A dark genius came up with this campaign. Every map here is a challenge. And you'll learn the bugs and mechanics of the game if you didn't know them before... It's incredibly difficult, but fascinating.

A few tips and recommendations to supplement the document on passing levels: https://lubiki.keeperklan.com/dk1_mpacks/ancient_keeper/ancient_keeper_walkthrough.htm

(2) HARMONY The level can be taken by storm, the weakest point is the base of the bile demons. By attacking there, it is possible to break through the front, speeding up the game. It will take a long time, but the vampires will kill everyone, and you will even manage to drag some of the demons to prison for convertaion. Next, you can completely capture the base of this AI. Just kill all the imps and capture the treasury. The main thing is not to destroy the the dungeon heart, otherwise the north-east keeper (dark mistresses) will begin to capture the territory, and it will be difficult to win the battle against them. The north-east keeper (dark mistresses) will try to dig up gems, and if you attack his imps, you can kill several dark mistresses who have teleported to help and convert them to your side, then destroy all the rest.

(3) AVARICE On this map, you will have access to 1 boulder trap. If you dig your way to yellow keeper, you can destroy most of his army in a narrow corridor.

(4) T'KAAN'S MISTRESS The easiest way to get rid of the giants is to take the mistress in your hand, possess the imp, gather all the giants behind you, and then dig a passage to the blue keeper where the battle will begin between AI and giants. The remaining giants after the battle can be easily finished off by the mistress.

Once you enter the heroes' fortress, do not follow the perimeter through the doors to avoid activating the heroes. First, capture the torture chamber in the center, and then dig your way to the prison. This will allow you to convert significantly more heroes to your side, which will help in the final battle. Let the yellow keeper capture the entire tunnel and wait for his imp at the exit. When you attack him, the AI will drop all the vampires to help. Build a large platform of bridges there, so you will have more space to maneuver and it will be easier to win. It is not necessary to capture the lair; you can simply turn on imprison mode to stop the vampires from respawning. In the heat of battle, you can even drag some of the vampires away to convert them.

(6) SAVE THE HEROES Try to convert as many mistress as possible from the blue player. When you capture his base, they won't come to you from the portal. The yellow keeper's army consists only of vampires, and this battle will be difficult.

There is an easy way to defeat the yellow keeper with virtually no fighting. His base is huge, and by distracting the main army with avatars, you can capture his rooms from several sides. If you capture and sell the lair and treasury, the angry vampires will kill each other.

(7) KWAN TEK'S ORDEAL If the blue player has all creatures at level 10, he will kill the heroes. Open the passage when his creatures are mostly at level 9 and a few at level 10, in which case there will be very few heroes left. As soon as the heroes leave fortress, take control of the imp and capture the vampires. You can also help the vampires balance the forces.

(12) RESCUE THE AVATAR In the final battle with the mistress, place the Call to Arms at the beginning of the scavenging room, sell part of the room near the tunnel to the enemy so that the imps have to capture not the entire room, but tiles, They will run towards you, and attacks on them will provoke the mistress to teleport and protect the imps, allowing you to kill them in parts, as opposed to a frontal attack, where the AI will drop them all down at once and you won't be able to defeat them.

(15) FLOWERS OF DESPAIR The level is very easy. Take control of the troll and immediately run to the enemy fortress. In general, you don't even need dragons, all the creatures inside the fortress can be killed with boulder traps, there are enough of them there, break the doors with a fireball from a distance. The scariest room contains only two reepers. Even if you manage to kill only one with a boulder, take the troll and wait for the reeper at the base; your trolls will be able to deal with it even in normal combat.

(16) DRAGONIA You can speed up the passage like this. Make AI fight each other, then kill all the fairies in the north yourself, break the doors by releasing some of the reapers, the reapers will start cutting down the dragons in the center, if you don't help them, there will be quite a lot of reapers left. However, from this moment on, dragons will start coming to you from the portal. You can drop all the creatures and one level 10 dragon you have to the battle, then possess a new level 1 dragon and very quickly level up him to 10 on the reapers. Your task is to kill the reapers while they are fighting the dragons. After this battle, one AI will most likely be dead, and the second will be very weakened.

(18) THOR'S DIPLOMAT It is quite possible to repel the wave of heroes entering the dungeon with the forces you have. To do this, simply let the knights go ahead and burn the fairies with hellhounds. The giants will fall behind, and they can be killed one by one in the same way. The knights can be separated by doors, and since they hunt creatures rather than the heart, there is practically no danger. They can be easily distracted by creating imps to capture the area around the heroes' fortress. Just send the hellhounds to the lair for healing until all the knights are killed.

(19) ANTAK'S RUIN There are often cases when the blue keeper destroy his wall and door and captured the center, and you barely managed to get to dragon level 5. However, even in this case, there is a solution. To win, kill the two archers on the blue keeper's side and all the archers on the green keeper's side. By this point, the dragon should be level 4-5. Next, you need to break the green keeper's two closed magic doors, clearing his path to the center. By this point, the blue keeper should have already broken his doors and attacked the center, and his attack will distract all the heroes. This is your chance to capture the creatures from the center. Break the magic door to the right of the passage to the north and take the second level 10 dragon. If you're lucky, after the heroes fall, all the doors will collapse and you'll be able to capture more creatures. For example, the reaper. Next, there will be a battle between the AI. In this battle, it is important to see who wins, then reload and use the dragon to kill the winner's mistress as many as possible. In general, after a few attempts, you will find that the AI will practically destroy each other, and all you have to do is break their hearts. The map can be completed with one dragon.

(20) L'CYFRE'S CHALLENGE Attack of the samurai army There is land near the heart. If you clear it, you can use the ghost to blow the samurai army there when they decide to break down the door to the heart (provided that the passage was not dug to the north) and kill them later when the avatar appears.

Attack of the horned reapers Save at least 2 boulder traps in the tunnel, kill the knights one by one, separate them with doors, as it is much easier than killing the reapers. Place 2-3 magic doors in front of the traps, this will give them time to gather in one pile near the doors so that you can finish them off with traps.

Resurrection bug. (May not work on all versions) You can let your avatar die, then use all 3 resurrections to bring 3 avatars back to life.

Attack on the heroes' fortress. There is a platform opposite the door to the fortress. Place a summoning flag there and use your possession to cross the lava with your entire army. Heal everyone. In difficult areas where skeletons die, take control of the avatar and lead the enemies to the army, absorbing damage like a tank.

I have mixed feelings about this campaign. Some levels are very hard and require extensive knowledge of game mechanics, creatures and bugs so this is definitely not good campaign for begginer. I really enjoyed many levels from campaign as it was challenging and there is many great puzzles in it too. Levels are also very unique which is good for a campaign as long as original. What is not so good? Campaign is dated so I didnt enjoy playing with some terrible bugs. I also felt that many levels have certain phases way too long and repetitive which made it really unfun. Its like imagine amazing level 5/5 quality but you have to kill 50 enemies with posssed Dragon which waste 2/3 of the time of whole level. Amount of enemies or units you have to sometimes convert or kill is just extensive. And sometimes later you realize you didnt have to. But in some levels you do, so you just do it to be sure to not fail one hour later just because you didnt scavenge 17 Samurais instead of 10. So I was often thinking "wow, thats great idea, cool contept" but requirement for completing level made me glad its over when I won. I think campaign would really benefit if some things were changed but I guess its too late as it is one of the older ones.

Rating of this one is tough, Difficulty varies but ist mostly 3+, I would even rate few levels 5/5, So I will rate 4 here. Quality also varies but mostly dont go below 3. And I rated two levels 5/5 in my own rating :D. Cool ideas of this campaign and well designed maps would almost deserve 5/5 but I just cant rate is so high because of bad stuff I didnt like which just pissed me off. So it is 4/5.

I really liked this campaign, it was really challenging, so it's only for people who don't mind repeating levels. There was really fun levels, but sometimes it was painfull or poitless ones, like where you can only build 2 bridges. I think some maps became more harder, because the AI plays better, like once i had to capture the middle of the map, while blue and green behind locked door, but blue always come out earlier, because accidently digging out his own door walls because of room building. The good maps are really good ones and and there are good ridles too. Overall it's a really cool campaign, i will repeat it for sure, 5 star for me.

Played this and the sequel a few years ago and had the most fun out of custom campaignes with them. As the description hints, they require using weird loopholes and glitches to win, which was novel and fun despite how it may sound and are clearable without spoilers if you have time and perseverance, ime. Discovering the solutions felt fun and rewarding, personally. Will likely replay soon.

It's a classic. It's incredibly hard and if you don't know the original game inside and out you're going to spend a lot of the game playing with a browser open or constantly looking at the solutions. It was amazing back in the day, but as time and FX have progressed, the memories of the exploits fade and the map becomes more obscure.