How to Gnome

[NixBoxDone]

Just played a relatively successful round of being the gnomes. Lost two gnomes relatively early to a mishap (turns out soldier ants take gnomes apart like it's super easy, barely an inconvenience), but got into the groove soon after.
Built a couple builder/digger bots, confined the gnomes to a carpeted luxury bedroom/crafting wing with luxurious beds and basically used them for the sole purpose of crafting murder bots to send out for more materials.

Three levels excavated and most minor and major enemies beaten (including a host of demons ambushing my robots from under a chair cushion and a black dragon that came to borrow a cup of mass gnome murder), I decided to take on the main villain known as -didn't bother to learn his name- High Priest of -some edgy deity-.
Big mistake.

I had a group of 10 iron robots, 5 heavy chassis melee robots with humanoid heads for the equipment wearing the best iron gear of many craftings and a mix of elven swords and enchanted gear lifted from some ogre and the black dragons pockets when he decided to take a nap at the cemetery and 5 medium chassis archer bots, 3 with two projectile heads each and 2 with a projectile head and a pair of repairing hands to keep the frontline hopping.

I killed many of his minions, but there was one buff demon dude that didn't even seem to get damaged. Dude just ripped my robots to pieces over about 50 rounds (he didn't deal too much damage, but my robots couldn't scratch him even with +14 twohanders from the dragon), forcing me to withdraw my archers.
The High Priest then sent him to clean up my dungeon and the critter walked through an entire hallway of mixed fire/gas traps and survived the hallway full of net traps, barricades and fire traps with a guard room of 3 iron archer automatons at the end, killing all but one of my gnomes that I managed to evacuate to a panic room 3 levels down and behind several trap corridors.
I eventually chose to charge the high priest with the gnome to honour the fact that I would've been dead if the demon hadn't decided to go home to party.

My question is: what exactly would I have needed to beat that encounter? I didn't bring potions because I assumed automatons wouldn't be able to consume them, but it feels like maybe I would've needed magic or jewellery there.

[di eshor ribly]

Dig for Adamantine deposits and make Adamantine Golems. They're like Iron Golems on crack. Your double archer units are murder machines extraordinaire when they're made out of the good stuff. If you make some "autonomous" golems with the heads and make them adamantine equipment they'll be even tankier. Expect defense ranges in the 60-80s.

[Adversary]

One, Adoxie is a Yu-Gi-Oh reference to Exodia the Forbidden One. Nothing "edgy" about anagrams. Two, I have to echo the sentiments said prior - when in doubt throw adamantine at the problem.

[NixBoxDone]

Might be my next go-to. Just take out lesser evils and the managable ones (dragons, cyclops and hydras seem to be pretty doable with enough ranged and one or two iron tanks) then dig down for the adamantine to flex my rare metal golems at em.

As to the edgy deity: I wasn't aware of the anagram, just referencing the 2cool4u warlocks and demons in his crib. Just once I want to walk into an evil lair and find out they're worshipping Adoxie, patron deity of angry mediocre artists or Gorax, deity of squeaky hinges.

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Might be my next go-to. Just take out lesser evils and the managable ones (dragons, cyclops and hydras seem to be pretty doable with enough ranged and one or two iron tanks) then dig down for the adamantine to flex my rare metal golems at em.

As to the edgy deity: I wasn't aware of the anagram, just referencing the 2cool4u warlocks and demons in his crib. Just once I want to walk into an evil lair and find out they're worshipping Adoxie, patron deity of angry mediocre artists or Gorax, deity of squeaky hinges.

Well, when you actually get to doing battle with Adoxie, you'll see that he's got a similar schtick to Exodia the Forbidden One. Granted, if you've not been to the Black Market or blew your chance at being able to get there, you won't make it past Death. Who is the gatekeeper in these later versions - used to be you could challenge Adoxie outright but now Hell and Australia are part of the game - Death is the gatekeeper to Hell, Diabolo to Adoxie, Adoxie to Australia. Just make sure to get the amulet of life-saving before descending and you'll do alright.

[NixBoxDone]

Sounds like a lot of fun to look forward to! Might need to get that adamantine first though, my poor iron automatons got absolutely mauled.
I already got the full foot fetish treatment after burgling a treasury, so now I just need to get Touched by the Hand of God and find a head to kick around and I'll be set.

You sure an amulet of life-saving is enough to survive Australia though? I've heard things.

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Sounds like a lot of fun to look forward to! Might need to get that adamantine first though, my poor iron automatons got absolutely mauled.
I already got the full foot fetish treatment after burgling a treasury, so now I just need to get Touched by the Hand of God and find a head to kick around and I'll be set.

You sure an amulet of life-saving is enough to survive Australia though? I've heard things.

You need it to beat Death. Which means bringing ~2,000 gold or an army to the Black Market, plus the Key needed to access it. In typical roguelike fashion, it has one use and it's an extremely rare item - in that there is only one guaranteed amulet of life-saving in KeeperRL and it's guaranteed to save your life once, provided you're wearing it.

And that's still being generous compared to some of the classics like ADOM, Nethack and what-not, wherein you're not even guaranteed one. RIP Khelvaster if that's the case - for the former at least, Biskup does not mess around.

The dev of this game however is a more merciful sort.

[NixBoxDone]

Ohhh, I was wondering what the key was for.

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Ohhh, I was wondering what the key was for.

Yeah, you use it to get into the Black Market, which is located in the same locale as the High Priest of Adoxie - albeit several z-levels higher. You'll likely need a golem that can wear amulets, which I'm honestly not sure if that's a thing but you might know better considering you've spent more time with gnomes than I have I'd bet.

My expertise is making the Keeper into a one-man army and then cracking krakens by level 5, then soloing the rest of the game. Even with recent balancing changes it's still kind of ridiculously easy to pull off.

Anyways, if you see a portal that looks defunct, use the key there.

[NixBoxDone]

Haven't found any jewellery to test yet. Generally I think you only find stuff like that vs. humanoid enemies and maybe in the uremarkable dungeon (unremarkable my ass, killed a dragon there and was merked by abominations as knight).
Got a bit further this time, but the demon still managed to kill me eventually simply because even a +18 adamantine war axe couldn't hurt him much.

Might have to see if I can micro some acid heads to wear him down.

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Haven't found any jewellery to test yet. Generally I think you only find stuff like that vs. humanoid enemies and maybe in the uremarkable dungeon (unremarkable my ass, killed a dragon there and was merked by abominations as knight).
Got a bit further this time, but the demon still managed to kill me eventually simply because even a +18 adamantine war axe couldn't hurt him much.

Might have to see if I can micro some acid heads to wear him down.

You can make jewelry if you research iron working, then jewelry, then build jeweler's workshops. Which cost wood to construct, and in turn uses gold to produce. Course, that requires gnomes having access to that tech to begin with. Might want to double check just to make sure. And, as was stated prior,

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Dig for Adamantine deposits and make Adamantine Golems. They're like Iron Golems on crack. Your double archer units are murder machines extraordinaire when they're made out of the good stuff. If you make some "autonomous" golems with the heads and make them adamantine equipment they'll be even tankier. Expect defense ranges in the 60-80s.

You will need more than just adamatine war axes, if anything golems with two archer turrets seem to be just what the doctor ordered. Course, you still need to actually construct the golems out of adamantine, and actually see if you can make golems with humanoid torsos - this conversation is jogging my memory a bit, I think that is a thing which exists and I think those can equip certain items. Otherwise, if they can't equip jewelry you'll need to bring a gnome to parley with Death.

Because I know gnomes can wear the amulet of life-saving, considering the ones you have in the gnome faction are essentially a reskin of the gnomes you can both enslave and convert to your side as both keepers and goblins. And if it can be made part of your cohort or taken as chattel, it can wear jewelry.

And if you're feeling particularly desperate and want to see whether or not they can wear jewelry - the golems, that is - then hoo boy do I have a challenge for you. Try taking on my recent retired keeper. There should be some jewelry on a handful of the minions and on the keeper.

Which if you can take down my keeper, you should be fine against Adoxie.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2472632597

And yes, 250 minions. Try to find which ones have the shiny bits.

Also as an added tip, unless the dev changed it golems cannot under most circumstances open chests. Guess where most amulets and rings are found? You may need to risk 1-2 gnomes in order to secure any additional loot you may have missed.

[NixBoxDone]

Originally posted by ᚨᛞᚡᛖᚱᛋᚨᚱᛃ:

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Haven't found any jewellery to test yet. Generally I think you only find stuff like that vs. humanoid enemies and maybe in the uremarkable dungeon (unremarkable my ass, killed a dragon there and was merked by abominations as knight).
Got a bit further this time, but the demon still managed to kill me eventually simply because even a +18 adamantine war axe couldn't hurt him much.

Might have to see if I can micro some acid heads to wear him down.

You can make jewelry if you research iron working, then jewelry, then build jeweler's workshops. Which cost wood to construct, and in turn uses gold to produce. Course, that requires gnomes having access to that tech to begin with. Might want to double check just to make sure. And, as was stated prior,

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Dig for Adamantine deposits and make Adamantine Golems. They're like Iron Golems on crack. Your double archer units are murder machines extraordinaire when they're made out of the good stuff. If you make some "autonomous" golems with the heads and make them adamantine equipment they'll be even tankier. Expect defense ranges in the 60-80s.

You will need more than just adamatine war axes, if anything golems with two archer turrets seem to be just what the doctor ordered. Course, you still need to actually construct the golems out of adamantine, and actually see if you can make golems with humanoid torsos - this conversation is jogging my memory a bit, I think that is a thing which exists and I think those can equip certain items. Otherwise, if they can't equip jewelry you'll need to bring a gnome to parley with Death.

Because I know gnomes can wear the amulet of life-saving, considering the ones you have in the gnome faction are essentially a reskin of the gnomes you can both enslave and convert to your side as both keepers and goblins. And if it can be made part of your cohort or taken as chattel, it can wear jewelry.

And if you're feeling particularly desperate and want to see whether or not they can wear jewelry - the golems, that is - then hoo boy do I have a challenge for you. Try taking on my recent retired keeper. There should be some jewelry on a handful of the minions and on the keeper.

Which if you can take down my keeper, you should be fine against Adoxie.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2472632597

And yes, 250 minions. Try to find which ones have the shiny bits.

Also as an added tip, unless the dev changed it golems cannot under most circumstances open chests. Guess where most amulets and rings are found? You may need to risk 1-2 gnomes in order to secure any additional loot you may have missed.

Gnomes don't seem to have access to the jewellery station (probably because it's assumed that their constructs don't need bling) much like they don't get access to magic and bookshelves.
I'd have loved to grab some nice extra defense from the three slots otherwise.

As to the axe not being enough, no kidding! My humanoid adamantine golems with adamantine war axes get up to about 40ish attack only (defenses out of the wazoo though, of course), but that's not enough to break the demon's defenses.

For other enemies that makes no difference, as the sharp nature of the axes eventually causes things to be sliced off, reducing the combat readiness of enemies to the point where they can start dealing damage, but I don't think that works on the demon (or if it does, I just got very unlucky).
Almost had him at one time, but someone or something healed him just in time and I lost too many automatons to get him that low again.

Next attempt I'll bring 3 adamantine archers with two archer heads and a couple of healers with acid heads to see if I can corrode some of that badassery offa him to the point where lopping things off becomes possible.

Traps did nothing, btw, had a huge ass corridor full of gas and fire traps and his jolly red butt coasted right through - got his supports, but since he invaded right after I lost my entire force I didn't get enough automatons cobbled back together to threaten him.

That said, I kinda like that. Having something to work towards and figure out is a lot of fun. ^^

Edit: trying to take that hellhole down to get a necklace to challenge some demon minion feels like invading Fort Knoxx to pay my phone bill.
By the time I have what I need to do that, I probably won't need the necklaces. :D

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Originally posted by ᚨᛞᚡᛖᚱᛋᚨᚱᛃ:

You can make jewelry if you research iron working, then jewelry, then build jeweler's workshops. Which cost wood to construct, and in turn uses gold to produce. Course, that requires gnomes having access to that tech to begin with. Might want to double check just to make sure. And, as was stated prior,



You will need more than just adamatine war axes, if anything golems with two archer turrets seem to be just what the doctor ordered. Course, you still need to actually construct the golems out of adamantine, and actually see if you can make golems with humanoid torsos - this conversation is jogging my memory a bit, I think that is a thing which exists and I think those can equip certain items. Otherwise, if they can't equip jewelry you'll need to bring a gnome to parley with Death.

Because I know gnomes can wear the amulet of life-saving, considering the ones you have in the gnome faction are essentially a reskin of the gnomes you can both enslave and convert to your side as both keepers and goblins. And if it can be made part of your cohort or taken as chattel, it can wear jewelry.

And if you're feeling particularly desperate and want to see whether or not they can wear jewelry - the golems, that is - then hoo boy do I have a challenge for you. Try taking on my recent retired keeper. There should be some jewelry on a handful of the minions and on the keeper.

Which if you can take down my keeper, you should be fine against Adoxie.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2472632597

And yes, 250 minions. Try to find which ones have the shiny bits.

Also as an added tip, unless the dev changed it golems cannot under most circumstances open chests. Guess where most amulets and rings are found? You may need to risk 1-2 gnomes in order to secure any additional loot you may have missed.

Gnomes don't seem to have access to the jewellery station (probably because it's assumed that their constructs don't need bling) much like they don't get access to magic and bookshelves.
I'd have loved to grab some nice extra defense from the three slots otherwise.

As to the axe not being enough, no kidding! My humanoid adamantine golems with adamantine war axes get up to about 40ish attack only (defenses out of the wazoo though, of course), but that's not enough to break the demon's defenses.

For other enemies that makes no difference, as the sharp nature of the axes eventually causes things to be sliced off, reducing the combat readiness of enemies to the point where they can start dealing damage, but I don't think that works on the demon (or if it does, I just got very unlucky).
Almost had him at one time, but someone or something healed him just in time and I lost too many automatons to get him that low again.

Next attempt I'll bring 3 adamantine archers with two archer heads and a couple of healers with acid heads to see if I can corrode some of that badassery offa him to the point where lopping things off becomes possible.

Traps did nothing, btw, had a huge ass corridor full of gas and fire traps and his jolly red butt coasted right through - got his supports, but since he invaded right after I lost my entire force I didn't get enough automatons cobbled back together to threaten him.

That said, I kinda like that. Having something to work towards and figure out is a lot of fun. ^^

Edit: trying to take that hellhole down to get a necklace to challenge some demon minion feels like invading Fort Knoxx to pay my phone bill.
By the time I have what I need to do that, I probably won't need the necklaces. :D

Well, you're improving your tactics at least. Three and two is probably too few respectively, but that's just me. Were I in your shoes I'd dig deeper, get enough resources to bring something like 20-30 units minimum, then try again.

Also, if humanoid golems cannot wear amulets or rings, then I'd wager you will have to bring a gnome to the confrontation with Death. And also have them take point while wearing the amulet of life-saving. Course, this is just going by what I know off of my experience with the game, but as stated you're probably more familiar with gnomes and how they work in this game than I am.

Also I like that you actually tried challenging one of my keeps and you referred to it as a quote

hellhole

Reminds me that I actually made a keeper I couldn't beat once. Had something like 150 defense by the time I was done, and this was a warrior keeper who not only beat 4 other keepers, but wound up getting lots of glyphs and cyclops brains. So when I tried to beat him, I couldn't. Course that was with a previous version, so unless you roll back via the beta branch you won't be able to challenge him.

...Not that any sane person would want to, I'd wager you would need something like 200+ attack or magic just to make a scratch, because that particular warrior keeper was also nigh-on resistant to everything except cold and acid IIRC.

[NixBoxDone]

Nyeh. I'll keep wrestling with the devil instead.
I really should've brought more automatons, but I figured just having iron was enough and didn't want to spend hours holed up in my base building stairs and protecting my gnomes from rat assassins.

That's the next plan though. Build a nice little beginner dungeon and dig down until I have at least 20 assault bots, likely half heavy melee humanoids in adamantine armor and weaponry, other half mixed ranged/acid/heals.

Then I just need to keep the front such that nobody can get at the backline without murdering the heavy melee bots, which should be decently hard.
They don't die easy, they usually get overwhelmed after some teleporting vampire or similar murders the ranged units, ground down by lucky hits that apply status conditions until they eventually lose limbs and spiral down.

[Adversary]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Nyeh. I'll keep wrestling with the devil instead.
I really should've brought more automatons, but I figured just having iron was enough and didn't want to spend hours holed up in my base building stairs and protecting my gnomes from rat assassins.

That's the next plan though. Build a nice little beginner dungeon and dig down until I have at least 20 assault bots, likely half heavy melee humanoids in adamantine armor and weaponry, other half mixed ranged/acid/heals.

Then I just need to keep the front such that nobody can get at the backline without murdering the heavy melee bots, which should be decently hard.
They don't die easy, they usually get overwhelmed after some teleporting vampire or similar murders the ranged units, ground down by lucky hits that apply status conditions until they eventually lose limbs and spiral down.

Well just keep in mind that you can dig down as deep as you want and as much as your PC can handle - the more the game has to process, the greater the strain. Not Dwarf Fortress 40d11 2 cats level of FPS death, but close to it. I've dug down to Z-100 personally, but that was some time ago. Sure, it was 1-2 FPS any time I was at base, but it was worth it.

Regardless, when in doubt, digging deeper can be the answer you need to any resource problem.

Course, some levels will require bridges because they're mostly water or magma, and if you encounter krakens or red dragons you may have issues. And IIRC at least one level is guaranteed to have black rats - which carry the plague. Your automatons should be fine, just keep the rats away from your gnomes unless you want to gamble on getting plague resistance. And if you encounter red dragons while digging deeper, that's a source of glyphs and red dragon scales. Since you can tweak your crafter bots to have legendary skill, those might be of use to you. You'll be more likely to see them if the level is mostly or entirely magma aside from the stairs upon entry.

And yeah, you will probably do better against the High Priest of Adoxie and Diabolo than that particular Keeper of mine. Granted, that one retired keeper predates the gnome update so you wouldn't be able to even use gnomes against him to begin with. The one I linked you herein this thread doesn't - it's from the current Alpha 32 - but still.