angband strategy guide

[Tibarius]

Dear Folks,
i am in to write / make an Angband strategy guide. I wanted to do that for years already ... now is the time

I started this thread to collect Input from other fellow Players. What should be included, what not, suggestions for layout, Content - everything is welcomed.

First question:
PDF Format or .txt file for ordinary text Editor?
pro PDF: i could add Pictures and screenshots, quite easily
pro txt: everyone can use it, regardless of the operating System

Cheers,
Tibarius

[Nick]

IIRC someone did something like this a couple of years ago - anyone recall? That might be a good starting point.

[Derakon]

Well, I wrote TANG over a decade ago (!), but it's woefully out of date and should not be relied on for anything.

I wouldn't worry too much about the specifics of the format; just write in whatever is easiest for you to work with. As for what to include, a starting guide for each of the classes would be good -- what to buy, what to watch out for, general playstyle guidelines. Some warning that mages are hard would be a good idea too.

[Nick]

I think this was what I was thinking of. We probably should advertise that better.

[fph]

IIRC someone did something like this a couple of years ago - anyone recall? That might be a good starting point.

Not sure if this is what you remembered, but three years ago I took care of converting the Angband in-game guide to a different format. We discussed which one, and then we decided for ReStructured Text (RST, the standard format for Python documentation). It is a markup language that is meant to be readable when opened as plain-text, but easy to convert to other formats (html/pdf). It is similar in spirit to Markdown, which is more common today due to support in several popular sites.

One of these two formats would be my suggestion for this guide, too.
The in-game guide required a few ugly hacks, since we did not want to implement a full RST-to-screen parser inside Angband or depend on an external library, but this is not a concern here.

Thanks for the effort to help the Angband community, Tibarius!

[Tibarius]

re: first Input

Nick: Yes, a very good starting Point indeed - to know what resources already are available is indeed valuable. I DID read that guide some years back, but had forgotten about it.

So, i guess i first have to gather the requirements and define the Goals this product should meet. Well i wanted to produce an "advanced" guide for Players like myself - who seek Information beyond those, which are available for example in this player's guide on the help-site of the angband Webpage (which Nick reffered to).

Nevertheless - a complete guide would cover this Topic too i guess.

fph: I am using windows7 on a home pc. As writing application i am using open-Office for all my personal texts. It offers a cool PDF conversion function, which i had in mind using for this guide. So it would be either a plain text file i am able to produce or a nice looking PDF document. Which is what i would go for at this Point. A single document you can download and print easily if you like to. Most Windows users i know of have a browser and are easily able to download and install the acrobate PDF Reader. I must admit tho, that a document readable with a browser alone would even be more simple to open and distribute.

[mrrstark]

So it would be either a plain text file i am able to produce or a nice looking PDF document.

If you go with a "plain" text file, but follow a syntax like Markdown or others, you can with a single click in many editors turn that plain text into an HTML or PDF file, or just leave it as a nice and consistently formatted text file.
I guess my point is just that, IF you go with plain text, don't make your own format up since you can follow an existing format and voila, get a bunch of insta-pretty-conversion benefits.

A Markdown Cheatsheet: http://assemble.io/docs/Cheatsheet-Markdown.html
An example of an online Markdown -> HTML converter: http://dillinger.io/
(Many exist, and many are integrated into text editors, like Github's Atom, or Sublime Text 3)

[the Invisible Stalker]

I played for years very badly. Then by chance I discovered Eddie Grove's Tales of the Bold and changed my play style completely. It's not suitable for absolute beginners, and the game has changed in various ways since it was written, but I think it remains the best guide for an intermediate player.

[Magnate]

I think this was what I was thinking of. We probably should advertise that better.

Didn't somebody add that to the shipped docs a release or two ago? I thought I saw it in a changelog somewhere.

[Tibarius]

re: guide format, suggestions from mrrstark and fph

Ok, it is almost midnight now ... basically i worked the whole day on my guide and finished 1 and 1/2 sections of 5. I am writing in the open document file format used by open Office and am able to convert it into PDF finaly to have a nice looking document / file for Distribution amoung the Angband Folks.

This has the following advantages for me as writer:
- i see how the finished guide looks like (i guess i can expect the guide to look very similar and readable on every device which supports PDF files)

After studying fph's and mrrstark's posts i must admit i understood only half of what their statement's and links said, but i am realy impressed by the online dillinger example of how markdown is converted into HTML text.

So i try to explain in my own words what i understood and what questions i got, maybe i will write the first version of the guide in PDF but convert it into another text format afterwards if i am convinced this work would pay off in additional benefits like easier availability for users not being able to use PDF files.

If i speak from plain text, i refer to a text containing only letters and the two control characters #13, #10 Carriage-Return and Line-Feed. Even the most basic text editors i know of are able to show a file that uses this syntax. You cannot use bold, italics, underlined or similar features in the document.

I did not understand what Assemble docs! actually is. It somehow has to do with using HTML Tags (or similar things) to produce a nice looking final document.

I found the online dillinger example very impressive tho, and i guess i have understood what we are talking about there. The left side using "Markdown" syntax or text formatting is basically "plain text" as described earlier from me.
Just that there are a couple of syntax agreements used which can be used by - what program/editor exactly? - to produce an very nice looking HTML output (dispolayed on the right side).

If you open a markdown file with a simple text editor you get the "simple" text file as shown on the left side. Does the right (nice looking side) automatically open if you open a markdown file with a HTML capable web-browser (or is there something to do from the user)?

[Tibarius]

re: Tales of the Bold Rogue

re: Invisible Stalker - using google to find The "Tales of the Bold Rogue" from Eddie i find this rather Long post in the Google Groups:

http://rec.games.roguelike.angband.narkive.com/6ZYhEQ2I/tales-of-the-bold-rogue

Is that text reffered to you as "guide"? I would call that a detailed description of a played game - a guide is something other for me. A guide is a document that contains Information with the goal other people can learn about the topic of the guide in an easy and entertaining way. Still i find the post very interesting.

I have read only the first pages till the deep of 600', i have to agree tho that reading that can be helpfull for a new or mediate player.

If there is a single doument available worth the name "guide" it would be cool if you could point me towards a website or every other source i could get it from.

P.S. The text i write in this forum is constantly changed by some kind of spellchecker which replaces the first letters of a lot of words from lowercase to uppercase letters (probably because my computer is set to german language). Does anybody know if i can change this behavior in some settings either in the forum or the web-browser?

Thanks, Tibarius

[Timo Pietilä]

Dear Folks,
i am in to write / make an Angband strategy guide. I wanted to do that for years already ... now is the time

I started this thread to collect Input from other fellow Players. What should be included, what not, suggestions for layout, Content - everything is welcomed.

To section hints and tips:
For priest: once you hit clvl close to get OoD, stop gaining new spells three spell levels short of clvl 9 (that's either at clvl 7 or 8 depending of your WIS). Then gain spells from book three, guaranteeing that OoD is gained ASAP it is possible (if you gain one spell at the time and don't do this, worst case scenario is that OoD is last spell you gain from that book)

[fph]

If you open a markdown file with a simple text editor you get the "simple" text file as shown on the left side. Does the right (nice looking side) automatically open if you open a markdown file with a HTML capable web-browser (or is there something to do from the user)?

No, you need to convert it manually; there are programs to do that.

If your workflow is (open)office-pdf, you work alone, you look at the files only from a pc or a tablet, and you do not care excessively about typography, you will find very little tangible improvements. These tools mostly shine for different use cases, such as collaborative development with a revision control software, and conversion to multiple formats such as ebook ones.

[caruso]

Yesterday I was looking up the PosChengband Newbie Guide and found out that it is heavily based on The Angband Guide (TANG) by Chris Weisiger. Perhaps you can use this guide as a starting point rather than writing one from scratch.

What I find particularly helpful about the guide is the list about important depths, i.e. which resistances you need before going deeper. Other things I would like to see in a guide (when aimed at beginners as well):

- Which class/race combos are the most accessible, which are the most winnable ones?
- How do I find out which stats are the most important ones for my class?
- How do I learn the controls? -> Key manual? In-Game reference?
- What are the basic tactics and strategies?
- How do I avoid having to type up to four keys for casting a spell -> Macros

About the browser issue: If you are using Firefox, just right-click on the text and select Rechtschreibung prüfen to remove the check mark.

[Timo Pietilä]

What I find particularly helpful about the PosChengband guide is the list about important depths, i.e. which resistances you need before going deeper.

In angband you don't really need any resistances before AMHD depth, only FA is pretty much required if you don't know what to fight. After AMHD depth you need all basic four and poison, and even then you don't need them all at all times if you know what to fight and have swaps.

Other than that every resist is a luxury and you should use them based on which side-effects you want to prevent IE. in order of importance: nexus, dark & light or pBlind, disenchantment (in order to be able to melee disenchanters), chaos (prevents hallucination), nether, shard, sound (shard before sound, because Gelugons).