Undead Buildings

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Undead Buildings

Deathkeep
Like most keeps in the game, the Deathkeep is quite large and has the typical stats for a keep seen across most races. However, come tier 4 and the Deathkeep can research the skill "Dark Citadel". Once complete, the Deathkeep can change day into night on command for 100 crystal. Undead gain massive boosts during night and so you'll find yourself casting this ability quite regularly. With this ability, 5 skills to research, the production of Vampires, as well as the possibility of converting buildings, the Deathkeep has a lot of things it can be doing throughout the course of the game.

Tower (Undead)
Undead Towers aren't particularly great. They have slightly more HP than what is seen to be average (300), but they have a very long build time, especially since their builders are also poor. Its attack type of Electrical has the inherited flaw of not scattering after missing, and it still costs a ridiculous amount - the same amount as many, much better towers. To top it off, the only missile units Undead get that can garrison towers are Liches, who are only available at tier 4. Meaning up until that point in the game, the Undead towers are largely limited in regards to damage output. Still, they're not the worst in terms of stats but they are lacking a bit in terms of practicality.

-- Tier 1 --
Graveyard Graveyards are quite large buildings and have a lot of hit points.They are also very important to Undead early game with production of their builders, basic infantry (which can become any of their infantry) and allows the more common production building - the Gravestone - to be built. As the game goes on, the Graveyard's importance drops. This is due to Gravestones becoming the main production buildings and Cages summoning Thralls for builders / miners. However, the Graveyard can produce an unique unit - the Skeleton Cavalry, and it's this very unit that keeps the building in use late game.

Gravestone
Gravestone may only produce Skeletons, but as they can become any Undead infantry, that is all the Gravestone needs to produce. With its very small size and cheap cost that doesn't use gold, the Undead player can build many of these quite easily and within a confined space. Unfortunately, Gravestones only offer a single point towards the population cap, meaning you'll need to build MANY to support your army size. Interestingly, the Gravestone itself can be morphed into a Skeleton. At first this may not seem like a big deal or anything useful, but if you happen to be unfortunate enough to have your gold mines or / and your ore mines go dry (the resources needed to build Skeletons), then you can still produce Skeletons through essentially "swapping" the resources used to build them by building Gravestones instead and then morphing those into Skeletons.

Boneyard
As well as producing a typical siege weapon, the Undead smithy equivalent also researches weapon and armor upgrades. The Bone Catapult may seem worthless in the hand of the Undead, and their weapon and damage upgrades are few, but the most important use of the Boneyard is that it is required to morph Skeletons into Wights. And, of course, without Wights, there could be no Slayer Knights or Doom Knights nor Liches! To loose the Boneyard to enemy fire is to loose a vital part of your army.

Barrow
The Barrow is a rather small building that is needed to morph Skeletons into Wraiths (and, of course, Shadows). It offers 2 skills to research, which are specific to Wraiths and Shadows, and that's all there is to it. You'll only ever build one of these, probably purchase the 2 skills while it's being built and then forget about its very existence for the remainder of the battle.

Brood level 1
The Undead can produce 2 of the nastiest Dragons around, so you would want to get your Brood to level 3 as soon as you can. As for the other units the Brood can produce - Bats can be useful early game for scouting if you lack a retinue Vampire, but with Shadows available at tier 3, the Harpies main role is already taken, leaving them with only those really situational tasks to do (such as rendering Dwarven Runelords useless). So, if you're not bothered about scouting nor do those rare situations that have need of a Harpy over a Shadow show up, then you could easily forgo building a Brood till tier 5, when Dragons become available. Although, you may still want to start getting one up in tier 4, ready for a quick upgrade once you hit tier 5 and giving you instant access to your Dragons.

Cage
Like the Barrow, the Cage is a small building that allows Skeletons to morph into a stronger unit (in this case, the Slayer Knight), as well as offering skills to power up those newly morphed units. However, the Cage has another function - the ability to "summon" Thralls. Because of this, and the fact that the skills to research are incredibly expensive, you wont immediately forget about the Cage after building it.

Altar of Shadows
As you would probably have guessed, the Altar of Shadows allows Wraiths to morph into Shadows. This time there aren't any unit specific researches to be had, but instead racial mana regen bonuses. The Altar of Shadows has a remarkable amount of hit points, especially considering that it's still a rather small building. But otherwise, it's treated the same as the Barrow and Cage.

Black Library
The Black Library is the final building needed to morph Undead units. With it, you can morph Slayer Knights into either Liches or Doom Knights. (Although Doom Knights still require every other morph related building to be present) Being linked to such powerful units, the Black Library should be built as soon as possible. But as the Black Library also produce the Undead Titan - Lord Bane, be sure to place it well to ensure that he doesn't get stuck in your base after he is produced. The Black Library seems to posses the same stats are the Altar of Shadows, including its hefty hit points. However, the Black Library is slightly larger, but still only average in size. As the building has endless spell researches that is limited only in the amount you can research at any one time, you may want to build a second Black Library to accelerate the amount of spells your Hero will learn - one researches Spell Research. the other Arcane Research. Of course, once you start to produce Lord Bane, then you may even go for a third Black Library.

Brood level 2
At tier 4 comes the second Brood level and with it the production of Harpies. As mentioned earlier, Harpies are very situational and you may not even have need of them in your current game. As much as there may not be a need for Harpies, it is still a good idea to level up your Brood(s) ready for tier 5, making your Dragons appear that much quicker.

Brood level 3
Regardless of race, a level 3 Brood (or Nest / Eyrie) is a frightening thing to behold - but more so when it's in the possession of the Undead! The Undead get access to two of the best Dragons around that can easily turn the tide of battle (and even possibly win it in the case of the Dragonliche), so there is no reason why an Undead player should not be getting a level 3 Brood up. As the earlier fliers are almost useless/redundant you therefore can just upgrade an earlier Brood (or two) and not need to build any more, as your production will not suffer when a Dragon clogs up the production queue.