Hi there. I'm new here, but not new to the game. I've been playing, although very, very rarely, since 0.9.9 versions. I never managed to win (not counting one instance of obnoxious cheating), I even barely ever reach elemental temples. This time however, it was different! I was on my way to win this time... until I lost. Nothing unusual, you could say, wrong forum, you could add, but the circumstances have caught me completely off-guard and I seek some useful tips if I ever encounter something like this again.
Is it customary to include spoiler alerts around here? If so, then: WARNING, SPOILERS BELOW.
This is a verbose log of my PC a few dozen of turns before death: http://pastebin.com/8rpG6yLS
This is the effect of using a wand of monster detection: http://i.imgur.com/vNfFGMr.png
Those dark gray Ls are emperor liches, 46 of them. The room they are in is in darkness. I don't think this should have happened, but, well, it did. So, I died after killing 6 out of initial 50. I met them right at the beginning of the level and didn't even know that there were so many of them until it was too late: successful confusion -> no control over teleport corruption -> random teleport into the middle of their room -> stat drained to hell and back.
PC is a gray elven wizard. She is level 34 - the game wasn't hard at all until this point, not couting two greater undead vaults which I decided to skip, so I just rushed things because everything went so well.
After stat drain confusion resistance is bad. You can live through 2 death rays, maybe more if resistance stacks, haven't tried. Left side of the level is untouched, revealed only through blessed scroll of magic mapping. Fire immunity, shock resistance, see invisible, teleport control, lucky, fate smiles without items.
There's some undead slaying ammo (arrows, quarrels, sling bullets) and works pretty well but weapon skills aren't stellar, so PC misses half of the time with Berserk on. Retrieving ammo is generally a problem too.
Willpower has fallen way below radius 2 threshold for ball spells, so the only reliable way of killing emperor liches through spells outside of melee range is Improved Fireball. You can't shoot them from that corner by the way. All ball and bolt spells are available, but not trained much; I preferred Burning Hands and Magic Missile throughout the game due to no risk of destroying loot. Plenty of books in backpack if you want to read, but not for all spells.
There are some healing items available (spenseweeds, potions of extra/ultra healing), but only 2 scrolls of power, so teleport hopping and extensive magic healing might be a problem. Three PoCC and one SoCR available if you want to enjoy a prolonged stay or get rid of teleportitis. All blessed of course.
Can you take a look at this and tell me how would you do it? I have no intention of redoing this but I wonder what better players than me would do. I can upload the save file if someone wants to actually try playing (1.2.0 pre23), I made a copy when the log and screenshot were taken.
Sorry if it's not a proper place for this post.