Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

My initial 4-5 attempts at the game i completely avoided this phase to great amusement, but devastating losses of my keep. I can't stress the importance of both growing in a controlled fashion and minimizing aggressive behavior until you can properly defend your keep from higher level threats.

When I first looked for a better understanding I was flooded with youtube videos advising essentialy swathing out large areas of various rooms to generate units for defense. I think this completely overlooks specific resources or tiles that can be used for minimal or free upkeep units.

"RollingWithNat20"

I found the video embedded on the right to be the first I found to address the "controlled" build. I think this video still builds a big bigger than needed, though the spirit of his first few minute monologue lead to my 13th attempt and first victory at KeeperRL.

I hope this document can help others understand my new approach to this wonderful game.

-D

Let's ignore the current Youtube approach, and dig into the game of KeeperRL.

Immediately press the spacebar to pause the game. Get a good look at your surroundings, and take control of your keeper. Begin to move him around looking to expose as much resources, fog of war, and threats as possible. Be on the lookout for a place you can easily gain entrance. It goes without saying at this point that movement slows when threats are detected. Be aware of that while moving around the last thing a keep needs is a keeper slaughtered just after depart.

Start out digging ore deposits in a location you think you could safely grow, with minimal raiding, your keep until its dangerous enough to face the surrounding threat. Factions can always trigger to attack you, and lessening your active pillaging can help minimize that.

I've rarely had to initially create a room larger than resource deposits have provided. In the beginning the last thing you want to do is lay down a 12x12 forge or 12x12 training area.

The first step of the controlled build is to understand the dependency tree of infrastructure tiles.
At the start I choose the ore depost closest to my base, and convert that into a 3x3 training room. The ore deposit is probably large enough to contain more than 3x3. Anything larger than 3x3 and you're tempting fate to get upkeep costs before pillaging can support it. The keep is far easier to control when you enable upkeep after you can sustain it, compared to trying to sustatin an upkeep. You may be able to win with the latter approach, but you're always riding the big ball of fail tempting fate.

Feel free to make the area larger than the entry level tiles you lay. I personally don't have a problem with 3-4 3x3 rooms for forges. Its a lot of doors adventurers/invaders have to open. I like to have the training room larger than the 3x3 so when an invasion comes, I can amass a team and have them idle in the training area.


With the build priority table we can start to see how I typically lay tiles. I find it safest to follow library unlocks based on their mana cost, and only upgrading the library when required to advance research. I find you can control your growth far better when you're in control of when you grow, and understand the drivers enough to recognize when growth is required.

Feel free to upgrade your library when required and if you don't want the orc shamans on the upkeep, who's priority 1 task is working in the library, feel free to absorb them by a doppleganger to increase his power and reduce your upkeep. Vampires can study also, assuming your training grounds are filled.

Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

I wish the units spawned via succubus copulation didn't require upkeep. You could probably fit that in the lore pretty easily, though I'm not sure how OP that would make the unit. I don't have too much problems with gold management right now as I mostly rely on free units for defense.

Following are notes on each of the Build Items listed in build priority table.

The first obvious step is to develop a library. The library is used to regenerate mana which fuels far more than research. Mana can be converted into ritual rooms, eyeballs, imps, spells and is the requirement for all research, so far, in KeeperRL. Often times granite is a bit harder to reach than other resources, and you always have to have a corpse convert to gravestone in order for a graveyard to produce units which require upkeep.

Mana is your friend -- this can not be said enough.

Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

By the time I get the library fully built, I'm typically far into the red with regards to mana due to the creation of other tiles. Building the library becomes a priority to help expand ritual rooms expediently.

if you get lucky enough on your rolls your succubus can breed orc shamans without one present. I have no direct evidence, but I afaict the the units a succubus produces do not require upkeep.\

Orc Shamans are an large upkeep generating unit that's simply not worth it in the early game. Between your keepeer and any Vampires, you planted graveyard tiles I hope, you should have more than enough early game mana by placing a 3x3 library and dedicating your keeper.

If you have orc shamans working anywhere else but the library without direct assignment your keep probably doesn't have enough library tiles to support the studying unit population and you should add more in the spirit of efficiency. Find a balance. The key is to place enough tiles to entice the units you want in a controlled fashion.

After you get your library, follow the unlocks according to cost. Feel free to prioritize buying more sorcery or any mutation.

The workshop tends to be the first unlock I go for in the tech tree. Immediately after unlocking it, I'll place a 4x4 area of workshop tiles, with room for more -- surrounded by equipment storages. After the workshop tiles are built Goblin units shouldn't appear after they recieve their dormitory spaces. As long as your training area is < 12 you shouldn't have to worry about orc migrations.

As time passes and your dormitory is built, goblins will start manning your workshops, forges, and jeweler tiles spitting out free items.

Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

Notice if you play your cards right as soon as your first equipment carrying fighting units arrive you'll have equipment at least for 2/3rds, and you won't have so much aggro you're being assaulted from all sides. Keep in mind you should start building traps prior to any increased threat , assuming you unlock the traps before you build beast lairs or expanding your original 3x3 training area.

The forge is another workshop task that you will quickly unlock. All metal armor and weapons for your units will come from the forge. Goblins can work the forge very easily, and require no upkeep. With that said, if you have ever thought your units weren't equipping fast enough, its probably because your build training pens before your goblins started in.

The forge upon first building should be no more than 3x3. Anything else is too big. You may need to expand and increase the size of your forge as you get more goblins. Goblins should continue to migrate as long as they have places to work.

My first few playthroughs of the game, I assumed the ritual room as an advanced item. It seems like it would be used for some big end game summoning or ritual work that created supremely powered creatures. This is somewhat true, but more indirectly. Most times I've started the game my ritual room starts out spawning ghosts and succubus. Both units are rather weak, but provide high value in various ways.

The succubus can be leveraged to "copulate". When engaged the succubus will find a "sleeping" unit, and copulate with it. Eventually, after the succubus returns to the ritual room she'll give birth to a new unit. As you get lots of these mobs copulating its hard to tell if their descendents have upkeep.

The ghost can possess other units, although not with user control. This lets the ghost act in control of the enemy unit. I try to offset most teams I create with ghosts since they flood so much early game.

The ritual ground will also eventually spawn the dreadded doppleganger. The doppleganger can equip armor and weapons, and comes with the absorb ability. No unit in my base is safe from a doppleganger absorbtion. Dopplegangers are limited on the units they can absorb, but beast lairs provide valuable food for a doppleganger as well as unwanted upkeep units in the early game. Its very easy to have the dopplegangers of your keep be some of the most power units on the map.

Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

Please don't fear absorb regardless of how powerful your unit may be, the doppleganger will normally benefit and another unit will arrive to take its place.

The graveyard is a great infrastructure tile to place. It allows us to eventually create units based on our successes and failures. As long as a minion can drag a corpse back to the cemetary, you'll probably get things coming out of the ground eventually. As granite permits, feel free to throw these tiles down. In the beginning the units the graveyard attracts, combined with the ritual room units one can have quite a large effective defense force without much upkeep.

It can't be stressed how much Graveyards help early on with upkeep management.

One of the last tiles I'll place will be my 3x3 initial barracks. I keep this small to attract goblins, and assure myself minimal upkeep. If you start to see goblins slow coming into the base, you probably need more barracks. If you see goblins using your training grounds you need to expand your infrastructure in some way other than barracks in the early game.

Astute readers will have noticed Training Ground tiles were not laid to the typically suggested training grounds spam. You can spam the training grounds, just like you can punch yourself in the nose -- people just don't. The reason for this, is to control upkeep. The library, training area, and lab can trigger cost increases, if unmanaged, will lead to the downfall of your keep.

You'll also notice the beast lairs weren't listed in the previous section. This is simple. Starting out, the beasts you get seem good, but a pack of 5 wolves, and a few ghosts boom triggered event while some raven thinks its cool to run to a village kill their livestock, and get killed by a child. At that point the aggro isn't worth the intel or "defense" these beasts provide.

Sure you can have werewolves, but those were wolves won't be much against a triggered event and human invasion combined. Handle the triggered events through the base build, then expand your forces. By that time you'll have enough gear for the units that you're paying for, and they won't be wasting their time on your workshops because those will have been manned by the goblins that came from section 1.

You can definitively defeat the triggered events with ritual room units, goblins, and no beasts.

As stated before, I keep training grounds below 12 tiles to keep upkeep under control. You need this for your graveyard units, and perhaps the keeper.

By keeping our training rooms under tight control and scale, we provide assurance no high upkeep units will come through -- and if for whatever reason one or two do come through any doppleganger can absorb them, gain strength, and have no detrimental affect to my keep's defense. I can not stress this enough, high upkeep units are not required in the early phases of the game.

Zombies start out at level 3-4, and can train just like other units, they also seem to have low upkeep currently per zombie. In the beginning of the game expect zombies and vampires to account for most of your units actively participating in training. This is just fine. Don't over-expand past 11 training tiles until you are ready to accept way more upkeep, or absorb everyone with dopplegangers right before payment.

With that beasts offer support for ritual rooms, and are great units to control in large scale skirmishes. Ravens, Bats, wolves, and bears are great to have as the units you lead into battle with a team of 10-20 strong behind you. Often times I'll control a large team with a leader being a raven, or something similar. I'll then move to some place on the map, hold space while my army moves, etc.

When enemies are sighted, most times, holding space will cause your units to just swarm visible enemies much more efficiently than chasing down bowman.

Speaking of bowman: these elf weilding bowman are primarily the reason i keep orcs and ogres around. Other threats are mostly manageable with lower upkeep units that come from graves or ritual rooms. Think of triggered events as fuel for graveyards until you can beat them.


When you get to the upkeep phase, and you've expanded your training grounds any upkeep units such as orc or ogres who are not actively training are being wasted. Its a good sign that there's no open squares to train on, and perhaps its time for a training grounds upgrade.

Let the triggered events determine when you upgrade your training grounds. Without giving too much away, I think its safe to say -- it'll be obvious.

The beast pit is by far the most placed tile I have in my dungeon. Not only are early entry beasts very helpful, but beasts remain helpful for a variety of reasons throughout the game. If you've ever tried to dominate a human fortress, then tried to do the same with 4-5 legendary creatures I'm sure you'll see the value of beasts quickly.

Pay attention to these to directives when thinking about unit effectiveness.

1. Do my units have basic gear?
   
2. Are my units leveled beyond the starting level.
   
3. Is my upkeep under my control?
   
4. Do I have to much treasure to protect?
   

Level and gear your units.

You can do amazing things with absorb and copulate.

Its always better to absorb a lvl5 zombie with a level 10 doppleganger. Don't let that zombie provide you a false sense of security. At the beginning of the game I focus on surviving triggered events and controlling threat.

Immediately after you have a training grounds and begin to feel control during the threat management phase of the game; you should begin manual exploration and scaling your keep to meet the needs of your units while upgrading their effectiveness.

Originally posted by dr.iscoll:

if a level 30+ doppleganger is great as is, imagine one geared in metal with magic items and potions/scrolls.

A majority of the available research directly impacts unit effectiveness. I think examining the full research table, you can see the focus on unit effectiveness, defending the keeper, defending the keep in that order. Focus on things in that order starting with unit effectiveness. There's no sense paying for units that are inequipped, or paying while they get geared. You want to pay for them long enough for them to win strategic places, and be absorbed or die.