Re: Ultima IV wanted

[vsp@unix3.netaxs.com (have clue--will travel)]

Neil Parker <nparker@cie-2.uoregon.edu> wrote:
>fishern3485@cobra.uni.edu writes:
>>>>> Lately, I've had a strong desire to play Ultima IV. I still have the map, 
>>>>> manual, etc., but the disks are long gone.  Does anyone out there still 
>>>>> have a copy that I could buy/rent/loan?  I would appreciate it.
>>>>
>>>>you DO realize it's impossible to solve, right?
>>> 
>>> Au contraire!  I helped my brother solve it once.
>>> 
>>> Of course, we did have to use a sector editor to raise our stats to superhuman
>>> levels in order to survive the Abyss...
>>
>>ok even with that..... who told you the answer to the riddle??
>
>Nobody had to tell us the answers to the riddles, because the answers
>permeate the entire game.  If memory serves, you just get asked about the
>eight virtues in the standard order, and then the three qualities.  The
>final riddle is answered by the word spelled out in runes that you see when
>you meditate at shrines.

Yup.  Took me a while to put two and two together, tho.

>>(btw, it's more fun to play it through the first time w/o cheating,
>>and then play a "if it moves, nuke it" game ;-)    )
>
>Hmm.  We never managed to make it through at all without cheating...even
>after setting all our characterstics to $FF with the sector editor (which
>displays REALLY strangely, since the game seems to do all its arithmetic in
>BCD), we barely managed to survive to the bottom of the Abyss.  I wonder if
>we were missing some important item?

Uh, maybe I'm missing something, but I played Ultima IV to completion without
cheating.  Multiple times.  Took a while to build stats up, but I didn't even
max out all characters at Level 8.  

Tips of the day: 
1)  Build up all spell-casting (Mage, Druid, Paladin, Bard, Ranger: like the
Tinker really counts) characters' INT to 50 quickly.  Find an Int-increasing
ball in a dungeon, zap the character, X-it, heal character, lather, rinse,
repeat as necessary.

2)  Before entering the Abyss, build up spell components AND crucial spells
(<H>eal, <T>remor, <R>esurrect, <V>iew, <D>ispel, <K>ill, <Q>uickness) to
99; ditto for gems.

3)  Mystic Armour helps.  However, Mystic Swords are probably THE most
overrated item in the game; other than the Shepherd and the Fighter, I sell
all of them off.  Any missile weapon with "Magic" in the title -- this means
Bows, Axes and Wands -- WILL work in the Abyss.  Put your sword-swingers in
the back, nuke anything that moves with Tremor, then pick 'em off from afar
with wand and bow blasts.  You can sell off Swords for quite a lot of cash;
excellent for affording the finer weapons at Buccaneer's Den.

4)  Needless to say, you'll spend a lot of time sitting in one place recharging
spell points in between battles.  Don't dick around or pick fights you don't
have to pick -- V)iew, find the altar, and make a beeline for it, except for
that nasty maze about halfway down.  

5)  In that entertaining room with four reapers -- T)remor your ass off,
keep A)wakens handy at all times and try to pick off surviving reapers with
K)ills.   

6)  Does the Skull of Mondain make any difference?  Perhaps tossing it into
the Abyss makes travels easier; never tried it without tossing it first.

			jeff.  who finished Ultima V last summer, after
				setting it aside for about four years...

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