![]() Magic points are controlled by class (which adds a multiplier) and Intelligence. Funny enough, the individual words in the incantations actually have meanings, and if you know those meanings you can figure out what the spell does (or guess the existence of a spell by combining some words together). You can find the incantations if you talk to enough people, but true Ultima diehards probably already know what all the spells are. Magic is handled a little differently in Ultima, although you're already familiar with how it works if you've played any other game in the series.īasically, you need three things to cast magic: Some magic points (which just prevent you from casting spells all day long), a few reagents (magical herbs and such that are expended when the spell is cast), and an incantation. There are a few derived stats as well, like Magic Points. Some classes don't really benefit from Intelligence (Fighters and Shepherds, though even classes that can cast spells don't necessarily want to). Dexterity is hitting things, Strength is hitting things hard, Intelligence is casting spells. There are basically three stats in Ultima: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. In some cases you want the enemy to flee (you don't want to kill innocent bears and snakes after all), but you don't get experience for failing to kill something (you do get a chest with money no matter what if you actually win the fight though), so leveling up is going to take some actual killing. Since people get only one move a turn, an enemy that gets away from you is going to flee if you don't have some kind of ranged weapon. The game will also tell you when someone is fleeing. HP is a mystery, but you do get a general idea of how hurt somebody is. You're never actually shown how hard you hit somebody. Everybody gets one turn a round no matter how fast they are, so this obviously advantages having lots of party members. I forget whether initiative is controlled by Dexterity or not, but I seem to recall it being like that. You can use this to teleport around before you have access to a ship, but you'll need a boat to complete the game anyway so it pays to get one ASAP.Ĭombat is likewise top-down and grid-based, with everybody taking a turn in sequence. Trammel controls what moongate is open, and Felucca controls where it goes. Note the gray circles at the top of the screen those are the moons of Trammel and Felucca. Oh, and the little blue and yellow square southeast of town is a Moongate. The keywords to ask are usually pretty obvious, but it helps to remember the Basic Ultima Keywords, which are "Name," "Job," and "Health." This asks the NPC who they are (if they don't tell you), what they do, and how they're feeling. Conversation is handled by a text parser which triggers off keywords and occasionally asks yes/no questions. Most are intuitive, like Attack, Talk, or Enter, but due to some degree of overlap there are a few oddities like Ztatus, Klimb Ladder, and Jimmy Lock. You use various keyboard commands to do things. The arrow keys move the Avatar and gang around on the map, which is full of various kinds of terrain with various effects (thick vegetation slows your movement, forests block line of sight, swamps are poisonous). There isn't a whole lot of space, so it can be kind of cumbersome.Įverything else is controlled by the keyboard. Even further below that is the text input window, which tells us what we've been doing. The "300g" does not refer to money, but rather to HP and status so this means "300 Hit Points, Condition Good." If you're poisoned or cursed or whatever, the "G" will change to something else to reflect this.ĭown below that is Food (like most Ultima games, you need to eat periodically, but it's not hard to keep up on) and Gold (currency, moolah, the stuff we'll use to buy stuff that makes murdering other stuff easier). Over on the right is the party list, with character names, Hit Points, and Condition. The Avatar-to-be is the dude in the center of the screen his sprite is unique, no matter what class he is. The game takes place almost exclusively (except in dungeons, but I'll get to that when I actually reach one) in a screen like this one. For a quick overview of what's up in Ultima IV, let's quickly and briefly go over the game screens.
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