v1.5.0

This release makes a number of changes, which can be read in detail here.

Some highlights are:

• Sil-Q now has an excellent new tileset designed by MicroChasm
• Much improved Mac support thanks to backwardsEric
• Smithing has been rebalanced to reduce the need for smithing items to help with later smithing
• Guaranteed forges now exist at 100', 300' and 500'
• The Will tree has seen some reworking to replace passive protective skills with more interesting choices
• New egos, enemies, and effects added
• Score now takes into account the increased difficulty of playing as Naugrim, Sindar or Edain

It is not advised to use savefiles from the previous betas with the stable version. This may result in strange things happening with minimum depth.

The attached ZIP file has Windows binaries.

Submit your best scores to http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-browse.php?v=Sil-Q! Good luck!

Nearly there

It's been a while. The pandemic stopped development for a bit.

There have been a few changes though and they could probably do with some play-testing before an official release arrives.

backwardsEric has done a great deal to make Sil-Q playable on Macs, and if you've the technical skills to build from source but have been holding off, I recommend jumping in here.

There are a number of bug fixes over previous beta releases. Critically traps ended up being broken in the last beta release, so this upgrade is an important one if you're playing the beta.

A number of newish skills have had changes. Formidable has a substantial new effect, and now triggers fear in all nearby enemies when you make a kill. Oath of Honour was a bit of a drag and has been replaced with the challenging Oath of Iron, and Oath of Silence gives +2 STR rather than +1 DEX. Song of Whetting has been replaced with a new Song of Slaying which should hopefully be more relevant outside the throneroom than the original Sil version. Song of Staying has been weakened, Puncture strengthened.

There are some new items and tweaks to item egos. Some slaves can now be interacted with - it will be immediately obvious if this is the case.

Tiles have seen a number of improvements. The most noteworthy are that the player tile now changes with both player race and the wielded weapon.

We also have a new manual, courtesy of MicroChasm, who has merged new and old.

MicroChasm recommends the 16x25 font for tileset players.

Bugfixed tiles version

Fixes this release have focused on making tiles work correctly, so this release can be ignored if you're playing with ASCII.

In particular rage, glowing weapons, arrows and breaths should now work correctly. All known instances of missing tiles for items and monsters have been fixed.

Thanks go out to MicroChasm for the ongoing tileset enhancements, and to Infinitum for testing and providing useful feedback on the new tileset.

The next release should be focused on game mechanics again.

First tiles version

Headline here is that we have early tileset support thanks to MicroChasm. Testers are appreciated.

If you're using the Linux build, try running ./silg. If you're on Windows, tileset support should be a click away, select it from the Options | Graphics submenu.

General principles for this release are:

• fixing the odd behaviour that forces experienced players to carry lights to drop on the floor
• reducing the advantage / necessity of building a Smithing kit - Smithing is better earlier with more options and guaranteed forges sooner, less broken late
• replacing some inelegant or dull skills with more elegant or interesting ones
• partially evening out the threat level associated with different enemy types
• providing a wider range of egos meant to give weapons and armour a bit more character

Non-tileset changes:

Enemies

• Unmourned removed; new undead added, wraiths and spectres, which are much more dangerous
• Attercops added: new web-throwing spider enemy
• mild buffs to serpents and spiders, slight damage reduction on ringrauko and ururauko
• Slaves and orc slavers added in the early game
• Orc leaders now rally troops rather than disarm

Skills

• Forewarned gone, replaced with Outwit, which negates all critical damage if you win a Perception test against your attacker
• Critical Resistance and Hardiness gone
• Will skill: Oath - choose from three oaths which forbid you respectively from singing, attacking fleeing enemies, and harming men and elves and which grant a stat point in return as long as the oath is kept.
• Will skill: Formidable - Enemies do not gain morale or become more keen to attack when you are injured.
• Blocking now doubles your shield roll as long as you did not move last turn
• Inner Light gives a +2 bonus instead of +1

Items

• Glowing items no longer glow when dropped on the floor (slay items will however glow in your inventory)
• Feanorian lamp light radius increased by 1, lamps made more common
• Hand axes changed from 5d1 to 4d2 so they were better early and didn't scale so strongly with Smithing
• New effects: resist bleed, avoid traps (on boots), cumbersome (no crits)
• Many new egos and ego changes; egos more narrowly targeted to slots and types of gear; egos on mithril items in particular improved
• New Angband-appropriate egos; curved swords only have Angband-egos rather than elf-egos

Smithing

• Guaranteed forges now at 100', 300', 500' instead of 100', 500', 900'
• +Smithing items gone and uncraftable
• Now cannot smith curses on artefacts
• Some cost rebalancings
• Breadth of new egos and more early forges has strengthened mid-game, late game has been weakened

Bug-fixes

• Various self-knowledge fixes
• Tutorial fixed
• Smite now shows the main attack in red while active
• Grotesques now cannot be knocked back
• Weapon/shield betrayal updated to be more frequent but less capable of killing you

Balance

• Staff of Earthquakes replaced with Staff of Dismay

In progress

• Song of Whetting has a cost reduction to Song/4 lbs. This is too good. Whetting will probably be replaced at some point. It's overly good against Morgoth but offers relatively little in the early game.
• Consumables may yet have a substantial overhaul.

Sil-Q 1.4.2

This release makes a number of changes, which can be read in detail here.

In short:

• Feedback from Scatha's review of Sil-Q has been incorporated.
• The Songs tree has been substantially overhauled, some new songs have been added, and some existing songs are cheaper.
• Melee has a new skill replacing Anticipate - Smite - and the order of the skills has been adjusted so less powerful skills such as Impale and Whirlwind Attack come earlier in the tree.
• Archery has a number of skill changes as it remained somewhat overpowered, and bow dice have also been changed for longbows and dragon-horn bows. Arrows are found in smaller quantities, but break less often than before. This should make inventory a little less tight for archers.
• Items have undergone a number of changes.
• Various smithing tweaks have been made. Among these, damage sides have been removed from rings and gloves and abilities are cheaper to smith onto artifacts than before.
• Morgoth is easier to kill. His regeneration and HP have been greatly reduced, but he has more protection than he did previously and hits more accurately and harder.
• Elves now get a free song skill and a bonus to archery instead of a free archery skill and a bonus to swordfighting.

The attached ZIP file has Windows binaries.

Good luck.

Sil-Q 1.4.1

A new release, just in time for the holidays!

Archery has been overhauled. Dedication and Deadly Hail made it from the beta. Running Shot and Steady Hands didn't. Two new skills replace them, Blessing of Orome and Fletchery. I have wavered back and forth on how powerful Blessing of Orome is. Currently it's placed quite close to the start, skills-wise, because it's easier to get people to investigate it if it only takes a small investment.

The first level has also been overhauled, and has a new enemy and new terrain which both feed into Sil's light-matters theme. The new terrain may occur occasionally a little deeper in the dungeon, becoming rarer the deeper you get.

There are a number of quality of life improvements - starting with a sword equipped, staircases not falling through if you take them too fast on the ascent, staves no longer require a Will check, it's less likely to lose loot dropped on a crowded floor. There are many little bugfixes including level generation trying harder to generate a route downward that isn't blocked by a chasm and Song of Oaths not crashing the game.

Morgoth will be a little more challenging on the ascent - he arrives on the level a little closer to you than he did before. The more Sils you have the more closely he will pursue you.

Play. Enjoy. Have a merry Christmas.

1.4.1-beta1

There are two major changes about this beta release:

• archery has been very substantially overhauled
• the first level looks quite different, and hopefully more interesting

This is a beta release, so the version number hasn't been updated. If you import an archer you will find their skills are somewhat different so take care.

There are sundry bugfixes, new egos and artefacts, etc. I haven't done a full changelog update or reworked the manual yet, I'd like some feedback on the new changes if possible before rolling an official 1.4.1.

Dive in. Explore. Have fun.

Sil-Q 1.4

This is the Sil-Q official release.

Sil-Q is a fork of Sil. It concentrates on rebalancing the game so that all items and skills have some use in the right circumstances. It also aims to make Sil an easier game for newbies to get started with and a harder game for experienced players to master. Killing Morgoth is much more challenging than before, but escaping to the surface is far less tedious.

Over a dozen skills in Sil have been replaced, and even more have been tweaked. Some skills were replaced because they were too weak; some were replaced because they were far too strong and made other skills unnecessary.

There are many new objects, artefacts and even a few new monsters. Many bugfixes and enhancements from the previous mpa-sil and ebering-sil forks have been also folded into Sil-Q.

Release 1.4 tries to be a better Sil. Please download it and try it, and if you want to tell me you love it or hate it or even that you've found a bug, make a post on the Sil forum.

If you want an overview of all the changes made since Sil 1.3, please visit https://github.com/sil-quirk/sil-q/blob/master/lib/docs/changes.txt.

Otherwise, the changes from the previous prerelease version can be found below.

Prerelease Changes

Bugfixes:
- Arrows from orc skeletons are now properly identified.
- Tunnelling creatures forget about tunnelling while fleeing.
- Bad weight cost calculation fixed for smithing.
- Radiance bow IDing fix.
- Vengeful feelings end with death.

Tweaks:
- Dagger slays are removed (these daggers were mostly worse than poison), new dagger special added.
- Polearm stats are further buffed.
- New artefact and new potion added. Staff of Entrapment, which would not ID, replaced with new (bad) staff which does ID readily.
- Cursed rings and amulets which degraded stats or skills are gone.
- Exchange Places is cheaper, Opportunist more expensive.
- Longbows are less smith-friendly.
- Song of Fierce Blows is now called Song of Overwhelming.
- Attacks of opportunity made against characters shooting at point blank range now roll against half evasion.
- Song of Thresholds uses less voice.

New toys:
- Knowing monster info is now a toggleable option.
- A new challenge mode starts you with 50K XP. You will not gain any more. See if you can get a Sil with it.
- New skill - Eye for Detail replaced by Quick Study, which lets you skip prerequisites and buy the skills you want directly.
- Arrows from radiant bows occasionally stun light sensitive monsters.

Last release before the official release

Various cleaning and tidying changes as release nears. Some new toys as well, though...

Bugfixes:

• Silly bug with [ and ] mishandling line of sight items fixed.
• Corner case with Rapid Attack, Impale and Two-Weapon Fighting handled
• Betrayal more frequent.
• Staffs of Self-Knowledge now pick up betrayal and cheat death items.
• Users using hjkl movement are no longer told to press 'k' to destroy the crown.

Tweaks:

• Subtlety reverts to -2 to critical calculations, and Finesse goes from -1 to -2. This change happened after running combat simulations showed Power was now better than Finesse in almost all cases, even for longswords.
• One-handed spears lose their accuracy penalty. Again, combat simulation showed them as overly weak. Even after the buff longswords are usually better.
• Polearm Mastery bonus is now +2 instead of +1.
• Alchemy has swapped places with Concentration after many people echoed the thought it was too good to be so low. Determining if an item is cursed has moved to Forewarned.
• Staffs of Self Knowledge and Understanding now drop a little bit sooner than before.
• Jewellers can now ID jewellery, after a suggestion by seraph.
• Jewellery costs tweaked extensively. Protection rings are cheaper than ever, Perception and Will costs are also lowered and no longer cost experience. There should now be much more useful stuff between 8 smithing and 14 smithing. More artefact skill options added.
• Other smithing costs also tweaked, with extra damage sides on weapons becoming cheaper to smith in particular. Making weapons extremely light has become more expensive however.
• Lorien and Mastery buff reverted to return them to original Sil levels; having now extensive experience with Lorien I am no longer concerned it is in any way underpowered.
• Expertise buffed to remove all stat and experience Smithing costs; it was underused.
• Coup de Grace removed. Dexterity back in its original place. Coup de Grace also unloved.
• Forewarned buffed: now grants 1/3rd Perception as bonus to Evasion.
• Song of Challenge slightly more nuanced than before.
• Song of Thresholds buffed: now grants +1/3rd Song to Evasion and Melee while standing in a doorway.
• Orc skeletons now can contain arrows (as originally intended), cloaks and meat.

New toys:

• Two new craftable pieces of jewellery.
• Song of Valour has been replaced with Song of Fierce Blows, which stuns your opponents and substantially decreases their ability to hurt you.
• We now have a Sil-Q manual.

UPDATE: First attempt to upload the Windows release ran into a distribution issue. If you downloaded the Windows release and don't have the apex directory, please re-download.

Balancing release

A few bugfixes, a few tweaks, some new toys.

Perhaps the most exciting new toy for some will be the addition of the [ and ] key bindings - these show all objects and monsters within line of sight or on screen.

Smithing has lost Song of Aule, but has gained more abilities to put on artefacts, cheaper slays, resists, damage and protection, and negative effects now act to discount standard ego items. This is a further attempt at making Smithing more viable in the mid-game and less broken in the end-game.

Coup de Grace has moved to Stealth; given the first Morgoth kill was a stealth character, it could be seen as odd that this is effectively powering up Stealth. I suspect though that the larger factors in that victory were the Smithing and the Songs and the new skill would not have made a huge difference; this may make more combat-oriented stealth more viable.

Melee characters have a couple of powerful new toys in Anticipate and Song of Valour. Morgoth has been buffed a little to compensate.

There are new artefacts, a new curse and a new effect. Also a new spider.

Bugfixes:

• Recharging staff exploit fixed.
• Morgoth angering now processes before mastery or Lorien effects.
• Whirlwind Attack works with Follow-Through (and also Rapid Attack).
• Super-tunneling gone from kemenrauko and nameless ones - they now tunnel more slowly than you walk.

Tweaks:

• Mewlip blind is weakened, Balcmeg and Lug will and perception are toned down.
• Made giants throw boulders a little more often.
• Monster perception adjustment for early levels tweaked slightly - it was +3 for the first 5 levels down to +0 for the last 5, now it runs +2 to -1. I felt after making pacifism runs in original Sil that +3 was a lot.
• Various smithing changes. Weaponsmithing has gained from cheaper damage sides and slays. The major resists have got cheaper, and many more abilities are now available in places that better match artifacts.
• Negative effects on non-artefact items now reduce smithing costs, so e.g. a Shadow Cloak of Winter's Chill is worth making.
• The prerequisites on Forewarned were removed.
• Ring of Venom's End drops earlier, and Daggers of Accompaniment now grant +EV (they're parrying daggers after all).

New toys:

• Song of Delvings drops to 6, replacing Song of Aule. It works faster, detects secret doors and traps, and reduces tunneling difficulty.
• Song of Valour comes in at 10 (I wanted to call it Song of Breathless Deeds but the name wouldn't fit). It increases Strength and Dexterity by 3, may stun enemies with Will below your Song score, and drains health as well as voice.
• Coup de Grace moved to Stealth, costing 11 points and moving the Dex point to 12. It now provides guaranteed kills on enemies with HP under your stealth score.
• New melee skill: Anticipate, requires 12 Melee - rerolls misses up to twice against aggressive opponents. Requires Power or Song of Challenge.
• New spider quite early on.
• [ and ] show lists of monsters and objects; pressed twice they toggle between viewing line-of-sight and everything on screen.
• New effect: cheat death. Saves you from a fatal blow at 1 HP, curing negative status effects and giving you the next move. Amulets of Adornment are now Amulets of Last Chances.
• New curse: betrayal. New artefacts added. Swords and shields grow heavy and lay you open to maximum damage from a blow, helms fall over your eyes and blind you, rings and amulets slip from your finger and neck and alert all your surrounding enemies. They're all primed to pick the worst moment for this, though the curse will not kill you by itself and is triggered rarely.