Ilyich on Patrol

[weimer]

The most recent tactics update (available now) includes a minor tweak to Imp Ilyich: he and his cronies now "patrol" the upper-right corner of the dungeon in a staggered formation. If you try to snipe one, the others should come running.

Since everyone here seems to be a small god when it comes to taking down Ilyich, I figured I would solicit some opinions. Does this actually make him harder or easier to deal with?

(Nice write-ups, by the way. Many of the "stories" posted here have been incorporated into the collected wisdom of the tacitcs mod.)

[ 02-05-2003, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: weimer ]

[Xero279]

what does the tactics mod do.. make evrything harder?

[Alson]

Great job, Wes. That should make things even more interesting. Keep it coming!

[Rataxes]

Damn! And I just took a new party through the dungeon yesterday Well I'll get the thing for sure and try it out when I get home. Ilyich on patrol sounds very interesting indeed [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Rataxes]

I've tested the new version now. Wasn't quite what I expected. MOD SPOILER
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The first sight I got of him was the entire party, demon and golem included, massed in a big group hug in the middle of the lit corridor. I thought they would be patrolling in a much looser pattern, and not try to keep their formation at all times Never the less, I went in with Yoshi first, cloaked of course. It seems that the entire party tries to follow the Glabrezu wherever he goes, which does make sense. It's both realistic, and makes it exceptionally difficult to use invisibility to your advantage.

While this change certainly will make most old strategies obsolete, including the one I described in the No-rest story, the change does give you new options. I imagine that using snares and skull traps should be even easier in this version, since they will pretty much trip on them all by themselves [img]smile.gif[/img] Apart from that though, forget about any of the old strats that involved Divide and Conquer. Making Hit'n'Run'n'Hides on the entire party is now more than viable though, since no one will ever stray too far from the Glabrezu, who in turn is a fairly inactive and slow creature who usually stops pursuing you if you get out of his visual range. I can imagine an Assassin having a field day with Ilyich in this new version

A direct assault is probably impossible now, since you have to face his non-humanoid allies as well, and you won't have the luxary of placing yourself in strategic positions or making any big preparations.

In the end, I went with the easy* way and simply hasted and strengtened Yoshi and set him off on a Hit'n'Run'n'Hide spree that took me 50 minutes, about 10 quicksaves, and 15-20 reloads to complete. Started off by killing Karamazov, then Rasputin, Zhivago**, and finally the golem. Getting Ilyich's party into the library will give you an advantage when doing this strat, due to the many walls (bookshelves) you can hide behind. Finally, when only Ilyich and the demon remained, I somehow*** got Ilyich into the central room and picked him off with Minsc and Imoen****, while using the still hasted Yoshi as the decoy. Then I decked out my PC with all the best stuff I had, including the +3 Club and +2 Hammer, and sent him off alone to take care of the demon.

* Some *easy* way huh?

** Did you know that you can easily disrupt his Fallen Deva casting by going invisible with the character he targetted the Deva summoning at? I sure didn't until this evening! [img]smile.gif[/img]

*** Sometimes, for really no reason at all, Ilyich would briefly separate himself from the rest of the group and run off to my cloaked PC I had guarding the back of the library, and then run back when he didn't see anything he could kill. It was during one of these strange occasions I led him away from his Demon friend.

**** Can you believe the lucky gal got off a Lightning Bolt that not only missed Minsc by this much when it bounced the first time, but also hit Ilyich a 2nd time on the second bounce, when he was chasing Yoshi. It alone zapped 70 of his hitpoints [img]smile.gif[/img]

[weimer]

In Wes-world, they all follow Ilyich around (kinda). If you have a spare minute, could you try this: cheat in a potion of invisibility, ctrl-J in to the middle of them and just sit around and watch what they do. Ctrl-Y the demon if it sees you. The rest of them *should* sorta walk down to the library, look around, then walk back over to the cambion room, lather, rinse repeat.

If you then break your invisibility and attack one of them (say, the last one on the line) it should call all of the others over.

Would you be so kind as to verify that my intended behavior (above) actually works? Then I can work on fixing up any unintended consequences (as you describe). Thanks!

[SixOfSpades]

I haven't even played the original II, but I can't help but think that putting them in a marching line will make them easier to separate.....and if you know that attacking one will result in the others rushing to his/her aid, that just means you know where the others are/will be.

Weimer, what is your intention with making Ilyich Patrol? To make him easier? More difficult? More realistic? More fun?

[Rataxes]

I'm guessing it was primarily made to prevent the Divide & Conquer strategy that is very common when facing Ilyich.

It is, save for a few minor bugs, completely impossible to separate any part of the group now, including the Golem and the Glabrezu. They follow each other like they were glued together [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by weimer: In Wes-world, they all follow Ilyich around (kinda). If you have a spare minute, could you try this: cheat in a potion of invisibility, ctrl-J in to the middle of them and just sit around and watch what they do. Ctrl-Y the demon if it sees you. The rest of them *should* sorta walk down to the library, look around, then walk back over to the cambion room, lather, rinse repeat. If you then break your invisibility and attack one of them (say, the last one on the line) it should call all of the others over. Would you be so kind as to verify that my intended behavior (above) actually works? Then I can work on fixing up any unintended consequences (as you describe). Thanks!

Well I'm confused. I did some more testing with this group just now, and they acted somewhat different compared to when I first met them. Maybe it had something to with me activating the debug mode, or maybe it was nothing. Anyway, this time I met Ilyich all on his own on his way to the back of the library, I followed him, and it seems like he always stops on the exact same spot, since I witnessed him doing these little runs yesterday as well. Well off he went a few seconds later, not to join up with his team though, which had put up a permanent camp in the Cambion room. No, he stopped once again in the corridor, a few yards outside the entrance to the cambion room, and then went back to the same spot in the back of the library. He then strolled back to the cambion room, but this time went all the into the back of the cambion room, before he once again turned back and headed for the back of the library.

I then went into the room and made myself visible to the glabrezu, he was completely surrounded by his allies however, and couldn't move. In my second attempt though, he managed to break free, and everyone blindly followed him, which pretty much corresponded to what I had witnessed when first tried this version. Destroyed the demon with CTRL-Y, and this caused the remaining party to stop. They all simply stood put in the Cambion room until I decided to reload. This time, I destroyed the demon and revealed myself when Ilyich was on his way to the library again, and he didn't seem to react at all to me going hostile on his allies. He just kept on heading to the back of the library, and only attacked me when his patrol path took him back to cambion room and he saw me himself. Same thing happened when I attacked Ilyich when he was alone, no reaction what so ever from the rest of his group.

Tried it a third time. This time I revealed myself to the group and then went invisible once again. The demon kept chasing me naturally, but the other ones just stayed put, and after a few seconds, Ilyich went off (most likely to the back of the library again I guess) and the the rest of the gang, clustered up in a corner. This was an isolated event though. In all other tests I made, the party kept following the Glabrezu even if I went invisible again.

Once, when Ilyich was in the cambion room and was just about to leave, I revealed myself and then went invisible. This seemed to break Ilyich's pattern since he thereafter followed the Glabrezu blindly like the rest of his team.

Just some minor things.

- Ilyich seemed to sometimes teleport from the cambion room to the big room in-between (the one where they originally spawned) when he did these patrol walks.

- All of them, are very prone to stop pursuing you if you get out of their sight, even if just for a split second.

- I think I've gotten far too many random, weird and confusing results to really make an accurate guess on the behaviour of any part of Ilyich group, but here's a few things I'm pretty sure of:

* Rasputin, Zhivago, Karamazov and the Golem all follow the Glabrezu as if glued to him, and will very often surround it completely. Ilyich also does this sometimes, though I've no idea what triggers that, or what triggers him tonot follow the demon. There have been a few exceptions, but I've seen this behaviour in most of my tests.

* Ilyich has a personal patrolling pattern which starts in the cambion room and ends at the back of the library, this pattern was rarely ever disrupted in any of my tests, and even if it was, he always started anew once everything returned to normal or the threat disappeared.