Strategy Thread for talking about Strategies

[Darvin]

Also, it'll be impossible to win the Bazaar challenges, because now you get 10, or 5, gold instead of 25.

I think you may need to - shudder - prep Tikki Tooki

[The Avatar]

NOOOOOOOOOO! Well, that actually won't much of a problem because you don't even need to win, just buy stuff out.

[Joist]

Continues from : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=219&start=967

I don't know if this is a bug or just something I screwed up, but I can't use the Bank preparation anymore. It's upgraded to level 2. I used to be able to take 25 or 35 gold into my runs but now the bank slot is just blank when I try a run.

That's in the latest patch notes. The preparation is now automatic. It gives you less gold, but it doesn't count towards Purist.

Oh. Thanks. I'm having a hell of a time wrapping my brain around this game. I'm at the point where I have 4 dungeons n/w/s/e each "hard" and I can't beat any of them. Also can't beat any of the "Halfling mage" quests.

I can't help but think I'm missing big aspects of how to win. I tried looking in the strategy thread but most people seem to be talking about stuff they already understand. I need a beginner guide. Like what's "level catapult"?

A level catapult is simply killing higher level enemies to get the bonus experience.

When I was find "hards" hard the thing that helped me was reading a bunch of annotated guides. That and learning to use gods properly. Gods will give you a good "bump" in power. EM is a pretty straightforward choice nowadays. Which have you unlocked?

Here's a bunch of them on the wiki, even for vicious dungeons (and most of the vicious dungeon strats will get you through the hard levels): http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... aythroughs

Here's a useful forum thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1841

I would try east first. The east directional you are stuck on is creeplight, yes? Halfling priest works well because of his super damage. Save up your pots for the boss though.

Ask any questions you want, I'll try and answer them.

[DeAngelo]

A level catapult is simply killing higher level enemies to get the bonus experience.

When I was find "hards" hard the thing that helped me was reading a bunch of annotated guides. That and learning to use gods properly. Gods will give you a good "bump" in power. EM is a pretty straightforward choice nowadays. Which have you unlocked?

Here's a bunch of them on the wiki, even for vicious dungeons (and most of the vicious dungeon strats will get you through the hard levels): http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... aythroughs

Here's a useful forum thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1841

I would try east first. The east directional you are stuck on is creeplight, yes? Halfling priest works well because of his super damage. Save up your pots for the boss though.

Ask any questions you want, I'll try and answer them.

Thanks for the help. I'm going to try to avoid the annotated playthroughs if possible. The thing I love about roguelikes is the "Learn from your mistakes" style of play. Hell, I've had Stone Soup for over 2 years and Dredmor for about a year and haven't beat either, yet I know the moment I look up a guide it'll suck every ounce of fun from it. For instance, now that I know what the level catapult is, I realize I've done that before and having devised the tactic myself feels much more awesome than if I had just looked it up.

I haven't messed with gods because I have no idea what angers them/pleases them. I get general ideas like the earth one doesn't like you killing plants but I need to find a guide on what each god likes/hates. I think I have them all unlocked. I have a thing in my church that lets me choose one of them to automatically show up in a dungeon. Er, no I only have Earthmother, Tikki Tokki, Dracul, Glowing Guardian and Taurog.

So I guess my questions are:
What angers/pleases each god?
What are some good class/race combos? I have all 3 tiers of the main 4 classes unlocked, and for race I have human, elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome and orc
What are some good well known tricks in dungeons? One thing I like to do is save a few level ones to throw IMAWAL at and then kill a higher level enemy. The combo of imawal and the bonus from higher level kill gets me a lot of xp.

Edit: I managed to finish creeplight with the halfling priest like you said. I had completely forgotten about his undead bonus.

[Joist]

For the gods I would go with binlor, taurog or EM. Binlor is the best imo because his worship is very straightforward and you can prep him with little impact on your game. If you haven't found him yet you'll find him where you unlocked taurog.

Here's a list of god information: http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... title=Gods

What's your kingdom looking like? Do you have the witch yet?

Human thief, the everyman. At first more items doesn't seem that great, but 1 more glyph is amazing tactically and if you choose to convert it then he gets +20% attack overall (1 from the glyph and 1 extra booster).
Halfling priest, health potion creation synergises with 100% effective health potions.
Gnome warlord is amazing. Try and find MA (god) and you can prep her with no hesitation since you'll be melee'ing.
Human Berserker for magic damage levels. Especially if the boss is magic.
Orcs got trashed this update so just avoid them

Dungeon tricks, well if you find WONAFYT early, spam it while exploring as slowed enemies give +1 experience. Same deal with WEYTWUT. IMAWAL as you said is great.

Regen fighting is where you attack an enemy then reveal some tiles then attack it again. Works very well if you have high resists and sometimes you do it to get a second attack in. For instance you have 11 mana so you cast 1 fireball, regen 1 tile then cast another. Now imagine the same thing with health, the enemy does 50% damage to you so you attack once, regen 1 tile so that the next attack won't kill you then attack again.

edit: Nice work on creeplight!

edt2: OH, POPCORN. Popcorn is where you don't kill low level enemies, instead you save them for later to get a controlled level. They are called popcorn because generally you go around killing all of them at once quite quickly.

A controlled level mid-fight for bosses can win you the dungeon because of the health/mana regen and stat boost.

[The Avatar]

Yeah, regen fighting, experience catapults, and mid-fight level ups are all you need. That and skill with the gods.

[DeAngelo]

Thanks for the tips. I'm gonna play some more later (I'd load it up now to show what my kingdom looks like but the game freezes my pc every time I load it up and I have something else running right now.)

I'll put these tips to work and let you know how I do later.

[Darvin]

In terms of simplicity, Dracul and Glowing Guardian are the only two you really need to watch out for. Most other deities only have one or two penalized actions.

Earthmother: doesn't like lifesteal or killing plants
Binlor: "tolls" you 10 piety when you level up
Taurog: doesn't like spellcasting or destroying his items
Jehora Jeheyu: never actually deducts piety (just randomly gets bored and starts messing with you)
Mystera: doesn't like killing spellcaster enemies
Tikki Tooki: dislikes taking multiple hits from the same monster, and using death protection

Then we have the big guy in the sky and the big guy down below...

Dracul: dislikes killing undead, casting CYDSTEPP, casting HALPMEH, and drinking healing potions
Glowing Guardian: dislikes picking up gold, killing higher-level monsters, drinking health potions, drinking mana potions, using poison, using lifesteal, activating the BLUDTUPOWA glyph.

For beginners, just avoid GG and Dracul unless you're looking to experiment a little. Only worship Tikki Tooki when you're a high-level character. Mystera, Taurog, Binlor, Earthmther, and Jehora Jeheyu should all be fine since they're basically spelled out for you. Jehora Jeheyu is a little less straightforward, but once you've attained "petition" you're home clear.

[Joist]

Dracul is really only useful as a second god, it's really pretty painful to try to use him by himself. GG is still ridiculous, the only way I know how to use him is to get in and get out quick.

TT is a lategame god, if I plan on taking him I generally don't until level 6-7.

Binlor would have my vote as the default one for new players because of his straightforward belief system and low prep cost.

[Darvin]

GG is still ridiculous, the only way I know how to use him is to get in and get out quick.

Actually, you can stick with him for a while now. Because the piety penalty for killing higher-level monsters has been reduced and the piety-gain for level-ups has been raised, you can actually stay in the net positive with him so long as you don't pick up too much gold. You still want to convert out for your end-game to use potions, however.