JellySlayer
04-29-2013, 06:07 AM
I've been meaning to try this challenge for awhile, finally got around to it on pre10. Steelman requires you to spend the entire game in wilderness, without visiting any other locations. Moreover, you are not allowed to evade any wilderness encounters, or flee from an encounter once started. You're supposed to kill everything you come across.
My strategy basically went something like this:
Levels 1-8 or so, I trained in the plains areas, mostly trying to kill barbarians for arrows, and jackals/dogs for food, until I was able to get food preservation above 90. With a decent stock of arrows and food, I moved to the hill areas where I killed hill orcs to train To. This process I repeated until around level 15.
Level 15, I got a monster upgrade. This introduces big xp kills of black dragons (swamp), air elementals (plains), giant boars (forest), red dragons (mountains, which I was able to access around level 17 after a climbing set dropped), stone giant (lords) (mountains), as well as swamp hydras from earlier. I mostly hunted these guys, especially the swamp ones to try to train To from swamp hydras, along with killing all of the larger groups of weak monsters for corpses and loot.
Around level 21, I finally hit my first scroll of danger, which allowed me to raise the wilderness DL to 5, opening up access to a host of new items I'd been lacking--most importantly, hatchets for fletchery, holy water, and necklaces of the eye to improve my sight. I also grabbed 7lbs and some mithril armor. The next few levels were a bit of a slog. The hills and roads were getting very dangerous because after 350 or so kills, assassins were pretty bad; I had many hundreds of jackal kills, which were also starting to get pretty strong, so the plains were getting annoying as well. Moreover, diminishing returns on my big kills was getting bad... even with Slow Monster, which I learn early and used for almost every major fight, pretty much all of my big kills had dropped by at least 1/2 or 2/3 of their starting xp by the time I hit level 25.
Just before 25, though, I got lucky and found a magical writing set. Excitedly, I wrote two more scrolls of danger (then it vanished), which let me get up to DL 10ish. I hit level 25, then dipped a stack of 4 rings and a stack of 5 rings into my two PoEX, and managed to get an RoDS. I thought that it was done at this point, as I found a piece of swampland that had a 1x1 island in it where I could kill greater molochs without danger. Unfortunately, I stupidly used the wish on that island, forgetting that the djinni needs a place to stand. Wish was wasted. Ugh. I fought some more, getting eternium gear from a chaos knight and some other nice bits from random drops. At level 26, I hit a second wish, found a similar swamp area, but this time used the wish properly and summoned an emperor moloch.
I thought I was in trouble at the start as most of my arrows were bouncing harmlessly off of them, but at some point I realized that I had a stack of extra slaying arrows that I'd apparently IDed at some point and forgot about. Using these, I was able to clear the molochs--the island, as it turned out, was only really necessary at the start--the molochs all got bored and walked to the other end of the map, and then I was able to chase them down and pick them off one at a time. 24 greater molochs later, I hit level 50 and achieved victory. I cleared the remaining 10 molochs for propriety's sake, then left the chain.
My final kill list looked like this:
44 air elementals
663 assassins
114 bandits
488 barbarians
121 barbarian leaders
7 berserkers
60 black dragons
15 black hurthlings
2 black unicorns
32 black wizards
9 brown bears
8 bugbears
60 cave bears
148 cave lions
109 cave lizards
234 chaos brothers
3 chaos knights
10 chaos mutants
609 chaos plague bearers
8 chaos rats
4 chaos servants
234 chaos sisters
2 chaos warlords
8 corpse fiends
3 corruptors
1 dark elven wizard
5 dark orcs
92 dire wolves
9 doppelgangers
34 Dorn Beasts
1 dwarf
12 fire beetles
5 fire lizards
1 floating eye
11 fomorian giants
6 gargoyles
1 gelatinous cube
365 ghuls
5 giant bats
12 giant boars
2 giant centipedes
438 giant frogs
15 giant lizards
12 giant rats
9 giant rust monsters
5 giant spiders
985 gnolls
113 gnoll chieftains
5 goblins
4 goblin berserkers
7 goblin chieftains
21 goblin rockthrowers
6 goblin slavemasters
9 gray oozes
34 greater molochs
5 green hags
7 green worms
8 griffons
14 grizzly bears
7 harpies
95 hill giants
6 hill giant chieftains
241 hill orcs
111 hill orc sergeants
2 hippogriffs
352 hobgoblins
70 hobgoblin chiefs
89 hobgoblin leaders
5 homunculi
2 huge bats
1 hyena
1269 jackals
19 jackalweres
25 kobolds
14 kobold shamans
14 large bats
450 large dogs
528 large gnolls
14 large kobolds
6 large orcs
14 large rust monsters
8 large spiders
5 lesser daemons
5 leucrottas
520 lizard men
1 master swordsman
22 necromancers
70 ogres
2 ogre emperors
14 ogre lords
6 ogre magi
62 orcs
3 orc chieftains
25 orc scorchers
408 outlaws
34 outlaw leaders
3 owlbears
10 quicklings
6 quickling lords
1 raider
24 rats
1 ratling archer
52 red dragons
37 rust monsters
874 skeletons
264 stone giants
10 stone giant lords
58 swamp hydras
3 swordsmen
18 wererats
138 wights
383 wolves
36 wraiths
421 zombies
My strategy basically went something like this:
Levels 1-8 or so, I trained in the plains areas, mostly trying to kill barbarians for arrows, and jackals/dogs for food, until I was able to get food preservation above 90. With a decent stock of arrows and food, I moved to the hill areas where I killed hill orcs to train To. This process I repeated until around level 15.
Level 15, I got a monster upgrade. This introduces big xp kills of black dragons (swamp), air elementals (plains), giant boars (forest), red dragons (mountains, which I was able to access around level 17 after a climbing set dropped), stone giant (lords) (mountains), as well as swamp hydras from earlier. I mostly hunted these guys, especially the swamp ones to try to train To from swamp hydras, along with killing all of the larger groups of weak monsters for corpses and loot.
Around level 21, I finally hit my first scroll of danger, which allowed me to raise the wilderness DL to 5, opening up access to a host of new items I'd been lacking--most importantly, hatchets for fletchery, holy water, and necklaces of the eye to improve my sight. I also grabbed 7lbs and some mithril armor. The next few levels were a bit of a slog. The hills and roads were getting very dangerous because after 350 or so kills, assassins were pretty bad; I had many hundreds of jackal kills, which were also starting to get pretty strong, so the plains were getting annoying as well. Moreover, diminishing returns on my big kills was getting bad... even with Slow Monster, which I learn early and used for almost every major fight, pretty much all of my big kills had dropped by at least 1/2 or 2/3 of their starting xp by the time I hit level 25.
Just before 25, though, I got lucky and found a magical writing set. Excitedly, I wrote two more scrolls of danger (then it vanished), which let me get up to DL 10ish. I hit level 25, then dipped a stack of 4 rings and a stack of 5 rings into my two PoEX, and managed to get an RoDS. I thought that it was done at this point, as I found a piece of swampland that had a 1x1 island in it where I could kill greater molochs without danger. Unfortunately, I stupidly used the wish on that island, forgetting that the djinni needs a place to stand. Wish was wasted. Ugh. I fought some more, getting eternium gear from a chaos knight and some other nice bits from random drops. At level 26, I hit a second wish, found a similar swamp area, but this time used the wish properly and summoned an emperor moloch.
I thought I was in trouble at the start as most of my arrows were bouncing harmlessly off of them, but at some point I realized that I had a stack of extra slaying arrows that I'd apparently IDed at some point and forgot about. Using these, I was able to clear the molochs--the island, as it turned out, was only really necessary at the start--the molochs all got bored and walked to the other end of the map, and then I was able to chase them down and pick them off one at a time. 24 greater molochs later, I hit level 50 and achieved victory. I cleared the remaining 10 molochs for propriety's sake, then left the chain.
My final kill list looked like this:
44 air elementals
663 assassins
114 bandits
488 barbarians
121 barbarian leaders
7 berserkers
60 black dragons
15 black hurthlings
2 black unicorns
32 black wizards
9 brown bears
8 bugbears
60 cave bears
148 cave lions
109 cave lizards
234 chaos brothers
3 chaos knights
10 chaos mutants
609 chaos plague bearers
8 chaos rats
4 chaos servants
234 chaos sisters
2 chaos warlords
8 corpse fiends
3 corruptors
1 dark elven wizard
5 dark orcs
92 dire wolves
9 doppelgangers
34 Dorn Beasts
1 dwarf
12 fire beetles
5 fire lizards
1 floating eye
11 fomorian giants
6 gargoyles
1 gelatinous cube
365 ghuls
5 giant bats
12 giant boars
2 giant centipedes
438 giant frogs
15 giant lizards
12 giant rats
9 giant rust monsters
5 giant spiders
985 gnolls
113 gnoll chieftains
5 goblins
4 goblin berserkers
7 goblin chieftains
21 goblin rockthrowers
6 goblin slavemasters
9 gray oozes
34 greater molochs
5 green hags
7 green worms
8 griffons
14 grizzly bears
7 harpies
95 hill giants
6 hill giant chieftains
241 hill orcs
111 hill orc sergeants
2 hippogriffs
352 hobgoblins
70 hobgoblin chiefs
89 hobgoblin leaders
5 homunculi
2 huge bats
1 hyena
1269 jackals
19 jackalweres
25 kobolds
14 kobold shamans
14 large bats
450 large dogs
528 large gnolls
14 large kobolds
6 large orcs
14 large rust monsters
8 large spiders
5 lesser daemons
5 leucrottas
520 lizard men
1 master swordsman
22 necromancers
70 ogres
2 ogre emperors
14 ogre lords
6 ogre magi
62 orcs
3 orc chieftains
25 orc scorchers
408 outlaws
34 outlaw leaders
3 owlbears
10 quicklings
6 quickling lords
1 raider
24 rats
1 ratling archer
52 red dragons
37 rust monsters
874 skeletons
264 stone giants
10 stone giant lords
58 swamp hydras
3 swordsmen
18 wererats
138 wights
383 wolves
36 wraiths
421 zombies