Ultima III - almost no monster generation ?!
b0rsuk
About two decades ago I played Ultima III on Atari 65 XE. I never got
far, and eventually my older brother gave it away. Now I'm trying to
revisit the game on a PC (Linux), and everything *seems* to work,
except....
Monster generation rate on surface (Sosaria) is insultingly slow ! All
of my characters are level 10 and above, and I still get very few
monsters (so few that MP regen is not an issue), mostly orcs,
skeletons, rogues. Very rarely serpents or manowars. Practically no
snathes, balrons, gargoyles. Most importantly - NO PIRATE SHIPS and
I've burned hundreds of food. Monster generation in dungeons is okay.
But on surface, it's so slow I have to dive into dungeons to avoid
starving.
The way I play:
Linux
Dosbox
Tried with and without u3 upgrade. Without upgrade, whirlpool is crazy
fast unless I lower CPU cycles a lot. With upgrade it seems to work
fine, but still very little monster generation on surface.
Has anyone played Ultima III recently ? Were you able to get a ship
and reach Ambrosia ? I'm goofing around with parties like 4x druids,
or all melee, or 4 fighters, but I can't get past certain stage ! Stat
raising is especialy important for spellcasters.
Rick Cortese
I just played it again this summer. IIRC pirate ships are level
triggered so you shouldn't see a lot at the start of the game. If you
are level 10 then did you get the Mark of Kings? Anyway the sequence you
should follow goes something like
Explore and fight on the surface until you can survive in dungeons.
Go to dungeons, and get your Mark of Kings so Lord British can increase
your levels.
Go to dungeons and MAP a cure and heal fountain. Find a level with tons
of gold. The first dungeon you hit when you follow the coast to the east
of the castle is good. There is no sense in getting a ship and going to
Ambrosia until you have thousands of gold. Once there get your cards. I
had it worked out something like: Go to the SE corner of level 1, cast
descend ~4 times and you are there. Just open the chests and take the
hits because you need manna to return to the surface/heal/cure fountains.
After you increase stats and levels get all your marks.
After you get your marks get exotics.
Almost everything important is flagged by fixed encounters like the
marks or exotics.
There are strategies you can use. For instance monsters are all either
undead or orc types until you pass a certain level. I intentionally
didn't raise levels to the point where the spawn would change to give my
wizard a chance to make massive points casting repond against orcs and
the cleric to do the same with their equivalent spell for undead. I seem
to recall my ranger who could cast both and was decent in combat ended
up being my fastest advancing character. The spells don't take manna so
you don't need to stat up to cast them.
I also found an "undocumented feature" in the version I was using. When
down on manna and hit points I could bring up a menu and escape out of
it and it counted as a turn w/o moving in the dungeon. Very useful for
getting a few manna points back to cast a spell to return to the surface
when half the party was dead or nearly so.
Rick
b0rsuk
> I just played it again this summer. IIRC pirate ships are level
> triggered so you shouldn't see a lot at the start of the game.
So they should be appearing for a while now.
>If you
> are level 10 then did you get the Mark of Kings?
Yes, without it you're limited to level 5. Do you think Mark of Kings
might actually *slow* monster generation ?
>Anyway the sequence you
> should follow goes something like
>
> Explore and fight on the surface until you can survive in dungeons.
> Go to dungeons, and get your Mark of Kings so Lord British can increase
> your levels.
I don't really need walkthrough-like help. I watched my brother get
far in Ultima III, only to get stuck at Exodus (he failed to search
the shrines, and to find Dawn despite talking to the jester). Exotics
are not the only way to kill monsters in the other castle. Spells also
work.
It's the part "fight on the surface until (...)" that gives me
trouble. Unlike Ultima IV, which has monster generation tied to turn
count (first reinforcements come at 10 000), Ultima III uses other
kind of measurement, presumably character level. But when *all* of my
characters are level 10 or above, and there's not enough monster
generation on surface to buy food, something must be wrong !
Could you tell me what version of U3 were you using, what's your
operating system, what are you using to play it ? Ultima 3 upgrade
patch, moslo, or dosbox ? If you got it from an abandonware site, a
link would be nice. I tried two versions from two different sites, but
both generated monsters very slowly.
> Go to dungeons and MAP a cure and heal fountain. Find a level with
tons
> of gold. The first dungeon you hit when you follow the coast to the east
> of the castle is good. There is no sense in getting a ship and going to
> Ambrosia until you have thousands of gold.
I have well over 10 000 gold (I stopped using 'J'oin command a while
ago), and almost all of it from dungeon, because surface monsters are
too rare to buy food.
> I also found an "undocumented feature" in the version I was using. When
> down on manna and hit points I could bring up a menu and escape out of
> it and it counted as a turn w/o moving in the dungeon. Very useful for
> getting a few manna points back to cast a spell to return to the surface
> when half the party was dead or nearly so.
I don't like using exploits or cheesy tactics like that.
Speaking of undocumented features, did you know how druid MP
regeneration actually works ? Manual merely says druids regenerate MP
faster, and that max MP are determined by max(INT, WIS)/2. So druid's
max MP is equal to half of higher mental stat, rounded down. What it
doesn't say is how faster MP regen works. The lower mental stat
determines your upper limit of double MP regen, after which druid
regenerates as fast as other spellcasters. (limit for faster regen: min
(INT, WIS)/2). I say this because some people falsely claim you should
ignore one of mental stats of druids. So while a druid with 20 Int 10
has maximum MP of 10, he only regenerates 2 per turn until half of
that.
Druids are, in my opinion, the most pleasant of U3 spellcasters. Half
maximum MP *and* double MP regen means it takes *4 times* less time to
fully regenerate mana. As long as you have a race with symmetric
mental stats. You still get access to essential spells like Alcort
(cure poison), Appar Unem, dungeon travel spells.
As strange as it may sound, Ultima III and IV are my favourite of the
serries. Graphics are still symbolic, which for me means they don't
age, because they offload prettiness to your imagination. Ultima V and
later try to impress by drawing each individual torch, chair etc,
which not only sacrifices clarity but also triggers my sense of
aesthetics. Similarly, I don't demand much from ASCII graphics
(roguelikes, etc) because they're symbolic. But I tend to hate tile
graphics unless they're absolutely great (like in DROD or Eschalon
Book 1)
b0rsuk