Intentionally making life hard for @

[mrfy]

I tend to not use Deep Descent except once at the beginning. I do make it more difficult by killing all the uniques before Sauron and Morgoth.

[PowerWyrm]

Angband is most fun when your survival is very much in doubt. And so I decided that I'm going to give my new @ a handicap. What I've settled on: no teleport other. This is basically going to make Morgoth impossible (assuming I get there, of course). So I might make an exception for the last fight. The only alternative that I can see is killing all of the really nasty uniques before getting there.

Turning off the option that lets artifacts re-spawn when you miss them occurred to me too, but since no TO is going to make raiding vaults hard (and some of them impossible), that would mean losing out on tons of artifacts, and I chickened out and left it on.

My last @ was an ironman win. I thought playing ironman would make the game a lot harder, but it wasn't that bad. Early game is a bit nerve wracking if only because food and light gives you a time limit, but once you get the phial and reliable source of food (or a big stock of it), playing ironman doesn't make a very dramatic difference. A bit trickier with setting up resistances, no guaranteed source of arrows, but not a huge difference.

Any other ideas about how to make the game harder? Anybody else give their @s a handicap?

Not so long ago, I took on the "Mount Olympus" challenge: bookless artifactless egoless hobbit mage. See the corresponding thread here: http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8326

And my ladder entry: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=20489

The ultimate challenge would be an ironman version of that. See if you have the patience for it...

[Thraalbee]

An "Illiterate Mage" with zero use of scrolls and books is an easier alternative

[Angdrim]

Off topic, but didn't think this deserved a new thread: Just saw a "red hatted elf" in town. I took ten years off from playing Angband - I don't think these guys weren't in the game last time I played. Anyway, flavor text says "It's Yuletide and this elf has had a few too many". Does Angband know the date? Do these guys only show up around Christmas?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Off topic, but didn't think this deserved a new thread: Just saw a "red hatted elf" in town. I took ten years off from playing Angband - I don't think these guys weren't in the game last time I played. Anyway, flavor text says "It's Yuletide and this elf has had a few too many". Does Angband know the date? Do these guys only show up around Christmas?

Father Christmas and his Christmas Elves only show up on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. For anyone trying to take out EVERY unique, these are the only days you can get Father Christmas.

[malcontent]

Fists Only Challenge: @ may not use any weapon, launched missiles, or spells for the entire game and defeat Morgoth. Scrolls are permitted. I successfully did this back in the 3.2.x era, but doubt I could pull it off in the current version on the nightlies.

First of all, I'm amazed that this could ever be done!

But I'm also curious what about the current version makes this even more difficult?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

First of all, I'm amazed that this could ever be done!

But I'm also curious what about the current version makes this even more difficult?

For the blow by blow compubox entertainment, check out:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17057

In my opinion, the current version of Angband has gone a long way to returning the danger levels of pre-3.xx versions, without the grinding UI dangers.

[Angdrim]

No TO is not a challenge. Had to kill all the big uniques so that Morgoth couldn't summon them, and the Tarresque put up a good fight, but lacking TO didn't make much difference. Maybe next time I'll try no TO and no teleportation/teleport level. Angband is about picking your fights, maybe the thing to do is make it harder to pick them.

Not up for fists-only though.

Little question: I left the wimpy uniques alive on purpose so that Morgoth could summon them, but he never once used his summon unique spell. I had assumed that it works its way down, and if there aren't any nasties left you get the wimpy ones. But if Huan and friends aren't available, does he just never use it? (Or did Shagrat and friends luck out this time?)

[Thraalbee]

I recently got Smeagol as a nice surprise. He didnt help any of us but kept close to the action

[Ed_47569]

Little question: I left the wimpy uniques alive on purpose so that Morgoth could summon them, but he never once used his summon unique spell. I had assumed that it works its way down, and if there aren't any nasties left you get the wimpy ones. But if Huan and friends aren't available, does he just never use it? (Or did Shagrat and friends luck out this time?)

He does summon them, although I never intentionally leave them alive. Sometimes I've missed Lagduf or one of the other orc uniques. It is quite amusing watching them get obliterated by Morgoth's own mana storms though.

[sffp]

Are we sure this is a challenge? Most of my deaths happen after reading a Deep Descent scroll. Personally I squash them as soon as I find then.

I use them as early escapes of last resort.

[wobbly]

yeah deep descent is the next best thing to tele-level. I occasionally pre read these if I really want to nab an object close to a dangerous monster. It's also one of the few ways an ironman priest can deal with an early cat pit.