Ultima III: Darkest before Dawn

I had a third go at surviving Ultima III's early phase. My last attempt went pretty well, and I'm honestly not sure what I was supposed to do about Balrons at level 1, but being a bit stronger couldn't hurt. I was pretty happy with my team of fighters led by a druid, but since I concluded that strength beats dexterity, I gave everyone in the repeat team a 25/15 split. As for the druid, I wasn't entirely convinced of the manual's claim that mana regeneration is doubled, but I tried giving him a 20/20 wisdom/intelligence split to see what would happen.

Sure enough, the druid regained two mana per turn instead of one. My working theory is that the manual isn't quite right, but rather that the druid's mana generation rate is based on the sum of intelligence and wisdom, whereas the ranger's is based on the lower of the two, and all other spellcasters regenerate based on one or the other. Regardless of the exact mechanism, it was indeed useful to be able to cast a healing spell every four steps taken on the overworld.

South of Moon, another dungeon was hidden on the inside of a mountain range, and to the east of it, a large, impassable mountain region was surrounded by light forest. To the southwest, I found another town on a peninsula.

If Yew was a mapping nightmare, Grey is one of the simplest towns, with just one tiny patch of dense forest where a wizard meditates and few other obstructions other than its buildings, concentrated in a compact area inside a large moat.

This place did kill me a few times, though. When entering the storeroom east of the armory, a brigand attacked, but I killed him easily and helped myself to the treasures. Big mistake - this brought the guards down on me, who attacked as I tried to leave, killing us easily. After a quick party re-roll I went right back to Grey, then realized I forgot to buy slings and leather armor. When trying to sell my cloth armor to pay for leather, I accidentally hit 'S' for Sell too soon, and the game interpreted that keystroke as "Steal" instead. I thought maybe I could cancel the order by stealing in a direction where nobody was standing, but no luck. The guards saw me trying to rob the floor, and flooded the shop, our backs to the wall with nowhere to run, and without even meager starting equipment.

And on a third attempt, I learned that merely fighting the brigand alerts the guards. Even though he attacked me! So don't go in the storeroom.

Grey has the usual amenities plus one I hadn't seen yet - a thieves' guild! Here, you can buy keys, mapping gems, torches, and time powders, but torches don't last and everything else is crazy expensive.

A few tips from the locals:

• Exotic clues found at dawn!
• Ever seen exotic arms?
• Only exotics will protect from great evil!

 

I get it, guys. Find Dawn, get exotic weapons.

Back in Sosaria, I went east, around a gulf, and mapped out the last land-based area on the overworld; a medium-sized forest of dense trees. A clearing on the west side had a dungeon, and a clearing on the south by the coast had a moongate!

 

I went in, and emerged... exactly where I entered. I noticed the moon patterns, which dictate moongate behavior, were at (3)(3), indicating that Sosaria's twin moons were both in the gibbous waxing phase. The gate closed soon after, but I stuck around and it opened again at (3)(1).

Some playing around and I discovered the rules that govern the moongates.

• Both moons have eight phases from 0 to 7. 
• The left moon advances its phase every 12 turns, and determines which moongate is open.
  
• The right moon advances its phase every 4 turns, and determines where you go when you step into a moongate.
• There are a total of 24 moon phase combinations. Each gate is open for three of them, therefore each gate can send you to three possible destinations (sometimes including itself).
  

 

By riding the moongates, I found some of their locations and marked them on the map. Two were in places that I could have always accessed. One was on an islet on the other side of a river that I had seen before but couldn't reach. A few were deep within the mountains, and therefore impossible to chart their locations exactly, though one was cavernous enough that I was sure it had to be the large mountain region east of Moon, and a new town was in here.

All of this waiting around, though, depleted my food dangerously low. I employed a slight cheat, though one that would have worked on real hardware. By rebooting, dispersing and reforming your party, you regroup right outside Britain, where you can buy food and whatnot.

Incidentally, the gate that opens with the new moon is by Moon. And entering when both moons are in the new phase just teleports you right there again. I thought I was onto something with the "Dawn comes with each new pair" clue, but apparently not. There was another clue in Moon that said "Dawn rises in the dark forest," but where? You can barely see there, and the (0)(0) phase combination only lasts four turns.

But I had one new place to visit. I farmed some gold without issue, earning a shiny new bow in the process, stocked up on food, and rode the moongates back to the town surrounded by the mountains.

Hey, bridges of Konigsberg!

Devil Guard had another Thieves' Guild, and also a stables, but at 800 gold for a set of horses I just couldn't afford them. I had yet to accumulate even half that much, and what I did earn mostly got spend replenishing my food.

Most of the clues around here concerned marks:

• A mark helps invoke the snake
• The king favors a mark!
• Hot metal leaves a mark!
• Marks gained in dungeons!
• 4 marks, 4 uses!
• Seek ye the dungeon of fire!

 

I farmed gold to save up for the horses. Faster travel meant less food consumed, which would mean less money spent buying more food. The investment would even pay compound interest, as merely walking through a town to buy more food also consumes food. Poison was still an issue, as my only means of curing was to spend 100 gold at the healer's, but it became less of one as I learned to avoid the ocean, where the sea monsters that spawn never drop gold anyway.

While farming, my fighters leveled up twice, but my druid hadn't leveled up at all. Although his healing magic coupled with double mana regeneration had been fantastically useful, he was weak as a kitten and hardly ever able to land killing blows with his mace or able to withstand much damage himself, and the few experience points allotted came from successful casts of REPOND and PONTARI - the zero-mana spells that mass kill goblins and undead. And so I made it a conscious habit to enter combat with full mana whenever possible, and try to coax a few druid kills with his magic missile spell. Often, when the enemy was down to the last man/monster, I'd let my healthiest fighter tank hits while letting the druid regenerate mana so he could have the last kill by magic missile. He lagged behind, but I did manage to get him to level 3 by the time I could afford horses.

Speaking of which, the only benefit I noticed to leveling up is an increase in maximum HP, equal to 100*LVL + 50. You must speak to Lord British to receive it.

After buying horses and a big mess of 1,000 food, I considered my options for progress. Most of them involved spending money, and the few that didn't seemed unfeasible.

• Ambrosia awaited beyond the whirlpool, but I hadn't seen a ship anywhere yet.
  
• Dawn was undiscovered, but scouring a forest for a town that only appears once in 96 moves seems ridiculous.
• Most of Sosaria was charted except for its seas, but again, no ships.
  
• The dungeons, where I'd find all-important marks, were also unexplored, but being dark, I'd either need to buy lots of torches or cast light spells constantly, lacking any long-lasting light spells.
• Lord British's castle had unexplored areas beyond locked doors which I could now buy keys to open.
• Montor West had an unexplored prison, blocked by a guard that I now knew I could bribe.
• The bartenders likely had some clues that I hadn't heard yet.
  

Farming for more gold seemed like the best next step to maximize my available options. While doing this, I saw a ship!

So of course I killed its crew and took it for myself.

Sailing is a bit frustrating. If the wind isn't blowing, or if it blows from the direction you wish to go, then you must wait until they change. Although you have mighty cannons, enemies killed with them don't drop money, and if they attack you, then you'll have to fight from  a cramped boat with little maneuvering room - a dangerous proposition against spellcasters who can hit you from anywhere while your individual party members trip over their own feet and each other, trying to line up a shot from the confines of the deck. You are seriously screwed if you encounter sea serpents and don't have ranged weapons equipped.

With the ship, I explored and mapped the remaining parts of the overworld. A few locations were still inaccessible, and I reckoned these were the moongated areas. One such area was blocked off by a huge snake, and a castle in the middle of a lava moat lay beyond.

Two island towns, previously seen but not accessible, can now be reached by boat, and the whirlpool express to Ambrosia awaits as well. I remember enough from my previous playthrough that I know Ambrosia is where real meaningful character stat development happens, but it costs a lot of money, and right now I don't have any money, having accumulated about 600 gold while exploring the last corners of Sosaria and spent all of it on more food.

My map, finished and probably accurate:

Ultima III: Screw Yew

During my first attempt at Ultima III, my party got their butts kicked before gaining enough experience to reach level 1, so I decided to restart the whole game and rethink my strategy.

The short term goal is to survive long enough to make some headway. You don't have to stick with your initial party all the way to the endgame, so I thought mainly about this short term goal, knowing that later on I could swap out some of my characters for classes with steeper power curves.

My most useful characters had been the thief and the cleric, but the thief wasn't useful for the intended reason; her disarm ability just wasn't as reliable as the cleric's disarming magic. Rather, because her dexterity was higher, she hit more often than my fighter did, whose strength and dexterity were split evenly. Ultima III doesn't show damage output, so it's difficult to say who did more damage overall, but I'd be very surprised if the fighter's increased damage made up for all those misses.

The cleric had three useful spells; turn undead, disarm, and heal (the game doesn't call them that but I do). His next spell, light, is meant for dungeons, but extinguishes so quickly that it's nearly useless, and his other two spells available from the start, ascend and descend, are likewise meant for the dungeons that I hadn't yet the means to delve.

The wizard, on the other hand, was useful only for their mass goblin-killing REPOND spell. Magic missile seemed no better than a physical projectile weapon, fireball cost so much mana that it could only be used once per fight (and rarely killed by itself), and the remaining spells of light, descend, and descend, just like the cleric, weren't useful yet.

So for my next attempt, I decided I wanted a healer, a REPOND caster, and maximum fighting ability. REPOND was available to any spellcaster but the cleric and paladin, but healer choices were a bit more limited. The cleric was an obvious choice as a healer, having the highest maximum MP. Paladins could heal too, but this would require 20 wisdom for a single cast, leaving little left for fighting prowess. Rangers had it even worse, needing 20 wisdom and 20 intelligence, leaving the bare minimum for strength and dexterity, but on the positive side they'd have access to REPOND. Druids, on the other hand, seemed like good early healers, as although they have only half the maximum MP of clerics, they recharge mana twice as fast, and get access to REPOND like rangers do.

I made my next beginner's party consist of a druid and three fighters, with a spread of strength/dexterity distributions to better evaluate their effect on combat.

This time, after equipping my druid with a mace and my fighters with slings and leather armor, I ventured southeast instead of northwest. I spotted a town on the other side of an impassable river, and after walking around some mountains to the south, I found an entrance to the other side through some dense woods, revealing an ominous looking dungeon.

 

 

Continuing, southward by southwest, following the coastline, I soon ran into a town, but then realized from the geography that this was West Montor. Sosaria wraps around! The official map lacks landmarks, but does show that there are land bridges on the northeast and southwest corners - and it turns out these are just one land bridge connecting Sosaria to itself.

Hawkwind's map

 

My map. Note the repeat terrain in the corners.

 

Outside Montor, I attacked some sea monsters by the inlet to put my party to the test and gather some data.

 

I won, though Ook took a bit of a beating, and Ahab was only able to heal once during the melee. These were my findings:

• Snergle, with an even 20/20 str/dex split, hit 11 out of 21 times, but only landed a single killing blow.
• Ook, with 25 strength and 15 dex, hit 10 out of 20 times, landing 5 killing blows.
• Marze, with 15 strength and 25 dex, hit 8 out of 20 times, and only landed one killing blow.

 

This is surprising. I thought dexterity would be a bigger deal, but it seems chance is bigger still, enough to override a 25-to-15 advantage entirely.

I crossed the land bridge and continued mapping eastward, following the north coast. Two more dense forests concealed dungeons in the mountains. As I hit the far reach of the map, I turned around and went west, passing Britain, and discovered a nearby town hidden in a dense grove.

Well, this place wasn't incredibly annoying or anything to map out with its roughly 3,000 vision-blocking trees. All I found for my efforts (and much consumed food) was a healer and food shop - nothing I couldn't get at Britain just to the east - a "circle of light" that burns everyone for 50 HP if you go swimming in the lava, and a whole bunch of clerics giving useless advice like "know ye well thy foes" and "bonim anima teuri," which I guess is supposed to mean something like "I see the good spirit" but translated badly into Latin. Or translated correctly into bad Latin.

I noticed that Ook had reached level 2, but everyone else was still at level 1. Checking their experience points, Ook had exactly 100 XP, Snergle 39, Marze 40, and Ahab a pittance of 19. Seems only the killing blow counts, and strength really does make a much bigger difference than dexterity, and my initial observation about the thief might have been wrong.

Continuing west, I reached a peninsula town south of the mountain range by the land bridge.

Clues abound in the holy city of Moon.

• I've been beyond the whirlpool!
• Seek ye the shrines of truth
• Dawn rises in the dark forest
• <Bribe> guards! They will leave!
• The Daemons warn "Depart or die!!"
  

 

I'd seen the whirlpool, and knowing I could bribe guards would prove useful in Montor West's prison and perhaps Lord British's castle, if only I had any money. And if I could just figure out where the dark forest is, I had a pretty good idea how to locate the city of Dawn.

 

The fun soon came to a crashing halt as I got bushwhacked by a group of Balrons. I beat them, but they poisoned my entire party and didn't leave nearly enough gold for even a single cure. Fortunately, Ahab could stay on top of healing the damage. Unfortunately, just barely, and an encounter with a big group of wizards steamrolled my weakened party. Better luck next time - at least I'm making progress in terms of gathering info.

My partial map of Sosaria, cropped to fit Hawkwind's: