Butterscotch

Butterscotch. King Reginald has sent the three princes royal to guard this land, and warn him if evil threatens to master it. Between them, the princes hold the secret of this land’s Portal Gem. Convert these princes to your side, and they will surely reveal it to you. If any Prince either dies, or escapes to his father’s side, then the secret of the Portal Gem will be lost to us, and we will never reach the sunlit kingdom of the heroes.

You must capture and convert each Prince.

King Reginald has sent his three sons to patrol this land and report any threat. Between them they hold the secret of the Portal Gem. Be wary: if any Prince is injured, they will all attempt to flee the realm through Hero Gates, and if any of them either escapes your clutches or dies before revealing his secret, you will be unable to locate the Gem.

Business Model

This is your penultimate challenge … grab the Princes, break their tender hearts, twist their shiny souls. How can you help but love your job? First off, you start off in a dungeon that already has plenty of space ready-dug and claimed by your industrious Imps, including a Prison, Torture Chamber and Treasury. That’s an excellent beginning. It’s entirely up to your own inclinations when to bridge over to the Portal at the center of your dungeon. It really doesn’t matter much, as long as you get to work mining gold and building your choice of rooms first. However, be warned that as soon as you open up your dungeon to the lava that surrounds you on three sides, a group of Fairies will attack you. That’s going to hurt, so make sure you’ve got some strong fighters first. In fact, it’s a good idea to go introduce yourself to the neutral Level 10 Black Knight who resides to the west. Your absolute, number one, no-jokes-about-it priority is to not lay a finger on any of the three Princes until you are sure that you are completely ready to stop them from escaping. Unfortunately, you’ve got a band of blood-thirsty, trouble-making leg-breakers working for you, so it’s not a bad idea to sack all your Fireflies (you don’t need random exploration around here) and to lock all the other creatures in your dungeon to prevent them from starting anything when you’re not looking. That’s what they do, and it would be disastrous under the circumstances. Meanwhile, now that your creatures are happily training and eating and sleeping or what have you, send an Imp out to collect the Specials. Keep your eye on this creature.All you want is the Specials, not a chance encounter with one of the skittish Princes. The Specials in the lava that surrounds your dungeon are all Increase Levels; these are obviously very useful. The Giants to the north are guarding a Reveal Map special — this is invaluable for watching the movements of all those Princes. Information is the key word here. Omniscience is one of those really, really useful skills. Take a look at your dungeon. Ignore your brute squads and death dealers for the moment and look at your manual laborers. Doors and bridges are going to play a large role in the upcoming battles. Do you have a good supply of strong doors? Do you have a lot of Imps ready to put things in place? Do you have enough money to build Stone Bridges wherever you want? That’s what you need to concentrate on right now. When you’re ready, carefully send out some Imps, and make sure they do only what you want them to do.

Consider Prince Balder. He patrols the south of the realm, and can be rendered helpless without too much effort. Build Stone Bridges over to the bridges that the Prince patrols. Claim the Hero bridges. Then all you have to do is wait until he is on the island between them, and sell the bridges. It’s almost pathetic how easy it is to cut him off from all the Hero Gates. He’s apparently not very popular either, since you can leave him there for as long as you like and no one will head out to build him an exit. Tsk, tsk. Now turn your attention to the other two Princes, Felix and Tristran. You’ve got two main choices here — attack them both at the same time (preferably at the point where their patrols intersect) and hope that you can bring them both down, or cut them off from their Hero Gates. There are a variety of ways this can be accomplished. For instance, you could lure them out onto spurs of your own Stone Bridges, and then sell back enough to cut them off from the Hero Gates. That’s always satisfying. You could also block their routes with locked Secret Doors. Trapped like rats in a box, they’ll no longer be able to find their way to the Hero Gates. Once you’ve got them all trapped, you can move on to the next stage. Send out an army of Imps to stand by, drop a fighter in with each Prince, and allow him to knock each one out. Then set your Imps to work building any necessary connecting bridges, and don’t forget to unlatch any locked doors. Drop an Imp on each one to drag them back to your Prison. The fun is just beginning. Now torture them with tender care and lots of Heal spells, and the secret of the Portal Gem will be yours. Note that once a Prince has converted to your side, he has told you all he knows and if he dies after that (say at the hands of his brother) it will be no loss to you. Now it is time to face the ultimate task!