Beginners' Guide

This page is to provide beginners with a guide to Dungeon Keeper. Many actions in the game were irreversible and could have drastic and harmful consequences that could severely harm and slow your progression. Please note that his page is subjective, rather than objective.
==Stone Quarries and Gold Mines==
*If you claimed a Stone Quarry or Gold Mine, that became a permanent place that attacking players could spawn their minions.
*Once you had claimed a quarry or mine, you could not unclaim it.
*You did not need to claim all quarries, due to the promotion ‘50% off most buildings’ you could reach level 35 everything without one quarry.
*The middle top and bottom quarry and gold mine were compulsory to claim, there was no choice in this.
*Not claiming one quarry could allow you to build around it, which would give you more room and make your dungeon much easier to defend.
*Probably the best quarry to avoid claiming was the one directly to the right side of your Dungeon Heart.
*If you dug a path to a quarry or mine, you could no longer seal it shut with dirt or walls. A path must always exist, and there was more risk of accidentally claiming it. To avoid this, leave the gem blocks around it. This was highly recommended until you decided what to do.
*Mines and Quarries provided very little of the stone and gold you actually needed in the game, probably about 1% over the long term. The gold mines were the most useful, as they could save you if you run out of gold and need to buy minions.
==Dungeon Heart==
*Upgrading your Dungeon Heart for the first 10 levels cost Combat Points.
*The reason it cost Combat Points was to prevent players progressing too fast.
*Progressing too fast would make the game become far more difficult, and progression was irreversible.
*Upgrading your Dungeon Heart would always make the game more difficult, because when you got raided, you would be open to losing more resources. On the Dungeon Heart page, you can see the exact quantity of resources you could be plundered for based on the level of your Dungeon Heart.
*The decision to upgrade your Dungeon Heart was ultimately up to you. Unless you had money to spend on the game, it was recommended to go for a slow progression and only upgrade your Dungeon Heart once you had nothing else left to upgrade.
==Treasuries and Warehouses==
*Treasuries stored gold and Warehouses stored stone. The higher their level, the greater quantities they could hold.
*When you were attacked, if a player destroyed all of your Warehouses, they would get 50% of your plundable stone; the other 50% was in the rest of your dungeon. Same example went for Treasuries and gold.
*Bolstering these buildings with Imps allowed you to prevent 10% of that particular resource being taken per Imp bolstering, for a maximum of 60%.
*The cost of bolstering a building was based on the level of that building.
*If you had a level 1 Treasury, it would cost 50 gold per Imp to bolster. If you had a level 10 Treasury, it would cost 75,000 gold to bolster. They had the exact same effect as well.
*Leaving one Treasury and one Warehouse at a low level would allow you to protect your resources very easily without having to use gems to by Cave-Ins.
*Leaving one Treasury and one Warehouse at level 1 could protect your resources from being plundered.
==Best use of Dreadstones==
*The first use for dreadstones should be for upgrading Guild Lairs and Guard Posts. This would make your dungeon significantly stronger due to the high quantity of health these upgrades provide. It also provided a large DCR boost which allowed you to earn more stars during tournaments.
*While Mortimer or Glarggl might be appealing, it was best to focus on one of your preëxisting immortals that you have already levelled. Immortals are fairly balanced in the game, so use one you are good with.
*U.R. Mines and Dante's Mounds were not very useful early on. Dante’s Mounds could be good at luring Trolls, but they did very little damage and were very expensive to upgrade. U.R. Mine also cost gold to rearm, and their range was short. They were mostly used to increase DCR.
==Immortals==
*There were rare specials that allow you to buy Immortals with gems at a discounted price. It can be worth waiting for these specials to come around before buying.
*Avoid deploying Horny before 30 to 40% when raiding. His health and damage output was based on how much damage the dungeon has taken. At low percentages, he was almost useless.
*Tiny was a favourite for beginners because low level dungeons had poor air defence. At higher levels, though, Tiny became almost useless, as there was just too much that could kill Tiny very quickly.
*The current Immortal you had at your Guard Post could be captured. The higher the level of the Immortal, the longer it would be captured.
==Tips and Tricks==
These are general tips and tricks that could you on your adventures in Dungeon Keeper.
*During tournaments, you were much more likely to be raided by very high level players. This was just how the game was. If you wanted to avoid this as much as possible, you could make your dungeon in a way that forced players to use spells. Such as three Bug Zappers and a Freeze Trap at a choke point. Players would most likely have to use the Disable Trap spell to get past. Though some players spent a lot of money on gems and just didn't care.
*If the dungeons you were getting paired to raid were too difficult, it meant you had too many trophies. You can purposely lower your trophies by deploying a minion or guild minion then ending the raid immediately.