zoof wrote:IMO in terms of controls, appearance, and depth, this game is nicer than nethack, but in most ways, it is way, way, way more cruel - player ghosts being able to cause physical damage and cast spells, smiting, *food sickness*, difficulty of gaining intrinsics, and hellfire are all examples of how crawl is harder than nethack. To be honest, sometimes I hate this game, although I keep coming back, so I must like it, too. without save-scumming, I have only ever cleared the orcish mines and the lair. With save-scumming, I have managed to get a serpentine rune, but not much else. I have no idea how anyone wins this game, let alone gets all the way to Zot or clears the shoals. I usually play a deep elf wizard, since I liked playing a wizard in nethack, although troll berserker is fun, too, for a bit.
I ascended four times in Nethack (wizard, priest, knight, samurai) before finding crawl, and by that time it was getting boring. My take on the difference is that Nethack is broken in several ways. Optimal play is invariably grindy: two of my wins, I farmed brown puddings for a while. Boring, but gets you 4-5 artifacts and 4-5 experience levels for zero risk. I know people did insane things with black pudding farming too, but that's dangerous. You can, risk free, get all the experience, etc. you need with a brown pudding. The correct (optimal) answer when you see anything vaguely threatening, short of the endgame, is to engrave Elbereth. And so on, and so on. There is no real balance. Note that several forks of it (which I discovered before crawl) go a ways towards fixing it. Unnethack, etc (not slash'Em, which is Nethack's logical successor.)
Crawl has a ton of attention payed to balance, which tends to limit gamebreaking things. Which gives it much more replay value, and makes it require a lot more reliability and caution on the part of the player.
So far as helping you ascend crawl, here's my advice (with the disclaimer that I've only ascended thrice, with one 15-runer... I'm not that good, and tend to make mistakes.)
DEWi is a good class to start with if you like wizards. Consider DEFE as an alternative for when bored.
Religion:
You should probably go Vehumet for the god, for simplicity. If you want to try something else, do Ashenzari, not Sif. Sif is good for wizards, but mostly later in the game.
Skilling:
Your first goal is to get Magic dart to 5 hashes spell power, for maximum damage. A Deep elf wizard should start leveling ONLY Conjurations.
You'll be level 3-4 when this happens, and should have as many level two spells as you can memorized at that point. I'd do this order (though this varies radically on play style): Call Imp, Blink, Repel Missiles, Slow, with your primary backup an imp swarm (to retreat through, or to kill you enemies with.) Another reasonable order would be Slow, Blink, Call Imp, Repel Missiles, which would focus on Slowing the monster, and then kiting it with Magic dart, with Blink as an emergency if you get trapped.
Your second goal is to get your level two spells memorized, and castable. Train Spellcasting til you can memorize them, then train other skills as necessary to get them down to <15% failure. I'd probably train blink down to 10% or lower, but that's style.
Your third goal is Mephitc cloud and Conjure flame memorized, and then castable. Train Spellcasting til you can memorize them, then train either Poison+Air for Mephitic, or Fire for conjure flame. Your goal is <12% fail rates. You can do these in either order; I think I'd prefer Conjure Flame, but it's close.
It is possible to clear the Lair with just those spells, but quite difficult. They'll get you to your first Vehumet book though, which is good enough. (Vehumet is even better for wizards in trunk, giving gifts earlier. But I'm assuming you're playing 0.11.)
Tactics for early game monsters:
Orc/killer bee packs:
STOP as soon as you see a single orc/bee. If he's noticed you, run away 15-30 squares if possible, and then kill him. Repeat as carefully as possible. If he's not awake, wake him up with MD, and do the same. If he's not at LOS-limit, try to duck around a corner. Under almost no circumstances should you try to kill it in place. You don't have the damage output for that. You need the terrain on your side.
Centaurs:
Hopefully you have Mephitic cloud. These guys are the primary reason you need that spell, as it stops them from killing you. If not, imp swarms tend to be quite effective, and conjure flame can keep them from following you when you flee. Consider skipping D:3 if you meet centaurs, until you get Mephitic online. Always consider using consumables on them. A scroll of fear will save your bacon.
Undead:
Will walk through conjure flame. Repeatedly lay it in front of them, and watch them die.
Ogres:
Will walk through conjure flame. Repeatedly lay it in front of them, and watch them die. If one gets next to you with ANY hitpoints left, don't try to kill it. Blink!
Uniques:
If Mephitic cloudable (Sigmund, Edmond, Jessica, Pikel, Duvessa and Dowan, etc.) wait till you have it castable. If they'll walk through conjure flame, you can do that too. If Grinder or Menkaure, flee. Skip the level till you have some foolproof way of dealing with them.
Anything else:
Treat them like orcs. Yes, they don't come in packs, so there probably aren't other monsters just behind them. But if you draw them into a cleared area, you KNOW there aren't monsters behind them. All monsters should be drawn at least half your LOS before killing them if you aren't confidant in a 1-2 hit kill (bats, rats, etc.)
IDing:
Read-ID all scrolls at the end of each early dungeon level. At the end, so it's clear and noise won't kill you, and every level, because it's easy to build the habit. Use all identify scrolls on potions until at least healing, heal wounds, and 2-3 good buffs are IDed. Then try to balance between jewellery and potions. Don't quaff-ID potions. Don't drink mutation.
Branches:
Do Lair, Orc, Vaults 1-7, then start with your rune branches. Rune branches immediately after Orc are generally suicidal.
I know I'm probably missing some things, and may be wrong on others, but this is what I do to get past the early game. Hope it helps!