Messages

1

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 15, 2013, 08:07:47 AM »

I thought you would need to go deeper to get enough resources to build such a set

It took some work. Fortunately, proper use of potions of ambidexterity meant I could do it with surprisingly few scrolls of the big stick.

It's still an intermediate stage, though. I've worked out what I think is the perfect set of weapons for an Echidna to carry; the downside is, from where I am now, I need to pick up another 459 scrolls of the big stick and probably a hundred or so potions of ambidexterity, on top of that, so it'll take a while. (I've got all the scrolls of reforging that I'll need, fortunately).

As for your idea of Cerberi, they could be fun, but they also would be a real trouble for the Echidna race. After each Echidna move, they would get 4 moves (approach, approach, hit, run). Echidna seems to be the easiest race now (most reports seem to use them), so it might be a good idea to nerf it, but being hit after each move (unless using two potions of speed) seems to be too evil...

Hmmm. True. I was thinking more thematically than game-balancely.

Though a potion of mushroom spores could probably ward it off for a bit. Actually, that leads to another thought; thrown potions. It may be reasonable to throw a potion, in order to affect a hydra from a distance with a ranged attack. Of course, in general, one wouldn't want to throw any of the current potions; one might want to throw a potion of slowness, or a potion of stunning, even a potion of transmutation to change one hydra type to another (oh no, a werehydra when I only have ash weapons!) Or throw a potion of mushroom spores, to have a batch of mushrooms spring up one square short of the nearest obstacle or hydra. Or maybe throw a potion of speed at the nearest zombie hydra...

This may also lead to new ways to deal with giants and monkeys; it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to dodge a cloud of potion that sprays everywhere when the bottle shatters.

2

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 14, 2013, 07:45:23 AM »

Ah, excellent, thank you. An earthquake hath released the were-hydra, and I continue on into the depths!

...as another, minor note, I notice that a meteorite eradicator looks exactly like a meteorite pickaxe - instead of a sword with a squiggle in it like other eradicators. It still works as an eradicator, so it's just a graphical glitch.

3

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 12, 2013, 04:38:20 AM »

I've emailed a gzipped copy of the save file to you.

4

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 11, 2013, 08:16:30 PM »

Something very strange has happened. I got to a level, killed all the hydras, and it wouldn't let me down the stairs.

I began to suspect that I had missed a shadow hydra in amongst the mushrooms, so I killed every mushroom on the level - to no avail. I wandered all over the level, making sure to step into all the little alcoves along the edge of the level, so as to be sure that a shadow hydra would at least be able to see me (if not vice versa) - it did not help.

I considered the possibility that the level might have been generated with a little one-square spot that I can never reach, in which hides a hydra. Unfortunately, I have no pickaxe, and no wand of phase wall, and so I cannot check for this. (I have a number of scrolls of the big stick, and at least one of reforging - is there ever any other weapon that reforged into a pickaxe?)

I was going for the level 100 trophy, and doing quite well, so this is a somewhat unpleasant occurance.

5

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 05, 2013, 07:41:18 AM »

Hmmm. Well, I don't know how well it would fit, but here's one possibility for Cerberi (I think that's the right plural form):

Have it move twice as fast as a hydra (like a hydra who's been given a potion of speed). Like the two-headed giants, killing a Cerberus is not necessary; however, they have a greater benefit to health (if killed in melee) than a hydra does. Have them dodge ranged weapons, as a giant does.

The general strategy of a cerberus is to hover around one square away from the player; when you step towards them, they hit once, then step back out of reach, usually before the player can react. Against slower Echnida, they will zip in, attack, and retreat all before the player has a chance to react. Short of taking a Potion of Extreme Speed (or perhaps multiple potions if playing an Echnida), the only way to kill a cerberus is to force it into a corner, so that there's nowhere to run; but if you do kill it, there is a big health benefit to be obtained.

How's that?

6

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: March 02, 2013, 01:35:07 PM »

I believe I may have found another bug. I noticed that there was an achievement for making a hydra collapse under the weight of its own heads, and so I decided to go for it - I was facing an alien hydra, had a Meteor Divisor of Power (/30), and lots of health. As an Echnida, I was using ambidextrous attacks the whole time.

The hydra got to 245015495 heads before I gave up and fungified it. My first thought was that the collapse threshold was simply higher than that, so I decided to look at the code to see how close I'd been; much to my surprise, I found that I'd rather overshot the goal. It seems that ambidextrous attacks don't trigger the Collapsing Hydra test.

7

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 14.6

« on: February 25, 2013, 05:05:42 PM »

The algorithm is used in very many places in the game (Potions of Knowledge, Powder of Growth, the Mersenne Twister; and to generate strategies for ivy-hydras, arch-hydras, and the Twin; ivy-hydras and arch-hydras know that they can use their special powers in the meantime, although I was too lazy to take Twins' joint attacks into account).

Huh. I can find a way to deal with the ivy-hydra, probably the arch-hydra depending on how many heads it can lose at once, the potion of knowledge and probably the Twin as well, using only a partial graph; but the Powder of Growth is a tough one. I think that actually does need the complete graph, especially as I'm not sure that it's possible to work backwards uniquely with some weapons (e.g. the Sector). For maintainability, you'll definitely want to keep all of those options using the same function; if there are two path-finders, they may begin to diverge with future changes.

Okay, then here's another option that should work in all cases; it should be possible to use the ordinary (non-ambidextrous) graph to handle ambidextrous attacks. Since it's the graph generation that's causing the slow-down, this should resolve the problem. The idea is that, instead of seeing the ambidextrous attacks as attacking with several weapons simultaneously, we look at the ambidextrous attack as attacking, or choosing not to attack, with several weapons sequentially. These attacks are always considered to happen in the same order (parenthesabre, then trisector, then dagger...), and only after the ambidextrous user has attacked (or chosen not to attack) with all his weapons does the hydra get a chance to respond (e.g. vulture/ivy hydras grow heads at that point, arch hydras lose heads). Choosing to ignore all weapons would be the "let it attack you" action, which I've noticed turns up on occasion for vulture-headed hydras.

...wait, are you saying that the Mersenne Twister isn't just random?

8

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 13.0

« on: February 24, 2013, 12:26:11 PM »

Yeah, probably the best artifact for the Echidna I have checked this, and it seems that you can reforge it and get another one... (which is intentional, although maybe overpowered).

Hmmm. When I looked it up with the Scroll of Reforging, it looked like it would only give ordinary weapons. Maybe I misread something.

I had, indeed, misread something.

Incidentally, I became a bit suspicious when a potion of knowledge (consumed to deal with a shadow hydra) in my current game took a very long time to tell me to use a single weapon (A31) to defeat a 31-headed hydra. The result was correct, of course, but the delay made me suspicious... so I started poking around in the code for a bit.  It looks like you are drawing up the complete graph for all hydras up to a given maximum number of heads before even starting to calculate the optimal path for the given hydra. Is this correct?

If so, then it should be possible to drastically speed that computation up, without sacrificing accuracy; using something like the minimax algorithm, for example, and only finding those edges of the graph that you actually need to use. (I might have a go at that rewrite myself at some point).

9

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 13.0

« on: February 15, 2013, 04:55:52 PM »

The vorpal dagger will become a machette after each attack (and Echidnas cannot simply move away to reverse this). Does not this cause problems with your strategy?

Surprisingly few. The main reason for this is that the vorpal dagger doesn't usually become a machete after being used in an ambidextrous attack (I think it did a few times, I'm not quite sure why). And I only ever used it non-ambidextrously if that would kill the hydra in one hit (i.e. the hydra had one head) which was a pretty rare circumstance after picking up the vorpal dagger. (Or against mushrooms).

Another reason is that I was often dividing by odd numbers (a lot of the time, 3 and 5 at once) so I didn't need to use the dagger on every hit.

On occasion, I did have to deal with a machete; and the fact that I had a size-15 instead of a size-16 sword enabled me to properly deal with an odd number of heads at least once (and, of course, the machete shrank during that attack).

Yeah, probably the best artifact for the Echidna I have checked this, and it seems that you can reforge it and get another one... (which is intentional, although maybe overpowered).

Hmmm. When I looked it up with the Scroll of Reforging, it looked like it would only give ordinary weapons. Maybe I misread something.

10

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Hydra Slayer version 13.0

« on: February 14, 2013, 06:20:02 PM »

Hmmm. Nice game.

Managed to finish it as an Echnida. On-demand ambidexterity is incredibly useful, used right.

Hydra Slayer v14.5 character log for Echidna CCC (CCC)
Game saved.

Items found and used:
  Powder of Stunning (13/18)
  Powder of Decapitation (11/15)
  Powder of Cancellation (0/22)
  Powder of Growth (0/32)
  Powder of Conflict (0/13)

Some powders I just didn't need.

  Powder of Fungification (7/10)
  Powder of Fungal Necromancy (1/10)

I used the powder of fungal necromancy shortly after using two powders of fungification. I ended up with a zombie were-hydra with over a thousand heads.

...who immediately got into a fight with a hydra that gained more heads than it lost per zombie-hydra attack. Did not work out well.

  Scroll of Transmutation (1/30)
  Scroll of the Big Stick (48/52)
  Scroll of Reforging (7/9)

Scrolls of the big stick are very useful.

  Potion of Power Swipe (0/11)
  Potion of Weapon Charge (0/6)
  Potion of Extreme Speed (17/17)

I couldn't get a weapon back from a three-headed monkey without drinking two of these, due to the Echnida's slow speed.

  Potion of Knowledge (3/14)
  Potion of Power Juice (8/8)
  Potion of Mushroom Spores (0/20)
  Potion of Ambidexterity (7/14)

Only used to apply the Big Stick to multiple weapons at once.

  Potion of Life (2/2)

Had to drink the second one shortly after finishing the small game. Had to drink the first one before the Ancient Hydra level.

No items used on the ancient hydra level - congratulations!

Costs of winning the small game:
  462 wounds
  4427$ of inventory items used up
  280 mutation score
    (when slaying each hydra, you get +1 for each extra arm)
  4 items used against the boss
     (including permanent effects of BS/L/PJ obtained on previous levels)
  109 wounds from the ancient hydra attacks

Costs of winning the big game:
  4197 wounds
  20688$ of inventory items used up
  2905 mutation score
  57 wounds from the ancient dragon attacks

Various stats:
  4197 total wounds (383 of 1024 HP left)
  31213 total turns (hydra movements)
  30164 total seconds of real time
  four-directional movement
  50 levels solved
  1 times saved a game
  9700 moves suggested by auto-explore
  10 vulture hydras have been killed
    13 unhonorable attacks against mighty vultures

Stun and decapitate. The only way to deal with vulture hydras.

  4 giants were killed
  6 monkeys were killed
  1 monkeys were left alive
    145 wounds from armed attacks

If the monkeys wouldn't insist on stealing my biggest weapon, I wouldn't mind them so much.

  4 ivy hydras were killed

Usually via fungification. They're half-plant already, right?

  2 arch-hydras were killed

In one hit each. These were easy - the number of heads was only two digits.

  10 alien hydras have been killed

These, on the other hand, were a pain; I had mainly meteorite weapons. My strategy was to pump them up to the next perfect square, then use my Storm Eradicator along with enough other stuff to wipe them out in one hit. (I got some massive one-hit kills that way).

  9 dragons were killed.

They can shoot through mushrooms!

  2 shadow hydras killed
    48 wounds from shadow hydras

One killed by a potion of knowledge (drank the potion, killed in in two hits) and one by fungification.

  7 ambidextrous uses of scrolls of big stick and transmutation

Various head stats:
  54 heads regrown by vulture hydras while attacking
  43586 heads stunned by Powder of Stunning
  20 heads grown by Ivy Hydras
  3 heads teleported away by Arch-Hydras
  2 heads of hydras slain only with a vorpal blade (+2 HP)  9682 mushroom heads auto-removed by auto-explore

I think you may be missing an end-of-line there.

Records:
  841 max hydra one-shotted

An alien hydra, using an Eradicator and a few other weapons at once. My previous maximum was 729 - also an alien hydra. (Well. Two seperate alien hydras).

  2 max speed drank at once

Catching up to a monkey while trying not to get hit.

Attack types used:
  normal blade: max 26, to win 12, 811 uses, 6684 enemy heads, 29 kills, 179 mushroom heads, 68 destroyed, 16 heads regrown
  meteorite blade: max 15, to win 2, 2352 uses, 8138 enemy heads, 11 kills, 1155 mushroom heads, 139 destroyed, 16 heads regrown
  blunt weapon: max 7, 64 uses
  divisor: max 16, to win 10, 421 uses, 1142327 enemy heads, 7 heads regrown
  eradicator: max 2, 85 uses, 12342 enemy heads
  missile: max 4, 2 uses, 4 enemy heads, 4 mushroom heads, 3 heads regrown
    1 total hydras hit by your missiles
  zombie: max 12, 0 uses, 685 enemy heads, 437 heads regrown
    1174 total mushroom heads converted to zombie heads
  non-zombie hydras: max 13, 0 uses, 1218 enemy heads, 1 kills, 38 heads regrown
  ambidexterity: 904 uses, 1171154 enemy heads, 459 kills, 457 mushroom heads, 48 destroyed, 2966 heads regrown, 261 stunned heads cut
    3271 one-hand hits used in ambidextrous attacks
  pickaxe: 12 uses, 12 walls

Testing it out, on the floor I picked it up on. Ended up leaving it there.

  primeslayer: 2 uses

I have no idea where the size limit for this is, but every time I used it, it failed (even though the number was prime). I used the Scroll of the Big Stick on it a couple of times, to no apparent use, and ended up leaving it behind later.

  vorpal: max 8, 449 uses, 5 enemy heads, 2 kills, 517 mushroom heads, 104 destroyed

Picked up a vorpal meteorite blade. Picked it up to use instead of the meteorite dagger, so as to gain a minor health benefit from one-headed hydras.

  axe: max 16, 146 uses, 6 enemy heads, 1 kills

Weapons at the end:
  meteorite vorpal dagger (V1, from Level 33)
    449 uses, 5 enemy heads, 2 kills, 517 mushroom heads, 104 destroyed
  meteorite machete (-2, obtained by reforging, from Level
    567 uses, 22 enemy heads, 4 kills, 122 mushroom heads, 29 destroyed
  meteorite shortsword (-4, obtained by reforging, from Level 15)
    425 uses, 20 enemy heads, 1 kills, 76 mushroom heads, 12 destroyed
  meteorite double sword (-8, obtained by reforging, from Level 26)
    240 uses, 16 enemy heads, 1 kills, 16 mushroom heads, 1 destroyed, 16 heads regrown

This should tell you a lot about my strategy.

  Meteorite Quad Bisector (/16, obtained by reforging, from Level 23)
    132 uses
  Storm Eradicator (R2, from Level 12)
    85 uses
  Meteorite Trisector (/3, obtained by reforging, from Level 41)
    55 uses
  meteorite three-handed sword (-15, obtained by reforging, from Level 21)
    269 uses, 12 enemy heads, 1 kills

Didn't want to make this bigger - with another Power Juice, I could reforge another divisor and take down even bigger hydras quickly and effectively!

  ash scythe of the vinculum ((7, ash shortsword of binding from Level 37)
    64 uses

This was incredibly useful, on many occasions. It was thanks to his scythe that I was able to use a Trisector on the Ancient Dragon in the first round (and thanks to a potion of extreme speed that I was able to stay out of his line of fire until that point).

Best with a prime size that is not a factor of any divisor sword, but that's what scrolls of the big stick are for.

If I'd been allowed two of them, I could have guaranteed a Trisector hit in the first round of any battle (instead of the two-thirds probability I had); unfortunately, they reforge into far more ordinary weapons.

  Meteorite Pentasector (/5, obtained by reforging, from Level 39)
    57 uses

Weapon history:
  (L3) flaming sabre (-3, from Level 1)
    6 uses, 3 enemy heads, 1 kills
  (L4) flaming longsword (-5, from Level 3)
    5 uses
  (L5) frozen double axe (A6, from Level 4)
    12 uses, 6 enemy heads, 1 kills
  (L6) frozen scythe (-7, from Level 5)
    2 uses
  (L9) flaming machete (-2, brought from home)
    68 uses, 30 enemy heads, 15 kills, 20 mushroom heads, 10 destroyed
  (L9) bone dagger (-1, brought from home)
    112 uses, 10 enemy heads, 9 kills, 53 mushroom heads, 49 destroyed
  (L9) ash bastard sword (-9, from a Giant on Level 7)
    20 uses
  (L10) poison halberd (A10, from Level
    19 uses
  (L10) Poison Decimator (/10, from Level 9)
    2 uses

Was a bit too big this early in the game. I took up an acid trisector instead, which grew into a triple bisector.

  (L11) acid triple sword (-12, from Level 10)
    11 uses
  (L12) bone triple sword (-12, from Level 11)
    12 uses
  (L16) bone shortsword (-4, from Level 2)
    129 uses, 12 enemy heads, 1 kills, 20 mushroom heads, 4 destroyed
  (L18) poison bastard sword (-9, from Level 13)
    25 uses
  (L21) flaming shuriken (M4, from Level 20)
    2 uses, 4 enemy heads, 4 mushroom heads, 3 heads regrown
  (L22) bone two-handed sword (-10, from Level 20)
    16 uses, 10 enemy heads, 10 mushroom heads, 1 destroyed
  (L24) Acid Triple Bisector (/8, Acid Trisector from Level 10)
    160 uses, 180 enemy heads, 7 heads regrown
  (L24) Poison Double Bisector (/4, from Level 23)
    4 uses
  (L27) silver double sword (-8, from Level 6)
    258 uses, 64 enemy heads, 1 kills, 32 mushroom heads, 4 destroyed, 16 heads regrown
  (L29) frozen axe of might (A16, acid axe of might from a Giant on Level 18)
    115 uses
  (L31) amethyst pick axe (W1, from Level 30)
    12 uses, 12 walls
  (L33) golden three-handed sword (-15, from Level 29)
    23 uses
  (L34) meteorite dagger (-1, from Level 9)
    851 uses, 10 enemy heads, 4 kills, 528 mushroom heads, 97 destroyed
  (L38) Silver S2 Primeslayer (p2, Silver Primeslayer from Level 32)
    2 uses
  (L40) Bone Double Bisector (/4, from Level 36)
    11 uses
  (L42) chaos blade of dancing (D26, chaos katana of dancing from Level 28)
    124 uses, 44 enemy heads, 2 kills

Monkeys kept stealing this last one, for some reason.