Save me from myself.

[melphen]

I typed up a full page of explaniation for thus and to be honest anyone reading it would have throught I was doing more complaining then explaining 14 years of being pissed with this game. I'll shorten all that to saying I love this game and have loved it for a long time. I need to know one thing.

How do you learn enough to beat this game? I have a full time + job and a wife here but the 13 year old in me still wants to beat this thing and so far it only gets harder. I have moved forward a lot in the last 6 months, since I decided to spoil myself silly, but even that isn't getting it right and I feel like the game is so unfair I can't beat it. That clearly isn't the case so being that I'm 100% ok with being spoiled to the max what the hell can I do to beat this freaking game?

[grobblewobble]

What sort of r/c do you usually play? What's your usual plan, what do you do first etc? Where do you usually get stuck?

[melphen]

I have the most success with dwarf pallys normally. I find they are hard enough for melee in the early stages to survive well and learn enough spells later in the game to add a lot of useful ability to the class. I used to love orc barbs but I got real sick of trying to teach them to read before the latest versions of the game fixed the quest that would get me there for sure. I just haven't gone back to them because the pallys have been very nice to me in the past. In truth I can get most of the common race/class combos to around the same point in the game, but I have read over and over again that the two classes I mentioned are some of the best for a new player and despite the years I have played the game I haven't moved far enough forward to think of myself as a player of any more quality than a new player.

With the barb and pally characters I go through the SMC to HMV (I really hope I'm getting all these names and such right, playing solo for years the names didn't matter as much as the path to them). I have found this game to be almost unbearable without that water proof blanket so I make it a point to get to that if I can. If I can't normally I lose because I had to cross some water somewhere and lost half my gear to rust related damages shortly there after.

I normally go the the arena there after to collect as much cooked lizard as I can get my hands on. Then I go back around to complete the quest I picked to gain either healing or herbs depending on which my character needs. Barbs start with herbs, my pallys with healing so I'm used to completing both quest. If the barbs already need it sometimes I go get healing before I get food, but normally I find if I get through the first dungeon I'm more than ok to get to the arena before I have to worry about healing.

After I complete the healing/herb quest I kill the cop or crime lord depending on class again. This is another one I'm very good at timing and rarely have a problem with.

Then back to the main dungeon and the arena, normally I do the first 15 or so fights without issue and take that money to DT where I'll sell what I don't need and sacrifice enough gold and such to be able to make holy water at least. My chaotic characters might pre-crown before I reach this point with live sacrifices on random altars. If I'm not chaotic the first altar I tend to see that I can use if the one in DT. (Converting altars is something I believe it entirely too hard for this game given how important they really are to this game)

I'll knock out the quest in DT at this point. While I find going through the LF the most annoying thing in the game only the patience required challenges me. If I feel good about it I'll do the master of the arena, dwarf graveyard, and pyramid all in one move before going any further.

That is all pretty normal for me. Sometimes I run into something along the way that randomly kills me before I complete all this but I think that is normal and completely ok for the most part.

I normally get killed on the way to the water temple or in it. So far as I know that should really be the next stop. I haven't tried to new ice queen stuff (or whatever that is, I really haven't read into it enough to know, only enough to know I have to be lvl 15 to get in and cold damage is a problem but I haven't played with it). That looks to fill a gap in my progress if I understand right, but it also looks like a lot more complication I'm not ready for. With a few characters I have gone to get the ring of the high kings at this point and normally that gets me killed too. I can't get to the door, open it, and get off the damned bridge before I get thrown into those very mean fish.

I can't seem to do enough damage to finish off the boss in the water temple before I'm out of most of my consumable solutions to common problems. I'll leave there with no PP, no healing potions, no arrows and half dead most of the time if I leave at all. I've even skipped it before and come back to it only after being told I had to complete the fire temple to move further forward so I know it has to be something I'm doing wrong.

Aside from the advice that might lead to I could use some help with some other things as well. For example: there are games that I can't get enough arrows at all. I've tried milking monsters that will feed me arrows or rocks, or abusing traps but I often end up throwing random things at karmic lizards or trying to run from them and normally I end up having to hope for a creative cure to the woes they bring with them. Should I ever hit one I die VERY fast because I can't get to an altar and find enough to sacrifice to take the bad luck and all off.

Learning the best methods to identify items of higher quality in the game has helped a bit, but if you can't read, or you can't get to an altar to learn if these items are cursed using them gets risky as hell fast. If you have a character that can't do either this game becomes a total crap shoot. It doesn't do me much good to know I just picked up SLB if I can't get the cursed mithril ones I just put on off. Now I'm carrying extra items in hopes that I will find a solution that I don't normally get to. I spend a lot of time burdened with tons of arrows and no bow, or 100 torches with nothing to set them on fire.

I can't seem to get to a place where herbs are really useful for me. Every game I have seen played that ended in a win always uses herbs to a point I would call abuse. I can use healing herbs well, and I have a spread sheet because I can't remember what they all do and I have to go back to them all the time. When I get a character with a good herb skill I'm normally missing an altar with which to judge their C/U/B status and as such can't really use them well. Even with everything going my way I don't get the stat increases that are always a feature in the winning games I see.

I'm rambling a bit, but I hope there is something in there you can help me with that will help me move forward a little more. Either way, thanks for trying man. I'm going to start the game up and look to learn a little more.

[boat]

Dont get discouraged! You seem like you are really on your way to win. Honestly, dwarf pallys are good for early survival but lack in mid-late game damage, unless you are crowned with justifier. I would say always get crowned before you hit the water temple because the artifact reward is a huge boost. That's strange that the snake is giving you lots of trouble. How are you completing the graveyard quests? Depending how you do it, the rewards are excellent. I usually use a wand of fireballs on the snake. You have many more challenges ahead of you, but quite honestly if you are getting to the snake consistently you should be well versed to take on the rest of the game.

[melphen]

How do I help my chances of getting crowned? I've done it, and with increasing regularity, but whats my best shot at making sure it happens every game with a dwarf pally?

[mjkittredge]

Sacrificing large amounts of monsters (or gold or artifacts you don't need) is the fastest way to get precrowned and crowned. Since you have no problem spoiling yourself look up the requirements for level (need to be at least 8 plus 3 for every artifact generated thus far, can't be of extreme alignment such as L+, N=, C-). Each successive precrowning takes more and more piety so going for more than 2 is an enormous expenditure of game time, real time, and effort.

While crowning is one of 6 possible items (IIRC) for each separate class, precrowning can be nearly any non-guaranteed artifact in the game. It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not it will be useful, although I find more often than not it is. There are a few that are so good they are near game breaking. Preserver, Bracers of War, Executor, Suns Messenger, Ring of Immunity, Protector. To name a few. And many others that are good enough to be a huge upgrade to whatever you have at the time.

I think getting one precrowning is relatively easy if you find an altar in the right place, and 2 is doable, while 3 or more is borderline inefficient unless there are special circumstances. Like an altar generated in the SMC (high monster generation) or the big room in either the puppy cave or tomb of the high king.

So at least 2 artifacts you should be getting, plus the guaranteed ones and ones you find randomly in shops or loot piles. You can win without using a single artifact but they are so powerful.

[mjkittredge]

Herbs are simple.

http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Herbs

Use 4 at a time each of morgia/mareilon to boost your stats - dex, toughness, and willpower.

Use Stomacemptia if you have a bunch of stat boosting corpses you want to eat before they rot away. Like giants/trolls/ogres, dragons, lizards, maybe claw bugs or minotaurs if you don't care about willpower.

Alrunia if poisoned. Curaria if diseased.

Stomafilia for sacrificing on altar or eating.

After you have picked a huge pile, you can read a blessed scroll of uncursing to at least bring all the cursed ones up to uncursed. Depending on your needs you may then wish to bless a stack by dipping them into a potion of holy water. Although other things take a higher priority for holy water use.

Like blessing your main weapon (makes it more resistant to item destruction and adds +50% damage to undead and demons) and potions of stat, slaying ammo, piles of scrolls of identify

[GordonOverkill]

Early game order spoiler:

What I didn't see on your list ist the beginners dungeon and the puppy cave. You could include these for some more loot early on.
Playing save, my current start usually is:
1. visit SC to spawn some low level monsters
2. visit the outlaw settlement to identify stuff in the black market
3. get quests from Terinyo (herbalism/healing and puppy)
4. completely scout the beginners dungeon for some levels and loot (highest priority during the whole early game is increasing PV and collecting missiles, which often means: rocks!)
5. scout the first level of the PC... not the second one since the ants are too dangerous
6. scout all but the last level of VD/DD. If I have reasonable PV (something like at least PV 7), I add the last level of the VD right now to finish the quest
7. scout the remaining PC, probably skipping the ant level and doing it on the way back to the surface, if I don't feel strong enough yet, probably doing the same with the cavernous level. ("Not strong enough" means "PV and/or damage output are not yet high enough. However, when I leave the PC, I usually have a very nice boost to my equipment from the lesser vault, I am around level 10-12 and often I also have -acid from the ants. Still it is a dangerous place, so if I see that one place is too dangerous (very likely one of the two last levels: A particuarly annoying spawn in the caverns or a mixed lesser vault with nasty creatures at the bottom), I just turn around and retreat , probably to come back later. (I take at least speed or long stride with practically all of my chars. If I am too slow anyway, I use some other method like getting my HP reduced below 1/3 and making use of the coward speed bonus)
8. finish VD/DD, if not done so yet
9. make a run for the downstairs in the SC. At this point I can just walk through the monsters that I spawned in the beginning, but new spawns might be VERY dangerous, so I am always ready to retreat. It's not worth dying at this point, because my char is already strong enough for the CoC. UD/HMV would just be a nice bonus to make him/her even more overpowered.
By the way, the blanked is not that crucial in my eyes. In the long term I want rustproof gear on most bodyparts, anyway. After finding the downstairs, I just do some careful scouting for the blanket, but as soon as I encounter something dangerous, I just descent as quick as possible.
10. probably check the DDL for herbs and take what ever loot it has to offer, probably start the courage quest, too
11. enter CoC and quickly dive to Dwarftown. Probably stabilize some 2x2 herb patches in the big room, but if some nasty foe spawns, I just skip that for later. At this point my char should be somewhere around level 10-13 and well enough equipped to make this dive a rather relaxed experience
12. get the portal quest and the first of Thrundar's quests
13. if I feel strong enough (PV of around 13-15 or higher): scout the levels below Dwarftown untill I find the two-downstairs-level; if I still feel a little weaker: scout the higher CoC. In the current version this is usually enough to finish Thrundar's first quest and allow me to identify my stuff. From here on my char is usually very well prepared.

Water Temple spoiler:

You can easiely disable the Snake from Beyond for a long time by throwing a blessed potion of cure poison at it. This makes the fight ALOT easier for melee chars, especially if you do so in the narrow corridors of the inner temple where it can hardly stagger away. Also the snake is rather slow, so if you kill all other monsters at first and got at least one speed talent, you can just run around the outside of the inner temple, the snake following you, and try to find out at which pattern you get a free move due to your superiour speed. These are the moments where you want to attack the snake. Every now and then you will have to suffer a hit anyway, but with a heavy hitting character like a barbarian this is quite a save strategy, anyway. Demon slaying ammunition of course does an amazing job, too, so if you found a nice stack, make sure to use it. And finally, as suggested, you can also do it with the wand of fireballs.
In any way, make sure to bless that weapon/stack of ammunition that you want to use! Also you you don't want to ever melee hte snake without -pois and a scource to heal poisoning (like alraunia antidote).

Tomb of the High Kings spoiler:

When finishing the tomb, you definitely want at least one source of confusion resistance! The ancient mummy wrapping should be in your possession anyway, so make sure to wear it. If you've got another ring, make sure to add it. Also high willpower helps to avoid being confused.
Furthermore you don't want to spend more time on your ice bridge than absolutely necessary. just open the door and then quickly retreat into the corridor in the east. There you can savely kill the king and his minons one by one.
Don't forget to bless your weapons before the fight and also equip some means of -fire to reduce the damage of the kings magic attacks.

Ammunition spoiler:

If you run short on ammunition despite your best efforts, go for rocks! Those are generally much underestimated and really do a great job (I am currently doing a challenge run with a hurthling archer who uses no other weapon but thrown rocks at all... he's at level 18 and doing quite well). Not only are those rocks quite easy to find in big stacks, also there are some ways to ensure an extra load of them. For example you can just lock yourself in a room far away from the ants on PC2 and wait for them to dig through the whole level, thus producing a very nice missile supply for you. Or you could kill a dwarf and steal his pickaxe to dig yourself. As a dwarven paladine you even start with the mining skill, so this would work very well. Whenever I run halfway short on arrows and quarrels in the early/mid game, I switch to rocks untill I got myself some new supplies, and I just drop them when I've got enough better ammunition to make sure to avoid a shortage.
Apart from that, don't forget to use your offensive wands with your melee chars! Sometimes they are the best option you have against particular enemies.

Identify spoiler:

I personally do alot of identifying through shop prices. Try to get a feeling for the prices of certain items... not the actual ones, but rather the relational cost in comparison to other items. You will develope a feeling for exceptionally expensive (=good) or cheap (=bad, probably cursed) prices.
Also there are certain items which you can equip without knowing the status and others for which this is rather dangerous...
- headgear: no particular danger; I equip everything that promises at least one point of protection
- neckgear: could be cursed amulet of hunger, so I do not equip anything without at least checking it's price at a shop
- bodygear: i equip everything that promises a nice PV bonus (= that makes me reach a certain PV value that I want to have before I start a cetain part of the game) and generally every higher metal piece that I find early on. Of course it could be a cursed armor of hatred, but well, I usually take this risk
- girdle: cursed girdle prevents me from changing bodygear, so I equip it blindly only if I have already got a nice body armor and it promises additional PV. Also cursed girdle of carrying could be a disaster, but those have got a different unidentified name
- cloak: no danger, so I blindly equip almost everything. You can easiely get it destroyed if you find something better
- weapon: cursed weapons prevent your from changing gloves (and as a result: rings), so I just equip them if it's definitely nice higher metal and I don't already have a decent weapon; also rapiers might be worth equipping them directly for they give a PV bonus; otherwise I want to at least check the price first
- shield: not sure if it also blocks the gloves slot... guess it should. However, if I am in need of additional PV, I blindly equip everything that is at least a medium shield and every guaranteed higher metal upgrade, also in order to train my shields skill higher
- rings: there are some auto-cursing rings with horrible effects and I generally like to be able to change my rings for different uses, so I rarely equip more than one without at least checking the price. I might though blindly equip a guaranteed usefull ring like ring of fire resistance (=wooden ring) on one hand. Even if it's cursed, I've still got one ring slot to change
- bracers: quite rare to find, so except for brass bracers I just equip whatever I can find
- gloves: prevent you from changing rings if cursed. Also gauntlets might be auto-cursing gauntlets of piece, which are quite a problem for every other class but spellcasters. I usually equip only colored gauntlets (for guaranteed PV) or gauntlets dropped by fencers/duelists, for they appear to be quite cool most of the time.
- boots of the slow shuffle could easiely ruin your game, but you should be able to recognize them by name. I blindly equip whatever gives me a guaranteed boost to PV
- missile weapon: if I have a nice supply of rocks, I don't want to get that blocked, so I usually try to check at least the price of a missile weapon before equipping it

Of course you are right that you might always find a better piece right after equipping something cursed, but especially early on each point of PV makes your life a while lot easier, so in my eyes it's absolutely worth taking the risks that I mentioned above. After you found your first co-alligned altar, you will be able to remove curses anyway.

Hope that helps you a little. All the best for your future runs! :-)

[grobblewobble]

Tip one: make sure you get teleport control and the wand of teleportation as early as you can. This is extremely important.

Snake from beyond: as Gordon said. Throw a potion of cure poison. Also, offensive wands work very well. The snake is bad at shrugging bolts. A wand of trap creation works well too, because the snake is bad at dodging traps too.

If you still have trouble, throw a potion of cure corruption at the snake. That will weaken him so much that the fight should be trivial.

Make sure you are not burdened in big fights, like against the snake. Being burdened slows you down, which makes it harder to avoid being hit. Personally I hate being burdened and I dump any items that I don't really need as soon as I can, especially if they're heavy. But you can also leave big item piles on the stairs of the previous level when you're doing something difficult like the water temple.

How do I help my chances of getting crowned?

Sacrificing gold is one of the best ways to gain piety for anyone, but for dwarves this is even more true. Your god loves gold and you are guaranteed to get good prices from Waldenbrook. Get the dwarven rune axe, sell it and sac the gold. That alone will be nearly enough to get crowned.

One more tip. For melee characters like paladins and barbarians I can heartily recommend the PV talents. Especially for a dwarf. Get them all, including immune to pain. It makes a big difference.

[grobblewobble]

While crowning is one of 6 possible items (IIRC) for each separate class, precrowning can be nearly any non-guaranteed artifact in the game. It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not it will be useful, although I find more often than not it is. There are a few that are so good they are near game breaking. Preserver, Bracers of War, Executor, Suns Messenger, Ring of Immunity, Protector. To name a few. And many others that are good enough to be a huge upgrade to whatever you have at the time.

I think getting one precrowning is relatively easy if you find an altar in the right place, and 2 is doable, while 3 or more is borderline inefficient unless there are special circumstances. Like an altar generated in the SMC (high monster generation) or the big room in either the puppy cave or tomb of the high king.

In my opinion even the first precrowning is too much hassle unless I happen to get an altar on a level with a bee hive or anthill. More than one precrowning is something I haven't done in years.

As a paladin or barbarian especially, I just want my crowning gift as soon as I can. It's guaranteed to be good. Precrownings are a crapshoot indeed. More than half the time you get something worthless. And spending a very long time on a cavernous level with an altar to generate a precrown is both tedious and dangerous. You generate mountains of summoned creatures that you can't sacrifice and occasionally something really bad will spawn. The black tome isn't worth it.