your dungeon and makes magic box for magic traps.

[Kiaren]

My favorite is to abuse Mana Shield. Have an Arcanum with two generators, research improved mana cap and Mana Shield. That make you near invicible until the late game, assuming you can keep your mana up.

And as Tenshin mentioned, you need a good economy before doing anything else. At least 9 imps total, with at least 2 gold mines. Do not build anything else until you get these, unless forced. And it will probably mean you need to explore the dungeon a bit to find that 2nd gold mine.

Then you can get your starter units. I find a mix of Horde + a single Banshee (for attack speed reduction) is a nice starter group.

After the first hero wave attacks your dungeon, take whatever troops you have and storm the nearest Island of Evilness to get your Evilness generating. Then start researching Demons, get your mana generating ASAP, and build a library next. *Research Mana Shield* as soon as you can. Trust me, Mana Shield is OP as heck.

If you are early levels without any access to Undead, Demons, or research, then supplement your troops with traps. They will buy you time to heal your troops between waves.

[󠀡󠀡]

I like using the Robogoblins that shoot out fire and are somewhat tanky. I always try to research to them and get some naga to heal them as it seems their fire burns through a lot, and plus once a robogoblin is destroyed they ignore the goblin until there are no more robogoblins to destroy, so they can stab away at an enemy.

These other tips do seem very helpful indeed. I also like putting a lot of flamer traps in my dungeon. I'll put a tar pit down with a flamer above it and a rotating flamethrower trap in the middle so they get double flamed while being slowed so they can't get away/through it quickly, plus arrow traps on the sides/top to shoot down through them also. I've yet to have a group make it to my core going through all of those, but it takes a bit to get going.

As far as using undead, I haven't reached the campaign mode to use liches yet, but from how they sound it seems good if you can keep them alive. I find orcs to be practically worthless and expensive. It seems the way to go is Goblins at the start, Spiders, and then maybe liches in the backline? Perhaps some naga with the spiders to help you out if they're dying too quickly.