So I've started playing Moria.

[dreamician]

So ya, this is a lot different than rogue.

Choosing a class and being able to purchase equipment and items before heading into the dungeon is REALLY nice. Of course, how nice it turns out to be sort of depends on your starting gold. Usually I'm able to get a full set of leather equipment, some oil and a lantern (if offered). If I haggle carefully I can usually get a Word of recall scroll too. But not always.

So, one problem I've run into three times is what I call the "neverending multiplying monster" room. So far I've seen l's (louses) and w's (worm mass), and I think one time I encountered multiplying flies of some variety.

Anyway, wow what a pain in the neck! Even when there's only a few to start in the room, I can't kill them fast enough--they multiply faster than I can kill. The first time I ran into this deal I got surrounded. I tried to kill a path out of there, but they just kept replacing, and wittled me down to zero HP. RIP.

Second time I walked into a swarm that was already like 8 strong. I didn't even try--I high-tailed it out of there and down a corridor. Well, guess what? They can multiply ahead of you in the corridor. I managed to kill the one in front of me ad nauseum until I got to a room. One problem--no other exits. So once again, they surrounded me and RIP.

The third time was just plain unfair. I walked into a room of louses, and walked right back out. Of course they're following me the whole time. Then I headed into new territory and found ANOTHER room full of worm masses. I did my best to get to the exit on the other side, but the room quickly filled with louses and worm masses. RIP.

So... any tips? So far I think this is the most difficult obstacle I've come across. I've learned to stay away from Jellies, and red nagas (they drain your strength!).

Another question--is there a "best way" to explore a level? What I've been trying to do is take one exit and head in one direction, and keep running in that direction (ignoring alternate paths and doors) till I basically come to a halt, then I backtrack and explore those alternate routes. I try basically to find an edge, explore that edge, then go clockwise or counterclockwise to another edge and map that out, then head into the center.

Is there a better way?

Any help appreciated!

[corremn]

Multiplying monsters are annoying, however not really the threat I remember.  A spell of detect monster helps a lot, if playing a wizard/rogue. Once monsters wake up they start multiplying, try a higher stealth character and they hopefully wont wake up until you see them.  The first ball spell of the wizard takes care of louses if encountered early enough. Otherwise run away. They should not be able to kill you one at a time and eventally you will be able to shut a door behind them. Shut all doors you see to keep them contained, then change level if you really want to.  You should only run to known escape routes, or you will run into that kobold on 1hp.  Obviously a word of recall will save you, but are very pricy for an early character.

Level up a few time on level 1 by clearing it and going back up to  the town and back again.

As for clearing levels, I really just head in one direction and until I hit the end then go around the edges.  Remember to search areas when doors are probably hidden, so you dont miss out on areas. You will regonise these spots soon enough.

Stat draining monsters are really annoying, until you get thet HA ego weapon. Yeehaw! Long live Moria. Well at least rest in peace.

Anyway my memory of this game is at least 12 years old. But it is probably my most played game, I should whip out a copy.  To the internet!

[corremn]

Just found this post from the creater of moria
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/msg/6526ee37f9e09e1a?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

 "I never got to play Moria and be surprised... "  
I wonder how he felt when he played angband.

I got binary from here.  Its a little hard to go back to moria from angband. Too bad there is not a moria variant of angband.
http://remarque.org/~grabiner/moria.html

[corremn]

On a side note, NPPAngband 0.5 was just released.

[dreamician]

Thanks for the tips, keep 'em coming. I'm trying out the different classes and race combinations. So far half-orc warrior does extremely well.

[corremn]

One thing that helps to keep in mind is that you done have to kill everything. Those stat drainers and acid monster are best left alone. Also once you feel comfortable enough dive deep, that is where you will get more exp for your kills and better item drops.  OTOH I won with a troll priest, with a very slow decent.  But you level quicker if you descend quicker.  You just need to make sure you have something to get you out of trouble.  Staffs of cure critical wounds, speed, ?of Phase Door, teleport etc. If you dont have these buy them from the shop. A warrior will get into trouble otherwise. And use ranged weapons to soften up those hard monsters.
To succeed in moria you need great equipment, and that is only found down deep.  Of course run for anything with a emperor prefix.

Also I remember something about level 25 being good for rings of speed.

[dreamician]

Thanks, your advice is much appreciated. The more I play Moria, the more I like it. It's extremely addicting. I guess not too many people are playing Moria, at least who are reading this thread--maybe they've moved on to Angband etc. But my goal is to play these roguelikes in succession of their release, so I can truly appreciate features/aspects of the later games. You said you beat the game with a troll priest. Good job, it tells me that you really know how to play this game.

Again, thanks for joining my thread.

Regarding exploring methods, I noticed that if you do shift+m, you get an overhead map! So at the start of the level I can see if I'm in a corner/middle etc, and can start productively exploring in the appropriate directions. Extremely useful. It also shows any > or < which is really helpful when you're ready to move on.

Now on to some questions...

Secret Doors

What's the maximum number of times you usually check for secret doors on a tile?

If I'm just exploring the map, I usually do 6->s to search 6 times quickly. I found that *usually* finds a door. OTOH there have been a few times where I ran down to the end of the hall, and I knew there HAD to be a door there, but six repeat searches didn't find it.

One time I think the door didn't appear until I had done 18 searches. On another occasion I swear it didn't show up until I had entered 6->s about six times. (36 searches). So what's your max that you do, and do you have a standard number that you do when you're first exploring the map and not looking to fill out the last corner etc?

Items

Okay, so I'm finding all these wands, staves, scrolls, potions etc. And so far what I've been doing is waiting until my inventory is full (can't pick up anything else) and I have a decent number of hit points.

Then I just start quaffing potions until I've gone through the list. Then I read all my unidentified scrolls. Once I find a non-mobile monster (like a mold/jelly) I zap it with all the wands I have, and/or Zap all my staves.

So when I'm done trying everything out, and I look at the list, about half of them are now identified. But some of them are listed like this (example):

k) a Zirconium Wand {tried}.

So, even after using it a bunch of times, it still says {tried} etc. So do you have to use an identify scroll on them or will they eventually ID if you use them enough?

Which types of items are worth using an ID scroll on? I know one time I had a wand that shot some kind of frost ball, and that killed most monsters with one or two hits--I found it extremely useful.

How do you try your stuff? As soon as you find it, or do you wait till you have full inv etc? Or do you play it safe and wait until you get to down and just scroll-id as much as you can?

Because this happened one time--it was just nasty. I was reading through my scrolls when one came up as "summon monster." It summoned some kind of naga (can't remember which kind) and a mushroom patch. Well, before I could attack or do anything, the mushroom sprayed out spores that paralyzed me. And it kept doing this EVERY TURN while the naga just kept hitting me.

I started that fight with something like 130 hp's and I was down to 20 hp's before finally I resisted the paralyzation one turn enough for me to move one square to the right, then the next turn it got me again until I was down to about 8 hp's. Then I resisted once again and moved another square so that I was out of range of the mushroom patch.

I drank all my cured light potions, and a potion of heroism while I slugged it out with the naga. It was super-tough, so something tells me that summon monster scrolls will pull up monsters tougher than the usual ones for that depth. Is that accurate? Anyway, I barely survived that encounter, and it makes me really nervous about reading scrolls to ID them. Any thoughts?

That's it for now...

[corremn]

Thanks, your advice is much appreciated. The more I play Moria, the more I like it. It's extremely addicting.

I found moria very addictive as a kid, even the more tedious things like tunneling for gold, haggling, grinding away at thousands of louses to get 5 experience points. Now-a-days I shudder at the though but back then I had all the time in the world.

But my goal is to play these roguelikes in succession of their release, so I can truly appreciate features/aspects of the later games. You said you beat the game with a troll priest. Good job, it tells me that you really know how to play this game.

Very admirable goal, one more people should take up on.  I am amazed how good moria is compared to rogue, some of the things in it are fantastic given the time and technology behind it at the time.

Secret Doors

It has been a while since I played moria, so I cant remember how many times I, but it will depend on your searching skill.  You can also switch to search mode permanently with '#' but I cant remember what the benefit of this is.    I quite often just hold done the 's' key for a few seconds, this will lead to some deaths though , I probably should use the repeat command for searching.  Taking many turns does not really matter because it is very hard to starve, so search until you get bored.


Items

With unidentified potions and scrolls I usually sell them at the shop, this ids them for me and takes care of all the nasty ones.   Potions of stats, experience and invulnerability will be lost this way of course.  Maybe use a scroll of ID on potions found deep in the dungeon. (Or become a mage with the ID spell).  In the early game a lot of the potions and scrolls have nasty effects so I never use id them unless I am desperate for a potion of speed or healing.  Thats a good story about the scroll of summon monster though.  I am not sure of the level monsters are generated at though, but I seem to remember experimenting with them hoping to get a good treasure monster to appear.

I generally zap/use wands and staffs on monsters and sell the ones that dont id. You will find staffs of teleportation and speed this way which are the ones you most want. I cant remember if you have to be hurt to ID healing staffs.    You will id the item if you notice an effect from them. Pointing a wand of disarm trap at jellies will obviously not id it.  Of course this needs prior knowledge of the type of items you will find.

I spend a lot of time selling unidentified items to the shop, however later when you can afford many scrolls of id go crazy with them. In the end I end up mostly using them on armour and weapons.   You dont want to sell an ego weapon to id them

[Engram]

Wow, this takes me back.  It has been a long time and I think I will need to play a little Moria soon.  For an alternative source of binaries and sources check out Beej's Moria repository.

http://beej.us/moria/

[dreamician]

Thanks for the insights and tips. So here's a little update.

Relying on potions/scrolls to deal with poison/healing wasn't working to well for me as a warrior. Typically I didn't find what I was needing in the dungeon, so I was making trips to town to buy stuff from the shops.

But this presented it's own problems. My first attempts at haggling were a disaster. I was trying to start off at about 1/3rd of the listed price, then go up increments of 10. But a few times, before I got close to meeting him on the price, he would kick me out of the shop and lock the doors! Even after recalling back to the dungeon and back to town I couldn't go back in that shop. That really took me by surprise.

So I modified my haggling. I still start out real low (or high if selling), I go in increments of 25 until we're within 100 gp of each other. Then I go by increments of 10 until we're within 50 gp, then increments of 5 until we meet on a price. That seems to work reasonably well.

Q: do you have a better method?

But even with decent haggling, I'm usually only able to get a ? of recall for around 200gp. When purchasing potions, the shop typically runs out of stock after I buy 3-4 of an item, and sometimes even after buying only one! I realized that if I mapped out every level in the dungeon as much as possible, I was having to use all the potions I bought for that level.

So basically I'm having to return to town for supplies every time I go down a level. That means I'm spending about 400gp for each trip, which doesn't include what I'm spending on potions. I wasn't finding nearly enough gold on every level to make up for that kind of spending, especially considering I had virtually nothing left to buy upgraded armor/weapon etc.

So looking over the classes again, I restarted as a paladin. They get some spells to help out with healing/poison, as well as spells(prayers) to temporarily boost fighting ability and stuff. WIth the paladin, I was doing great until I hit 600 feet depth.

At 600 feet I ran into the most frustrating enemy yet: the Brigand. It goes a little something like this...

                                                         

The Brigand hits you.
The Brigand touches you.
Your backpack feels lighter.
There is a puff of smoke!                                                                                
                                                                                

I ran into him about 4 times on the same level. Every time, he hits or misses, touches me etc then teleports away before I can get in a hit. A couple of times I was able to get in one hit before he started his chain of actions. What a pain in the ass! Oh, but that's not the best part.

The best part is the game wasn't kidding about your backpack. I took a look and he had swiped a potion or two and my level II prayer book. That one cost me about 400 gold. A paladin can't use prayers if he doesn't have the book in his inventory containing them. So to catch back up to where I was before running into him, I had ascended, looking for gold, eventually getting enough to replace what I had in my inventory. Then I went back down to 600 feet.

I ran into him AGAIN, and this time he took both my prayer books...

It's... beyond annoying, because even after running into him enough times I was able to finally kill him, you don't get your stuff back! He just drops gold when he dies. UGH.

Q: Any ideas on how to deal with the Brigand?

Engram--thanks, ya I ran into Beej's site while searching for info on Moria. Nice little page.

[corremn]

Warriors really  to rely on staffs for the long run, as do most characters but if you are chewing through potions two quick perhaps it is right to change class. However try ranged combat might soften things up.  Also you dont have to clear out levels if dangerous creatures are about. You will be amazed how useful detect evil or detect monsters spells are.

Brigands, cant relly remember them so much, but that is a common enemy theme. Ranged combat should see them off. Wands will be good, and if you are a warrior you should use use some sort of ranged attack.  However I really only play priests and wizards so I would use portal/phase door if he got close.   Monsters not dropping you stuff was the most annoying thing about moria, that always seemed wrong to me. 
Ha, its all coming back now. There are certain monsters that when I encountered them, I ran away to a sealable room, dumped everything that was valuable and then attacked the monster. I usually carried lots of food, oil, and other useless stackable items and many spell books just for this case so the mosnter just stole useless items.   It was funny that I now know that that particular creature was named after a player that actually beat the game.

However I will stress that some creatures a best avoided.

If you are playing a magic character it is a good idea to always carry spare spell books. That will save your life. 

Money will be easier to find with a pick and some sort of treasure detection.  The deeper you go the more treasure is worth.  Soon you will find enough treasure and items per level to not worry about running out of money.

As for haggling if you are not getting to his highest/lowest price you are not doing it right.   Moria haggeling comes naturally to me so I dont know really how I do it.  I start off as low as I can go with out pissing him off. You will know you are pissing him off when he doen't really budge his score.  I generally start with increments of 10, 5, 3, 2, and 1. I dont know the optimum way but I always seem to get the best price when buying. Selling is a bit hit and miss, as it is easy to get him to kick you out of his shop. I think you have to wait a day in game time, just go back to the dungeon and clear a level or two.  I remember as a high level character having to clear level 1 and 2 juts to get the shopkepper that sold word of recall to allow him back in the shop.  Plus once a shopkeeper knows you are a great haggler he rewards you.
Make sure you sell as much as you can at the same store. Usually the one where you get the best price because of you race.

Good luck.

[dreamician]

Okie doke. Thanks so much for the tips and suggestions. From now on I'll post a summary of my latest character, and if you have any comments, suggestions, or tips based on what you see, please reply





Name    : Goss                
Race      : Human            
Sex         : Male                
Class     : Paladin          
Title        : Defender-2    

STR :  18/06                                            
INT :    11
WIS :   12
DEX :   15
CON :   12
CHR :  17

+ To Hit: 3
+ To Damage: 7          
+ To AC: 8          
Total AC: 37
Exp to Adv : 7290    

Level:  20
Experience: 6380
Max Exp:    6380    
Cur Hit Points:     -1
Max Hit Points:    152
Cur Mana:     21
Max Mana:     21
Gold: 1462

(Miscellaneous Abilities)

Fighting    : Superb
Stealth     : Poor
Perception  : Bad
Bows/Throw  : Superb
Disarming   : Fair
Searching   : Poor
Saving Throw: Excellent
Magic Device: Excellent
Infra-Vision: 0 feet

[Character's Equipment List]

a) You are wielding   : a Bastard Sword (3d4) (+4,+4).
b) Worn on head       : a Metal Cap [3,+2].
c) Worn around neck   : an Amulet of Slow Digestion.
d) Worn on body       : Bar Chain Mail (-2) [18,+0].
e) Worn on shield arm : a Medium Leather Shield [3,+0].
f) Worn on hands      : a Set of Gauntlets [2,+0].
g) Right ring finger  : a Ring of Protection [+4].
h) Left  ring finger  : a Ring of Protection [+3].
i) Worn on feet       : a Pair of Soft Leather Boots [2,-1].
j) Worn about body    : a Cloak [1,-1].
k) Light source is    : a Brass Lantern with 6379 turns of light.
l) Secondary weapon   : a Pick (1d3) (+0,+0) (+1).


  [General Inventory List]

a) 3 Holy Books of Prayers [Beginners Handbook].
b) 2 Holy Books of Prayers [Words of Wisdom].
c) a Holy Book of Prayers [Chants and Blessings].
d) 28 Rations of Food.
e) a Piece of Elvish Waybread.
f) 28 Flasks of Oil.
g) 4 Potions of Super Heroism.
h) 13 Potions of Cure Light Wounds.
i) 18 Potions of Cure Serious Wounds.
j) 3 Potions of Cure Critical Wounds.
k) a Potion of Haste Self.
l) 3 Scrolls of Word-of-Recall.
m) a Scroll of Summon Undead.
n) 14 Scrolls of Identify.
o) 2 Scrolls of Remove Curse.
p) a Wand of Confuse Monster (15 charges).
q) a Wand of Stone-to-Mud (5 charges).
r) a Wand of Lightning Bolts (11 charges).
s) a Wand of Stinking Cloud (13 charges).
t) a Wand of Clone Monster (3 charges).
u) a Long Bow (x3) (+0,+0).
v) 25 Arrows (1d4) (-5,-6).


[corremn]

I am starting to play it again, man this is such a great game.  I am just running a few man warriors to get my bearings.  Have to remember which coloured what I should not touch.  It is bringing back a lot of memories.  I had a 17th level warrior who just died to a monster trap. Wow I forgot about those. Very surprising and an interesting way to die. Lesson learnt: carry a scroll of phase door at all times.

[dreamician]

Monster trap... is that where you enter a seemingly empty room and are suddenly surrounded by monsters that all attack at once? Well I've run into a few of those, and my tactic is to concentrate on attacking the one between me and a doorway, then as soon as he's dead, I head for that door and hopefully make it into the hallway, where I can fight one at a time.

[dreamician]

Okay, here's a dump of my latest character. Doing pretty good so far. The best find was the claymore. After making many trips to town to enchant weapon and armor, I have my equips closer to what I'd like.

Oh ya, so I now start moria with a few options, mainly -h (autohaggle). So when I buy or sell the shopkeeper immediately gives me a reasonable final offer. I spend a LOT less time in town now, I'm pretty happy using this feature.

So hey... post your character so I can see what kind of equipment and items you're carrying around. Here's a tip though... to make everything line up, use..

Code: [Select]

[font=Lucida Console] text [/font]




 Name        : Escanor                 Age          :     18   STR :  18/18
 Race        : Human                   Height       :     63   INT :      6
 Sex         : Male                    Weight       :    196   WIS :     13
 Class       : Paladin                 Social Class :     16   DEX :     17
 Title       : Defender-7                                      CON :     18
                                                               CHR :     16

 + To Hit    :     11       Level      :      25    Max Hit Points :    295
 + To Damage :     13       Experience :   23205    Cur Hit Points :    295
 + To AC     :     12       Max Exp    :   23205    Max Mana       :     26
   Total AC  :     45       Exp to Adv :   23625    Cur Mana       :     26
                            Gold       :    1090

(Miscellaneous Abilities)

 Fighting    : Superb       Stealth     : Poor         Perception  : Bad
 Bows/Throw  : Superb       Disarming   : Good         Searching   : Poor
 Saving Throw: Excellent    Magic Device: Excellent    Infra-Vision: 0 feet

Character Background
 You are one of several children of a Serf.  You are a
 credit to the family.  You have dark brown eyes, curly
 black hair, and an average complexion.
 

  [Character's Equipment List]

  a) You are wielding   : a Two-Handed Sword (Claymore) (3d6) (+7,+10) {Krassian}.
  b) Worn on head       : an Iron Helm [5,+2].
  c) Worn around neck   : an Amulet of Slow Digestion.
  d) Worn on body       : Bar Chain Mail (-2) [18,+2].
  e) Worn on shield arm : a Medium Metal Shield [4,-1].
  f) Worn on hands      : a Set of Gauntlets [2,+1].
  g) Right ring finger  : a Ring of Increase To-Hit (+3).
  h) Left  ring finger  : a Ring of Protection [+4].
  i) Worn on feet       : a Pair of Hard Leather Boots [3,+0].
  j) Worn about body    : a Cloak [1,+3].
  k) Light source is    : a Brass Lantern with 6153 turns of light.
  l) Secondary weapon   : a Pick (1d3) (+0,+0) (+3).


  [General Inventory List]

a) 3 Holy Books of Prayers [Beginners Handbook].
b) 3 Holy Books of Prayers [Words of Wisdom].
c) 3 Holy Books of Prayers [Chants and Blessings].
d) 2 Holy Books of Prayers [Exorcism and Dispelling].
e) 12 Rations of Food.
f) 11 Flasks of Oil.
g) 2 Potions of Super Heroism.
h) 3 Potions of Heroism.
i) a Potion of Cure Serious Wounds.
j) 4 Potions of Healing.
k) 3 Potions of Restore Strength.
l) 2 Potions of Restore Dexterity.
m) 2 Potions of Restore Constitution.
n) a Potion of Cure Critical Wounds.
o) 4 Scrolls of Word-of-Recall.
p) 4 Scrolls of Identify.
q) a Wand of Lightning Bolts {empty}.