Does moving around the eggs, larvae, and pupae do anything other than RNG manipulation? I've never been clear on any potential benefit on that for a casual run of either this game or the IBM version.
Does moving around the eggs, larvae, and pupae do anything other than RNG manipulation? I've never been clear on any potential benefit on that for a casual run of either this game or the IBM version.
Also, I'm utterly astonished the author managed to manipulate the AI to cast Imprison on their DRAGON; by all rights, the AI should have either cast Imprison on the Shapeshifter or else summoned an elemental on it.
Thanks! I've only ever played the NES version but the AI movement is seeded based on certain frames hit when starting a new game. Summon elemental and teleport are also able to be cast entering from different frames but we don't want them. With Imprison, it appeared to always target a unit within the wizard's own attack range and if no such unit exists it goes for the dragon which I can only assume is because the shapeshifter itself has lower "stats" pre-combat or something.
Interesting.
I don't know all the AI's reasoning, but from what I've seen, playing the game casually, the caster will imprison powerful units within striking range of them. I would've assumed that both the champion (Dragon and Djinni) and the hunter (Shapeshifter and Phoenix) would've been almost equally high on the list, with striking range taking the priority.
But yeah, gotta respect the frames. Imprison is very likely the SECOND fastest move the AI could've done (fastest would probably be moving a 3-tile icon, either a Knight near the Wizard, or the other Valkyrie). Time Shift would probably not be favored UNTIL an icon was imprisoned (to extend the imprisonment). Summon elemental would result in a fight. Teleport almost DEFINITELY would've resulted in a fight. Heal would not be used as there were no injured icons. Revive could not be used as there were no dead icons. And the AI NEVER uses Exchange.
Quite frankly, this shows just how dumb the AI is; a pathetic KNIGHT could've one-shotted a Shapeshifter on a peak light tile, while the Shapeshifter would've needed three hits to kill the Knight. To me, THAT was the play that floored me!
GG, but I feel like the NES version is one of the lower-tier versions of the original A800 port. Here's what I know about the differences between various versions:
A800: original. Also the absolute fastest version of them all.
C64: Phoenix attack stretches further to the right, though I'm not sure if that's its true hitbox or just some graphics jank.
IBM: delta tiles are a little hard to read due to limited palette. Shapeshifter can take permanent damage (it's supposed to fully heal after every fight).
NES: adds crappy music during strategy and fights. Graphics are a little hard to read for the fights for the sake of hitboxes.
Amiga: mechanically almost identical to C64 version, but with prettier graphics, sampled sounds, and somewhat hard-to-read hitboxes.
Also, I'm utterly astonished the author managed to manipulate the AI to cast Imprison on their DRAGON; by all rights, the AI should have either cast Imprison on the Shapeshifter or else summoned an elemental on it.
I'm quite the fan of Archon, and it makes perfect sense for the enemy being aggressive if our side goes first, as the delta tiles start changing color in favor of the side that goes second, essentially forcing the side that goes first into a defensive strategy. The advantage of fighting on a tile of your own color is an energy barrier on top of your icon's health meter that must be destroyed before your own icon takes any damage. There are six colors that delta tiles may be, and depending on their color, your icon may have an energy barrier equal to 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, or 7. To put all of this in perspective, icons with the lowest health (Knights, Goblins, and Archers) have 5 health, while the icon with the highest health (the Dragon) has 17 health. So while that barrier can mean an icon can soak one more hit, that advantage doesn't necessarily mean victory.
Fun trivia: while unlikely, a game of Archon can result in a draw if both the dark's and light's final icon kill each other at the same time, or a stalemate if enough turns pass without any combat or any spells cast.
From what I can tell, the difficulty switch is set to A for "Advanced," as opposed to B for "Beginner." The difference between the two difficulty levels is the player's missile speed, which is much faster in Beginner. For that reason, it is arguable that this movie also falls under the "uses hardest difficulty" category.
Good stuff!
This game looks like what happens when you cut the transportation fund in Sim City.
Voted meh. It works, but it's like watching a county job. I blame the game.
Doesn't start from reset. Doesn't play full game. Uses hacked game. I'm pretty sure all of those things are generally against the stated rules of the site.
I enjoyed this movie and voted yes. I agree that it's pretty much only Vault-level content, though that's more the fault of the game itself, and not of the author.
To be honest, the loss of the threat of death makes this seem a bit less interesting than the current movie. Regardless, it demonstrates a pretty massive glitch that greatly changes the routing in the game. For this reason, I vote yes.
I'm going to go with No on this one, based on the facts that this goes to stage 256 instead of stopping once it finishes one loop of the hardest difficulty, and that the author mentioned discovering a method of climbing ladders faster, but did not implement it for this run. As this is a 2-hour video, I understand the rationale for the latter, but stopping upon finishing one loop in the hardest difficulty would've dropped it down to about 15 or 20 minutes.
I don't have a ROM that works with this movie, but if what FilipeTales says is true about there existing a faster TAS already (and I don't doubt them), then I would vote no.
