So it is time for another dumb thread of mine. I'm a quite bad player and I need some advice. Currently I'm doing this Naga greater race thing, and I'm at the point now when I have only "mage" backgrounds left (from Wz to VM). While playing other backgrounds I found a way to streamline my games, so to speak. I just picked the first good melee weapon I found, wore the heaviest armour, completely ignored magic and used some top or mid-tier god who can carry me through early-mid game. I did this on ALL backgrounds except En and Tm. Now, it may be not the best way to play the game, but it helped me tremendously. By limiting my options, I make my choices much easier, i.e. I don't have to worry about hybridising, different weapon types, different armour choices etc. If you look at my win morgues, I have exactly 5 core skills trained: fighting, weapon skill, armour, dodging, evo. I trained shields when I used them and invo on non-Trog characters. And those skills are even trained the same amount every game. This made my games consistent, in a sense: I knew exactly what I'm going to do, and what my playstyle is going to be, before even starting a character. I didn't have to think about strategy, I didn't have to worry about anything. This is what I mean by "streamlining".
Now my question is: is there the same consistent way to play "mage" backgrounds? I just played NaWz of Veh, and I died in Zot 5, because I didn't have an answer to 3 ancient liches simultaneously coming into LOS. I couldn't do anything, teleported into a bunch of other monsters — died. This is when I realized that I probably made some strategic mistake at some point. I guess Vehumet is a bad god for this purpose, maybe Kiku/Sif? What I'm looking for are some general guidelines for character development, which I can use every time and get consistent results, just like I did with melee chars.
I hope I made my point clear enough and didn't sound too retarded. English is not my best language.
My online profile:
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/babyrage.html