Lasty wrote:I'm confused by a couple of things that have been said:
Sandman25 wrote:It is not always possible to retreat upstairs even if you started fighting several tiles away from elephants.
Elephants are the same speed as you, and they can only trample you off stairs if you are standing next to them when you go upstairs, if you're several tiles away from elephants it's always possible to retreat upstairs. Given that, I'm not sure what you mean -- could you clarify?
For simplicity let's assume that I am in a corridor and that it takes 2 turns for me to kill an Elephant.
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E..E@<.#
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As you can see another Elephant is 2 tiles away from rightmost Elephant so if I kill the latter in 2 turns, I will be able to retreat upstairs (there will be 1 tile distance between me and leftmost Elephant):
- Code:
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..E.@<.#
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If I start fighting that rightmost Elephant while standing on stairs:
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.E..E@.#
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and it tramples me after my first attack, I will be in a very bad situation with Elephant standing on stairs (there are still 2 tiles distance between the elephants because trampling monster automatically moves after the trampling attack)
- Code:
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..E..E@#
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Next turn I kill it and remaining Elephant moves closer (as you can see there are 2 tiles between us, not 1 tile, trampling actually helps in this regard)
- Code:
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...E.<@#
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Next turn I move to the stairs tile and Elephant moves too so it becomes adjacent to me
- Code:
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....E@.#
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That would not happen if I started fighting 1 tile to left from stairs because I would not need to move to stairs, I would use them immediately.
- Code:
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..E..@.#
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Realistically it often takes more than 2 turns to kill an Elephant so Elephant can trample you multiple times and every time it does that, it moves you closer (and then farther) from the stairs.
So I usually try to fight a single Elephant 5-6 tiles away from stairs, it is very unlikely that it will move me beyond the stairs.