19. Unlikely Allies

Enemy Tribes: Dakini, Chumara

Starting Spells: Swarm, Lightning, Convert, Landbridge, Invisibility, Swamp, Hypnotise, Tornado, Erode, Earthquake, Flatten, Firestorm, Magical Shield

Permanent spells you can get: None

Temporary Spells you can get: Teleport, Volcano, Firestorm

Buildings you can get: None

Vehicles you can get: None

This is a fairly straightforward level, only you have to make sure that the Dakini do not destroy the Chumara. Fortunately, this means that there's only one enemy tribe to contend with. Unfortunately, the Chumara don't do a whole lot other than build a small settlement and get attacked by the Dakini. You'll be bearing most of the weight in this unlikely alliance. You start with the standard 6 Braves on the island west of the Dakini settlement and the Volcano Stone Head. The Chumara settlement is to the northeast across the ocean, and there is a ridge to the east which separates their settlement from the Dakini's. The Dakini, of course, will cast Erode on this ridge shortly into the start of the level so they can attack the Chumara. You should make it a priority to get over there and help your allies. Begin with Converting Wildmen and building Huts on the plateau near your Reincarnation Site. Be as quick as you can about it, as the Wildmen seem to die off quickly on this world. Also send 6 Braves to the lowlands to the west and the Teleport Stone Head at the far west end of your island.

This Stone Head will give you three uses of the Teleport spell, which you can use to get your Shaman over to the Chumara settlement (or anywhere else) before you have boats or balloons. If you want to blunt the Dakini attack, you should charge up Swamp or Lightning at the very least. Luckily the Dakini aren't intent on wiping out the Chumara with their first attack, and they will withdraw after a little while. When you place as many Huts as you can on the plateau, you should expand your settlement into the lowlands. The path down from the plateau is too steep to build on, so you'll need to build a Guard Tower before you can expand. You can then tear down the Tower for its wood once you get a few buildings up. The area right below the plateau to the north (by the coast) has four trees nearby, and I recommend building your Balloon Hut there. You'll need balloons quickly so you can get your Shaman over to help the Chumara when you run out of Teleport spells. This location allows a lot of nearby wood to build your balloons. There are a moderate number of trees on this world, so if you place your buildings carefully you shouldn't run out of wood.

Build your other Training Huts in that area with your Balloon Hut and expand with more Huts if you think you need the population. The lowlands have a lot of narrow hills around the coastal areas, but you can take care of these with Land Bridge or Flatten (Land Bridge is less mana intensive, so you can get it more easily with a smaller population). Now for defense. You should start building Guard Towers at the far west of your island (south side of the inlet) as soon as you have your Training Huts done. You don't have a lot of area to build on (unless you make some more), but I was able to fit 4 Towers in that space (3 Firewarrior 1 Preacher). After the Dakini raid the Chumara a few times they will open a Land Bridge to your island and attack from there. They tend to have enough followers (with Magical Shield on them), in addition to their Shaman, so Guard Towers alone won't be able to stop them. The Towers will distract them long enough for you to bring another force of Warriors and Preachers to bear, and you should always have this backup force ready to deal with Dakini raiders.

With that in mind, the best defense on this world is actually Swamps. Neither the Dakini nor the Chumara have balloons (the Dakini have boats, but I never saw them use them), so you can fly your Shaman around in her own balloon and lay down Swamps on the Land Bridge the Dakini create to your settlement, and in between the Dakini and Chumara settlements. If you have enough followers so that your Swamp charges fairly quickly you can lay down three (or more) Swamps on a single patch of ground. This will cost the Dakini at least several attack forces before they can get through, in which case you can just replace your Swamps. Finishing off the Dakini is not as difficult in this level as it has been in others. Once you have a few balloons you should make a small (10 or so) Firewarrior air force and start charging your Shaman's other spells. Send 6 of your Firewarriors to the Volcano Stone Head and worship it (the Dakini can reach the Stone Head from where they're at, so keep the Shaman handy to cast Lighting or Swamp before anyone disturbs your worshippers).

The best part of this Stone Head is that once you worship it, a Volcano is triggered in the crater southeast of the Stone Head. This is a bit too far away to do much damage, but it will light the Dakini's Firewarrior Training Hut on fire at least. You can then fly your Shaman around, casting Lighting on Guard Towers and Tornado on Huts. Fly to the northeast, where most of the Dakini's Huts are, and use your second Volcano there. This will cause massive damage and kill many of their Braves. You can then cause as much magical mystical mayhem as you can before you send in your Firewarriors to hunt down the stragglers. You can send a force over to the Firestorm Stone Head, located on an island far to the southeast of your Reincarnation Site, but it is surrounded by a Swamp and will require you to sacrifice 10 of your followers to worship it.

If you have the mana, and need the spell, you can just charge Firestorm normally at this point in the game, so I don't see much of a point in using this Stone Head. Once you complete the last four levels you have a choice of Archipelago or Fractured Earth. You must complete both to move onto the final series of levels in the game. Note that you get Angel of Death in Archipelago and Volcano in Fractured Earth. If you play Archipelago first you will have Angel of Death to use in Fractured Earth, and vice versa.