Ultima Few questions about Ultima IV.

[Cael]

...

I dunno. I need a lot of gold, so I've been tackling combat wherever it happens.
Also, I was using blink to avoid trap tiles. But I found out It was more cost effective to just cure poison.

Combat is mush easier when using only ranged weapons - Magic Axes, Wands, and Bows. Equip a crossbow on Geoffrey and a sling on Katrina.

Been doing that. At first I was spamming fireballs but wasn't profitable. Yet, I think have a couple guys in close combat is not a poor idea either.

Some tips:
1. When you start out, equip everyone with a sling. Ranged weapons beat even the best melee weapon by several orders of magnitude. Towards the end game, you should have the following weapons:
- Magic Wand on the bard, druid and mage (best weapon in the game, period)
- Magic Axe on the paladin and tinker
- Magic Bow on ranger
- Crossbow on fighter
- Sling on shepherd (the only ranged weapon she can use)

Magic Wand? Magic Bow? I haven't found any towne that sells that. Also, I figure this implies farming gold.

2. Don't fret about armour. It doesn't really help all that much and towards the end, you get the best armour for free. Concentrate on weapons and kill the enemy as fast as possible.

Yes. Enemies usually don't inflict that much damage either. Balrons are the most dangerous foes I found so far, mostly cuz they spam sleep.

3. Get the shepherd first if you are aiming to level up your companions for the final dungeon. She has the worst attack rating bar none, and therefore needs the most amount of chances to gain levels. Alternatively, start as a shepherd to get all of the quest XP and let your companions kill everything. It is probably faster this way, but your main character is really going to be gimped unless you have that glitched magikarp version of U4 that allows you to use all weapons and armour once you become the avatar of the 8.

I'm still looking for the shepherd (pls don't tell me where is). I was in Magincia and only found demons and hints for a silver horn and the rune(which I already found).

4. Pay attention to the goal of the game. U4 is NOT your usual "murder the final boss and win" game. Think things through logically. The virtues form a framework that makes logical sense and your actions have logical consequences.

AFAIK, following up what NPCs told me, killing anything isn't the main goal but read certain codex within a place called the stygian abyss.

5. EVERYTHING in the game has a logical place. That includes the names of the dungeons and where they are placed. I am not kidding. Garriott went ultra sperglord for U4, and went even further for U5 (look up the "meanings" of the Words of Power).

I've noticed dungeons are the opposite values of a virtue: WRONG, DESPISE, COVETOUS.. At least the ones I found. Those are always nearby of townes or shrines of the virtues they antagonize?

6. The moongates follow a logical pattern, and knowing how they work and where they go will save you a lot of time and frustration. It would also make things that are usually inaccessible available to you (e.g., Moonglow, Skara Brae, Magincia, even Jhelom after a fashion).

I've been taking moongates wherever opportunity arises.

7. Watch for cameos and sight gags. Garriott pulled a Fallout long before Fallout did.

There's a NPC called Merlin and the Balrons are clearly based upon Balrog.

1. Yes. It implies farming. But not as much as you'd think. Random encounters in the wilderness can drop anywhere between 1 to 99 gold, and your gold and food limit is 9999. The kind of monsters you kill doesn't matter in gold generation, hilariously enough. Kill rats and spiders for 89 gold? Yes, please! There are, of course, legit tricks you can use to get gold fast, but I won't spoil it for you. Some of them are pretty meta. Now, something for you to look forward to: Magic wands cost 5000 gold each.

2. Better than U7 onwards. There, armour doesn't absorb damage, but it becomes like armour class (i.e., helps you avoid hits). U7+ battles can be absurdly lethal if you have a run of bad luck.

3. Hint for the shepherd, if you want it:

Spoiler

You went right past her.

4. You goal is to become the Avatar of the 8 Virtues. That is not spoiling anything as that is the name of the game itself. Now, think what it means to be an avatar of something.

5. In a word, yes.

6. Taking them and understanding how they work are different things. The two moons govern where they appear, when they appear and where they send you. Find the pattern and you can always reliably go from A to B.

7. There is a hell of a lot more. Keep exploring the towns.

 

[Cael]

Haha, this thread takes me back. I have a notepad in which I jotted down all kinds of dungeon sketches and in-game tips like the ones you found.
"Alkerion knows about a stone!"
"A hidden shepherd in Minoc knows about the sacrifice mantra!"
"Chuckles knows about a secret!"

So on, so forth. I had a little habit of marking hints with a "Done!" sign once I investigated them. Strangely addictive.
Such a lovely game. Aged well. Played it about 7 years ago, now.

You want a game that will drive you absolutely BATS jotting down notes? Magic Candle.

Try it without a walkthrough. I remember wanting to go back to the Castle and shooting the damned king: "The most important thing in the entire frakking world and you imbeciles never thought to write down the instructions on what to do if something goes wrong? I have to blindly stumble through the entire continent plus several major islands to piece together what I am supposed to do and on a tight time limit? What the HELL is wrong with you???"

 

[Darkzone]

Cael you are spoiling nearly everything. Where is the sense of exploration and learning a world when you tell everything about it?
I was at least trying to hide all the things like the combat related ranged weapons against the melee weapons in statements like "i prefer Magic Axe over Magic Sword".
Pls at least let him search for the Magic Wand and Magic Bow.

 

[Cael]

Cael you are spoiling nearly everything. Where is the sense of exploration and learning a world when you tell everything about it?
I was at least trying to hide all the things like the combat related ranged weapons against the melee weapons in statements like "i prefer Magic Axe over Magic Sword".
Pls at least let him search for the Magic Wand and Magic Bow.

Stop trying to speak for others. If you can't buck the impulse, then just shut the fuck up.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I wouldn't mind getting spoiled the combat parts of Ultima IV. It's more tedious than difficult or interesting.

 

[octavius]

Ultima IV is a game I'd replay if it wasn't for the tedious and slow combat.
It's still one of the best unlinear games in many other respects, and the whole become an Avatar quest is still unique.

 

[Cael]

I wouldn't mind getting spoiled the combat parts of Ultima IV. It's more tedious than difficult or interesting.

Considering that the OP already discovered it himself and someone else already mentioned the importance of ranged combat before I did, the fucktard complaining ON BEHALF of the OP (who did not even say anything about it) was either trolling or being a supercilious, arrogant shithead.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

...

I dunno. I need a lot of gold, so I've been tackling combat wherever it happens.
Also, I was using blink to avoid trap tiles. But I found out It was more cost effective to just cure poison.

Money shouldn't be a problem in Ultima IV, there are many dungeon floors and rooms loaded with treasure chests (which you can visit as many times as you want if that's your thing), fighting trash mobs on the surface is just boring and inefficient. And besides, money isn't terribly useful, you don't really need to buy new gear, and reagents are cheap (or free).

 

[Cael]

...

I dunno. I need a lot of gold, so I've been tackling combat wherever it happens.
Also, I was using blink to avoid trap tiles. But I found out It was more cost effective to just cure poison.

Money shouldn't be a problem in Ultima IV, there are many dungeon floors and rooms loaded with treasure chests (which you can visit as many times as you want if that's your thing), fighting trash mobs on the surface is just boring and inefficient. And besides, money isn't terribly useful, you don't really need to buy new gear, and reagents are cheap (or free).

Uh-oh. You've done it now. The Arbiter Of All That Which Is To Be Posted And That Is Which To Be Kept Secret is really going to go librarian poo on your rear end.

 

[EtcEtcEtc]

guys what about the port of Ultima IV to MASTER SYSTEM

The master system port is actually pretty great - I played it on my DS. I don't think there's any cut content, and I think you can attack diagonally as well. That shit drove me bonkers in the original version.

 

[Zerth]

I'm hardstuck exploring Hythloth. Specifically on Floor 6, can't advance past this room:

Spoiler

Peering through vision's gem, It's shown there are more room towards west the current room I'm at.

Spoiler

Tried everything. No secret switch on tile, no hidden wall, nothing. Did I miss something?

 

[Cael]

I'm hardstuck exploring Hythloth. Specifically on Floor 6, can't advance past this room:

Spoiler

Peering through vision's gem, It's shown there are more room towards west the current room I'm at.

Spoiler

Tried everything. No secret switch on tile, no hidden wall, nothing. Did I miss something?

Known bug for one of the DOS versions, unfortunately. You will need this patch to get past it.

 

[Zerth]

Known bug for one of the DOS versions, unfortunately. You will need this patch to get past it.

I could have cast Y-"Up", but It felt like cheating since you bypass all obstacles and rooms, I've been on six dungeons so far and every of them it was possible to advance without "Up" or "Down". I found rather odd I couldn't advance past this point. Bummer, GOG didn't mention anything about this bug for this copy.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

It indeed seems to be a bug. There is a patch but you might as well not bother. Don't think of the spells as cheating, they are powerful tools to just fuck around in the game. Ultima spells were always pretty great with a bunch of cool non-combat ones.

 

[Cael]

Known bug for one of the DOS versions, unfortunately. You will need this patch to get past it.

I could have cast Y-"Up", but It felt like cheating since you bypass all obstacles and rooms, I've been on six dungeons so far and every of them it was possible to advance without "Up" or "Down". I found rather odd I couldn't advance past this point. Bummer, GOG didn't mention anything about this bug for this copy.

Dude, the fastest and easiest way to get the balloon abuses utility spells in the game. Don't feel bad using them. They are there for a reason. And if you think this is abusing spells, wait till you play Ultima V... :D

 

[Zerth]

Dude, the fastest and easiest way to get the balloon abuses utility spells in the game. Don't feel bad using them. They are there for a reason. And if you think this is abusing spells, wait till you play Ultima V... :D

A Balloon?

Spoiler

So that was the dude on pirate's island was talking about, when He mentioned a floating device near hythloth. Figures..

The patch's download link doesn't exist any longer, fuck it, I'll just cast magic and move on.

 

[Cael]

Dude, the fastest and easiest way to get the balloon abuses utility spells in the game. Don't feel bad using them. They are there for a reason. And if you think this is abusing spells, wait till you play Ultima V... :D

A Balloon?

Spoiler

So that was the dude on pirate's island was talking about, when He mentioned a floating device near hythloth. Figures..

The patch's download link doesn't exist any longer, fuck it, I'll just cast magic and move on.

Dude... Why are you in Hythloth anyway? And how did you get in there?

 

[Grauken]

https://web.archive.org/web/2012011...m:80/wp-content/files/u4-patches/HYTHLOTH.DNG

 

[Zerth]

https://web.archive.org/web/2012011...m:80/wp-content/files/u4-patches/HYTHLOTH.DNG

Nice, It works. After replacing the file, there's a switch that reveals a passage to the west, on a tile beneath a chest.

Dude... Why are you in Hythloth anyway? And how did you get in there?

Looking for a virtue stone.

Spoiler

A thief on Pirate's island tells you about hythloth and where to find it when you ask him about information

 

[Sceptic]

Good on you for playing fair. I think it's nice to experience more of the rooms and puzzles on a first playthrough. Still, using the spells to skip dungeons is a completely legitimate way to play the game.

 

[Cael]

https://web.archive.org/web/2012011...m:80/wp-content/files/u4-patches/HYTHLOTH.DNG

Nice, It works. After replacing the file, there's a switch that reveals a passage to the west, on a tile beneath a chest.

Dude... Why are you in Hythloth anyway? And how did you get in there?

Looking for a virtue stone.

Spoiler

A thief on Pirate's island tells you about hythloth and where to find it when you ask him about information

I've completed 4-7:2 as a whole series a few times. I know where everything is. And I just realised why you are down there and why I never ran into that bug before. Nevermind. Carry on. Nothing to see here. Let me know when you find the stone.

Spoiler

 

[Zerth]

HOLY CRAP, you ppl didn't make that up: you really HAVE to pretty much talk to every NPC , take notes like crazy and fully understand the virtues and principles in order to beat this game.

If it wasn't for several scrambled side-notes about the axiom (which I didn't give much importance at first) I'd have met a dead end at the gates of the codex of ultimate wisdom and being hopelessly kicked out.

Spoiler

Of course, since infinity is he true nature of the universe and from it all principles are derived.

There are some deceptively simple and creative Room's puzzles, quite satisfactory when u get to see through 'em. A really clever idea to leave dungeon room as black boxes on the map. Sometimes the floot's pattern design reveals which path to take, and some paths are even forked to provide more than one way to reach the next ladder.

Status effects are rarely a threatening state, yet the lack of deadliness is vastly compensated by being absolutely infuriating. Poison practically hinders your progress mostly because of the insanely annoying sound effect that is triggered not once by each step, but for every party member affected. Reapers and Balrons were the sole reason to pick up tons of Mandrake roots and make Negate, jesus christ dat relentless spamming of Sleep spell almost drove me insane.

I like the wind's direction mechanics, but I hoped the wind change spell to be more useful, would have provided with more control over it, change direction and retain it within a few minutes of timespan or something.And to think navigation was awkward because of the wind. But that was NOTHING compared to drifting the Balloon. I lost it after obtaining the white stone, good riddance.

Anyways, I ended up digging Ultima. it was a longer and more satisfactory adventure than I expected.

I'm not going to start Ult V right away. But definitely will go for it in a future.

 

[Cael]

HOLY CRAP, you ppl didn't make that up: you really HAVE to pretty much talk to every NPC , take notes like crazy and fully understand the virtues and principles in order to beat this game.

If it wasn't for several scrambled side-notes about the axiom (which I didn't give much importance at first) I'd have met a dead end at the gates of the codex of ultimate wisdom and being hopelessly kicked out.

Spoiler

Of course, since infinity is he true nature of the universe and from it all principles are derived.

There are some deceptively simple and creative Room's puzzles, quite satisfactory when u get to see through 'em. A really clever idea to leave dungeon room as black boxes on the map. Sometimes the floot's pattern design reveals which path to take, and some paths are even forked to provide more than one way to reach the next ladder.

Status effects are rarely a threatening state, yet the lack of deadliness is vastly compensated by being absolutely infuriating. Poison practically hinders your progress mostly because of the insanely annoying sound effect that is triggered not once by each step, but for every party member affected. Reapers and Balrons were the sole reason to pick up tons of Mandrake roots and make Negate, jesus christ dat relentless spamming of Sleep spell almost drove me insane.

I like the wind's direction mechanics, but I hoped the wind change spell to be more useful, would have provided with more control over it, change direction and retain it within a few minutes of timespan or something.And to think navigation was awkward because of the wind. But that was NOTHING compared to drifting the Balloon. I lost it after obtaining the white stone, good riddance.

Anyways, I ended up digging Ultima. it was a longer and more satisfactory adventure than I expected.

I'm not going to start Ult V right away. But definitely will go for it in a future.

Good job! Congrats on your very first completion of Ultima 4. Quite an achievement.

 

[Cael]

A few tricks for Ultima 4, now that you have completed it:

(MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!)

Spoiler

1. Get the Shepherd first if you are not a Shepherd yourself. With only the sling as a possible weapon, she is the hardest to level up, especially in the late game.
2. Level has nothing to do with random monsters in the game. The number of moves do. Level up as fast as you can. You can finish the game before dragons and demons become a factor in overland travel.
3. Cheat the herbalist. Pay 1 gold for everything. Mix all the spells you can. Virtues bottom out at 0 and can't get lower. After you have gotten just about everything, buy 1 reagent multiple times and overpay by 1 or 2. Your Honesty and the other virtues tied to it will skyrocket fast.
4. Sacrifice is the easiest to max. When you feel like it, just go to Castle Britannia and donate blood at the healer there. Then wander over to LB and get the free healing. Repeat.
5. Compassion is the second easiest. Just find a beggar and give him a couple of coins. You can trigger the conversation unlimited number of times.
6. Hythloth can be skipped altogether (hence my question earlier). A NPC will tell you that the stone is no longer there anyway, so why bother going in? Take the ladder in Castle Britannia and then immediately cast X-it. You are now at the balloon end of the dungeon.
7. In fact, don't even bother with the balloon. If you look at a gem you will see that there is a grass spot in the middle of the Serpent Spine. Guess what? Blink takes you to a grass spot. So hang around the western end of the mountains and use gems to align yourself. Then cast Blink towards the east and you're sitting right on the stone. Blink out when you are done.
8. You can do the same with Cove instead of ramming a ship into the whirlpool, IIRC.
9. Tremor is your best friend when dealing with massed reapers and balrons. A couple of those and half the enemy is dead or fleeing. One of the reasons why you want to be a Mage (the other being you can use the best weapon in the game and wear the best armour, but so can Bards and Druids; Mages simply get the largest number of MP). Negate works, too, in a pinch, but it means you have to kill them by hand, and the combat mechanics coupled with dungeon terrain will drive you bats. Tremor simply hits every bad guy on the screen regardless of where they are.
10. The game cannot handle multiple status effects. An engine limitation. So, if you are poisoned, you can't be put to sleep. Therefore, ram your party into poison fields until your mage or druid is poisoned. Then walk into rooms full of balrons or reapers and let the Tremor slaughter commence.
11. You can use the altar rooms to teleport between dungeons. Useful if you want to just target stones and orbs as they tend to hang around the bottom of the dungeons. Or if you made maps of the place and don't feel like fighting your way to the bottom.
12. Max stats for any character is 50. Your PC will want to have 50 in all stats before exporting to Ultima 5.

 

[Zerth]

I found out recently that there's a remake of Ultima V made on dungeon siege Engine: Ultima V Lazarus. I'm considering start this one right away since I have a copy of Dungeon Siege. Yet It doesn't limit itself to be a graphical upgrade, Lazarus devs also added new dialogue and characters. Worth playing it over the original Ultima V?.

A few tricks for Ultima 4, now that you have completed it:

(MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!)

Spoiler

1. Get the Shepherd first if you are not a Shepherd yourself. With only the sling as a possible weapon, she is the hardest to level up, especially in the late game.
2. Level has nothing to do with random monsters in the game. The number of moves do. Level up as fast as you can. You can finish the game before dragons and demons become a factor in overland travel.
3. Cheat the herbalist. Pay 1 gold for everything. Mix all the spells you can. Virtues bottom out at 0 and can't get lower. After you have gotten just about everything, buy 1 reagent multiple times and overpay by 1 or 2. Your Honesty and the other virtues tied to it will skyrocket fast.
4. Sacrifice is the easiest to max. When you feel like it, just go to Castle Britannia and donate blood at the healer there. Then wander over to LB and get the free healing. Repeat.
5. Compassion is the second easiest. Just find a beggar and give him a couple of coins. You can trigger the conversation unlimited number of times.
6. Hythloth can be skipped altogether (hence my question earlier). A NPC will tell you that the stone is no longer there anyway, so why bother going in? Take the ladder in Castle Britannia and then immediately cast X-it. You are now at the balloon end of the dungeon.
7. In fact, don't even bother with the balloon. If you look at a gem you will see that there is a grass spot in the middle of the Serpent Spine. Guess what? Blink takes you to a grass spot. So hang around the western end of the mountains and use gems to align yourself. Then cast Blink towards the east and you're sitting right on the stone. Blink out when you are done.
8. You can do the same with Cove instead of ramming a ship into the whirlpool, IIRC.
9. Tremor is your best friend when dealing with massed reapers and balrons. A couple of those and half the enemy is dead or fleeing. One of the reasons why you want to be a Mage (the other being you can use the best weapon in the game and wear the best armour, but so can Bards and Druids; Mages simply get the largest number of MP). Negate works, too, in a pinch, but it means you have to kill them by hand, and the combat mechanics coupled with dungeon terrain will drive you bats. Tremor simply hits every bad guy on the screen regardless of where they are.
10. The game cannot handle multiple status effects. An engine limitation. So, if you are poisoned, you can't be put to sleep. Therefore, ram your party into poison fields until your mage or druid is poisoned. Then walk into rooms full of balrons or reapers and let the Tremor slaughter commence.
11. You can use the altar rooms to teleport between dungeons. Useful if you want to just target stones and orbs as they tend to hang around the bottom of the dungeons. Or if you made maps of the place and don't feel like fighting your way to the bottom.
12. Max stats for any character is 50. Your PC will want to have 50 in all stats before exporting to Ultima 5.

Spoiler

1. Just for the sake of harder level up? It doesn't sound very compelling tbh.
2. I thought It was tied to the number of companions. But seems to be true, cuz really there wasn't any difference after adding Katrina to my team. My steps count was around 80k before reach L8 abyss altar.
3. 4. 5. So powergaming is a thing on this game.
6.Well, L8 Hythloth has access to all the altars. It works as a shortcut at least.
7. 8. Funny I used peer gem and found the place. There's a NPC that gives the exact direction. Now I feel dumb for not trying that instead of fiddling the wind for more than half hour in order to guide the balloon there. I have underestimated blink.
9. I made around 30 or 40 tremor spells more or less, spent like 30 on the abyss. Really helped me to keep my sanity, didn't want to get through the same shit I went after trying to reach altar of humility (the demon encounter swarm per tile). Negate and attack afterwards is more consistent since tremor targets randomly tho.
10. I was aware of it. Only that walking with poisoned characters is too annoying.
11. Yes. Several NPCs explain the interconnection of dungeons through altars. I didn't use that much but I think is awesome.
12. Yep. Notice that after using the magic orbs on my PC with maxed int and dex.