Disappointed...
Jonathan Ellis
Nemesis and his two sons are, not to put too fine a point on it, total
wusses.
All three of them sat there and did nothing. Not a single one of them
ventured out of their front doors. When I killed Faust, Nemesis's voice
swore vengeance, but he didn't even so much as open his front door: when I
killed Fabian, Nemesis swore even louder but nothing came of it. He just sat
there and waited.
Even more disappointingly: All those nice creatures I'd been spending time
learning how to attract... none of them showed up. No Dark Angels were
attracted by my Temple, no Black Knights for my Combat Pit, not even Rogues
from my Casino, no matter how many creatures I threw back. Mind you, it
wasn't only the "fancy" creatures I couldn't attract... no Goblins either,
for some reason.
At this point I wondered if it was a kind of trick realm - Nemesis being
allowed to have Dark Angels and Black Knights and Rogues - but he, too, had
none. Most of his creatures were Dark Elves and Trolls.
Worse still, he had no idea how to use a Combat Pit. Not a single one of his
creatures was above level 4 - neither were Faust's or Fabian's. In fact on
one occasion I saw Faust having one of his Dark Elves rebel and turn to the
heroes' side, and he had to kill it, for an unknown reason...
Is this just to do with Patch 1.7, or did this level always suck? Prima's
official Strategy Guide - and every other level guide I've seen - indicates
that at some point Nemesis will attack you, and possibly Fabian too. It also
suggests that Black Knights can be attracted (and, indeed, suggests
Possessing one, getting a few more to follow you, and attacking Nemesis from
the side while your main minions attacked his front door.) Where were my
Dark Angels, too?
I was genuinely expecting to have to use Horny, and to be facing creatures
of levels 7-8 at least, when taking on Nemesis... and expecting fights with
Black Knights and Dark Angels on *both* sides, and enemy Rogues trying to
sneak into my treasury.
In fact this has been a general weakness of DK2: the enemy Keepers are,
frankly, hopeless. In fact I find one of the most disappointing things of
all, that you don't even GET to face an enemy Keeper till level 10, and
Asmodeus is seriously useless - I've never seen him build actual rooms
beyond what he started with. The main danger in that level is the heroes.
Level 11: Again the Keepers aren't up to much. If you play as Kronos, then
you can pretty much guarantee that two of them will be wiped out before you
get there. If you play as Drako, you can do the wiping out by taking
Morgana - it's the only way you can get a Portal anyway.
Level 12: Again... the Heroes are the main problem, as is the shortage of
Gold. Once you have eight trained Vampires, they can take out the enemy
Keeper far too easily even though he outnumbers you.
Level 13: Possibly the toughest Keeper so far, he is the one with the
Vampires himself, and they can out-level your minions. It is actually
possible to capture some Vampires alive, as an alternative to having Monks
kill them.
Level 17: Two enemy Keepers. The main annoyance, though, was their imps.
Broken AI led to the Blue keeper keeping his forces in one place with a Call
to Arms in the middle of nowhere forever until he was easy to beat up. The
main problem came from his imps... The Green one actually tried to assault
the heroes himself... piecemeal, with too few creatures, and they mostly
died quickly and served only to actually level up the heroes. According to
the strategy guide, both enemy Keepers are supposed to start out with a
force of Black Knights, Bile Demons and Mistresses, with one of them having
Warlocks and the other Vampires: in fact I saw no sign of any of these
forces. And there were hardly any hero assaults - nothing like the number
mentioned in the strategy guide. In any case you can ignore the enemy
Keepers until you have the ten Level 10 Dark Angels.
Level 18: As mentioned above. And that's IT - out of 20 levels, only 5
contain an actual enemy keeper at all, and in several of them
I actually get the impression that patch 1.7 was, in fact, released in a
seriously half-assed form with crippled AI and may even have crippled some
levels that were previously functional. Quite apart from the fact that there
was no attempt to integrate the new creature (Maiden of the Nest) or trap
(Jack-in-the-Box - what does it even DO?) into the campaign. I'd have
thought the original campaign would have been the most important place to
fit them into: because the heart of DK (and DK2) is in the player-versus-AI
levels, far more so than in the multiplayer.
(In fact I think both the designers of DK1 and DK2 would have done miles
better if they had concentrated more on better enemy AI, and on trying to
release a level editor at the earliest possible opportunity, i.e. with the
initial release... instead of half-assing DK1's level editor in an expansion
set, and never properly releasing DK2's at all until several years too late
in a form too broken to be of much practical use.)
Jonathan.
PhilHibbs
> Disappointed... at level 18, in patch 1.7.
> Nemesis and his two sons are, not to put too fine a point on it, total
> wusses.
> All three of them sat there and did nothing. Not a single one of them
> ventured out of their front doors. When I killed Faust, Nemesis's voice
> swore vengeance, but he didn't even so much as open his front door: when I
> killed Fabian, Nemesis swore even louder but nothing came of it. He just sat
> there and waited.
Yep, he's all hot air.
> Even more disappointingly: All those nice creatures I'd been spending time
> learning how to attract... none of them showed up. No Dark Angels were
> attracted by my Temple, no Black Knights for my Combat Pit, not even Rogues
> from my Casino, no matter how many creatures I threw back. Mind you, it
> wasn't only the "fancy" creatures I couldn't attract... no Goblins either,
> for some reason.
Odd, never had that problem. I usually clear out the middle dungeon of
traps with a Level 8 rogue stealthing around.
> At this point I wondered if it was a kind of trick realm - Nemesis being
> allowed to have Dark Angels and Black Knights and Rogues - but he, too, had
> none. Most of his creatures were Dark Elves and Trolls.
He's always had a Level 7 Black Knight when I've fought him.
> Worse still, he had no idea how to use a Combat Pit. Not a single one of his
> creatures was above level 4 - neither were Faust's or Fabian's. In fact on
> one occasion I saw Faust having one of his Dark Elves rebel and turn to the
> heroes' side, and he had to kill it, for an unknown reason...
Weird. Definitely not how I remember it.
> Is this just to do with Patch 1.7, or did this level always suck? Prima's
> official Strategy Guide - and every other level guide I've seen - indicates
> that at some point Nemesis will attack you, and possibly Fabian too. It also
> suggests that Black Knights can be attracted (and, indeed, suggests
> Possessing one, getting a few more to follow you, and attacking Nemesis from
> the side while your main minions attacked his front door.) Where were my
> Dark Angels, too?
I could never get the later patches to work, I think I'm running 1.4.
> Level 13: Possibly the toughest Keeper so far, he is the one with the
> Vampires himself, and they can out-level your minions. It is actually
> possible to capture some Vampires alive, as an alternative to having Monks
> kill them.
Capture Vampires? I didn't think that was possible. What do you do,
build a prison around them?
> Level 17: Two enemy Keepers. The main annoyance, though, was their imps.
I've only ever seen one of the two keepers venture out, I think it's
Blue (top-left if your base is at the bottom). The challenge here is
to keep him busy while you take out the heroes. If he starts attacking
before you're ready, you end up with there not being enough heroes
left to sacrifice.
> Broken AI led to the Blue keeper keeping his forces in one place with a Call
> to Arms in the middle of nowhere forever until he was easy to beat up.
Yeah, happens occasionally.
> I actually get the impression that patch 1.7 was, in fact, released in a
> seriously half-assed form with crippled AI and may even have crippled some
> levels that were previously functional.
Looks like it.
Phil.