Hehe first ironman try

[ewert]

Hobbit ranger.

Dlvl2.

Read un'id scroll. Death screen. =P Monster list: 13 novice warriors... Summoning scroll, ouch.

[Derakon]

I once lost a level-1 half-troll warrior to thinking I could take on a zombified human.

[fph]

I'm hijacking the thread to ask: does anyone have hints for Ironman play?
I've been playing several HT priests recently; for the initial shopping, I buy 2x pb1, 2x pb2, a couple of ?phase, food, torches and flasks of oil. I go down and I tend to clear every level scumming for consumables, as soon as it is practical. I keep CLW/CSW/CCW, speed potions, missiles, and escape scrolls. I ditch any food as soon as I learn satisfy hunger (rationale: if all of my pb2 burn, I am screwed anyway). I wear a =teleportation as soon as I find it, for the speed bonus.
Some of my attempts got to statgain depth, at which things become increasingly difficult. Staying on the same level indefinitely is not an option anymore (hounds would destroy my precious consumables). The random teleportation induced by the =teleport starts landing me in troublesome places, so I have to ditch it --- but barring a lucky find, it is nearly impossible to find other speed items. Early use of Portal (pb2) when things start to look slightly bad is still my #1 means of escape. I still rely on lucky finds to get the base 4 and rPois. If I don't have them, every big breather on the level forces me to take a staircase down, and things become worse and worse.

Am I doing it wrong? What are other important points when playing Ironpersons?

[nullfame]

I haven't tried ironman but, IIRC, have read PB3 is a must buy for the priest.

[joshhimself]

Am I doing it wrong? What are other important points when playing Ironpersons?

I've been playing exclusively ironman priests recently, so I think I can help. I haven't had an ironman winner yet, but I consistently make it to somewhere between dlvl 50 and 90.

(1) You absolutely MUST buy pb3 in the town. It is the key to your survival, and it's not "in depth" until dlvl 20, and it may be a lot deeper than that before you find it. To afford it, you need to leave between 3 and 5 stat points unassigned to get extra starting cash.

(2) If you're having trouble keeping the half-troll alive, consider playing a dwarf. The extra spell points, resist blindness, and better infravision will aid your survival more than the regeneration and a bit of extra strength and hit points.

With my dwarves, I assign 8 points to wis and 6 each to str and con. When I was just learning ironman, I put 12 into wis and 8 into str, since con is not so important until you make it deep into the dungeon.

I sell the ?recall and one of the !CSW, and spend the cash on one each of pb2 and pb3, one ?phase, and the rest on oil and torches. I might buy one food if my starting quota is low, but food should never be a problem with pb2 (half-trolls eat more, though, because of their regeneration). If you're willing to endure a lot of early deaths in favor of a better late game, you can assign your full allotment of stat points, sell your mace, and go barehanded until you find a weapon in the dungeon.

(3) I suggest you take the obj-desc.spo and reconfigure it to sort each item type by native depth. You can then compare your list to your object knowledge from the ~ menu to see what an unIDed item is likely to be, so that you can test it in the right situation. You can even check them off as you find them if you want to be extra careful.

(4) As you already know, be very paranoid of fire breathers and melee burners. In situations where you must fight them, consider stashing your spell books and other precious flammable items in a safe place. You can use the same trick with cold and electrical attacks, although these are less of a threat than fire. There are tricks for dealing with hounds when necessary. My favorite is standing two steps into a hallway, waiting for the hounds to enter the room through a different hallway entrance, then using orb to dispose of them. You may have to manually aim the orb into spots you can't see. The way the angband targeting works, a missile can travel one space horizontally/vertically then as many as you want diagonally. The hounds can't see you if you set it up correctly, and they won't enter your hallway unless you're below 50% of your hit points.

(5) I'm not a big fan of rings of teleportation (a ring of strength can often help your speed just as much), but 2 rings of escaping (+8 speed!) is worth considering - for the dwarf with high wisdom more than the half-troll. Sometimes I use this as my basic configuration, sometimes not. Amulet of infravision is your best early amulet (better than acid or lightning, which don't protect your equipment) before amulets of wisdom start appearing.

(6) Knowing what to keep and what to pitch can be tough in ironman. Don't weigh yourself down by hoarding a bunch of consumable stuff you never end up using. On the other hand, having the right weapon and equipment swaps available is critical. I'll often wield a +wisdom weapon as my default and then switch to another one for higher damage (or free action or see invisible, etc). I even swap rings a lot.

(7) The main things you need to survive through the middle levels of the dungeon are pb5 and either pb6 or ESP. Also, wisdom and stealth are more important than most of the resistances.

I hope that at least some of that helps.

[fph]

Whoa, very helpful, thanks a lot. I'll try dwarves and all your hints then.

A couple of extra questions, if I may:
1) probably I haven't seen this vital need for pb3 up to now because I've not been using it to its full potential. What are the key spells in there? I regularly use only OoD (which costs too much mana to be my main killing device anyway, so I use it as if I were carrying two or three extra bolt rods) and protection from evil (makes dealing with orcs a piece of cake)
2) how much time do you spend on each level? Enough to clear it, less, or more (enough to get significative respawn by resting)?
3) how do you "reconfigure obj-desc.spo"?
4) what consumables do you keep at first? For example, are !heroism and !berserk a keeper?

[miyazaki]

I'm hijacking the thread to ask: does anyone have hints for Ironman play?
I've been playing several HT priests recently; for the initial shopping, I buy 2x pb1, 2x pb2, a couple of ?phase, food, torches and flasks of oil. I go down and I tend to clear every level scumming for consumables, as soon as it is practical. I keep CLW/CSW/CCW, speed potions, missiles, and escape scrolls. I ditch any food as soon as I learn satisfy hunger (rationale: if all of my pb2 burn, I am screwed anyway). I wear a =teleportation as soon as I find it, for the speed bonus.
Some of my attempts got to statgain depth, at which things become increasingly difficult. Staying on the same level indefinitely is not an option anymore (hounds would destroy my precious consumables). The random teleportation induced by the =teleport starts landing me in troublesome places, so I have to ditch it --- but barring a lucky find, it is nearly impossible to find other speed items. Early use of Portal (pb2) when things start to look slightly bad is still my #1 means of escape. I still rely on lucky finds to get the base 4 and rPois. If I don't have them, every big breather on the level forces me to take a staircase down, and things become worse and worse.

Am I doing it wrong? What are other important points when playing Ironpersons?

It took me 53 attempts in a row before I got a winner. Used a Dunadan priest. Just keep at it!

After playing that last competition, I discovered that half-troll priests are really hard in the early game because they have such poor stealth. I was constantly forced into many fights I wanted to avoid.

I like =teleport. But you have to use them judiciously. There are fewer things more annoying than killing a tough foe and being transported away from the loot it drops!

I'm not convinced that buying pb3 in town is essential. It is a long time before you can use OoD because you need to conserve MP for defense (remove fear, CLW, portal). By the time your WIS is high enough to give you enough MP to use OoD, you can usually find pb3 in the dungeon.

[PowerDiver]

I agree that PB3 is necessary, but I got it by selling my mace. Of course, initial equipment is changing so I don't know if that works any more. Take a look at http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthr...=ferric+diving.

[joshhimself]

1) probably I haven't seen this vital need for pb3 up to now because I've not been using it to its full potential. What are the key spells in there? I regularly use only OoD (which costs too much mana to be my main killing device anyway, so I use it as if I were carrying two or three extra bolt rods) and protection from evil (makes dealing with orcs a piece of cake)

It's mostly for OoD, which will quickly become a principal attack method. With a starting wisdom of 18/40 or 18/50, I use it a *lot* even as early as clvl 9. There are many creatures that you don't want to melee, and it is also your only good way to kill uniques in the early game. Once you add your first holy avenger/blessed/*slay evil* weapon, your spell points can take a big jump. Then an amulet of wisdom soon, leading to another big jump. I often find an amulet of wisdom before I find a pb3, even though the amulet is technically a "deeper" item.

Detect surroundings and protection from evil are also important, but OoD is the reason I recommend starting with pb3. In some games, detect invisible is important.

2) how much time do you spend on each level? Enough to clear it, less, or more (enough to get significative respawn by resting)?

This varies according to how interesting/dangerous the level is. Early on, I prefer to clear levels so that I can more easily ID most the shallow objects. But diving relatively quickly can work, too.

3) how do you "reconfigure obj-desc.spo"?

It's a text file. I just opened it in MSWord and cut and pasted things into a more useful order, then printed a copy.

4) what consumables do you keep at first? For example, are !heroism and !berserk a keeper?

I don't usually keep those except for very early in the game. Once I start running out of space or getting slowed by weight, I just figure out what is least useful or what is not worth its weight. It will depend a lot upon your playing style. For example, I rarely carry attack wands/rods except very early in the game, because I find that I almost never use them. If you tend use them a lot, then you should carry them. Neither way is "correct," it's just about what you need to support your preferred play style.

[Timo Pietilä]

Whoa, very helpful, thanks a lot. I'll try dwarves and all your hints then.

A couple of extra questions, if I may:
1) probably I haven't seen this vital need for pb3 up to now because I've not been using it to its full potential. What are the key spells in there? I regularly use only OoD (which costs too much mana to be my main killing device anyway, so I use it as if I were carrying two or three extra bolt rods) and protection from evil (makes dealing with orcs a piece of cake)

OoD. Get a dwarf with 18/50 WIS and don't learn any spells at clevel 8 to make sure that you get it at clvl 9. It is very powerful against most uniques and very fast becomes your main weapon against pretty much anything, except in cases where you have good ego-shooter and ego ammunition which is actually useful. Against groups of monsters it is best weapon in the game. It is probably the best attack spell in entire game.

[fph]

[obj-info.spo is] a text file. I just opened it in MSWord and cut and pasted things into a more useful order, then printed a copy.

I see. But I have a better plan: let's ask to the devs to have it sorted it in "native-depth order" by default -- it looks more useful than the current sort-by-price.

[fph]

Thanks a lot, your suggestion worked like a charm. Dwarves are really much easier to play than HTs after the first levels. I was able to win on my second attempt with a dwarf.

BTW yes, the "C" in the name is a Roman numeral. This accounts for more or less all my half-troll ironman attempts, of which many are early deaths, and at least 20 are when I kept suiciding them trying to scum for Farmer Maggot in the town. (gave up soon, it isn't worth the time lost).