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The Barracks is a room in Dungeon Keeper.

Usage[]

The Barracks are introduced by an Orc warlord in Wishvale as a means of grouping creatures. This room forms creatures into a Party, which is an organizational unit seen among many, or even perhaps most, of the enemy heroes. The player leads the party by taking possession of one of the barracks' occupants, whom the rest of the membership will follow.

Barracks enable players to group creatures and then take control of one to guide them around dungeons. To do this, you have to pick up all the creatures you want in your group and drop them onto a Barracks room. They stay there until you possess one. The creature whom you possess acts as the group’s leader, and the others follow you wherever you go. Supposedly, if you do not possess a creature, the creature with the most experience is considered the leader and the others will follow him/her (it is also claimed that you can pick up and drop the leader elsewhere),[1] though this does not appear to be the case.

Some creatures will not group together: creatures that dislike each other by default, such as Spiders and Fly, refuse to group with each other, and Horned Reapers refuse to group with anyone at all. Once the leader is released from possession, the group disbands and the creatures go back to their normal jobs (in KeeperFX, however, the party returns to the Barracks instead).

Remarks[]

Ordinarily, the Call to Arms spell is superior to the barracks as a means of directing creatures to mount an offensive. It leaves the player in control overhead, able to monitor the offensive and throw spells; it imposes no limit on the number of creatures that can rally to it; it permits orders like destroying enemy doors and rooms; and finally, it's just extremely reliable. One potential advantage of using a barracks, though, is to send a pack of very slow-moving creatures a long distance in lockstep with the party leader. Party members in Dungeon Keeper discard their personal speed statistic and adopt the leader's speed; and if they need to suddenly catch up, they are granted a speed of 255.

The Barracks are notoriously unreliable, so don't be disheartened if you cannot get it to work. Possessing the highest level creature in the group may help. Some Keepers build a Barracks only to attract Orcs. Due to a bug, grouping in the Barracks only seems to work if there are at least three creatures in it, and even then, one is always left behind. This is fixed in KeeperFX.

Trivia[]

  • Despite its position on the Rooms Panel, the Barracks are researched after the Workshop, and before the Prison and Torture Chamber.
  • In Dungeon Keeper, no party can exceed eight creatures, so a maximum of seven creatures will follow you.
  • It is never made apparent in-game how this room is supposed to be used. Because of this, the Barracks can be mistaken for another type of Guard Post; the room's icon even does nothing to correct this misconception. Creatures even sometimes come here and wander around it of their own accord, just like they do in a Guard Post.
  • Party leader crown icon Dungeon Keeper
    The manual claims that a crown icon appears above the head of the leader of a party created in a Barracks. However, as there is no leader until a creature is possessed and the party is disbanded once they are depossessed, one never gets to see where this icon would appear when the manual says it would. It is even absent in multiplayer when one is looking at another player's party leader.[verification needed]

References[]

  1. Prima's Official Guide To Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition. p. 108. (1998). ISBN 978-0-7615-1581-4.
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