Dragon Quest is another series I sometimes play with silly challenge restrictions.  I did a multiclass solo run of 9 years ago, but I don't remember enough about it to post a report. Right now, I'm playing 5.  Any variant of this game should begin in the 2nd generation because the first few hours are so scripted.  (i.e. you don't have much choice in your party composition, the story is more linear, etc.)  So all three of my save slots are in Fortuna right after Madason (the Hero) escaped from slavery.

This is going to be a human-only playthrough.  In DQ5, you're expected to recruit monsters to fill your party.  Human characters other than Madason rotate in and out of the party, kind of like Final Fantasy 4.  Harry, the partner you start with, leaves after the Coburg story arc. 

You won't find another human party member until Madason's love interests show up in the marriage story arc.  A few early dungeons are going to be effectively the same as a solo playthrough.  The 3rd generation should have a full party of humans, but I never got that far with my first save.  (I first tried a Hero + Monsters run, but that made the game too easy, so I started over.) 


Initial Stats and Equipment

Madason Level 11 (some stats were boosted by seeds in the 1st generation)

HP:  92
MP:  40
Strength:  48
Agility:  24
Resilience:  14
Wisdom:  16
Luck:  4
Attack:  63
Defense:  42

Weapon:  Boomerang
Armor:  Scale Armor
Shield:  Bronze Shield
Head:  Leather Hat



Harry Level 3

HP:  56
MP:  21
Strength:  27
Agility:  12
Resilience:  13
Wisdom:  23
Luck:  18
Attack:  39
Defense:  18

Weapon:  Bronze Knife
Armor:  Serf Wear

Anyone interested in a game of Codenames?

Blue team:
Sunrise089
DaveV
Fenn
Commodore
Mardoc

Red team:
JR4
Lewwyn
Bobchillingworth
WarriorKnight
Superdeath (if that was a signup)

Watching a video about a TSL CIV VI playthrough, I got to wonder, did RB ever do a CIV IV PBEM on a map preknown to all players?

Hey all. I’m curious if anyone has found a way to disable settler unit (and do so without breaking AI) to force both player and AI to focus development on their main tower base and then duke it out. 

I feel like it’d be more fun and casual not having to constantly swat new settlements and micro-manage all my other towns. Everyone only having one town should also keep game pace slower and more chill.

PS Can someone let user Shako post new threads? I would like to switch to that account going forward. Thanks!

What are currently the best picks for each? Nelphine posted it once, but it kind of got buried in a superthread; moreover, we have a new version now (only 4 retorts)

I thought the following: 

Barbarians: Alchemy, Warlord, Specialist, Archmage/Spellweaver all life. Strategy: Build a cavalry stack first, conquer easy lairs/towns/maybe first AI, then berzerkers for the remainder. 

Draconians: Alchemy, not sure about warlord, not sure about everything else except Life Drain (send your swordsmen to war bear lairs/beastmen, dwarven villages) and life drain them crazy. Conquer easy lairs, then maybe a Troll city for War Trolls.

Trolls: Chaos to hit flyers or death. Try to rush war trolls.

Werewolves: Alldeath sage master specialist (halflings?). Maybe combined with the above draconian stuff to get skill.

Dark Elves: All sorcery maybe two nature for web. Apprentice spam with phantom warriors, then warlock spam, then late game sorcery units. 

I would appreciate input/corrections. THanks in advance!

We've accumulated a lot of issues and ideas that'll need some sort of decision for the next update.

1. I see far too many Stoning weapons in random generated items. This is a result of Stoning being the only very cheap item power on weapons, having a high chance to appear in general, and weapons being a fairly frequent item type to show up. The game rolls a D10 for item type, and there are 3 armor types, 1 accessory type and 6 weapon types. We probably want some weighting here to make random items follow the distribution of item types in a similar fashion predefined items do. We likely also want Stoning's weight to be lower. (There are only 5 things to choose from at 125 cost that's not Stoning.)

2. Not sure if they do already but maybe the AI should prioritize ships less for buff targets. While a warship with heroism endurance etc is formidable it's not a direct threat to the player as it can't attack on land.

3. It might be interesting if Guardian added more "power" to combat spells for the defender, to allow strategies not based around units (and AIs) to take better advantage of it. Something like +1/3 strength on direct damage spells and -1 spell save on resistance based spells.

4. The AI seems to still move units before shooting when Wall of Shadows is in effect, this will need to be fixed

5. We might want to consider making Regeneration a variable amount (restore 0-1 health on lower tier units and 2-3 on higher tier ones).

6. AI should research Exorcise/Holy Word, Cockatrice and Shadow Demons faster if the human is playing Death/Werewolves. We can either trigger this on number of human Death books (1? 5? 8?) or on specific spells known (Lycanthropy or Shadow Demons).

7.Werewolves need to lose some resistance. (They are immune to all early effects but exorcise so same deal as Shadow Demons, but more figures and cheaper unit so resistance needs to be lower)

8.Werewolves might need to get the 3 armor 5 hp change undone and restored to 1 armor 6 hp. I'm still quite unsure about this one. Might not be needed at all if 5 and 6 are implemented.

9.Enchant Item should be able to have Spell Charges, but limited to weaker spells only. (commons? Uncommons? Anything below cost 12? 15? 20? 25? This is important to enable heroes to get Life Drain/Heroic Shout charged weapons.)

10.AI needs to learn to target adamantium units with Lycanthropy? Might be useless as adamantium requires alchemist guild and makes the AI build up military buildings, once the AI has those, they will usually be producing higher tier units that won't be targeted anyway due to high cost. Forcing them to make spearmen results in diluted armies with some useless adamantium spearmen mixed in.

11. Save or die per figure effects the AI should probably learn to target at lowest figure count in already lost battles, but highest figure count otherwise. (currently targets highest figure count only so those shadow demons/wraiths/death knights never really die to it)

12. Demon Lord seems to have save at -2 in effect but -3 in help and I don't remember which was the actually intended amount.

I know diablo has its own section, but im doubtful anyone goes down that far to read it.. so Anyway, Looking for people that would be willing to do some multiplayer D2. Variant or no variant...

You guys seen the new official Starflight 3 game in the making? Cool to see this 30yr old dead franchise coming back to life! Not sure if it'll get funded though as so many years have passed! Plus a lot of people have never heard of Fig.
https://www.fig.co/campaigns/starflight-3

Announcement Trailer:

Flame blade + focus magic on archers: which is applied first?  What result do you think is more reasonable:

1) Flame blade first: missile attack +2
    Focus magic: convert missile attack to magic attack with the same power
    Final result: range magic attack +2
2) Focus magic first: convert missile attack to magic attack with the same power
    Flame blade: won't add strength to magic attack
    Final result: range magic attack + 0

What is the dispel power of a node to other realms of magic?
I cast confusion (20 pt) with blue-specialist (x2 resist dispel), and ruin master (x1.5 resist dispel).
Thus the total power to resist dispel should be 20pt x 2 x 1.5 = 60pt.
But I experience more than 2/3 of my confusion dispelled by the node (a green node).

So, the dispel power of a node is larger than 120?      120/(120+60) = 2/3

We know the blue-specialist make confusion casting down to 14. But in the dispel formula, we should use 20 not 14, because it's wizard's ability (retorts) to save casting power due to knowledge of more effective way of casting. The strength should be the same, Thus 20pt should be counted toward the dispel formula.

The version I played is v5.42