[Announce] Cthangband 6.0 ("20th Anniversary Edition") Released

[Dean Anderson]

Yes, that's right. It's 20 years since I first released Cthangband onto an unsuspecting world.

Well, now it's back in yet another new edition.

This is the first fully .NET version of Cthangband (written in C#), and as such it will run on any Microsoft OS from Vista onwards. I don't think Mono or similar alternates can handle WPF, so unfortunately it's Windows only.

The installer is here: Cthangband 6.0.

If you're missing the .NET Framework 4.5.2 (you shouldn't be unless you're using an older Windows edition) you can download that from Microsoft here: .NET Framework 4.5.2.

Here's the change log:

Cthangband 6.0.0 (July 2018 - 20th Anniversary)
- Documentation now moved to a separate file
- “Lite” changed to “Light” throughout source code and user interface.
- Spectres now have Feather Fall.
- The sewers under Ulthar now have a bias towards animals.
- Word of Recall now takes you back to your house, if you have one (if you don’t then you will be returned to the last town visited, as normal).
- You can now only own a single house at a time, but on buying a new one any items stored in your old one will be moved into it for you.
- Added “worthless items” section to journal, so you can designate any unwanted item type as being worthless (meaning it will be stomped on rather than picked up), not just those with zero value.
- Character view screen re-arranged, and redundant pages removed.
- You can no longer accidentally drop below the last level of a dungeon through a trap door.
- Barbarian replaced with Tcho-Tcho.
- Trap doors in towers now correctly take you to the previous (i.e. “lower”) level rather than the next level.
- Increasing in level no longer restores all your ability scores.
- Chaos Features changed back to Mutations.
- Chaos-Mage and Chaos Warrior are now Cultist and Fanatic.
- Digging items (spades, picks) now have their own equipment slot once more.
- Broo replaced with Miri Nigri.
- Chaos Patrons replaced with Cthuloid entities.
- Entire program re-written from the ground up in C#!

[getter77]

Always excellent to see renewed vigor in the likes of this---massive undertaking this time around at that!

[CyclopsSlayer]

So nice to see! I played this so so long ago that I can barely remember the premise. LOL Time to explore the insanity that is Cthulu

[CyclopsSlayer]

I may be blind, but is there no command to Learn a Spell?
None listed under '?' and 'G' is game time.
Also tried upper and lower case a-z, A-Z, 1-0, all the usual punctuation. Have yet to do Alt or Ctrl versions.

[Derakon]

Congrats on finishing the rewrite! That's seriously impressive.

[Dean Anderson]

I may be blind, but is there no command to Learn a Spell?
None listed under '?' and 'G' is game time.
Also tried upper and lower case a-z, A-Z, 1-0, all the usual punctuation. Have yet to do Alt or Ctrl versions.

You need to visit a library (shop '9') to learn new spells. The intent is that it gives spell casters (who would otherwise be able to create food and light by magic) a reason to return to town occasionally.

It always takes me by surprise when people ask about that, since it's been in Cthangband since version 3.0, back in the late '90s. I'm so used to it that I forget that other people might not be.

[Dean Anderson]

Congrats on finishing the rewrite! That's seriously impressive.

It's by no means finished.

It works and it's stable, but there's a lot more refactoring and code improvement that can still be done (although that's probably something that will never finish - it will just be a case of diminishing returns as I do more and more).

I could have kept on tweaking things for another month or two before releasing, but with the 20th anniversary of the first Cthangband release hitting I thought that it was "good enough" for public consumption and I should get it out of the door.

[CyclopsSlayer]

You need to visit a library (shop '9') to learn new spells. The intent is that it gives spell casters (who would otherwise be able to create food and light by magic) a reason to return to town occasionally.

It always takes me by surprise when people ask about that, since it's been in Cthangband since version 3.0, back in the late '90s. I'm so used to it that I forget that other people might not be.

Might want to add a note in game about that. Twenty years later, and the commonality of 'G' led me astray.

[wobbly]

Congrats!

Played the last version. It took me a while to work out both the library and the home. Also worth noting V no longer has sticky curse. Basically a lot that is less then obvious.

[CyclopsSlayer]

A few questions or things I noticed.

-The random starting towns seem not even close to similar power level, some have Jackals and White worms in the sewers, some Copperhead snakes and masses of Redweed. Stepped into one dungeon, just outside town, Shelob's tower, and was ganged up by a couple Giant Spiders, it was short and unpleasant, lol.

-Dungeon level is displayed as "lvl 1+0" what does the plus portion refer to?

-A message appeared "SM: 111%" is this important? relevant?

-Archery. Bows are rare, Arrows in town almost nonexistent. Arrows break, A LOT, 14 out of 18 shots broke against floating eyes, clear ickys/worms and such. Is Ranged combat practical?

-The HP randomizer on leveling seems a little extreme, 4 one level, 17 the next.


Thanks

[Dean Anderson]

A few questions or things I noticed.

-The random starting towns seem not even close to similar power level, some have Jackals and White worms in the sewers, some Copperhead snakes and masses of Redweed.

Most of them are similar. Basically, you have (in descending order of difficulty):

• Kadath - Not really a town since it doesn't have any buildings in it. It's also full of really hard monsters. Kadath is likely to be the last place you go, since the dungeon under it is the hardest one in the game. Obviously, you never start in Kadath (and in most games you won't visit it either).
• Ulthar & Nir - Each of these has a seven level sewer under it with a fixed boss at the bottom. They also both have themed enemies (Nir has more humans, Ulthar has more animals). This makes them harder than the normal sewers, so you need to be careful in them.
• Dylath-Leen - Has a five level sewer, but it's at a difficulty of +1 meaning that each level is effectively one level "deeper" when it comes to monsters, treasure, traps, and everything else. Obviously this makes it trickier for a starting character on their first couple of dives.
• Inganok, Ilek-Vad, Hlanth - These are your average towns with normal five-level sewers under them.
• Celephais - The sewer under this town is normal, but only has three levels instead of the normal five.

As well as the difference in sewers, the different towns each have a different selection of buildings in them. Nir, for example, has very few shops, and as such it's also excluded (as well as Kadath) when the game is choosing a starting town for you.

So where you start can be good or bad, but all the starting towns are survivable if you're careful.

Stepped into one dungeon, just outside town, Shelob's tower, and was ganged up by a couple Giant Spiders, it was short and unpleasant, lol.

Yeah, I wouldn't enter Shelob's Tower until higher level. Even the first level of the tower is the equivalent of level 14 of a "typical" dungeon.

Try using the map ('M') on the surface. It will show you the whole wilderness, with all the towns and dungeons marked (although which dungeon is which isn't identified until you visit them).

Each dungeon has three values listed: 'Levels', 'Difficulty', and 'Quests'.

'Levels' shows you how many levels (floors) the dungeon has.

'Difficulty' shows you the relative offset of the dungeon. Basically this is added to the level number when determining things like monsters, treasure, etc. For example if a dungeon has a difficulty of 10 then the first level of that dungeon is generated and played as if it were level 11. The second level as if it were level 12, and so forth.

'Quests' shows you how many quest levels there are in the dungeon. You win the game by completing all the quests in all the dungeons. There are always 50 quests in the game, with 24 of them being fixed (including one on the final level of each dungeon except for the smaller town sewers) and the other 26 being randomly generated.

Many of the dungeons have biases towards a certain type of creature too. These aren't told to you, but should be obvious (for example Shelob's Lair has a bias towards spiders, and The Necropolis has a bias towards undead).

You'll note that as well as the game not telling you which dungeon is which, it also doesn't tell you the difficulty or size of any of the dungeons. You can find this out by visiting them (entering the first level will tell you the difficulty; reaching the last level will tell you the size) or from Scrolls of Rumour. Scrolls of Rumour will always give you information about a dungeon or about a quest, and will always give you new information if possible; so it's worth reading them (and, in my opinion, worth buying them to read if you see them in the shops).

A good clue to the difficulty of a dungeon, by the way, is the difficulty of the monsters on the surface. Normal wilderness areas are the equivalent of dungeon level two (and have a bias towards animals). The wilderness areas above dungeons have monsters of a level equivalent to half the dungeon's difficulty, and have a bias that is the same as the dungeon's bias. So if you are at all worried by the monsters on the surface near a dungeon, it's a good sign that you're too low level to survive the dungeon itself.

-Dungeon level is displayed as "lvl 1+0" what does the plus portion refer to?

It's the difficulty of the dungeon. So for example, if you enter the sewer under Hlanth it will say "1+0" because the first level of that sewer is "level one" difficulty, but if you enter the sewer under Dylath-Leen it will say "1+1" meaning that you're effectively on "dungeon level two" even though you're only on the top level of that dungeon.

-A message appeared "SM: 111%" is this important? relevant?

That is the speed indicator. Instead of "Fast +10" or "Slow -20" or whatever, it actually tells you exactly how fast you're going. "SM: 111%" means that you're moving slightly slowly (you were probably overburdened) and each move you make will take 111% of a turn to take. If it said "FM:90%" it would mean that you were moving quickly and each move would only take 90% of a turn to make.

-Archery. Bows are rare, Arrows in town almost nonexistent. Arrows break, A LOT, 14 out of 18 shots broke against floating eyes, clear ickys/worms and such. Is Ranged combat practical?

I'm not sure, to be honest. I rarely play archers, so I never know whether they're underpowered or I'm just bad at playing them!

-The HP randomizer on leveling seems a little extreme, 4 one level, 17 the next.

Hit points aren't actually "rolled" per-se. The way it works is that let's say you're a Human Priest, and therefore get 1d12 hit points per level.

What the game actually does is give you maximum hit points at first level (12 in this case) and then distribute the other rollable values as evenly as possible amongst the other 49 levels (favouring higher values when there's not an even split).

So with a d12 you'd get:

5 x 12
4 x 11
4 x 10
4 x 9
4 x 8
4 x 7
4 x 6
4 x 5
4 x 4
4 x 3
4 x 2
4 x 1

Those other forty nine "rolls" are then shuffled and distributed in advance to the forty nine levels above first.

So you may be lucky by getting some high "rolls" early on when it matters more and getting lower "rolls" later when you've such a high Con bonus that it no longer matters, or you may be unlucky and get a bunch of low "rolls" early on. But either way, you'll end up with the same total hit points by the time you get to 50th level.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Thank you!

The L/D/Q seemed fairly obvious. Nice to know the map identifies after you enter, otherwise it looked fairly useless.
Yeah, entered Shelobs at 13 or 14, but had crap gear. Killed a few easy spiders, then a giant showed and I was in the middle of a mob at low health, blinked and appeared next to another Giant. ouchies...

Nice to know how HP 'rolls' works.

Tried a Ranger, restarted until starting town had bow and arrows. Longbow +0/+0, 23 arrows 1d4. Level 1 of Celephais sewer. 18 shots, 14 arrow breakages. 75-80% breakage rate makes them rather meh. The character had a Bow/Thrown: 128% if that affects anything.

[Sky]

Oh boy, cthulhu?? Do want !!

[Dean Anderson]

Tried a Ranger, restarted until starting town had bow and arrows. Longbow +0/+0, 23 arrows 1d4. Level 1 of Celephais sewer. 18 shots, 14 arrow breakages. 75-80% breakage rate makes them rather meh. The character had a Bow/Thrown: 128% if that affects anything.

I've just looked in the code, and arrow breakage is a flat 50% chance, so it looks like you got a string of unlucky rolls there.

Crossbow bolts and sling shots only have a 25% chance of breakage. I might drop arrows down to match them...

[codetaku]

I'd not played Cthangband before, and just came across this release the other day. I've played Angband and ZAngband a bunch. So far I'm liking Cthangband and having fun with it, but I think I ran into a couple things that might be bugs (they might just be my misunderstanding, though).

First, I had come across 30 Rounded Pebbles (+4, +1). I was only level 3 or so, and had been given them by a god upon levelling up. Not being a sling user, I figured it would be some nice cash. Went to the shop and they offered me 540 gold. I thought that was marvelous, so accepted. But then noticed I only had 265 or so gold total. I checked the message log and it said I told the 30 pebbles for 18 gold. 18 * 30 = 540, the value I had seen. I don't know exactly how much I actually received, but it was obviously substantially less. My charisma is pretty low, so maybe I got what my charisma deserved but it displayed something higher incorrectly? Really not sure what happened, it was just confusing.

Second, I ventured out of the town of Ignarok. I headed north toward the 'home of the gods' place, not knowing what it was. I made it there, found trolls that would easily kill me if spooked. So I read a scroll of word of recall. Recalled into the sewers underneath Ignarok. Relieved, I poked around a bit then took stairs back up. I emerged into.... Ignarok? But not? The game says I am in Ignarok. The map says I am in Ignarok. The mobs are town mobs from Ignarok. But... it is just an empty box like the 'home of the gods' I had come from. No shops, etc. Pretty sure this one is a bug even if I'm not confident of the recall mechanics.

Oh, and is there any possibility of getting some settings in the future? I really prefer to not have the display center on the character, and usually play with the extended ascii characters that use the shaded blocks rather than octothorpes for the walls and such. No big deal if not, I was just surprised at there not being any real settings at all after coming from ZAngband and similar that have lots of settings. I know documentation is no fun, but like someone else in this thread I got the 'SM: 111%' notification and was completely mystified. I still don't know what 'SM' could possibly stand for, though I did figure out it has to do with being over-encumbered. I still haven't figured out why I keep getting told "You suddenly feel almost lonely."

Thanks for the game!