Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

[LarryTyphoid]

U1-3 are like that. The food consumption is retarded.

I'm not paying for food at all, but I have to grind up to 4000 gold to buy the power suit before I can go to space. Enemies drop between 1-17 gold.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Actually, nevermind about that. It's stupid to complain about high prices when I made a character with only 10 charisma. I ended up buying a reflect suit for 2000 gold (which is still like 20 minutes of grinding, but whatever, that's acceptable and it's the price you pay for low charisma).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

U3 is ok but Akalabeth through U2 had Gremlins being the worse mob of all time. Well, A-1 had armor and weapon destroyers like questron and U1 had them fucking flayers. Still, you could get gear and stats back in U1. But gremlins and DEATH at 0 food needed fixing. U3 starving just causes damage when 0 food is indicated. Poison is worse but both can affect you. Stats in u3 is dpecific grinding you pay for unlike the random in U2.

But yeah, gold grinding in U2 is a pain. Get a boat and plane in each time zone, build some boat bridges and grind like no tomorrow. I wish you could sell gear. Oh, loot all that armor and weapon and no selling? WTF!?!? (At least i don't recall selling in u2). It would have made the game go faster.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

This thread is missing a few titles to vote on:
Akalabeth
Worlds of Ultima 1-2
Ultima underworld 1-2
Ultima Runes of Virtue 1-2

If you want to get freaky:
Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash
Ultima Online
Shroud of the Avatar
Ultima Underworld: Ascendent (hah! Not)

Ultima IV Part 2 - Hey Dude Where's My Avatar?
Ultima 9 Descension

Someone should make this: Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 3: Arthurian Legends (which was cancelled along with U8 The Lost Vale)

Glad for Dino's Ultima Website

I really wish this site was still updated and kept current:
https://reconstruction.voyd.net/index.php?event=news

http://www.moongates.com/u4/maps/Maps.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20091023223745/http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762/u5/tmphtm.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/20090729153117/http://www.geocities.com/xenerkes/

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

And Garote's Page reminded me of Chesterland.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

All Ultima 2 needed to do was put more gold in the dungeons to make them actually worthwhile and cut down on the grind. Then it'd be a pretty good game. You can find weapons in the dungeons but that'll only help you once (I found the second strongest weapon on my first go), and they're pretty rare at that.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Anyone got tips for Ultima 3? I've made a party consisting of a Paladin, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard. Combat goes smoothly enough but the map is weird to read and I don't really know where to go.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

There is a druid city with no guards. You can kill the inhabitants over and over for experience. I also remember a shop with a lot of chests that can be accessed via a back route. Good for repeat looting.

 

[newtmonkey]

Anyone got tips for Ultima 3? I've made a party consisting of a Paladin, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard. Combat goes smoothly enough but the map is weird to read and I don't really know where to go.

I completed the DOS version of U3 a couple years ago. Compared with U2, it was pretty much stress-free.

The races you select for each class are really, really important because they determine your max stats. For pure spellcasters, your max MP is either WIS (cleric) or INT (wizard). For hybrid casters (including Paladin) max MP is HALF the applicable stat, which might make things a bit difficult for your party, since you can only heal outside or town through cleric spells on healing fountains.

The map that comes with the game doesn't have the towns shown, so you were supposed to explore and make notes; most of the towns are where you'd expect... near rivers, on the coasts, or on islands.

You should put your thief in front in the dungeons, because AFAIK finding/disabling traps is determined by the hidden "thief" skill of the first character in the party. I think it's based on DEX, with the thief getting the full dex bonus, barbarian and ranger getting a lower bonus, and other classes getting a still lower bonus.

I recall most of the information required to finish the game being pretty easy to track down, just by talking to all the NPCs in the towns. Some of the hints are a bit vague. The safest thing is to just explore all the dungeons fully, so that you don't miss anything. There is one crucial hint for beating the game that you get in one of the dungeons.

I played pretty conservatively early on. I always made sure to save enough gold to buy plenty of food (luckily not as annoying as U2), before buying equipment upgrades, etc. It's not as tedious and dumb as U2, but everything including upgrading stats does cost gold. In my experience, if you play the game "naturally" and explore the dungeons pretty thoroughly, you'll have more than enough gold to get through the game without having to grind or even steal anything. You definitely can complete the game without getting all your stats maxed (just max the important 1-2 stats per character).

At a certain point, the gold dropped by enemies is just not enough to keep up with everything you need to buy, but you find LOTS of treasure chests in the dungeons; some dungeon levels are nearly completely full of chests on each step. This is where having a thief with high DEX comes in handy.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

The races you select for each class are really, really important because they determine your max stats. For spellcasters, your max MP is either WIS (cleric) or INT (wizard). Cleric spells (and healing fountains in dungeons) are the only means of healing outside of towns, so in your case that's your Paladin. If you chose anything other than a Bobbit, your max MPs will be capped at either 50 or 75, depending on which race you chose.

All my party members are human, including my Paladin, who has 20 WIS. Is that gonna be a problem? He can cast 1 healing spell at a time. I figured he'd get more MP as I level up.

 

[newtmonkey]

LarryTyphoid

The races only affect your max stats, so there's basically no reason to choose any race that doesn't give you 99 in your core stat, unless you want to handicap yourself or add "flavor." The only stat that matters for a thief, for instance, is DEX followed by STR, so the only real choice is an elf. Likewise, the only stat that matters for a wizard in INT, so choosing anything other than a fuzzy is just gimping yourself.

Leveling up only boosts your max HPs. MPs only increase when you add points in WIS/INT (don't want to spoil anything, but you don't increase your stats by leveling up).

It might be a problem later on. A human can only reach 75 WIS, so for a Paladin that's a max MP of 37. That's only 3 heals before your MPs are exhausted. Having said that, there are people out there that have completed the game with a single character, so no party is impossible (probably). You can also heal by drinking healing fountains in dungeons.

I feel like the hybrids are mostly useless, but a druid or ranger might not be so bad. Druid has access to both schools of spells and regenerates MP quicker than other classes apparently. Ranger gets access to low level spells in both schools, but is a better fighter than the Druid of course. The real benefit of using hybrid classes is that they have access to Pontori/Repond, which are 0 MP spells that can instantly wipe out low level enemies, so they can level up very quickly early on.

Honestly, wizard spells are pretty useless imo. The high level spells cost way too many MPs, and even a wizard with max INT will run out after casting just 2-3... the high-level "attack one monster" spell costs 35!!! of your 99 MPs.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Apparently, you can steal weapons and armor in Ultima 2. So dungeons are even more useless than I thought. Seriously, RG was on some pills when he made this game.

The races only affect your max stats, so there's basically no reason to choose any race that doesn't give you 99 in your core stat, unless you want to handicap yourself or add "flavor." The only stat that matters for a thief, for instance, is DEX followed by STR, so the only real choice is an elf. Likewise, the only stat that matters for a wizard in INT, so choosing anything other than a fuzzy is just gimping yourself.

I made all my characters humans because I wanted my party to be consistent with later Ultimas. U3 seems pretty easy so far so I'm gonna continue with this party for now, but I'll take your advice if I run into too many problems down the line. After reading the spellbooks, Wizard spells do seem pretty mediocre, so I'll probably replace my Wizard with a pure Cleric so I can get access to poison curing and resurrection magic.

 

[SunKing]

Hey wasn't someone working on some sort of fan expansion of U4? You guys remember that?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Hey wasn't someone working on some sort of fan expansion of U4? You guys remember that?

Ultima IV: Threat of the Trinity
Last I checked, its developer, Cambragol, was working on the physical goods to be included with the game (cloth map, manual, etc). The software part of the game is finished, as far as I know; it'll be released when the feelies are finished.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Anyone got tips for Ultima 3?

# Father Antos lives on Planet X.
# You'll need the ring!
# Only the quicksword can harm the enchantress.
# Watch your Trilithium supplies.

With regards,
Smith the Horse

 

[LarryTyphoid]

 

[LarryTyphoid]

GeorgGreat was pretty rough on Ultima 3 in his review. One thing I remember him complaining about is the amount of useless combat you'll have to endure after gold and XP stops being meaningful. This is a common complaint for Ultima 4, too. Both games solve this problem with horses, but people don't seem to know about them for some reason. I disregarded them in U4 because I didn't know that you could (Y)ell to make them go faster, but U3's horses are plainly useful right from when you get them.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Ultima 3 was pretty fun. I mapped out 5 of the dungeons before being ready for Exodus. The final castle was kind of underwhelming, very similar to Ultima 2's. U4 and 5 got it right with ending the game on the hardest dungeons; the Stygian Abyss in particular is one of the most memorable endings to any RPG for me.

 

[Cael]

Ultima 3 was pretty fun. I mapped out 5 of the dungeons before being ready for Exodus. The final castle was kind of underwhelming, very similar to Ultima 2's. U4 and 5 got it right with ending the game on the hardest dungeons; the Stygian Abyss in particular is one of the most memorable endings to any RPG for me.

That last fight in Doom, though... Ugh!

 

[LarryTyphoid]

That last fight in Doom, though... Ugh!

That brutal fight was the last time Ultima would ever have a high level of difficulty in terms of combat, so you can appreciate it in that sense.

 

[Cael]

That last fight in Doom, though... Ugh!

That brutal fight was the last time Ultima would ever have a high level of difficulty in terms of combat, so you can appreciate it in that sense.

There is another one. At the bottom of one of the dungeons, I can't remember which one. It has 3-5 dragons in it and a ladder leading down into the Underworld. I recall coming back into from the Underworld and stepped right into that room. Those dragons at close quarters gating in demons that possessed my guys one by one was not fun... And since I was running back in from the Underworld, my guys were already a bit worse for wear...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I've always wanted an extended remake of Ultima 3 combining all the u3 entries in some way, eve. The ridiculous famicom/nes i guess.

 

[Viata]

Ultima 1, 2 and 3 for FM Towns are very beautiful:

I may play them when I get to replay the series again.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Turn the music off or you will
Go insane.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Still no color remake video of MAC ultima III. All we get is

Play the game a little and record. Gah!!

I did find this though for the original.