First Win: Ultimate Chaos God grey elf wizard slightly-faster-then-normal run

[webbing10]

Version: 1.1.1
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=WW2BRgR8


Being the stubborn individual that I am, I decided to read an ADoM guide thoroughly before even starting, and I went for what perhaps might be the hardest possible ending. Now I am no perfect individual, this endeavor took me an estimated 110 deaths. Through the use of completely shameless savescumming (mostly to visit every dungeon risk free, though I feel I really only needed it in the ToEF and in my character's first 12 levels) I was able to do in 25+ hours over 5 months what takes normal people 5 years. As a result of this I was able to cut down on the grinding and beat the game in ~ 75,000 turns, which makes me happy.

Upon looking back at the saves I have made, I noticed that I was doing a lot worse during the start of the game and got better over time. If there were 2 things I could have done differently they would have been:
1) abuse the infinite ring of djinni summoning glitch present in this version slightly more and used the extra wishes for more healing items. Which would have worked wonders in the final levels.
2) focus on my stats slightly more, as they are severely lacking.

On a unrelated side note when I entered the chaos dungeon for the final time I had around 35000 stones of stuff, by the end I had around 7000.

Now im going to get the latest version of adom and see if I can actually speed run it.

[Stingray1]

Good luck. Remember, copying a svg into savedg directory even once(unless there was a crash) counts as not a victory in my books.

If not the case, congratulations.

I'm currently attempting UCG and agree fully with you about the hardest.

I'm not certain whether I have enough resources to kill Keriax after BDC used a lot, but I have killed him many times, feel slightly convident.
He's immune to PoCC, PoI, WoP.

Here I go.

[Stingray1]

Killed Keriax. Protip:

His melee attack now poisons

[webbing10]

Good luck. Remember, copying a svg into savedg directory even once(unless there was a crash) counts as not a victory in my books.

If not the case, congratulations.

The only places in the main story line where I actually did restore a save file was three times in the ToEF and twice near the bottom of the chaos dungeon (though I did make a save every 10 minutes or so, I reset the game when I died during the first 1/3). While around level 20 I decided to visit some of the side dungeons just for the sake of exploring them, and because I didn't want to have to start over at that point I decided to restore a save file there. I think the only non-required dungeon that made the cut was the assassins guild, though I may be forgetting one. Sure you can call it not a victory but as far as i'm concerned, the only reason I needed to do that at all is because of how reckless I was, taking around 50 turns per minute (which is insane for a wizard).

Another reason for dying at all was the lack of AoLS I found. I had to grind just to get the ultra ending and I had no extra ones. I have always figured that wishes could not spawn AoLS but I may be mistaken. Perhaps I will try that in version 1.2 where I will be attempting a normal, neutral, and completely legitimate speedrun, probably as a warrior because high HP supports my carelessness.

As for Kariax I decided to lure him outside of the "room" he was in so his helpers wouldn't attack, and I just used acid ball I think whenever the confusion didn't stop me. I think for this fight I actually left all my non-essential items on the ground so he couldn't destroy them with bolts, though that turned out to be not the smartest idea. I had a ton of resistance from pools at this point (I basically kept going into the unremarkable dungeon early game until I found a pool at the very start and started over until I got what I wanted, yes that's where a lot of my deaths are from), so I wasn't hurt as much as I would have been otherwise, though having resistance to confusion would have made this section a lot easier.

[Mekran]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Stingray1, you don't really learn from mistakes when there's no punishment for making them.

Another reason for dying at all was the lack of AoLS I found.

Most games don't actually use AoLS as they are destroyed very easily. They would only be useful if you were intentionally taking deadly risks, and simply not taking those risks would be a better option.

I had a ton of resistance from pools at this point (I basically kept going into the unremarkable dungeon early game until I found a pool at the very start and started over until I got what I wanted

This is probably the most significant advantage of your savescumming. Having every resistance makes a huge difference, especially early game. Moreso if you were resetting for wishes. I don't think I've got any wishes from pools since I started playing ADOM again when the resurrection campaign started.

[webbing10]

I'm afraid I have to agree with Stingray1, you don't really learn from mistakes when there's no punishment for making them.

I think there is a difference between learning from and fixing mistakes. I learned not to try to rush through a strategy game, but I never felt that that knowledge ever went into practice in this run.

This is probably the most significant advantage of your savescumming. Having every resistance makes a huge difference, especially early game. Moreso if you were resetting for wishes.

I actually did not save scum the pools, and furthermore was unable to actually get a wish out of them . I hear that doing so is incredibly rare and so I just settled for getting lucky with several resistances in a row after around 2.5 hours of running through the UD until I found one (and of course time spend dying in an attempt to get there)

[anon123]

Agreed with the above consensus. Savescumming is a fine tool to initially cope with ADOM's high difficulty and learning curve, but if you use it to go through the entire game and win, even just once, you'll only have a partial picture of what actually performing that task is. When you can't simply restore from a backup if you die, one of the most important aspects of this game, making the right decisions and weighting risks vs. rewards, comes to surface. This is what I realized when I quit the habit. This is also why I think adding an exploration mode like in NetHack, but without infinite wishes or any other debug features, would make the game more newbie-friendly.

Nonetheless, a first win is still a milestone, scummed or not. I hope you enjoyed seeing all the places mentioned in the Guidebook by yourself. I also scored a savescummed win around 3 years after finding the game, and found clearing D: 50 to be the most awe-inspiring thing.

[JellySlayer]

You might want to try to get your first win before you worry about speedrunning the game.

[webbing10]

You might want to try to get your first win before you worry about speedrunning the game.

But I like hitting 2 birds with one stone. Or two orcs with one fire bolt.

[anon123]

I also like choosing the shortest routes when traveling in the wilderness and minimizing backtracking, even though I don't speedrun and the 90-day limit(s) is somehow overrated. Inside dungeons, I always take my time and scan every tile, however!