Information for this game is scattered, and the tutorial is just a random to-do list that grows heads like a hydra. I'm assuming eventually you can win Level 1 and unlock other stuff, but it's really disorienting and I have no idea what I'm even trying to do.

It took me a long time to figure out some quirks in the interface. Apparently you are given a totem at level 2, so you don't have to craft one. But you have to drag it from the crafting menu and onto your hotkey bar to be able to place it. I was waiting a really long time to figure out how to build one before I figured this out.

And then if you accidentally dig out a back wall underground, your entire base is invalidated until you can unlock Wood Wall somewhere around Tier 3 tech or whenever it is. And of course it's easy to do that because when you turn on the Clear command, it's not always obvious whether you're clearing out something on the ground or if you're clearing out the wall itself...

I'm also getting rapidly bored with dragging ingredients onto the recipe to build stuff for the first time. Why all the tedious motions? Augh.

1. To complete a level you need to find an ancient portal scroll which are way underground, I'm pretty sure heavily guarded.

2. If you accidentally dig out a back wall, just stick anything else in there! :P So long as it keeps the sky from coming through you are good. Of course, I build 99% of my base underground anyway to help with attacks.

Also, here are the Hot Keys.

OKAY I WAS WRONG! :P

I got the scroll, built the portal piece, and nothing. XD

It's so weird not knowing what it's all about or where it's headed. It's like a weird cult where you keep completing tasks to find out what the next task is, but you don't know where it's going. It's a bit much for an intro level

Well I'm loving it but I'm learning.

Evidently there are five guard with five portal scrolls. You need to kill each guard, get their scroll, and build all five pieces. Right now that seems impossible but I keep learning ways around things. The vedor is a massive help and can sell you almost anything for the price.

Also, small hint. As soon as you can, use a portal to each of the three graveyards and take out the head stones. It will get you some nice stone and cut way down on skeleton attacks.

You might not want to destroy ALL the graves. It can make bones harder to come by later.

Ooops. :P

Do post your experience with the second world as I had to quit it due to frustration.

I'm not doing so bad.

I built huge stone towers, four to five wide, on each side of my base which keeps most of the monsters out, and five to six cannons on my roof for the flying ones.

Don't forget, the little furry bastards with the camp are totally harmless so long as YOU DON'T ATTACK THEM!!!!

Of course I still haven't found any of the Guardians so this could get bad. :P

Have you had 3 portals spawn already? For me 1 spawned just outside left and right entrances and one on my bases roof. There was barely room for traps or other defences on either side and flyers just trash the ballista I have time to set up. My dwarves we barely strong enough to deal with one portal (even that only with 20-30 potions) but usually the other two hordes broke in before I had time to do even that so it became a mess (dwarf AI is simply horrible) so each time they kill half of my population and trash half of my base and I usually only have time to fix things and rebuild my insufficient defences until next wave so I was basically stuck in an endless loop.

No, but I can tell you right now traps a re a waste. My goal is too keep them trying to get to me long enough for the sun to rise and they leave. Shit, i wish I could take screen shots of my setup. 99% of my base is underground which also really helps.

Don't monster's just dig thru the roof if there's too many obstacles? They did in mine after I tried to build obstacles (high walls and floating blocks) in their way and those holes take way too long to fil in due to stupid AI. Also what did you do about the stockpile that's aboveground when you start the game?

They can't dig through the roof if they can't get to it. :P When I say walls, I don't mean of the building, I mean actual stone walls totally separate from the main structure, four to five wide, ten or more high. They might get through, but if the do it will only be a few and it will take so long they won't have much time to do anything before the sun comes up and cooks them. :D

The only monsters that can scale walls are skeletons and that's by stacking on each other. If you build the walls high enough it will take them a long time to do that and 50% of the time their totem will collapse before completion.

That leaves the little flying bastards which your cannons can take care of plus or minus a little help from your archers. Also don't neglect your fire ball spell. It won't outright kill anything but it will weaken them enough to make them much easier for your men to finish off. What I really like to do is wait till they have a huge totem up, hit the bottom one with a fire ball, and watch the whole damn thing crumble. :P

As for the stock pile, ignore it. Early on protecting it is a waste of time. Those ghost might throw shit around but you can always pick it back up.

I did exacly that. Build 5 block wide 7-8 block high wall to slow them down but instead of trying to go over it, they just dug 10 blocks down into my tunnel network spanning the whole map and thru my roof. That's 10 blocks of rock btw. I basically tried any means avaialble to me but nothing worked. The hordes are just too big (like 100 skeletons, 50+ gargoyles, dozens of eye beasts, giant skeletons and trolls) and I just got swarmed what ever I did.

As for magic, I'm at the point it takes hours to get a level to replenish my magic so I had to use mana potions to have any most of the time and most of that is used portals as it takes way too long for dwarves to walk anywhere (like 5-10 minutes just to walk once from base to bottom of my tunnels and back).