Adventurer's Guild 𝙲𝙻𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙲 Issue #10 — Exile III: Ruined World

[rusty_shackleford]

Here's the packed version: https://f.rpghq.org/vCObnB1aglDx.zip?n=86box_98.zip
Exile 3 shortcut is on the Desktop. You can enable fullscreen in the 'View' menu dropdown, or ctrl+alt+PageUp, exiting is ctrl+alt+PageDown. Has all the options already set, etc., Should just take a couple clicks to get into the game.
I ran this under Wine and it worked fine, just go to the directory and run 86box.exe, let me know if you have any issues! If not I'll offer this as an alternative in my 'running old games' thread for really old Windows games, as it presumably will run most later 16bit games and early 32bit ones.

For linux users, just navigate to the directory on commandline and run 86Box natively, install it from your package manager(for Arch it's in the AUR)

QRD on difference between dosbox & 86box is dosbox will run on much weaker hardware, it's high level emulation, and tends to have issues with anything that isn't just directly running a game. 86box is a dedicated x86 emulator, much more accurate, requires significantly more effort to get setup & running.

Did anyone try this?

[Tangerine]

The Win3.1 package had a graphical bug with the menu icons looking all ****** up. The Win98 version runs fine.

[rusty_shackleford]

The Win3.1 package had a graphical bug with the menu icons looking all ****** up. The Win98 version runs fine.

Thanks, I'll see about packaging this as a general purpose "play old games" emulator.

[Tweed]

But somehow Starfire was just toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much to get running.

[Tangerine]

If you're starting out, here's a few things I found useful after restarting due to a poor party build.

► Show Spoiler

- When creating your party, DON'T put any points into health. Starting points have 0 gold cost, so put your points into the expensive stats, like Mage/Priest levels. When you hit level 2, dump the entire 5 points/50 gold into health. The first level is going to be rough, but it's doable if you've got at least a couple of mages and you'll save a lot of money.
- Prioritize weapon quality over damage. Each tier of quality adds another 5% chance to hit. Even the cheapest iron/steel weapon you can afford can turn warrior who constantly whiffs into a killing machine.
- Some shields give a hit % penalty
- Try to have at least 20 SP for your casters as soon as you can
- Experience is not split amongst the party evenly. Give your priest some points in ranged attacks, otherwise he's going to lag behind in experience.
- Not 100% on this one, but it seems if it's so dark the party can't see the enemy, the enemy also can't attack you at range. They can still move, however.

[SpellSword]

There is at least one more way to run Exile III: Ruined World.

From what I've read the game was originally programmed to run on the Mac and then ported to windows. Spiderweb Software offers a free copy of the Mac version here. The Basilisk II emulator has been said to be able to run that version of Exile 3 without problems.

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The prepackaged DOSbox+Windows 3.1 or HQBox methods are going to be easier but I figured I should mention it.

[Tweed]

There is at least one more way to run Exile III: Ruined World.

From what I've read the game was originally programmed to run on the Mac and then ported to windows. Spiderweb Software offers a free copy of the Mac version here. The Basilisk II emulator has been said to be able to run that version of Exile 3 without problems.

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The prepackaged DOSbox+Windows 3.1 or HQBox methods are going to be easier but I figured I should mention it.

If we're gonna mess with Basilisk than there be no reason not to advocate playing Realmz

[Rand]

I played Exile III first.
Don't play the earlier games, they're too janky even for me, and I finished them.

My first party:
1: Slithzerkai with polearm and heavy armor.
2: Human sword & board, later dual wielder when I got a second obsidian axe. Position for attacks of opportunity and watch enemies drop on their turn.
3: Nephilim archer rogue (lockpicker)
4: Human Priestess (blesses, curses, and healing. also learned alchemy, which is actually useful AF.)
5: Human Mage (fireballs, baby! Super necessary early on. Also sleep/poison spells. Unlike other games, worth using.)
6: Human Hybrid (lean into mage to get fireball asap, then get priest combat boosters)

They kicked ***.

[Rand]

Also, I think I just used DOSbox in Win10 to install it inside DOSbox, iirc.
Just use OTVDM. The forums and Discord say that's the way to go now.
https://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/top ... 4-windows/

Or whatever Rusty has cooked up.

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, I think I just used DOSbox in Win10 to install it inside DOSbox, iirc.

HQBox (should) just werk.

[Rand]

- Not 100% on this one, but it seems if it's so dark the party can't see the enemy, the enemy also can't attack you at range. They can still move, however.

This is generally correct. There are a couple of exceptions where the enemies have some sort of ability to see your characters no matter what, iirc.
You can cheese some things this way and set up for attacks of opportunity as they move out of the darkness (past your ready waiting characters who decline to act/move on their turn so you will attack the first to move adjacent to you) and they can't see it coming and try to go around.
If you are lucky, you can initiate combat in a tight space with your entire party stacked on a single square or two. This is abnormal and the game will only do it when the space is insufficient in some way to spread your party out.
If you can manage it, this is a death stack for enemies to approach with your whole team waiting each round and getting 6+ attacks of opportunity. Especially deadly if you layer webs or fire/gas clouds next to you.

[Rand]

The stealth spell is worthless. It basically doesn't work.

[Rand]

I loved this game so much as a teenager that I actually saved up the money to unlock my shareware version.

I sent $20, cash in an envelope, to Jeff Vogel's home, and received a hint-book with the unlock code in the mail about a week later. Something that's basically unimaginable these days (I mean, cash in the mail?!).

General party-building advice:
- at least 3 dedicated fighters.
- recommend 3 casters, at least 2 dedicated (1 each for priest and mage). 3rd can be anything, I made mine a hybrid priest/mage.
- casters should have at least 3 in the spellcasting skill they're focusing at creation. This gives them bonus max SP, and you start with knowledge of most spells up to the level you gave them.
- fighters should focus on edged weapons or polearms. I recommend 2 edged weapons specialists and 1 polearm. There are good weapons for all categories, but outside of swords/axes/polearms they're a little rare.
- one dedicated archer is fine, there are some amazing ranged weapons and one of the artifacts is a crossbow.
- there is essentially no reason (outside of RP and levelling speed) not to take every character trait you think would be beneficial at creation. You will have plenty of experience to hit level 20, at least, on all characters, no matter what traits they have. By the same token, no reason whatsoever to take any negative traits unless you just want to.

Skills advice:
- Jeff's advice for each skill (in the Notes area for the skill) is pretty solid.
- two of your characters should focus edged weapons, and your mage casters would benefit from a couple levels (there are a LOT of good edged weapons).
- only one character needs to focus thief skills, and not forever. If you have an archer he's ideal (archery costs less SP to level than melee skills). Lockpicking only needs to go to 6-8 to deal with early game SP issues, after that the Unlock skill edit: spell will take care of most stuff. Same for Disarming, eventually you can just tank any trap damage. Poison is really cool but not necessary. Anyone applying poison needs about 3-4 levels and it's fine.
- casters should start with exactly three in their casting skill. If you have a character you're planning to hybrid, pick one to set to three and make the other at least 2. I recommend your hybrid start with Mage 3 in order to get access to Fireball at the start. Two casters flinging Fireballs is going to make your early game much easier.
- all characters should have 3 STR to start, because there's a heavy max hp penalty for going below it. Mages can leave it at 3 for a good long while.
- all casters should have 4+ INT to start, for the same reason (but for SP). Fighters don't need it at all, dump it.
- all characters should have at least 3 DEX. It has a heavy effect on to-hit calculations. Fighters want 4+ minimum to start. Archers probably want 5 or 6.
- fighters should have 5+ in their chosen weapon type to start.
- item and mage lore can be spread around. You need I think 20? total mage lore to be able to take advantage of the hardest events. Try to have around 8-10 total to start. DO NOT NEGLECT MAGE LORE. Try to have 20 total by level 5 or 6 or so. You got a lot of really good **** from having enough mage lore at the appropriate times, you don't want to miss out on them. Item lore is nice later on, when getting out of a dungeon to identify something will be a pain, and you can't spare the massive SP cost for the Identify spell. Get it to 12-15 later on in the game.
- assassination is completely useless until the mid-game, when it becomes amazing. Leave it alone until you're level 7 or so, then start slowly working it up on your fighters.
- luck is incredible late-game, but not really necessary before then. It primarily saves you from killing shots, but it has other small effects as well. Work on it later, but eventually you want to max it on your fighters, and probably on your mages as well.

Seconded. This is all objectively correct.
The only thing I would add re: weapons is to have at one blunt weapon user. For me, it was my priest character. You should only have one polearm user and one archer as well. All the rest should use one handed blades.
One of your blade fighters (the non-archer/rogue one) should have ambidextrous. Later on, this fighter will be an attack of opportunity machine.

Take advantages on each character and no disadvantages. EVERYONE should have "Exceptional Strength" (adds +30 to carrying capacity and +1 damage), and all casters should have "Magically Apt". "Good Constitution" is up to you. It's decent and sometimes useful.
The rest are one-offs that you take for a single (generally different) character only, like "Woodsman", "Cave Lore", and "Nimble Fingers" (which is a must-have for your rogue as it makes the skills work much more reliably).
"Highly Alert" is good on a caster that can cast the awaken spells and such. Don't bother on anyone else.
"Recuperation", however, sucks. It's way too expensive for the little it does. Don't pick it.
Try to get the XP requirements due to advantages similar across all characters. It really affects levelling and can stunt someone if they're too overloaded with advantages.

Some armor is intended primarily for your mage casters. The various caster intended armor doesn't tell you that's what it's for, but it's the expensive stuff with zero encumbrance penalties so you can keep encumbrance low and still cast mage spells. Mithril chain is high end caster armor, for example.

Mage Spells and Encumbrance: If you are wearing armor with a total encumbrance of greater than one, you cannot cast mage spells. However, high defense skill can counteract this. If your armor isn't too bulky, sometimes defense skill will enable you to cast spells (though spells never, ever work when any single item has an encumbrance value greater than 2). If you fail, however, you lose your turn.

Priest spells, consisting mainly of prayers shouted very loudly, do not have this limitation.

One of the towns (Gidrik) by the road quite a ways east and a bit north of where you start sells steel studded armor. You want it early on. It's cheaper in Sharimik city just a bit to the north, if you can get in. It has encumbrance 1, so it's good for casters as your one item with encumbrance 1.

A ways southwest on the surface, just north of a town named Pergies, hidden in the mountains is a secret mine/foundry that sells good early (iron) weapons extremely cheap. You have to walk into/through the mountain tiles like a secret door to get to it.

GET HORSES. Seriously. ASAP.

The overworld map is 7 minimap grids east-west and 10 north-south.
You come out one north and one east of the southwest corner of the map.

Upper Exile is smaller. IIRC, it's about 3 or 4 east-west and 6 to 8 north-south.

DON'T SELL SAPPHIRES. You will regret it if you do. You want as many as you can find/steal for your magic map spellcasting.

If you can successfully cast capture soul on a spinebeast (one is in the Vahnatai Tower underground) it makes a very powerful summon.

There are plenty of walls (natural and constructed) you need to cast Move Mountains on to get the goodies behind them. They usually look different than regular walls. True Sight usually reveals there's a passage or chest or whatever behind them.

[Rand]

How stats like strength, intelligence, and dexterity work.

(I only have the stats for strength, but the breakpoints are the same for all three, iirc.)

► Show Spoiler

STR     Damage    To-hit
 1       -3        -15%
 2       -2        -10%
 3       -1         -5%
 4        0          0%
 5        0          0%
 6       +1         +5%
 7       +1         +5%
 8       +1         +5%
 9       +2        +10%
10       +2        +10%
11       +2        +10%
12       +3        +15%
13       +3        +15%
14       +3        +15%
15       +3        +15%
16       +4        +20%
17       +4        +20%
18       +4        +20%
19       +5        +25%
20       +5        +25%

Yes, the table is weird and slightly uneven. I think Vogel ****** the equation math for it up.
It should have started boosts at 5, and increased every three, making it capstone at 20 at +6/+30%. Oh well.

[Rand]

Shop cost translation to numbers:

Extremely cheap:     50% cost
Very Reasonable:     70% cost
Pretty Average:     100% cost
Somewhat Pricey:    130% cost
Expensive:          160% cost
Exorbitant:         200% (double) cost
Utterly Ridiculous: 250% cost

[Rand]

Encumbrance vs. defense skill (to retain combat action points):

Total encumbrance of 6 requires 16 defense skill to counter the penalties.
Encumbrance 5 requires defense skill 9
I don't have notes for lower, but 4 encumbrance probably only requires 3 or 4 points.

So try to keep your total 4 or less or your fighters will be slow until they get the skill to neutralize the penalties.

[Tangerine]

I nearly wiped in the giant cave by some surprise nagas, but managed to pull through. I'm now working on sorting out the golem plague, but here're a few more thoughts/things that are good to know.

► Show Spoiler

- Your priest will need at least 50 SP. It's needed to cast Ritual-Sanctify - required by the main quest.
- Archers are ok, but I ended up making him another melee fighter. Wish I'd done that from the start.
- Make sure to check the variety shops regularly - the Mage's Tower and Lorelei have them, as do some smaller towns. I snagged Mithril Chain that way.
- If I were to reroll my party, I'd have two mage/priests, with the one replacing the priest having level 3 in Mage for Fireball. My current priest is lagging behind in levels due to low damage output.
- Get Slow Group and Major Haste as soon as you can. You'll have your party go twice before the enemy goes once, easily swinging even harder battles in your favor.

[Kalarion]

I nearly wiped in the giant cave by some surprise nagas, but managed to pull through. I'm now working on sorting out the golem plague, but here're a few more thoughts/things that are good to know.

► Show Spoiler

- Your priest will need at least 50 SP. It's needed to cast Ritual-Sanctify - required by the main quest.
- Archers are ok, but I ended up making him another melee fighter. Wish I'd done that from the start.
- Make sure to check the variety shops regularly - the Mage's Tower and Lorelei have them, as do some smaller towns. I snagged Mithril Chain that way.
- If I were to reroll my party, I'd have two mage/priests, with the one replacing the priest having level 3 in Mage for Fireball. My current priest is lagging behind in levels due to low damage output.
- Get Slow Group and Major Haste as soon as you can. You'll have your party go twice before the enemy goes once, easily swinging even harder battles in your favor.

I'm looking forward to your report on the golems .

Slow Group and Major Haste are great. Mage/Priest levels 4 and 5 are generally when your casters turn into monsters. For your Priest in particular, once you get Flame Strike he'll catch up to everyone else pretty quickly.

If you're willing to sacrifice a ton of other stats to rush Mage Spells 7, you'll get fairly early access to Major Blessing, which blows all other buffs out of the water and is incredibly efficient.

[Tangerine]

I'm looking forward to your report on the golems .

► Show Spoiler

I fought some golems out in the field and they were pretty tanky. Makes sense, so I did some grinding to get my lower level characters up in strength. Feeling prepared, I did three of the towers, didn't think that was too bad, and went around looking for the fourth tower. Spent a lot of time trying to find the entrance to it, since the wizard said you couldn't fly to it, and I ended up finding the golem factory instead. This place is some ********. Nothing but swarms of golems right out the gate. Going to need to rethink my tactics, since I can't just brute force this.

[Tangerine]

@Kalarion I got through the entrance gauntlet by overdosing on energy potions and spamming anti-magic fields. I'm now in the conveyor belt part of the factory and this is possibly one of the most awful dungeons I've ever experienced.

[Kalarion]

It's terrible. The only place in the game that I seriously considered using the character editor. Not because I couldn't slowly slam my head through the wall. Just to save all the time leaving to refill SP and come back in.

[Kalarion]

Now that I've finished DA:O, I can finally get started on the real fun!

I made my party:

► Show Spoiler

Kalarion - dual-wielding fighter, swords and axes. I have a shield right now because I sacrificed a great deal of HP in order to buy more expensive (both skill points- and gold-wise) skills at character creation. Skills purchased at creation don't cost money.

OnTilt - polearms fighter. Polearms start out very lackluster (starting polearms do the same damage as broadswords, but are two-handed). Later on there will be some amazing spears, and halberds are the highest damaging weapons in the game.

Rusty - glowie kitty-cat archer/rogue. Later on he'll also take edged weapons skill and be our greatsword/greataxe wielder. There aren't very many good ones in the game (the only way to get Demonslayer is to use the character editor), so one will be fine. Fortunately the artifact ranged weapon is ******* amazing.

Lutte - hybrid priest/mage. I sacrificed a ton of other stats in order to start him at level 3 in both Priest and Mage. It's totally worth it so far, having double fireballs makes this first level (where our HP is so dangerously low) much less deadly.

Tweed - Slith mage. He's going to wreck ****.

Acrux - priest. Unfortunately priests start out a little slow. All my buffs right now are single-target, so they get saved for important fights. Wound is a pretty good single-target damage spell for the early game, but its range is much lower than comparable mage spells like Flame or Fireball. Later on, with group buffs and debuffs, group damaging spells, and the availability of good maces, Acrux will be smiting foes hip and thigh.

---

I wandered around the starting fort, Fort Emergence:

► Show Spoiler

Vogel was famous back in the day for silly and humorous puns and other jokes like this. Very comfy.


A sharp eye pays off big time in the Exile games. This stone weighs slightly more than every other stone we've seen so far. It will later be identified as a Rough Diamond, worth 400 gold (!!!). Very nice bump to our funds when starting out.


On the one hand there's no easy way to identify secret doors. On the other hand you just have to bump into them to find them. Players are advised to make a habit of quick-bumping walls that they think might have secret doors using the numpad. For instance, if I think there might be a secret door somewhere on the wall that I went through here (and I did, obviously), I would start on, say, the east side of the southern wall and quickly check all squares by repeatedly pressing 2 and 1. Here, I'm rewarded with some minor scrolls (they go to Lutte).

---

I also wandered around the underground area we start out in, the Portal Cavern:


Spoooooky!

[Rand]

- Archers are ok, but I ended up making him another melee fighter. Wish I'd done that from the start.

An archer really shines later on against back row magic using enemies that have good defenses against magic.

[Tangerine]

Holy hell that was something. Completed.

► Show Spoiler

Proof:

ex3_1.png

ex3_2.PNG

ex3_3.PNG

Team:

ex3_team.PNG

Tangerine was level 45 when I finished. Everyone else was below that.

I have mixed feelings on this.

Liked: I thought the plagues as a concept and execution were generally good. Having slimes, roaches, giants, etc. were a great change of pace from the standard fantasy fare of orcs, goblins, and undead and thought it was neat that resolving a plague meant you stopped encountering them on the world map. It really felt like I was bringing peace to the land. I also liked the leveling system, where you got more health and spells were more effective as you went up in the field, but to improve specific skills you needed to pay for training.

Disliked: The first half of the game was difficult, but fair, and was having a good time with it, but the game soured on me once I got to golem factory. I hated having to tap walls/use spells constantly to check for secret passages, needing to trial and error for traps, and the enemy respawn rates were brutal, especially in the final dungeon. I ended up having multiple saves so I could scout out the path I needed to do on one, then reload an older save and run the path as optimally as possible, otherwise I'd be drained of resources. It ended up being a real slog rather than a fun adventure at that point. The single tile-width hall of Rakshasas was complete ********.

Other notes: There are a lot of browns everywhere. There are also lots of female warriors and about half the smiths were women too. I don't know why, but the fact so many smiths were women actually bothered me more than the women warriors. Also, the climatic battle is between a woman wizard and a female grey. You just push buttons while they're fighting.

[Rand]

That was fast. Congratulations!

[Rand]

The golem factory in the original is miserable.
The remake improves it, but not in the way I would prefer.

[Tangerine]

What do they do in the remake and what would you have done?

[rusty_shackleford]

I haven't played it, but I've heard the first remakes are pretty good and the second remakes dumb the games down, fwiw.
Yes, it has been remade twice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avernum

The first remake also had a second trilogy

[Rand]

What do they do in the remake and what would you have done?

In the remake, there's a puzzle where you're directing beams of light using prisms and mirrors instead of riding the conveyor belts.
It's less of a hassle, but doesn't fit, imo.

I think I would have kept a slightly simplified version of the conveyor belts, but let the party smash the golem producing machinery as they went, forcing the factory to repair itself for awhile and stopping the golem production until it does.
It would push the player to move fast and not dawdle, without spamming him with golems like the original does. If the player keeps moving and doing damage, the golems stop spawning on them.

[Tangerine]

Another thing I really liked was the maps you're given looking ****** like someone quickly sketched it up, rather than someone giving you a nice looking accurate area map or, worse yet, marking it on your map.