Here I will go over All the units from all 4 factions ( yes 4, I count dungeon as a faction ) and how to find success with them

So to start things off, your units can level up to whatever their faction level is ( the big faction button you upgrade at the top of the research page). I recommend making the faction level priority until you hit certain thresholds(E.G training and beer for horde)

!DUNGEON FACTION!

Little SNOTS - These are your #1 Lackies. They mine, they build, they craft. They also go places they shouldn't. No attack (obviously) but you will want as many as you can get. Best advice on these little guys, keep your Dungeon Faction level high and advance them to level 3 as quickly as you can to get stone mining.

Thalya - Your very own Dark Elf spellcaster heroine. While her attacks don't hit very hard , her spells are must haves. She is able to level up to whatever your Dungeon Factions level is , and has 3 spells to unlock. Lets go over them.
To Dungeonheart - Self Explanitory, takes her and any units near her back to the dungeonheart. Extremley useful until you get the portal spell ( IF you bother will spells )
Shadow Tentacles - spell's damage does decent AOE damage and does scale based on her level. Very useful for getting the priest healers in the back.
Baleful Tempest - Only usable on the overworld, this spell makes your units move and attack much faster. Very helpful for clearing boss type units or wiping out bases VERY quickly
Summon Dungeonlord Grogu - This is your " I WIN" button. The dungeonlord is overpowered and does not die from ANYTHING. Only lasts 90 seconds but you can get a LOT done. 1 shots most armies ( yes i said amries not units) and can clear boss units and bases EASILLY single handedly. The only negative I can say and it might just be a bug, you cant seem to get him to exi/enter the dungeons depending where you summon him, although he will teleport back Thalya when she uses her RtDH. So either save him as an emergency button, or poke your head topside and summon him there to just clear swathes of bases/units.

!HORDE FACTION!

Horde faction is pretty basic.They have a good assortment of melee and ranged units without any huge gimmicks. These guys are very cheap and are the only faction that actually has an upgraded form of each unit. They do also get the ability to be resurrected which is their biggest shortcoming.Very solid choice and also unlocks potions which while somewhat random what you get, they are extremely useful. They also allow the building of a training hall which at later ranks allows you to train other faction units as well. I never found it crazy useful but its nice to have if your army gets wiped out.

ORCS - The bread and butter melee unit. Pretty tough for how cheap it is and its upgrades give it a lot of good survivabilty. They turn into Orc Champions when you have it unlocked, which gives them a big increase in defence and a bit of extra damage. Honestly just makes them better at doing what they already do.

NAGA'S - Ranged healing units, be careful with these as they are quite brittle. Once you get some upgrades for them they are able to heal from a very safe distance, and the chainheal upgrade is insane. They turn into Naga Champions which gives them a new resurrect spell. If you are gunna run Horde faction then you will REALLY want a decent number of these.

GOBLINS - The big damage dealing melee unit, I have a love hate relationship with these guys. They put out a good amount of damage and the upgrades are probably the second strongest in the horde faction, but do are a bit brittle. These guys are extremely portent against the dwarf faction as they reduce melee damage from units and also just flat out ignore armour ( which is a HUGE deal in this game) The turn into Goblin Champions which ride atop a wolf steed giving them access to a very useful charge ability. When I run them I like to either go 1/1 to 2/1 with orcs. You really need the orcs to not only take the shots, but the first upgrade makes them do more damage when an orc is raging near them.

GNOMES - HUGE mid range dps. Horde factions amazing glass cannon unit. They die quick and easily but good lord can they put out some damage. They are little furballs that hurl AOE damaging bombs at people, and when upgraded they have a giant blanket of bombs called their "KABOOM" attack. The more you upgrade them the bigger the area their attack AND kaboom cover. They turn into SURPRISE SURPRISE the Gnome Champion ( im seeing a theme here ) which gives them a mek that changes their bomb throwing attack into a flamethrower. Drastically increases the damage but turns it into a kind of DoT. I generally loved taking a large amount of these as the kaboom attack from many at once would completly decimate a front line and not give enemy healers a chance to heal them up.


!DEMON FACTION!

From the fire and flames arise the pure ranged faction. If you like to play with all glass cannon this factions for you. Demons run off primarily evilness (all their units cost 666 gold ... get it?). When a demon unit dies they go to the void and wait to be resurrected via the Vortex building. The bigger your vortex room, the more summoning portals you get. It is entirely possible that with a big enough room you can have a never ending flow of demons constantly reviving... as long as you can maintain the evilness cost to revive them that is. The demon faction also gives you access to mana and the spell network. Now while I wont go over spells in this guide, I did find them MUCH better and far more useful than the horde potions ( mostly because I can choose what spells i get/use, not just a random chance). Also a torture chamber that gives you evilness from wel.. torturing survivers, and the Vault of MIGHT, a room that lets you upgrade past max level. I never found it SUPER useful but its their if you want to use it.

IMPS - Long range single target bombers. Respectable damage especially considering it is the T1 unit. A bit of the flismy side it terms of health and defence but honestly nothing SHOULD get to them if you have any of the other 3 units. Their upgrades give them a much longer range, lets them ignore 50% armor, and applies a dot to their attacks. When I used demons I always had a good number of these bad boys.

INFERNAL - A mid ranged AOE unit. They are beefier than imps for sure and they fire a slow wave shot that deal a smalled amount of damage than imps, but it has a built in DoT that lasts quite a while , and as you upgrade them they deal a LOT more damage to slowed/dotted enemies. From what ive seen, you don't want a TON of these guys but a few are useful. I never tested it, but I don't think their dots stacks.

GAZER - BEHOLD..ER.. the many eyed Gazer unit. Another Mid ranged unit, these guys are quite unqiue. Their attack is a beam on a single unit however enemies within a small distance have lowered fire resistance and are also slowed. As you upgrade them they gain longer range, an impressive 50% MORE fire resistance down on attacks ( so 75% ) and a larger area it covers. It also deals a very respectable amount of damage. These little buggers are 2nd only to the last unit. You will want these ... MANY of these .

SUCCUBUS - These are essentially the tanks of the demon army. Tho range wise they initially eek out a little further than Infernals and Gazers, they have no range increase upgrade so then end up shorter. That's fine tho, their real use is from the beguile spell they have. When cast they force an enemy to fight for you for 12 ( 15 once upgraded) seconds, and when FULLY upgraded they can beguile 2 targets at once. These ladies are what you will mostly make your army up with. However make sure you can other stuff to help mop up whatevers left when beguile wears off. Also their first upgrade lets them reduce enemy armor , which when paired with fire resist down from gazers make demons deal a LOT of damage.

!UNDEAD FACTION!

Undead are the overpowered , very expensive, slow burn faction. Undead has the most unique buildings/mechanics. They cost a TON of gold but once this faction starts going it cannot be stopped by anything. While they lack useful additions like potions or spells, their ability to create massive nigh unkillable armies is ridiculous.All undead units get the ability to summon little minions that enhance them. Its like each unit having their own little army. Much like demons, undead units dont actually "die" when they drop, instead they are whisked away to their graves where they slowly come back to life, however if you have enemy corpses sittin around then the snots will toss one in the grave and its almost an instant recovery. Undead was my go to faction whenever I hit a challenge I couldnt beat, and it made it infinitely easier. Best faction IMO

Banshee - Starting off strong is the banshee. She deals a decent damage in an AOE cone. If she has 1 downside its that she attacks a bit slow , but it also slows too so it evens out. Her summons are little ghosts that lowers enemies frost resistance and at later upgrades will allow a banshee to actually freeze her targets with her attacks.

Bone Lord - This bone boy is the undeads tank unit. They can take FAR more punishment than the hordes Orc, and like the Orc his end upgrade allows him to just get back up after he dies once every 5 minutes. Their Minions are little skeleton mages that are just a straight up damage dealer. No tricks or anything fancy. The best upgrade for skeletons tho is an increase of 25 % to the healing they receive from Vampire Queens. This is what makes them a brick wall.

Vampire Queen - The single MOST important unit in an undead army. Vampire Queens are Ranged damage dealers that will HEAL ALL UNDEAD UNITS AROUND THEM for a hefty portion of the damage they deal. The more you have the more you heal. With enough of these you essentially cannot die EVER. Upgrade wise they have some of the best, with an inital increase to the healing they give out, to turning their attacks to cold damage ( making them paired with banshees HUGE). Later upgrades make their little bat baby minions gain a healing ability, and finally their biggest upgrade... just flat out ignore armor on enemies. I cannot emphasize how ridiculous this makes them. Vampire Queens will be a large portion of an undead army.

Necromancer - Necromancer is kind of an odd unit. They have a lot of useful things in their toolbelt. Decent damage, where they really shine is their minions and their blight mist ability. So first off zombies deal the most damage of any minions, and with the first upgrade they become cold damage. The blightmist has the most amount of text in the entire game. So its a good sized aoe that when undead stand in it i heals them for 1% life per second and if a units minion dies while in it, it explode for 25% of its max HP. So if that wasnt enough, ENEMIES who stand in it movement speed is reduced by 50% and they recieve 2% LESS healing from stuff. While that doesnt seem like a lot, you will quickly find in later stages of this game healing is a HUGE pain in the ass to contend with. The final upgrade makes the necromancers ttack reduce enemy armor by 2!. That stacks up very quickly with multiple necros. Necromancers only downside... they are made of paper. They are by far the weakest unit in the game in terms of cost vs defence. I would recommend a few , but I wouldn't stack an army with um.

Honorable Mention ICE TOMB - Sorry did you think I was done? Nope. There is 1 more extremely broken unit undead.. And that is quite literally the enemies units, When you unlock the Ice tomb (literally the frozen throne from warcraft) you can pick up an enemie units corpse and shove it in it. From there you will have an infinitely respawning enemy unit that will be the same level as whatever it died as. ANY unit, personally i prefer assassins. The crazy thing about this... it doesnt use up any of your population. You can have as MANY ghost units as your map/computer can handle ( I got up to about 28 before my computer was running haggardly, that was ontop of the 40 undead units + minions I already had).

Traps TBC!!

This section i dedicate to the dungeon keepers best friend, The TRAP. In here I will go over each trap and how best to use it ( that I found anyway ).Let me start by saying while the number of traps HAS certainly been reduced from dungeons 3, I feel they eliminated a LOT of the fluff and kept the meat and potatoes. Thats not to say they dont HAVE some fluff still (looking at you complex traps section).
The other VERY nice thing about traps is whenever an enemy is killed BY a trap, you gain an increased amount of evilness, so it can be a very lucrative way of gaining some early on in a map when heroes are at their weakest.
The biggest downside to traps is you need a constant flow of toolboxes and other things depending on the trap in order to reload them. All traps have an amount of "use charges" before they need to be refitted. To see these just click on the trap. Also some traps will have delay sliders, this will allow you to tell the trap " Hey.. wait this long before activating so you get maximum carnage". A VERY useful tool. Lastly the Pusher,Hamster Wheel and Slimeball traps have a "Change Trigger" button, think of this as the traps Tripwire. When an enemy touches the Trigger location the trap will go off. EZ PZ

So lets get down to it starting WITH

FLOOR TRAPS
So this section will be short as there are really only 2 floor traps, each with 1 square and 3 square builds.
Spike Trap - Floor spikes are your basic thumbtack in the heel trap. Damage wise they dont pack a lot but they will hit every hero standing on them every second they.. stand on them. and they also cause a small slow effect. As for how or when best to use them I would suggest using them in tandem with slime traps. Slimes slow lasts for 6 seconds which gives enemies plenty of time to walk over spikes and get poked and then make it to the next slime pit. Again spikes wont be your MAIN damage source trap wise, but its a little extra to help out.

Slime Trap - Slime traps are the go to trap for floors. While they don't do any damage themselves, they do a substantial slow on heroes that touch them for 6s. This enables other traps to do maximum damage. Best used as the floor to any path that enemy heroes will go through.

SIMPLE TRAPS
So this is the simple traps section. Simple traps will be the main things you will use if you choose to go down the trap path. These all boast very respectable damage, and when paired correctly will make your dungeon nigh impregnable.

PUSHER TRAP - The pusher trap is a 3x1 wall mounted trap that will shove enemies away ABOUT 2-4 squares based on where it is placed ( obviously the more room the further it pushes) at which point the heroes will be THROWN to the floor and stunned for 2 seconds. This trap is very effective when it can be paired with a natural trap like a lava pit, however you can also pair it quite nicely with something like a thresher, which due to the stun off the pusher will be able to deal its full damage to everything. As far as traps go, I find it the weakest of the Simple traps. It has its niche uses but it requires more set up that the other 2.

SAW TRAP - The saw trap is a 3x3 wall mounted trap that require a tunnel with a wall on either side. In terms of damage if you look at it on paper it seems like its small, however the tooltip for the saw is misleading. The way it work is when activated they will run for a duration, and during that duration they will deal their damage every second. So its not a one and done but rather a constant stream of damage while the hero is in contact with it and while it, and It ends up being quite a good amount of damage. Now while the saw trap does not have the stun a thresher does nor the damage I do find it runs for a longer period and is much smaller and easier to work with.

THRESHER TRAP - The thresher is a 3x3 trap requiring an open 3x3 square for all the meat blendery goodness. The thresher is a spinning pole with 3 big flails attached to it that will do a stifling amount of damage is a short amount of time. When activated it spins furiously for a few seconds stunning all those foolish enough to be in its path and bludgeoning them mercilessly into a fine red goo. These are by far one of my favorite traps. Very effective when paired with either slime traps or a pusher trap to hurl unsuspecting fools into their metal jaws.

COMPLEX TRAPS

Now I will preface this section by saying this... complex traps for the most part are fluff. They provide very little in the way of solid trap damage, they are a pain to use and place requiring certain commodities to make and quite frankly you don't need them for a successful trap maze. That being said if you can find their best uses ( which conveniently will be the last section of the guide ) they can make what would be a meager challenge for the heroes into an impossible never ending hallway of death.

BEER-NON - This is a 3x3 cannon.. sorry BEERnon that fires rockets filled with the ambrosia of the gods, BEER! The fire rate is quite low however they pack a hell of a wallop with the initial hit and then apply a burning dot that ticks for fire damage, and can actually be built BEHIND walls so they do not take up precious Wall or floor trap space. The biggest downside to these are you need access to beer via the brewery which if you are not going deep into the horde tree will make these impractical to use. But hey if you ARE going down the horde tree , a row of these will devastate the would be infiltrators ... or at the very least give them a hangover.

GOBBLE-NON - Just in time for thanksgiving comes the Gobble-non.... a cannon that fires a ball of helpless turkeys at the enemy causing an explosion of goo and feathers. While not packing quite as big a punch as their beer brother, the upside to the gobble-con is that it covers the enemies in tar and feathers INCREASING the damage they take from fire by a whopping 50% ( upped to 100% if used with a slime ball trap, but we will get to that )for 60 SECONDS!. Now this can turn any fire damage be it the beer-nons dot, most demon attacks, or even a natural lava pits into VERY effective hero murdering machines. And while still requiring gobblers to craft and reload, researching them is FAR less of an evilness sink as beer-nons brewery needs. VERY useful if you are going pure demons.

HAMSTER WHEEL OF DEATH! - Now this trap was the one that intrigued me the most, especially when I saw it on the trailer. What it ended up being was actually a bit of a mixed bag. While aesthetically it is amazing, I did find that it lacked the expected punch and each one you build effectively holds a snot hostage which can be frustrating if you litter your dungeon with a few. That being said with a little patience these can deal the MOST amount of damage of any trap ( save maybe for a big treasure trap ). So the HWoD requires 3x3 with walls on either side and 1 behind. Its very finicky and can be a huge pain in the butt to set up. The big plus side to it tho is when launched, it will go ALL THE WAY down a tunnel, only stopping when it impacts a wall. So the perfect setup for these is a LONG hallway, and setting the timer on them to go off once all heroes have made it into the line,also knocking heroes down. Honestly they aint bad damage wise, its mostly the set up and the fact it will keep a snot busy are the major downsides to them.

EPIC TREASURE TRAP! - This trap is designed for all those greedy little DnD players who when they see a chest will make a B-line to it and just toss it open expecting to find Items and Wealth... only to be devoured by a mimick... YOU ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE. However this trap does not devour its prey.... more turns them into a burnt carcass. With your typical 3x3 setup, this trap houses a big treasure chest in the middle. When heroes walk by it they will sometimes be enticed depending on their race ( dwarves have a much higher chance ) to pop it open. The heroes will huddle around it for a few seconds while attempting to pick the lock and the KAPOW!, a VERY large explosion causing significant damage to any who were foolish enough to steal from a dark overlord. Damage wise this trap cannot be beat, its major downsides are its a 1 and done trap that may not always work as sometimes heroes will just walk right past it, essentially a bit of a coin flip. However if they do open it they will be met with a very swift and timely demise.

SLIME BALL TRAP - Ever want to turn a hallway with some minor traps into a ever ending gauntlet of frustration and misery? WELL, do I have the trap for you. The Slimeball trap has the exact same setup as the HWoD, however rather than firing a hard hitting stagecoach wheel this trap fires a very round very stick ball of GOO down the line. Any fool caught in its tacky trail will be dragged along for the ride until it finally impacts with a wall or door, which will then cause those same FOOLS to be slowed and have to start their trek ALL OVER AGAIN. So where does the endless tunnel come from you ask, simple. If you have a long enough hallway and an ample supply of toolboxes to quickly reload your trap with, by the time the heroes get back to the slime ball trap it will be ready to fire another round... which will hurdle all those heroes BACK to the start line again. This trap while it does VERY little damage, is the best trap in the game due to it essentially making your dungeons impossible to invade. Enemies simply cannot get past 1 of these when properly set up and stocked. MVP on every map after you are able to unlock it.

So that will do it for the trap section, but dont think Ile be ending this guide THAT easily. I promised tricks and tips for setups and I plan on delivering.

WARNING, INSERTED PICTURES MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE GAME. VIEW AT YOUR OWN PERIL... OR JUST IGNORE THE TOP RIGHT.. SERIOUSLY DO NOT LOOK AT IT , ALL MY TRAP LAYOUTS WERE BUILT ON THE FINAL STAGE FOR EASE OF BUILDING PURPOSES

So this section I will dedicate to kind of a Q&A almost. If you have a question or just want advice, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section and I will post what I can in this section . I will start with some basic trap set ups tho just to get the ball rolling



Basic Tunnel Setup - So this was my trap setup a lot of the game until I gained access to the complex traps. It is very simple but effective and you can tailor it to whatever shape you desire. I myself like just a plain jane long hallway but some prefer a serpentine. So start with just a 1 block slime trap, this will ensure the heroes get an initial 6s heavy slow, followed up by a pattern of 3x1 Spikes then another 1x1 Slime. If you are finding the 1x1 slime is not keeping things slowed enough you can instead just do a 1x1 pattern of slime then spike and so forth. The downside to this is a 1x1 spike will not do its full damage to heroes as they wont be on it long enough. As for the walls of the tunnel, saw traps all the way down. If you are upgrading your traps via research, this will make most dungeon entrances a meatgrinder that only the sturdiest will survive. Then its easy cleanup for an guard forces you have

The Bully Setup - I modelled this setup after all the school bullies who loved to shove and knock people around. This requires more room that the tunnel, but will also do more damage. So what you want is to carve out a 3x4 room, followed by a 1x1 square to connect to the nest room. I will draw a diagram at the end if you cannot picture it. So you will place a pusher at the start of the 3x4 room with a thresher on the other side. This will cause heroes to be pushed INTO your thresher , where they will then be knocked down to take FULL damage. Have your thresher surrounded with spike traps to cause maximum damage. Have a slimetrap by the pusher to make sure heroes will be slowed enough so they all get the shove. Set your pushers timer for 5ish seconds ( adjust as needed ) OR set its trigger to the last square to give ample time for the entire hero bunch to be grouped up in the slime. Then in the 1x1 square that connects them just place a 1x1 slime.
The Infinite Slime Trail - This is my late game trap setup. With this I never have to worry about my dungeonheart being attacked. My only warning with this is you need to have a healthy supply of toolboxes for trap reloading, and having your snots fully upgraded so they can blink around helps tremendously. Anywho this setup is simple, a LONG LONG hallway of spikes and saw traps with the occasional slime trap put in for extra slow, and then at the end of it a slimeball trap. The full setup will look something like this.
Again this setup will trivialise dungeon protection, which leaves you free to roam around topside to your hearts content.


ANYWHO those are my main trap setups. Remember if you have any questions please leave them in the comments section and I will do my best to adress them. I will check my comments probably every friday so that will give you a good idea of response time.

Thank you to Realmforge Studios for continuing this amazing series. Its been a blast and I look forward to the future.

Thank you to everyone reading the guide. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it and hopefully you left with some gained knowledge.

Please feel free to comment and critique or just call out things I may have gotten wrong, I also like to learn things about the games I play :D.

Also don't forgot to rate the guide and plaster it with steam awards.