[Announce] New variant: Tactical Angband

[tom]

Hi folks,

You may remember me from rec.games.roguelike.angband class of 1999.

I have returned to curse the world with a new Angband variant. It is called Tactical Angband. It aims to increase the tactical depth, decrease the grind, and otherwise keep the lovely Vanilla feel of Angband. It is inspired by Fizzix posts like http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8979

The tack I have taken is roughly:
* Eliminate almost all player teleport and one-turn escapes
* Curb monster summoning
* Reduce monster spell and breath damage
* Reduce the game length quite a bit.
* Try to rebalance in favour of the player, so the game is not impossible!

I've added various interesting escape spells/items that are not the one-turn-wonders you may be accustomed to.

Here's a semi-complete change list:

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/blob/master/README.md

Code:

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband

And Windows binary:

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.3-4.2.4

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. It's been a pleasure to die in new, slower, and more varied ways.

[Susramanian]

Exciting!

Just read the change list, and this sounds delightful. The overwhelming impact of teleportation and summoning in Angband take away from too many other gameplay elements. This is decades overdue!

Thanks for your hard work.

[Nick]

This looks really interesting (although I've only had a superficial look). It's way beyond time that someone took this approach to an Angband variant.

One thing I would recommend is to try to maintain enough contact with the Vanilla github repo that you can take advantage of the autobuilding, and also pull in platform-specific changes.

[tom]

Here is a new release with fixed MacOS build (and no significant gameplay changes):

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.3.2-4.2.4

Nick, yeah I do plan to track the Vanilla repo, pulling in changes as official releases are made.

[tom]

Tactical Angband 0.4

Tactical Angband 0.4

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.4_V4.2.4

Changes:
* Fixed a bug in 0.3.x that made monsters super-vigilant (you may have noticed this if you got stampeded by a hydra pit from half way across the level).
* Reduced and made the detection 'radius' of almost all spells square, rather than being much wider than high (as in V)
* Slightly increased monster densities
* Un-nerfed some monsters that had been slowed down vs Vanilla -- this was an early experiment and probably isn't needed anymore now more escape options exist.
* Reduced the size of simple and overlapping rooms.
* Reduced ESP range in line with LoS changes.
* Reordered the 'game mode' birth options, and made 'iron' (forced descent, no recall) the default. This is only a serving suggestion, and the classic infinite dungeon is available too.

[wobbly]

Got round to trying this out. First impression is its fun and has a nice pace to it. So far healing consumables seem a little stingy and device drops a little generous. Also there's no ladder yet. Oh, and I haven't seen a single arrow, glad I'm not playing ranger.

  [Tactical Angband 0.4_V4.2.4 Character Dump]

 Name   Disialen     Age             27          Self  RB  CB  EB   Best
 Race   Half-Troll   Height        7'7"   STR:     15  +4  +0  +0  18/10
 Class  Rogue        Weight     9st 4lb   INT:     14  -4  +1  +0     11
 Title  Burglar      Turns used:          WIS:     11  -2  -3  +0      6
 HP     205/205      Game         66611   DEX:     16  -4  +3  +0     15
 SP     4/16         Standard      6607   CON:     14  +3  -1  +0     16
                     Resting          0

 Level                 23    Armor      [20,+13]    Saving Throw     43%
 Cur Exp             5894                           Stealth         Fair
 Max Exp             5894    Melee        1d5,+7    Disarm - phys.   84%
 Adv Exp             6120    To-hit       52,+27    Disarm - magic   83%
                             Might      dam x1.6    Magic Devices     48
 Gold               16924                           Searching        47%
 Burden          127.2 lb    Shoot to-dam     +4    Infravision    30 ft
 Overweight       -4.7 lb    To-hit       41,+20    Speed         Normal
 Max Depth    1200' (L24)    Shots      1.0/turn

 Your mother was a Cave-Troll Warrior.  You have slime-green eyes, oily
 sea-weed green hair, and black scabby skin.


Resistances         Abilities
 Acid:....+........ pFear:.............
 Elec:+............ pBlnd:.............
 Fire:......+...... pConf:.............
 Cold:............. pStun:.............
 Pois:............. HLife:.............
Light:............. Regen:............+
 Dark:.............   ESP:.............
Sound:............. S.Inv:.............
Shard:............. FrAct:.............
Nexus:............. Feath:.............
Nethr:............. S.Dig:...+.........
Chaos:............. TrpIm:.............
Disen:............. Bless:.............

Hindrances          Modifiers
ImpHP:............. Stea.:.............
ImpSP:............. Sear.:.............
 Fear:............. Infra:............+
Aggrv:............. Tunn.:.............
NoTel:............. Speed:.............
DrExp:............. Blows:.............
Stick:............. Shots:.............
Fragl:............. Might:.............
                    Light:.............
                    D.Red:.............
                    Moves:.............


  [Character Equipment]

a) a Main Gauche of Lightning (1d5) (+8,+5)
     Found lying on the floor at 400 feet (level 8)
     
     Branded with lightning.
     Provides resistance to Lightning.
     
     Combat info:
     x1.6 might.
     With +1 STR and +0 DEX you would get x2.0 might
     With +0 STR and +2 DEX you would get x2.0 might
     Average damage/round: 29.3 vs creatures not resistant to lightning
     and 18.2 vs. others.
     
b) a Sling (x2) (+1,+4)
     Dropped by a drúadan mage at 1000 feet (level 20)
     
c) a Ring of Accuracy (+18,+0)
     Found lying on the floor at 1100 feet (level 22)
     
d) a Ring of Slow Digestion
     Found lying on the floor at 800 feet (level 16)
     
     Slows your metabolism.  
     
e) an Amulet of Resist Acid
     Found lying on the floor at 800 feet (level 16)
     
     Provides resistance to Acid.
     
f) a Lantern (13536 turns)
     Found lying on the floor of a special room at 1000 feet (level 20)
     
     Cannot be harmed by Fire.
     Intensity 3 light.
     
g) Soft Leather Armour of Resist Fire [8,+2]
     Dropped by a drúadan mage at 1000 feet (level 20)
     
     Provides resistance to Fire.
     Cannot be harmed by Fire.
     
h) a Fur Cloak [3,+3]
     Dropped by Ulfast, Son of Ulfang, at 900 feet (level 18)
     
i) a Small Metal Shield [5,+4]
     Found lying on the floor at 900 feet (level 18)
     
j) a Hard Leather Cap [2,+0]
     Dropped by a green ooze at 200 feet (level 4)
     
k) a Set of Leather Gloves [1,+0]
     Dropped by a drúadan mage at 1000 feet (level 20)
     
l) a Pair of Leather Sandals [1,+3]
     Found lying on the floor at 100 feet (level 2)
     




  [Character Inventory]

a) 3 Books of Magic Spells [First Spells] {@m1}
     
     You can read this book.
     
b) 2 Potions of Cure Light Wounds {@q1}
c) 3 Potions of Restore Mana
d) 2 Potions of Heroism
e) 13 Potions of Running
f) 2 Scrolls of Magic Mapping
g) 2 Scrolls of Holy Chant
h) a Wand of Lightning Bolts (2 charges)
i) 2 Wands of Confuse Monster (8 charges)
j) a Wand of Hold Monster (7 charges)
k) a Wand of Stun Monster (3 charges)
l) a Wand of Scare Monster (5 charges)
m) 2 Wands of Light (3 charges)
n) a Wand of Swap Places (7 charges)
o) a Staff of Confuse Monsters (2 charges)
p) a Staff of Slow Monsters (7 charges)
q) a Staff of Detect Invisible (9 charges)
r) a Staff of Curing (2 charges)
s) a Staff of Cure Light Wounds (3 charges)
t) 2 Staves of Light (6 charges)
u) 2 Staves of Phase Door (5 charges)
v) a Shovel (1d2) (+2,+4)
     Dropped by an unknown monster at 800 feet (level 16)
     
     Combat info:
     x1.1 might.
     With +2 STR and +0 DEX you would get x1.3 might
     With +0 STR and +2 DEX you would get x1.3 might
     Average damage/round: 9.7.
     




  [Character Quiver]

0) a Flask of oil {@v0}
1) 21 Iron Shots (2d4) (+3,+3)
     Combat info:
     When fired, hits targets up to 100 feet away.
     Average damage/round: 24.4.
     Average thrown damage: 16.3.
     0% chance of breaking upon contact.
     
2) 14 Bolts of Slay Undead (2d5) (+5,+7)
     Slays undead.
     


[Player history]
      Turn   Depth  Note
         0      0'  Began the quest to destroy Morgoth.
        81    100'  Reached level 2
        90    100'  Reached level 3
       156    100'  Reached level 4
       583    100'  Killed Grip, Farmer Maggot's Dog
       583    100'  Reached level 5
       770    200'  Reached level 6
       812    200'  Reached level 7
       959    200'  Reached level 8
      1307    200'  Reached level 9
      1704    300'  Reached level 10
      1975    400'  Reached level 11
      2611    400'  Reached level 12
      2815    700'  Reached level 13
      3025    700'  Reached level 14
      3398    800'  Reached level 15
      3512    800'  Reached level 16
      3519    800'  Reached level 17
      3555    800'  Reached level 17
      4175    900'  Reached level 18
      4384    900'  Reached level 19
      4526    900'  Killed Lagduf, the Snaga
      4566    900'  Killed Orfax, Son of Boldor
      4725    900'  Killed Ulfast, Son of Ulfang
      4725    900'  Reached level 20
      5015   1000'  Reached level 21
      5234   1000'  Reached level 22
      5942   1100'  Reached level 23

[klassik]

wand of swap places

when i try to examine a wand of swap places in the magic shop, i get panic saved. i can examine every other item in the shop and get a description. i haven't found it in the black market to try it yet.

i'm playing it on angband.live.

[tom]

I'm glad people have been enjoying the game. I didn't know tactical angband was on angband.live, that's cool. I've fixed the wand examining crash, tweaked wand rarities since I agree the new escaping wands are too common. So here is...

Tactical Angband 0.5

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.5-4.2.4

• Fix a crash when examining wands of swap places
• Monster drops tweaked
• Re-enable labyrinth, moria and hard centre dungeon types
• Stat-gain tweaked (again) to attempt to roughly match Vanilla stat gain completion depth
• Increase gold value of +MOVES objects (boots/amulets of running had been absurdly cheap)
• Replace druid/ranger mapping spell with a sil-q-style 'delving' timed mapping spell
• Allow winning characters with birth_force_descend enabled to take up staircases (this matches no-recall behaviour, which ends once you've won)
• ESP range reduced from 12 to 10, as that is the LoS range
• Make amulet of running much rarer, and add a mixed blessings version, 'amulet of sure movement'.
• Various wand balancing (charges, rarity)

[klassik]

[*]Fix a crash when examining wands of swap places


ty

[AceRimmer]

Let me echo: I think this is a wonderful undertaking. Thank you for tackling it.

I have been thinking to set myself the challenge of winning Angband without any phase/teleport/banishment, so Tactical Angband is perfectly timed for me.

[PowerWyrm]

I'm wondering how it would go if consumables were reworked the way ToME 4 did: instead of potions of cure wounds/healing and scrolls of phase door/teleportation you would have infusions of healing/runes of teleportation that would be engraved in limited slots (2-5 depending on character level) and have cooldown of a few turns so you couldn't spam them and have to carefully plan when to use them. I think this would be a good variant to try such feature.

[Kodiologist]

Having scratched the surface of this variant, it seems pretty cool. How do you cheat to get full monster memory, though? Copying `monster.txt` to my user `lore.txt`, as described here, works fine in vanilla 4.2.4, but in Tactical Angband, it seems to get ignored and then overwritten when I next save my game.

[tom]

Having scratched the surface of this variant, it seems pretty cool. How do you cheat to get full monster memory, though? Copying `monster.txt` to my user `lore.txt`, as described here, works fine in vanilla 4.2.4, but in Tactical Angband, it seems to get ignored and then overwritten when I next save my game.

Hm, I thought this was a known bug of 4.2.4, but you say it works on 4.2.4. Next tactical angband release I may pull in vanilla master branch, and this might be fixed (?).

[edit]I can confirm this is fixed by pulling in vanilla master branch. If you are willing to use a pre-release version, here it is: https://github.com/tomm/tactical-ang...243-gc20ff8342

[Van]

Monster summoning and extremely strong and reliable escape options are two of Angband's biggest problems. Got high hopes for this.

[tom]

Tactical Angband 0.6

Tactical Angband 0.6

https://github.com/tomm/tactical-angband/releases/tag/0.6

The main thing this release is an extensive item rarity rebalance, this time using the wizard stats generator, to closely match V drop rates for essential speed items, dungeon books, stat potions, and others. This should mean that stat gain ends about when it does in V, speed turns up roughly as in V, the last dungeon book does actually appear at some point, etc.

You could say it's Scientifically Balanced for a Smoother Finish (TM).

* Extensive rebalancing of monster drops to match vanilla angband stat gain, speed items, dungeon spellbooks, end game staves and rods, gold.
* Phase door reduced from 7 to 5 tiles, to match the general rescaling of distances.
* Restore the ability of most monsters that could teleport themselves to the player, or teleport the player to them (in V).
* Monster group sizes adjusted from 1/2 Vanilla to 2/3.
* Paralysis is now measured in player turns, which means the higher your speed, the shorter absolute game time you will spend paralysed.
* Pulled code from vanilla master branch up to 4.2.4-232-g6e34fd35f. Many fixes.