Once Upon a time - dlc - difficulty

[Akhlut]

Hello,

Me and a friend are trying to do the once upon a time dlc, but we keep losing, after an hour or so its pretty much game over, is it not possible to lower difficulty?

Thanks

[CuteManabi]

It's not, and the DLC was dinged in reviews for being so freaking difficult. I just started it yesterday and am having the same problem. If I figure out some strategies I'll let you know.

So far I've died thanks to finding a spider nest when digging a room (spiders were drastically over-powered), finding a dragon's nest by accident (also drastically overpowered) and twice thanks to insanely over-powered hero parties. I had one wipe out all my horde monsters four times. (I kept buying new ones to replace the dead, deliberately avoiding crypt so I could throw new monsters at the heroes ASAP. Still didn't help.)

It feels like less of a challenge and more unfair.

[Akhlut]

Originally posted by CuteManabi:

It's not, and the DLC was dinged in reviews for being so freaking difficult. I just started it yesterday and am having the same problem. If I figure out some strategies I'll let you know.

So far I've died thanks to finding a spider nest when digging a room (spiders were drastically over-powered), finding a dragon's nest by accident (also drastically overpowered) and twice thanks to insanely over-powered hero parties. I had one wipe out all my horde monsters four times. (I kept buying new ones to replace the dead, deliberately avoiding crypt so I could throw new monsters at the heroes ASAP. Still didn't help.)

It feels like less of a challenge and more unfair.

---------------------------------------------------------

Yeah the difficulty is insane an entire horde got wiped out by one guy for us

[Draconic Creature]

Pretty much gotta take things slow. Don't expand too fast, use your spells to stun enemies, shield your monsters and so-on and in general use everything you can manage.

Also, I tend to find it efficient to go for building to be able to unlock the different units and the most important bits you can get. Prison is a great investment for harvesting heroes, use traps too.

[CuteManabi]

I finally got through the first mission. For me one of the key things was saving a lot, so I could go back and try again. A few other things I discovered: don't build a crypt if you're relying on horde creatures until you have a good gauntlet set up that can stop most of the heroes. Instead keep buying new horde creatures to throw at the crazy-strong hero parties until you kill them all. Don't be surprised if they wipe three or four rounds of your creatures. Another thing that helped was building the 3x3 rooms for the gauntlet (I put flame spinners in them all) as soon as I could. Then I could throw my horde creatures at the party in one of those, buy new ones and toss at them in another room. That way I could avoid the heroes making it to the dungeon heart, even if I did lose a lot of creatures until I got those flame spinners set up. Loading from a save I managed to fend off that second overpowered party with the gauntlet room strategy when they destroyed my dungeon heart my first try.

Be careful when exploring or digging rooms, the spiders and dragons can and will slaughter you as well. The locations didn't change between saves, so if I ran into one I'd load a save and avoid opening those up until much later. I ultimately ran a path from the upper entrance over to the gauntlet I'd made by the other one by running it right next to my rooms instead of around the perimeter. That let me avoid the dragon nest until I was able to handle it, then I moved the path to give me more space for rooms.

Also be smart on what you research at first. You need to be able to build traps quickly, because you need something to damage those overpowered heroes. I ended up skipping demons and mana entirely until I had the gauntlet set up so I could unlock the flame spinners sooner. It helped a lot more than having spells did for me.

Don't overly stress about the potion deliveries if you can't get to them safely. I missed a few early on and in general the potioned-up heroes weren't as bad as the super-strong parties it throws at you randomly. Take them out when you can, but if you can't get to one because all your creatures need to heal, skip it and prep for the attack wave instead.

[Jet City Gambler]

This is one of my favorite levels! Well the first map anyway. The next two are kind of a slog. Just played it through again, although I'm pretty rusty at this game.

I've found it best to use an initial attack force of Imps and Goblins, maybe add a couple healers for Talya. You can take out the potion donkeys and grab a couple evil dispensers pretty easily with just a few units.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136570448

After that, I usually build my side entrance up and around to the top. You really need to get the potion runners, the attack parties are insanely difficult if any get through. Goblins are cheap to replace. Also take out the enemy camps where they spawn when you're on the overworld.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136571644

There's a dragon nest up top and a spider lair at the bottom you probably want to avoid early on.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136571919

I often run into mana shortages on this level, because all my imps get wiped out. Leave the purple deposits so you can dig them up when you need them for revival.

The rock trap is great.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136572292

Later you can add some flamers and other accessories.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136572553

I don't know why they added that frog prince thing, even though he's level 10 he doesn't add much by the time you get to him. Here I've already wiped out the potion dispensers and two of the houses.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136572843

31 deaths, kind of sloppy but I'll take it. I've actually run this level without losing anyone.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136573272

ETA: I'd suggest research mana chamber, teleport spell with your initial allotment, you need that teleport to pop back and forth to get the potions. Then go naga and the remaining spells, that meteor spell is useful for downing enemy healers. Don't research the crypt until you're ready for it, as your horde creatures will just rot until you build and staff it.

Also grab the potions in the overword, they buff your forces if you need it. If not leave them and place a teleport next to them so you can grab it when you come back topside.

[Draconic Creature]

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

Don't research the crypt until you're ready for it, as your horde creatures will just rot until you build and staff it.

If possible, get the magic boxes so you can get the automatic reviver machine, and the upgrade to make it revive creatures at full health. It's pretty much a must-have in my opinion at some point since it means you aren't limited by there being an active undead manning the thing and in general it makes things way quicker by way of simply not having as much uptime necessary.

Definitely get a jail though, free unit, free some evilness or whatever the game calls it(Been a bit since I played it) and generally handy for eventually getting a torture chamber up and running so you have heroes to torture.

[Akhlut]

Ah oaky, thank you for all the advice i will give it another try!

[CuteManabi]

Originally posted by Draconic Creature:

Definitely get a jail though, free unit, free some evilness or whatever the game calls it(Been a bit since I played it) and generally handy for eventually getting a torture chamber up and running so you have heroes to torture.

I discovered a fun use for the prison this time around, I set it up with an entrance along the end of the gauntlet of traps, but no other entrance into the dungeon. The skeleton archers hang out in there when not healing, so they'll come out and attack, causing the heroes to stay in that 3x3 room with the flame spinner trap longer. Your little snots spend less time dragging dead heroes to the prison afterward as well. This works incredibly well with the upgraded spinning roaster, since it runs for 10 seconds.