Best way to play dwarven doors

[commander keen]

Whats the best strategy?
I did this one but i lost an enchantress and that guy you find in the village.
I almost lost konrad but i leveled him up.

[Zhukov]

This is how I did it on Medium difficulty:

*Spoiler Warning*

First off, I recruited a castle load of Thieves, nothing else. No recalls. I moved Delfador and the Elf into the mountains and left them there.

I rushed northward with Konrad and the thieves. Every time a force of orcs got close to him I would stick a Thief in the way. Because of their high defence in almost all terrain they usually lasted several turns, long enough for Konrad and the remaining Thieves to put decent distance between the orcs and themselves (first and only time I have been forced to use meatshield tactics in a campaign ). Simply ran past the Cuttlefish that pops out of the lake. Upon finding out that the main door was locked I simply moved Konrad over the mountains to the small door.

End of level.
Total losses: 6 thieves

Be aware that this was version 1.0 - there may have been some changes since then that make this strategy unusable.

I almost lost konrad but i leveled him up.

Hmm, it doesn't really matter, but you really should have Konrad fully leveled by this stage.

[commander keen]

Ok, well i was trying not to risk his life thats why he was at level 1 with almost 28 xp but not quite.
I'd been working on leveling up a few units that were doing well, namely an elvish scout to outrider and a shaman to enchanress(i now know i should have gone to druid)
I recalled those two,1 mage and archers and then more archers later on at the other keep.

[toms]

I always made 2 loads of gryphons to hold off the enemies long enough for Konrad to escape. Delfador and Kalenz hold off the yellow enemy while the other two had enough to do with the gryphons.

[commander keen]

Thanks.
I'm starting the capaign again on medium(last time it was easy ) and i'm working on leveling up units.
I was pretty stupid in the gryphon one. I reduced it to 1 hp and then the loyalists went and got it.

[Chris NS]

Don't forget that there's a keep halfway along the way. If you can end Konrad's turn on that keep, you can easily call four units of reinforcements (two at the end of one turn, another two at the start of the next turn) without the nasty side-effect of spending a precious turn leaving Konrad stuck at the bottom of the screen whilst the orcs build up.

Oh, and Konrad should ideally be level 3 by this time. A level 1 Konrad will be eaten by the blood bats in the next scenario.

[kiet]

This is how I did it on Medium difficulty:

*Spoiler Warning*

First off, I recruited a castle load of Thieves, nothing else. No recalls. I moved Delfador and the Elf into the mountains and left them there.

I rushed northward with Konrad and the thieves. Every time a force of orcs got close to him I would stick a Thief in the way. Because of their high defence in almost all terrain they usually lasted several turns, long enough for Konrad and the remaining Thieves to put decent distance between the orcs and themselves (first and only time I have been forced to use meatshield tactics in a campaign ). Simply ran past the Cuttlefish that pops out of the lake. Upon finding out that the main door was locked I simply moved Konrad over the mountains to the small door.

End of level.
Total losses: 6 thieves

Be aware that this was version 1.0 - there may have been some changes since then that make this strategy unusable.

I almost lost konrad but i leveled him up.

Hmm, it doesn't really matter, but you really should have Konrad fully leveled by this stage.

Not to say that you are coward,but this is really a cowardly tactic.
I always move Konrad,Delfador and Kalenz to the keep in the middle before recruiting anything.
And then I recruit and recall some troops to hold them off which resulted in me killing all the leaders in normal.
But in hard,I just wanna go for defence,for the enemie troops are too great.

[joshudson]

I recalled a Shyde (only healer that can keep up), and recruited a bunch of elvish fighters for forest destraction.

[Zhukov]

Not to say that you are coward,but this is really a cowardly tactic.

I always play for minimum casualties. (So far done HttT with 14 dead and EI with 0.) On Dwarven Doors an extended fight on multiple fronts always caused me a fair few deaths, more then I wished to accept. I could beat it, but only at a heavy cost. I would rather finish the level with low casualties and a huge pile of gold then with high casualties and very little gold. Thus the Thief meat-shield tactic.

"Run away and live to fight another day."

[commander keen]

Well actually my level 1 konrad leveled up there after wiping out the blood bats.

[Oliphant]

My successful strategy on this level involved a griffon rush at the south west leader with 2 or 3 castles of griffons, and just a couple troops to hold everybody else off while Konrad advanced to the middle. After taking out the 1st leader the others were easier. Just time pressure to get it done before turns expired.

It lost a lot of money, I guess it was stupid but it was fun to beat the enemies.

No griffons at this point in 1.1.* so can't do this anymore anyways.

I won before this with horsemen and some elf archers (on easy, my first time playing the campaign). It was a little slower but probably more of my troops survived. I don't remember the overall cost but I think it was less.

[kiet]

Not to say that you are coward,but this is really a cowardly tactic.

I always play for minimum casualties. (So far done HttT with 14 dead and EI with 0.) On Dwarven Doors an extended fight on multiple fronts always caused me a fair few deaths, more then I wished to accept. I could beat it, but only at a heavy cost. I would rather finish the level with low casualties and a huge pile of gold then with high casualties and very little gold. Thus the Thief meat-shield tactic.

"Run away and live to fight another day."

Damn,EI with no casualities?
What difficulty are you playing at that time?

[Zhukov]

Medium.

In all fairness I must admit that I abused save/load on one level, Undead Crossing. There simply wasn't enough turns.

[santi]

I have not played ths recently, but this scenario has been ebalancd many times. The first times I played to beat it-killed the SW and Eastern leader and was a couple of turns away from killing the third one , but then time was running out and I had to move Konrad to the caves.
Then the scenario changed and became impossible to beat. So cheating
or cowardly strategies were developped. The simplest was: recruit 5 horsemen only and start running to the right door.
the horsemen were acting as a shield for Konrad, Delf and Kalenz. When
a horseman took a hit,he did not retaliate. This way I was able to finish in 9 turns with basically no gain and no loss in gold. Maybe I could have made a plus by recruiting 4 horsemen. But the consensus was to rebalance DD to make it a fighting scenario...

[scott]

You should have enough leeway on this scenario to play it a number of ways - run or fight, it's up to you. You just have to watch the turn crunch.