Tactical Scenario

[amaril]

What do you do in this scenario? For the sake of simplifying the question, the player character is a barachian with only a loaf of bread in inventory, and the 'goal' of this game is the continuation of a streak. He has terrible offensive capabilities (UC 1).

[duvessa]

This is missing critical information, specifically what noisy/bloody actions happened leading up to this point. I would say butcher the corpse(s) in the door so you can close it, but that's just my best guess without that information.

[mikee]

interested but i don't play tiles and can't parse anything on the screen - do you have any other way of representing this visually

[amaril]

This is missing critical information, specifically what noisy/bloody actions happened leading up to this point. I would say butcher the corpse(s) in the door so you can close it, but that's just my best guess without that information.

...yeah, good point. This changes the scenario quite a bit, but if you want: No noise has been made. There is no door on the right. The player character walked up to the place where the right door would be, realized they hadn't thought their gameplan through all the way, and then walked back to the current location, taking 71 turns in the process.

[duvessa]

...I guess you're saying to pretend the right door doesn't exist and the corpses didn't happen? In that case I'd open the door to the left.

[VeryAngryFelid]

...I guess you're saying to pretend the right door doesn't exist and the corpses didn't happen? In that case I'd open the door to the left.

If you open the door, it can make some noise which is inferior to going right (no noise).
If you don't see any monsters after opening the door, now you can be seen from 4 sides which is inferior to going right (you can be seen from 3 sides only).
If you see some dangerous monster(s) which cannot open doors, you immediately close the door and you have just waked a dangerous monster which is inferior to going right (the monster still continues sleeping).
If there is a very dangerous monster adjacent to the door, it can immediately step into the door tile preventing you from closing the door which is inferior to going right (you don't have an adjacent monster with proper exploring).
If you see some weak monster, you lure it into the room and kill. Now you have to close the door for healing (otherwise there is no difference with going right) which is worse than going right (you don't need to move while wounded).
If you see 3+ weak monsters who cannot open the door (ex. jackals), you lure one monster, close the door and only after that you kill it. Now you have to either repeat it (dangerous because monster can block the door immediately and you will have to fight 2+ monsters) or to go right which is inferior to going right from the very beginning (2+ monsters are awake).
The only situation where it is a good idea to open the door is when there are exactly 2 weak monsters after opening the door so you can lure one, close the door, heal, lure another, close the door, heal. Those 2 monsters will not give you enough XP to level up so you will be again in the initial situation.
So my conclusion is that you have a small chance to slightly improve your character (no level up but some skills are improved) and a big chance to increase odds of dying.
I voted go to the right.

[duvessa]

You're assuming that there are monsters behind the left door but not on the right. In this modified hypothetical, the only door is the one on the left, and I like to have an open door with the area around it scouted since you can use it to escape monsters from either side.

Going right is definitely reasonable though.

[VeryAngryFelid]

You're assuming that there are monsters behind the left door but not on the right. In this modified hypothetical, the only door is the one on the left, and I like to have an open door with the area around it scouted since you can use it to escape monsters from either side.

No, I am not assuming that there are no monsters to the right. Opening a door is bad because you instantly discover a great number of tiles which can have multiple monsters, while if going right, you will discover just a few tiles with every step so it will be easier to break groups.
Also I would step 1 tile up and down to check if there are doors at the top and bottom. First thing I try to get is to find a pillar for dancing so it is important to know if there are 2 more doors.

[crawlnoob]

I manually explore out the right door but immediately turn up and circle around the stone starting area. I am looking for

a) stones on the floor for throwing
b) a floor weapon
c) floor candy
d) a downstairs (not a hatch)

if I find d), I will manually explore a small area around it, then go down and explore a small area on the next level. This area (on both floors) will now be my primary zone for expanding exploration. I repeat the process if I find any more stairs up, but as my character here sucks, I wont take a second set of down stairs to D3 until I have a weapon and XL2 at least if under duress, but preferably not until I have swept all of D1 and D2 for items and XP.

I don't open the door to the left because it might make a bunch of noise, and its just as easy to go around the other way and check for monsters first. I don't bother butchering the corpse to clear the right door (good idea tho) because I dont want to spend many turns here with no weapon, I'd rather get moving and find something to defend myself with.

[Sprucery]

I would butcher the corpses, then press 'o' :)

[VeryAngryFelid]

I would just press 'o' as my init.txt has a line to autobutcher all corpses

[nago]

I don't open the door to the left because it might make a bunch of noise, and its just as easy to go around the other way and check for monsters first. I don't bother butchering the corpse to clear the right door (good idea tho) because I dont want to spend many turns here with no weapon, I'd rather get moving and find something to defend myself with.

Butchering requires only 1 turn per corpse, so it isn't a real expensive or dangerous option in this (and most) case.

[Sphara]

BaMo is just about the weakest imaginable combo in my books to survive the first turns on D:1. Pillar dancing is out of question. You're slow and have very weak defense/offense.

For trying to ensure the streak, the main objective here is to quickly find a tile where only one monster from a direction can reach you at the time. Not a killhole but a corridor tile. Current map doesn't have a single one but I assume you are more likely to find one going right. Also, going right has just slightly less chance of landing on a shaft trap. If you can get to the doorway without encounters, do butcher the corpses and hope they leave no skeleton.

[duvessa]

BaMo is just about the weakest imaginable combo in my books to survive the first turns on D:1. Pillar dancing is out of question.

but door dancing isn't ;)

[Sphara]

BaMo is just about the weakest imaginable combo in my books to survive the first turns on D:1. Pillar dancing is out of question.

but door dancing isn't

This is true but door dancing tends to fail quickly at least from my experience There are two reasons opening the left side door : 1) You get to use a door 2) You are more likely to find items.

I don't think the chances of survival going right are drastically higher than opening the door there, just that quicker finding of a corridor tile outweighs these two reasons.

[crawlnoob]

One of the reasons for not opening the door to the left is that it is almost guaranteed to reveal a large number of squares all at once. Walking only exposes the squares at the edge of one side of your LoS (in the case of walking into a large open area, for comparison to opening a door into a large open area). If there are bad things, you have a much higher chance of only alerting one of them at a time in this manner. You can then lead them back to the other door if you need to, but then again we are already at full hp so unless you take ranged damage, this isnt going to change anything.

[mikee]

I guess this thread isn't for me, which is a little disappointing because streaking and the early game have occupied most of my attention while I've played crawl. I still don't completely understand what's on the screen. I think instinctively I don't like going right here just because the geography of that area doesn't look good to me (again this is going off my attempt to decipher the minimap). I really might just open the door to the left here, my goal being to that I want to walk down a corridor.

I'm guessing a lot of people want to hear about noisephobia and counting visible tiles and how this character is made of paper and all of that stuff, but it's just not really what I see. This is an 18 hp character that's close to xl 2, it would take like an adder and some bad luck to kill it at this point. And if you want to streak as a human being, taking massive amounts of time second guessing yourself is going to wear you down so much over the course of the streak - you'll be hating it, and it's not unlikely that you'll lapse in your play because of it. Well, this is just what I think; hope it's not too unrelated or undesired.

[Arrhythmia]

I hit "o" and reap the whirl wind bitches

[nago]

I guess this thread isn't for me, which is a little disappointing because streaking and the early game have occupied most of my attention while I've played crawl. I still don't completely understand what's on the screen. I think instinctively I don't like going right here just because the geography of that area doesn't look good to me (again this is going off my attempt to decipher the minimap). I really might just open the door to the left here, my goal being to that I want to walk down a corridor.

No idea how that would display in ascii so I will try to translate in words:
the character (@) is on the 'door' leading outside the dungeon. The vault which is he in is a cross-shaped one with stone vaults, 4 trees (the greenish things) and 2 doors on the left and right side (the brown thing on the left is closed).
The left door is closed and the area behind it is unexplored. The right door is opened, a bit of area behind it is explored - the darker greenish things are walls, so on the top right there could be a corridor while in the lower right an open area. On the door there are at least two corpses, the top one is a frilled lizard's one; right next them there is a slug corpse.

edit: oh the greyish things are normal empty walkable whatever titles.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I guess this thread isn't for me, which is a little disappointing because streaking and the early game have occupied most of my attention while I've played crawl. I still don't completely understand what's on the screen. I think instinctively I don't like going right here just because the geography of that area doesn't look good to me (again this is going off my attempt to decipher the minimap). I really might just open the door to the left here, my goal being to that I want to walk down a corridor.

I'm guessing a lot of people want to hear about noisephobia and counting visible tiles and how this character is made of paper and all of that stuff, but it's just not really what I see. This is an 18 hp character that's close to xl 2, it would take like an adder and some bad luck to kill it at this point. And if you want to streak as a human being, taking massive amounts of time second guessing yourself is going to wear you down so much over the course of the streak - you'll be hating it, and it's not unlikely that you'll lapse in your play because of it. Well, this is just what I think; hope it's not too unrelated or undesired.

If you enjoy streaking, you probably should not play like you don't care about minimizing risks. First you tell that the character wants a corridor, second you tell that it is strong (and thus does not need a corridor that much).
The character can easily die if it finds 4 jackals after opening the door. This is impossible if you go to the right.
Left side can have an open terrain, right side has at least some narrow places so you won't be attacked by more than 2 monsters.

[duvessa]

Here's an ascii equivalent of the screenshot.

  Code:

         ..#
  #####  ..#
  #...#  ..###.#
###.7.###....
#.......#..#
+.7.<.7.%%.#
#...@...#..#
###.7.###.....
  #...#  .#......
  #####  ........
         .# ...##
         .#  ..#
         ..  #..#

The left corpse has a door under it as well as other unspecified items. The stairs out has an unspecified item on it. I think the left corpse is a leopard gecko and the right corpse is a dart slug.

[mikee]

If you enjoy streaking, you probably should not play like you don't care about minimizing risks. First you tell that the character wants a corridor, second you tell that it is strong (and thus does not need a corridor that much).
The character can easily die if it finds 4 jackals after opening the door. This is impossible if you go to the right.
Left side can have an open terrain, right side has at least some narrow places so you won't be attacked by more than 2 monsters.

What, do you think I'm not going to wear a helmet too if I have a strong character? Like come on, you really think someone has to either play like a maniac or make excel spreadsheets about noise? There's a reason I was on top of the streak leaderboard for three years and it's not that I need advice about how to minimize risks... I also don't think I ever want to talk about jackals on tavern again.

I think I'm just tired of the 'optimal' meme that's popular on tavern now. I'm not even sure what the word means in this case because are we assuming the player is always going to make the decision with the lowest risk? It seems likely to me that we can have many choices with risk X and risk X+1, and some of the risk X choices lead to situations that are more difficult, especially for human players. And how much does this stuff translate into reality? I learned by playing, and I just see so much theorycrafting that doesn't match up with my perception of reality at all.

[VeryAngryFelid]

What, do you think I'm not going to wear a helmet too if I have a strong character?

Good question. If helmet required you to think harder and longer about every step to provide extra AC, you wouldn't wear it with strong characters I believe. Neither would I. Similar thing happens with luring and pillar-dancing, players choose to be more wounded or even die than to pay real life time for minimizing risks.

Like come on, you really think someone has to either play like a maniac or make excel spreadsheets about noise?

At some point I actually learned how much noise melee does to know how far I should lure monsters. It is 12 tiles as far as I remember.

There's a reason I was on top of the streak leaderboard for three years and it's not that I need advice about how to minimize risks...

There is a reason why the streak was ended. You were training Poison instead of Polearms so minimizing risk might make that impressive streak even longer. Also I didn't notice a CK in the streak so I believe you did minimize risk to some extent.

I also don't think I ever want to talk about jackals on tavern again.

Ok, we are on the same page here. I hate D:1 jackals too.

I think I'm just tired of the 'optimal' meme that's popular on tavern now. I'm not even sure what the word means in this case because are we assuming the player is always going to make the decision with the lowest risk? It seems likely to me that we can have many choices with risk X and risk X+1, and some of the risk X choices lead to situations that are more difficult, especially for human players. And how much does this stuff translate into reality? I learned by playing, and I just see so much theorycrafting that doesn't match up with my perception of reality at all.

I don't know what to tell here except I love and hate streaking at the same time. I love streaks because it is very satisfying to win several times in a row, it proves that probably you don't rely on luck to win. I hate streaking because suddenly I feel guilty of using autoexplore (which I usually do even on D:1 and while streaking), because I cannot take most of the gods, because I have to lure every Yak in Lair, because I feel guilty of ignoring Evo (which I don't usually use even while streaking, I still train it because it is optimal but then almost never use anyway). So optimal play does exist even if we don't like it.

[crawlnoob]

You can take Ru and sac artifice, and score a lot of optimal Ru piety for it, if it makes you feel better. (I do, I don't like playing with evo too much either, and rarely trained throwing for that matter as well).

[VeryAngryFelid]

You can take Ru and sac artifice, and score a lot of optimal Ru piety for it, if it makes you feel better. (I do, I don't like playing with evo too much either, and rarely trained throwing for that matter as well).

Yes, hoping to sacrifice Evo and become hated by all is how I typically do with Ru. Yet I cannot play Ru every game, it's too boring...

[duvessa]

There's a reason I was on top of the streak leaderboard for three years and it's not that I need advice about how to minimize risks...

There is a reason why the streak was ended. You were training Poison instead of Polearms so minimizing risk might make that impressive streak even longer.

gqwrjovmsglihrs;gLRSinw;alkrhsaoivnsz;roashg;saolrhgalsrkuhskrhalskjvnlkjfhglsak;howgwhflaskdhgas;kdjglfjghoigjr;lamrescv;lshjrlksjhg;owrijfwa;orjfsa;lkgas;lkgmas;lmvorihvga;slghalkgjhvnrliuahyljwavrahg;uhglzskdugh;wojvoairm;sirmf;smvlieunvlaushrlsairhoasjf;lasiejf;alijre;lczmrlkvasunrlkgahye;laasirhjvglsih.,srnfqlwcolaihydt;lasdktafnirarut;asldfiuw;oiahgqwpoirjf;lasdkjflaksdnvlkanv;lanrwo8eut;osaidua;slkj ;lasng;oawytwapoeirua;kdjv;lxzknv;lsaknv;aliyte;aweiua;ldshfa;ldskcn;voizxyt;lzkdjr.wlkenflakewnv;ozisyf;lzsiuev;wnvr.,amnt.a,mdntzlxivhylxz;kjvqpowutoiewutha;lsdkjghz;x,cnvm,nqrwmgtalewrya;oisug;lsakdjf;lksmdc.zkmvzlxjt;aowiytowqryt;wqlkjg;lakjdsv;lvm;laseizydt;lsutowqeituqoitusa;ldknv,zxmcnv.,xznb.au;rowqiuetpoqieut;lskdjf;lsakjdg;laksd;jflksdjf;laskj;lkjva;sldjf;lkdsjtpwqoutelkrwje;lakjcalskdmv;laskja;oeu.leriusa.kfm.,mlzkjdfkajsfoeij;wije;laiesjf,zkmvslsakmvd;lkajdr;oawiure;aiwjvlkasnmelszkmvdksjv;alsieuf;owaiure;owaeirua;ldskjvlkszdjvkmd.samvdsakjrlweiyroa;iewyt;woeyualkdsjf;lsakjc;lsadjvlkdsnv,mdsnv.,nmv.,mnc.vmxznbapoiepwaoieuta;lskdjfdjjlaskdj;ffocirw;oasieur;lsadkfjv;laskmvd;lajf;wie;akerjakm.vkv;laksjv;lauowiut;lwkjetlwkjtlrtma,smv,zncb.,zxmnba;owiut;lawekjtalskdjf;vyr;oi;zlskjtsalrekfh;egia;oirsyg;ashglkjvhlizutkdg;asihre;gaowg;hb;rlsknbz;lsgha;lshga;woi;ueszlzxkfnb;lszkhg;aytwa;oeityu;ewlkjalskdjvz.,xmv.,zmhb;atiywa;oeigua;sdlg;kzlha;smnga.sdmgnwq;iyt;oewuga;lsdkjg;lskdja'sdkmv'samv'eqwaetikj'flasdmvlsakdhg;osaeiytsalerja;lkmc;owqiugtpoqw8yt;wlierm;lkmcv;alkjsd;lkjf

[njvack]

The character can easily die if it finds 4 jackals after opening the door. This is impossible if you go to the right.

I'm kind of confused. If you open the door and find jackals or an adder or something appalling, you can probably... close the door? Like, am I missing something? I guess sure there would be dangerous awake monsters but you can find that in either direction.

[VeryAngryFelid]

If you close the door, you still have 4 wandering jackals. Just don't open the door and let them sleep until you are ready (xl2, for example)

[Fingolfin]

If you close the door, you still have 4 wandering jackals. Just don't open the door and let them sleep until you are ready (xl2, for example)

Also if they were close to the door, they could block it on the very turn you opened it, forcing you to fight them

[Sphara]

If you close the door, you still have 4 wandering jackals. Just don't open the door and let them sleep until you are ready (xl2, for example)

Also if they were close to the door, they could block it on the very turn you opened it, forcing you to fight them

'
For mikee's pleasure, the jackal discussion goes on.

Opening the door there has a laughably low chance of alerting a jackal (or a leopard gecko or anything that has no fingers) that immediately blocks the door. It has a chance of alerting a monster that can actually open the door.

I said it before and and I say it again with different words: Starting a Barachian Monk is probably the easiest way to end your streak.

[Sprucery]

Starting a Barachian Monk is probably the easiest way to end your streak.

Nah, most CKs work better in that regard.

[Sphara]

Starting a Barachian Monk is probably the easiest way to end your streak.

Nah, most CKs work better in that regard.

Really? Are you absolutely sure, dude? Good thing I did use the word 'probably' so it did leave some space for anyone shooting truisms like this.

[Sprucery]

Cool down, dude, this is CYC. Sorry that I forgot the smiley. (In fact I've had two streaks ended with CKs which is not surprising.)