I have won all 26 races!

[Rep Henry Clay]

I've been working on this goal for about a year now and I have finally won a character with each of the 26 races! I've been working towards this ever since my first win with a 3 rune Deep Elf of Vehumet. I have the morgue files for 22 out of 26 races in this Google Drive folder.


Deep Dwarf - I'm always surprised by how easy Deep Dwarfs are. Mahkleb gives crazy healing. This guy was straight meelee with a randart executioner's axe and GDA.

Deep Elf - The first race I ever one with! And probably still my favorite! Spellcasters are the most fun for me. I have won multiple games with this race, but this morguefile is my only deep elf to get 15 runes.

Demigod - Played as fire mage. Godless is a fun conduct to have. I just wish the aptitudes were a bit more interesting.

Demonspawn - Air mage of Ashenzari. I suicided a bunch with 3 runes, and this was the only to escape with the Orb. I <3 Tornado.

Felid - I absolutely can't believe I won this character. I started off as a berserker thinking I would just mess around and then...I just kept going somehow? I still don't understand how this character survived Zot 5.

Formicid - I killed SO FUCKING MANY of these guys before I won. I think my play style relies too much on teleport as an escape option and that is what I was having trouble with. This character found Sniper and I considered going for 15 runes, but never found a wand of healing. Doable, but not by me and especially not when I just wanted to win. Also, Sniper does CRAZY damage, just in case the +15 with 22 base damage didn't make that clear. 1 hitting tentacled monstrosities is a great feeling.

Ghoul - Monk. I think this was the first Yred worshiper I "won" with. Yred is really boring IMHO. Your allies make the game too easy, and then they all die in Zot. I switched to Mahkleb because I hated Yred.

Gargoyle - My first 15 rune game! Gargoyles are the bomb. Crazy AC, rPois, rElec, rTorment, good aptitudes. Probably my go to race if I just want to win.

Halfling - This guy used Punk pretty much the whole game. Ranged combat with an Oka worshipper feels a bit too easy sometimes.

High Elf - Ranged using a randart bow of speed. Probably could have done 15, but just wanted a win.

Human - Troglodyte using a Sacred Scourge and GDA.

Kobold - I used staves this game for some reason. I don't know why. Also switched to TSO and scummed the Abyss. Don't ask me why.

Merfolk - Another Oka to TSO switch. Again, no good reason.

Minotaur - I won this guy for the 0.14 tourney.

Mummy - Like the felid, I can't believe I won this character. Killing OOFs with simulacrum is sooooooooooooooo scary. Simulacrum and haunt...yeah, I don't how I won.

Naga - Yaaaawn, another berserk using maces in GDA

Octopode - Spellcaster worshipping Ash. Looking back, I should have specialized way more. With Ash bonuses, I had 17 Fire, 20 Ice, 15 Air, 15 Earth. Probably not the best idea, but hey, I won, right?

Spriggan - Conjurer of Ash. I almost had a 15 rune spriggan with Kiku but then died in Cocytus. That made me bitter about spriggans for a long time...I decided to just play it safe and do a normal spellcasting build.

Tengu - I killed way too many tengus trying to get a win. Boredom/impatience is my greatest weakness. Most of those deaths were air mages of Vehumet. I got fed up so went with Trog and M&F

Troll - I have never understood why trolls are so squishy. -2 in all the defenses and large body is bad, but not that bad, right? I guess it is that bad....I finally won with this guy. Yet again, switched from Oka to TSO for no good reason.

Vampire - Berserker using an antimagic demonblade and fire dragon armour. I died many times with Kiku and then figured I needed to be less squishy...so I remembered deep dwarf strategy and chose berserker using Trog's Hand to regenerate when I forgot to bottle blood.

Vine Stalker - The "morgue" for this guy is just a screeenshot. I was messing around with Ubuntu distro's and forgot to save the morgue file, but did print it out. Yet another Troglodyte with M&F.

I lost the morgue files for the following races so you'll just have to trust me on these.

Hill Orc - I believe this guy was a Beoghite the whole game. I remember being very sad when all my warlords died in Zot 5

Ogre - Troglodite using GSC. Pretty typical. I got Skullcrusher, but Trog had actually given me an even better randart GSC of speed.

Draconian - One of my very first wins. Conjurer of Vehumet casting fire storm. Pretty sure I was a green. My only previous spellcaster win was with a deep elf. This character was so much more resilient with HP and natural AC bonuses.

Centaur - Worshipped Okawaru. I was giggling so hard for the last half of the game. Oka gave me a barding of flying and all I could imagine was this kneeling horse zipping around a few feet off the ground shooting arrows like crazy. Once I could cast haste, this character was pretty OP. Oka's gear lead to some crazy damage and a hasted centaur covers ground WAY too fast.

Lava Orc - These guys are scrapped now right? Anyways, I won with one in trunk. Standard Beoghite.

My original plan was to win with all the races that have been removed as well, like mountain dwarves and sludge elfs. I downloaded 0.9 today and got a rune with a mountain dwarf worshiping Okawaru, and then said "Fuck this, I don't want to play these old versions." It hurts my brain to go from 0.15 back to 0.9. There are so many small things that add up to make the game not worth the effort/fun for me. To name a few, item destruction, weapon enchantment identification, uncontrollable levitation, and worst of all, fleeing monsters. Having to chase down a pack of cowardly yaks is a HUGE pain in the ass. And yes, I know that "Back in your day" this was the norm, but coming from 0.15 it is simply an antiquated pain in the ass. I can't imagine going back to before 0.5 for gnomes, grey elves, and others.

I've been typing for way too long now! I think now I'll shut up and simply bask in the warm glow of my achievement.

[Hobnails]

Congratulations man, it must feel nice to finally get this project under your belt. Do you think you'll keep at Crawl, or have you gotten sick of it at all after trying out so many combinations?

[Rep Henry Clay]

Haha, I'm already playing again! I still haven't won a transmuter and I'm trying to get a merfolk going.

[Hobnails]

I know what you mean about transmuters, it seems to me they still haven't recovered from the removal of the alchemy system. I really miss brewing up throwing potions. Still, felid transmuters can be tons of fun, if finicky.

[Hopeless]

Congrats I've only managed two in the last 8 months: Mino and DD. Guess it is easier for some than others.

[tasonir]

Congrats congrats congrats! I am down to three, took a break from new races for .15, and once I get back into crawl I'll work on meeting you there in greatplayers

[mopl]

Congrats, you should totally play online, and get greatplayer + greaterplayer

[Rep Henry Clay]

Thanks guys! Playing all these races has definitely improved my skills. I probably never would have seriously attempted mummy, vinestalker, felid, and a few others. Having to adopt new play styles really forced me learn new strategies. Felids and mummies in particular really made me appreciate stealth. They are so squishy that there is no option but to play cautiously, luring enemies out one at a time. Felids made me fall back in love with Trog - berserk is crazy strong if used wisely. Killing a hydra with 2 AC is an incredible feeling! Their EV can go absolutely crazy too! One of my felid attempts died in Snake Pit and came back as a ghost; I literally could not even hit the ghost!

More generally, Crawl has made me a better RPG player. Hoarding consumables is a weakness of way too many players. At some point in these games I realized I was ascending with ~10 pots each of might, agility, brilliance, invisibility, and others. Learning to not worry too much about using up consumables has made me both relax and be a better player of Crawl and RPG's in general.

I had actually never heard of greatplayer or greaterplayer before just now. Is that an attribute you can check on the servers when you examine players? I have a few online wins, but I absolutely hate the lag. Playing on my local machine is sooooo much smoother.

I still don't think of myself as a "good" player, at least not compared to other players in this forum. I have only had a single 2 win streak. I think most of my success comes from playing WAY too much. I think ~4 hours a day every day for the past 8 months or so has made me better. I'm sure if anyone puts that much time into a game, and tries so many different characters, they are bound to get better/lucky!

[mopl]

I had actually never heard of greatplayer or greaterplayer before just now. Is that an attribute you can check on the servers when you examine players?

You can check them on IRC.
Greatplayer means that you completed all races.
Greaterplayer for all backgrounds

Edit : on IRC, goodplayer applies for 10 wins

[Rep Henry Clay]

So for some reason I never investigated the different servers and have always gone with CAO. I just looked at the locations for the first time and I'm kicking myself...I'm in Georgia so CBRO/Atlanta is ~1 hour drive from my house whereas CAO/Arizona is ~28 hours. What the hell was I thinking?!?! No wonder I've been having lag problems. CBRO is so fast I can barely tell difference between playing online and playing locally.

[WalkerBoh]

Sounds like it's time for you to win all of the races again, but online this time. Congrats though, pretty nice Crawl achievement.

[Sandman25]

Sounds like it's time for you to win all of the races again, but online this time.

Why? I got the same achievement offline and then went for just interesting combos (like FeSk in extended or pure caster no consumables SpVM or pure thrower OgHu) and sometimes for unwon gods (Zin, TSO). Repeating the same all 26 races online is too boring and brings no satisfaction to me (unless I was cheating offline of course). I would go for something new, like all gods or all backgrounds (using starting background as main offense up to the end - no TrEE of Trog etc.) instead.

[Rep Henry Clay]

Sounds like it's time for you to win all of the races again, but online this time.

Why? I got the same achievement offline and then went for just interesting combos (like FeSk in extended or pure caster no consumables SpVM or pure thrower OgHu) and sometimes for unwon gods (Zin, TSO). Repeating the same all 26 races online is too boring and brings no satisfaction to me (unless I was cheating offline of course). I would go for something new, like all gods or all backgrounds (using starting background as main offense up to the end - no TrEE of Trog etc.) instead.

Yeah, I think backgrounds/gods is what I am more likely to do. There are so many Gods I have yet to win with, and some of the races have definitely lost their appeal. Halflings/kobolds/spriggans are the main offenders; small squishy races whose only good melee is short blades = boring.

[Sar]

Kobolds have good maces apt and Halflings are good with Long Blades. I'm not a big fan of Short Blades so I won't use those even on these races unless I'm stabbing or happen to find a really good short blade (that's what happened to my KoHe - I was using M&F but found a cutlass of elec in Snake so I reskilled (well, and I also realized I won't be able to use demon whips with Ely)).

Both of my Sp wins used quiarterstaves and lajatangs, for what it's worth.

[Sprucery]

Also, +3 short blade apt makes training to mindelay so cheap that you can do that first and later when you find a good long blade just switch. And you can still use a short blade for stabbing, if you're so inclined. (That's what I did with my KoAK.)

[Jeremiah]

I like training long blades on a Ha because by the time you've got enough for min delay on a scimitar or demon blade, cross training and Ha aptitudes mean you also have enough short blades to get a quick blade to min delay if you find one, (or stab with a dagger) without actually training anything.

My KoGl just went with staves (and crossbows in the late game.)

[Rep Henry Clay]

Absolutely, my kobold win actually used staves the whole game! Like you all mentioned, training long blades blades with a halfling means using an early dagger of venom is a viable option.

My only point is that poor aptitudes in everything but short blades is annoying, but that doesn't mean you can't train something else. Then again, maybe I have just played too many merfolk and have been spoiled by a +4 aptitude .

[Sandman25]

Ko has the best aptitude in crossbows.

[XuaXua]

Demigod - Played as fire mage. Godless is a fun conduct to have. I just wish the aptitudes were a bit more interesting.

Demigod Reform Proposal

Demigod Bikeshedding