OK, the final level. This one is pretty nasty (you'd hope so, right?) and requires lots of 'tricks of the trade'. Hopefully by now you know what you're doing.

The first trick is not to burrow north very much, or you open yourself to a huge river that is full of 10th level tentacles. Never mind other nasties later. Go up from your heart *5 squares only* and drill straight east until you hit the gold. All that gold is yours. Make your rooms to the south. Train, train, train. Make lots of imps - you have many gems in your gold, but you have to keep imps alive to mine it for you. Two increase level gems are to the right, along with two hero gates.

Don't build a graveyard! The enemy to the far north has a scavenger room with high-level vampires in it. They grab your vampires faster than you can make them. One of your aims is to zap those vampires to death so you can make your own, so they don't get the recruiting bonus of having the only ones.

OK, phase 2. Explore the lake a little (you'll have an entrance on the far east). There are two doors - take over something strong and go to the left one. Break it open. You have to open another chink in your armour - there's a "path" on the left between your area and this middle area. Drill it out and tile it so you can start taking over that dungeon. By going in the left side, you can kill the heart without much trouble.

Phase 3: the top of the map. This is tricky. You get both gold areas on the top - take those out before opening the door to the top. Also, don't go around to the right in that tiny passageway - it leads to a captured avatar and, if you kill him, the lord of the land comes. You're not ready for him yet. So get the gold, set up a wall of traps along the top of "your area", maybe even a double-wall, and put a training room, hatchery and treasure room beneath it. And a barracks. That way you can have all your monsters right there for this assault.

The trick is that you can't connect to the top area at all, until you go through the avatar. So you can't drop your creatures up there! And the guys in there just hide in there - they rarely come out. So how do you get in to destroy them? If you take over a single guy, he inevitably is diseased and turned into a chicken. That's hopeless.

The solution is to have your imps dig *sideways* into the doors - it's not walled there. The doors are gone easily. Then put EVERYONE into the barracks, take over the most powerful one you've gotten, and when you march north, they'll follow you! You still have the chicken problem - if you vanish, they will finish off any battles but will return home and you have to start all over again. Get something really fast, drag your minions all the way through to the dungeon heart. If you get there, you're golden. The enemy's nasty - make sure you're strong before you try this part.

Then heal up, take out the avatar, win!

Dungeon Keeper Walkthough Index