Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
Dungeons 3 Tips – Units, Evilness, Efficiency, Traps & More
Looking for Dungeons 3 tips to take your dungeon strategy to the next level? On this page we’ll detail units, evilness, efficiency, how to rotate traps and everything else to establish yourself as the ultimate evil.
Dungeons 3 is a strategy fantasy game similar to the Dungeon Keeper franchise in which players lead Thalya, a dark elf in her progression from good hero to dark conqueror. Like other strategy titles Dungeons 3 requires careful planning with macro and micro management decisions intertwined which become even more important on the higher difficulties.
As a player of Dungeons 3 with over 100 hours of solo and coop gameplay I’ve collected my best tips across key game categories to help you beat every available campaign level, earn all the game achievements and dominate multiplayer battles.
Dungeons 3 Tips – Best Units List
Like any strategy game the Dungeons 3 units you select are central to the tactics that you’ll employ with the best units discussed below. While the game includes a fantastic almanac that combined with the Dungeons 3 unit wiki ensures you can learn the statistics of each creature using them on the battlefield is a different matter. The tips below provide details on the different archetypes you’ll have available and which units to use when throughout the Dungeons 3 campaign.
Pre-planning which units you intend to use and in what ratio early on is an important tip to implement as this can have a large impact on what rooms you build with your limited gold (or until you claim an available diamond vein).
Thalya
As one of the most powerful units and one that you start most missions with Thalya is worth her own brief discussion. She is a capable level 1 fighter and should always fight alongside your overworld hero raiding party or dungeon defence as needed. Importantly if Thalya dies you will only be meet with a small cooldown and gold cost to revive her that is based on her level.
While fighting with Thalya you’ll want to manually activate her fire bomb skill as often as possible given it drives the bulk of her damage per second. While upgrading her with evilness does improve the damage on this and her basic attack slightly it’s rarely worth the investment compared to other options like more creatures or a creature specific upgrade that you have multiple of.
Horde Units
The first units that players are introduced to during the campaign you’ll find these are durable units and supported from the rear by the Naga that can heal them during battle. There additional need is a steady supply of beer and they are the only free unit type when it comes to arena training that allows them to easily reach high levels without being a gold drain.
- Goblin: While weak individually they aren’t targeted when there are other allied units in the fight. Their Gob-O-Bot upgrade is also surprisingly effective due to the area of effect attack that few other units offer.
- Orc: A staple damage absorbing unit which rarely dies when supported by a healing Naga behind them, particularly in their upgraded Ironhide form.
- Naga: One of the main support units of the game that can heal horde units and Thalya that make them a mainstay of any horde fighting party.
Demon Units
The damage dealers of your army that also won’t be lost like horde units if they fall in battle as they can be revived with mana which combined with their automatic regeneration makes them the strongest unit type. They are vital in any dungeon even if you don’t intend to use them on the front line due to their ability to generate mana for spell usage.
- Imp: While they have great range to their attack and a welcome early support unit to the horde for damage they are quickly overtaken by the Arachnid that can deal similar damage with added durability.
- Arachnid: The strongest of all units in Dungeons 3 who alone can carry any single map with great speed and efficiency. When in doubt you simply can’t go wrong with stacking the Arachnid power on any campaign level. This power comes from their durable nature, health regeneration, mana generation and solid damage numbers.
- Succubus: An often overlooked demon unit that is used to convert heroes in the Torture Chamber which can be useful given they have a separate population limit. She can also be highly effective if used to temporarily convert high level heroes during a fight.
Undead Units
The final archetype that players are exposed to in Dungeons 3 that also do not suffer death like demons although they are generally much slower to recover in their Graveyard. Because of this and their expensive room and research needs to be effective the undead units won’t see as much action as other unit types but still bring utility to the broader dungeon. Undead also has the unique zombies and skeleton archers that give you a full squad of creatures for no population points and while weak they can be a meat shield for your other units or slow down an enemy dungeon attack.
- Banshee: Another unit that has some area of effect power with their deadly scream slowing enemy attack speed that can be useful in dungeon corridors. Otherwise though the banshee offers little to the table outside of undead utility like reviving the horde in the crypt or crafting magical boxes.
- Lich: Up there with the strongest units of the game the lich is a character that starts off weak but with some levels and upgrades quickly transforms into a unit that rivals the Arachnid thanks to their icy attacks.
- Vampire: Offering great durability due to the ability to heal themselves in combat the vampire is a great 1v1 unit for those tough foes and in particular bosses. However, the expense to unlock them in the research tree each game and their average power otherwise makes them rarely worth it.
Dungeons 3 Evilness Tips
Evilness (alongside gold) is a vital game currency in Dungeons 3 and effective acquiring of it paired with efficient spending is a careful part of resource management. So how to get evilness in Dungeons 3? This requires players to either conquer good locations outside of their dungeon, capture heroes and let them die in prison or place them in the torture chamber instead.
With this in mind the majority of your evilness will come from good locations that you capture and slowly provide you game currency over time along with a strong initial boost for your first purchase with the currency. Maximising evilness means players should ensure they:
- Capture the closest good location as early as possible to start the flow of evilness currency.
- Spend wisely with a focus on increasing your monster count and upgrades for your key units.
Dungeons 3 Room Efficiency Tips
Have you ever wondered what that room efficiency number is when you mouse over each of your rooms? This efficiency stat in Dungeons 3 is surprisingly powerful and often overlooked by the player base as it is not obvious or included in the game tutorial.
Efficiency directly impacts the effectiveness of that room in performing its primary function. For the Hideout, Vortex and Graveyard for example this means a higher room efficiency results in faster healing. Keeping this number above 90% should always be your goal which is achieved by building all your rooms with only a single entrance way when first built. Later on in your progression when you unlock doors these can be built in the entrances to achieve 100% efficiency scores.
Dungeons 3 Trap Tips
Traps are most useful in Dungeons 3 skirmish mode where attacks are more frequent and deadly but still have a role in defensive levels that see you on the back foot rather than attacking the overworld. While unlocking all the traps is quite the evilness investment you can maximise the return on this expense by:
- Creating long winding paths from the dungeon entrance to your dungeon heart to increase the number of traps heroes are exposed to. This also gives you the opportunity to layer floor and wall traps.
- Don’t forget to rotate your traps (default key: O) to ensure traps are facing the intended direction for maximum hero carnage.
Dungeons 3 Coop Tips
The Dungeons 3 coop campaign is one of the biggest selling points of the game and regularly referenced in the War For The Overworld vs Dungeons 3 debate given the similar release date of these dungeon management strategy titles. Whether you are playing the campaign in a cooperative manner or one of the many skirmish challenges following these tips below can ensure your success and avoid potential bugs:
- Assign each person a role from dungeon building to overworld raiding to ensure there is no confusion in your evil ranks.
- Ensure that you have someone assigned to creature pick up as this can create bugs around creature pickup and drop off that require a game save and load to correct.
- Communicate with your partner on where to invest your evilness and the plan for your next few minutes of game time for which objectives you want to focus on.
Dungeons 3 Tips (General)
Need more Dungeons 3 tips to help you beat the most difficult game levels that it has to offer? Here are a selection of useful general tips to integrate into your strategy:
- You can use creatures in your dungeon such as spiders and dragons to attack incoming heroes by building your paths for them to intersect.
- Sending your minions outside instantly meets all their needs provided you have the necessary resource. Use this to quickly address creature payday to prevent walking time to a distant treasury room.
- Always target the healers first in any hero group as healing is a significant hindrance to winning battles. This can also be done in your dungeon with a right click on the hero you wish to target.
- Carefully consider who is the best creature for any books that you find. Damage related books should be used to buff up Thalya or deadly damaging demons for example.
- Heroes that belong the Gunner archetype (Gunner, Bombardier or Master Gunner) should be disengaged after they summon their turret due to the significant damage it deals. Dragging them into a fight away from their turret is the ideal situation.
- Wondering how to get mana in large volumes? Building a large mana Arcanium with multiple shrines and locking demons in the walls will produce the best results.
- Never neglect the available research options you have, your first upgrades should always be specific to your army units.
- Always purchase additional Little Snots at the start of a level with your available gold to get a faster game start of gold mining and room building.
- If you want to sacrifice or delete a unit you can use the available trap door next to your Dungeon Heart.
- Looking for tips on how to convert heroes in the torture chamber? Make sure you have high room efficiency and start early when they have a higher health pool.
- Slap your Little Snots with your hand of evil, this will boost their speed of movement and action for a short period of time.
Dungeons 3 FAQ
While not Dungeons 3 tips the below answers some frequently asked questions from the game community.
- Dungeons 3 Mods: There are currently no Dungeons 3 mods or plans to implement them (due to development constraints), do not download any content presenting itself as a mod.
- Dungeons 3 Cheats: The cheats for Dungeons 3 are available through console commands and not through a cheat engine or game trainer. This does require a minor modification to a configuration file to enable them which gives you the ability to activate god modes, add resources (evilness, gold and mana) and other convenience powers. I recommend this GameSpot article on the subject for the full details.
- Dungeons 3 Multiplayer: Multiplayer gameplay in Dungeons 3 is available through the matchmaking server where you can find a duel other players in domination and deathmatch game modes. Given the small community of Dungeons 3 though (several hundreds of players online at a time as at 2021) pre organising games with friends or those from the community is your best bet. Note that coop is available in the campaign and skirmish game modes.
- Dungeons 3 DLC: There is a long DLC list for Dungeons 3 with the developer releasing 7 different DLCs from February 2018 to February 2020 that each add their own new map based content and a golden pickaxe to hunt. The order of release and details of each is available on our Dungeons 3 review page.
