3. GAME CONSIDERATIONS - Early game (raubritters, thieves, demoniac villagers, etc.)

Character Generation

--This section contributed by DA--

Here is a typical party consisting of a charismatic leader, a big, strong, dumb oaf who refuses to die, an alchemist and a religious healer.

Let's take the leader first. He or she must have high charisma, say 29. I will give this person the artifice skill as well, but it could be another in your party. Increase the leader's strength and endurance to some level between 30 and 40. The family background and occupations you choose are what makes character generation so much fun, so you are on your own here. Just look at the changes in attributes as you browse each occupation or family background, and you will get all the hints you need to make a good choice.

The second party member is traditionally the strongest among the party. This fellow could possible be a backup alchemist, although you would have to increase his intelligence. My favorite choice is to make him the perceptive one as well as the strongest.

The third member is usually the alchemist. Increase his intelligence to at least 35 while maintaining strength and endurance > 30.

The fourth member sometimes ends up being almost as strong as the second member. I like to give this member as high a value for healing as he can get along with high religion.

You may or may not want to add a fifth character depending on whether or not you feel it's cheating. If you create a fifth character and let him grow to a ripe old age, he will bring to the party many wonderful (expensive potions). Transfer these potions to your leader and retire the old rascal. Then bring into the party the permanent fourth member and sell the potions. You should be able to generate enough money to buy some semi-decent armor for each member. Of course, you can generate additional veteran members and carry this theme further, but remember that the retiring member will take 1/5 of the party's wealth."

I have seen a couple of posts that talk about combining the priest/healer and the alchemist in one person. I will try that combination to see what happens, but at first blush, I don't think it is a good idea and will result in a very physically weak character -- I like all my chars to work out at least once a day. [grin]

Travelling by land - meeting travellers (bandits, alchemists, bishops, noblemen, pigs, wolves, etc.)

In the beginning of the game, you will have to travel by land. Except for a few minor exceptions, this is the cheapest, but most time consuming way of travelling.

When travelling across the map, you will encounter all sorts of creatures. The main ones are bandits, boars and wolves, which can all be dispatched. You may also run across tatzelwurms, hellhounds, schrats and the Wild Hunt. If you have a chance to assist a schrat being hunted, do so. He will give you a gift that will be of benefit to you. Any endurance lost during these combats can be recovered in an overnight camp. To recover a fair amount of lost strength, it is best to go to a town and lodge at an inn. The healthy members can earn a little money to help defray the costs while the unhealthy members can recover.

Alchemists offer or demand exchanges of potions. If you encounter an aggressive alchemist and defeat him and his retinue in combat, you will be able to keep the potions you find on him. You can freely refuse exchanges with non-aggressive alchemists.

NOTE (AvL): When engaging the aggressive alchemist, be sure you can take on his guards. Neither his guards nor the alchemist himself is a guy to take a Sunday afternoon walk with, if you know what that means. I mean, to defeat them in battle, your fighting skills should be on the same level you would need to wipe out Raubritters and their bandits.

NOTE (AvL): When encountering noblemen and clergymen on the road, always try to convince them to leave you alone. Assuming you have Speak Common skills of 50+, this will work in most cases. If not, pay the tithe. Never attempt to kill them! Not only will this decrease your virtue level, it will decrease your local reputation; for example, if near a town it would make your popularity score go down from about zero (unknown) to approx. -7 down to -14 (suspected). This would it make nearly impossible to enter this town by normal ways. Trouble with the town guards would be omnipresent.

Another type of encounter is the virtuous hermit who will give you news and instructions in a saint you wouldn't find in monasteries, and the women with the dogs. This is a special case. You must observe these women to determine who they are. There are two types: a female hermit (or white witch) and a practicioner of the black arts. The first one you must leave alone and any attempt to disrupt her will result in loss of Virtue. The second one, however, must be defeated and she can be asked to reveal information about the witches' gatherings.

The next kind is a village. It is in villages that you will find the least expensive housing (but no income) and possibly good blacksmithing. You can sell your acquired weapons and armour. Villages are either good or bad. Generally it is possible to tell simply by speaking to the Schultz but the quickest way is to visit the church and go to confession. If the penance required is the sacrifice of a small animal, or while speaking to the priest he mentions two saints that don't exist in the list, you can then leave the church, speak to the Schultz and accuse his village of witchcraft, defeat the villagers in combat and learn the location and date of the next witches' meeting. Note that you may or may not be able to get there on time. If you can't, don't worry, there are quite a few during the year, as many as you will find villages to attack.

Mines are earthen humps with wooden frames over the doorways on the landscape map. You can enter and purchase things for your alchemist, raw materials and various bases. The best way to get a fair amount of alchemical materials at no cost to you is to defeat Knockers.

NOTE (DA): Something that I don't think has been mentioned is that battles are easier and the booty is less during the early part of the game. Only 4 robbers are encountered in the back alleys initially, but later there may be 5 of the brutes, and they will no doubt be wearing more and better armor. The same thing holds true for battles in the countryside. I have had the temerity to tackle a renegade alchemist fairly early and just sneak by with a victory; the same has been true for raubritters. Later in the game, the raubritters always seem to have more rounds of battles in store before the big guy comes out to fight. I don't know about High Sabats as I have never attempted one of these really early in the game. I don't recommend knocking on the door of the Fortress Monastery early on either.

NOTE (from Gui Terence Ang, e0fq4z8c@credit.erin.utoronto.ca): Two oddities:
 

• If you stay in a village (not a city) with the old woman, but only choose to stay overnight at 4pf without selecting the "Take up residence" screen, the stay will cost you nothing. The 4pf is never deducted from your purse. You cannot recover lost strength points, but you can recover endurance points.

• If you trade with the wandering friendly alchemist, it appears that you can trade the same object indefinitely, because it never actually leaves your inventory. You can therefore pick up a lot of useful potions early on in the game at no real cost.

Armour and weapons

Concerning armour, your best choice early on is Chainmail. It's light and has very good protection capabilities. Plate Armour might provide better security, but usually only the dumb, strong oaf is endowed with enough strength to wear it without getting overloaded. However, in the beginning you might equip the party-members with a less wealthy family background, who came along with poor armour, with some more affordable stuff. Considering the need of protective clothes, you might use Cuirbouilli or Scale Armour in the beginning. Always keep an eye on the weight according to the strength of the character.

A short list of Armour:
 

Armour	Use
Padded, Leather, Studded Leather	Worthless, use only if no alternatives
Cuirbouilli, Scale	Good choice in times of scarce wealth
Chainmail, Plate	High-end armour

 

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Stealing armour, buying armour

A real good opportunity to get equipment like armour and weapons is to "steal" them from killed opponents. "Good" means it might be the most affordable way. For example, tracking down a Raubritter doesn't only mean a reward but also one set of plate armour. But beware! Here's the drawback in this cheap method: obtaining armour or other equipment usually provides only a quality-level up to 25q. In case of weapons like swords or so, this might be enough, but a 25q armour isn't meant to be a long-lasting joy. Buying armour at an amourer's shop in a town usually results in a 35q equipment at best (usually around 27q). This is only exceeded by gifts or similar bounty (e.g.: rescuing merchants on the road, chests in the Great Monastery or in the mines).

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Where to find good armour, weapons

As I pointed out the paragraph before, high quality equipment can be found in hard-to-reach locations. For example, you'll find plate armour in the Great Monastery at 45q! But to get there, your party should be capable of excellent fighting skills and more. There are some towns, in which certain weaponry and armour can be bought in a better condition then in other cities. Yet, I haven't located them all and unfortunately, I forgot to write them down last time I played DARKLANDS. Maybe someone else can contribute that.

NOTE (CMB): It is possible to get six sets of 45q armour from the Great Monastery without encountering more than a few bears as opponents.

The route is simple: enter the cemetery, speak the name that opens the gate, fight the demons, enter the building, then go to the right-hand door on the "top" wall (to the far left of where the characters arrive). Inside, there is another door on the right-hand wall and it is necessary to fight some bears. After that, enter the room and walk along the closest right-hand wall.

There is a secret door that leads to a chest (trapped, I believe), that contains six suits of 45q plate armour. You need a character with fairly high artifice, as I recall (if you have the Hanse with you, this is the best solution early on). You can then leave the Great Monastery without encountering resistance and go on adventuring for a while with 45q armour.

NOTE (DA): The best armor outside of the Great Monastery is always in Nürnburg (quality - 37). The only city with better weapons than Nürnburg (that I have found) is Paderborn (quality - 38). Best overall town for both armor and weapons is Nürnburg; both are 37.

Other towns with Weapons >30
 

• Burglitz (32)
• Freiberg-im-Breisgau (36)
• Köln (35)
• Kufstein (31)
• Magdeburg (34)
• Marienburg (30)
• Naskskov (30)
• Nördlingen (33)
• Paderborn (38)
• Trier (33)
• Wein (35)
 
Other towns with Armor >30
 
• Basel (31)
• Dresden (34)
• Marienburg (33)
• Nancy (36)
• Salzburg (32)
• Soest (35)
• Speyer (30)
• Stuttgart (33)
• Ulm (31)
• Würzburg (32)

Improving skills by seeking out robbers in towns

Early on, you can't take on dragons and even most raubritters because your skills are not sufficiently developed. Your best bet to increase your skills to a good beginning level for adventuring is to seek out thugs in towns. Since thugs don't come out during the day, you'll have to wander the streets at night. This is dangerous because of the night watches. Always pay the fine. This is the sequence from main street: find a secluded grove; wait for darkness, wait another hour, exit by side street, go to market area.

Generally, at this point, you'll run across a band of thugs. They'll be fairly easy to defeat and it will increase your local reputation slightly, as well as improve your skills. Wander around a bit more and you'll meet another group and so on. Should you run into the night watch, pay the fines and return to the gasthaus whenever you feel you've had enough. If you don't pay the fines, you'll have to flee or fight and in either case, you'll be unable to return to that town. In the morning, seek out the weapons makers and sell the night's catch.

NOTE (AvL): The easiest way to run into robbers is cycling between the docks and the secluded grove at night. You'll normally 'meet' with robbers each time you change between one of these locations. At minimum, you'll get in contact every time you return to the grove.

NOTE (DA): My rule of thumb here is not to travel far from the starting town until everyone in the party has a full set of at least leather armor, a weapon upgrade, and several javelins. In order to save money after a night's work dispatching the bad guys, I send my group ouside the city walls to rest and heal -- it's free. If the group is not fortunate to convince the guards to let them enter without paying, then they will try to sneak into the city. Either way, they will gain a modicum of speak common and sometimes stealth. In other words, never pay to enter unless you have to. Leaving the city is a different matter -- never sneak out because its decreases your local reputation.

Once you are lightly armored with a decent weapon and javelins, you can start travelling between towns more safely and really start to gain skills, money and experiences.

Use those javelins as the first line of offense against robbers. Their use will increase everyone's throwing skills and will immediately weaken any robber struck by one. Try to gang up one one robber if possible and go on to the others (this is not always possible). The maximum number of battles per night seems to be 5. If the group survives the night without much "damage," then they are surely ready to leave town for some serious adventuring.

Getting jobs

The best way to get jobs is to visit the various interested parties in a town: Fugger, Medici, Hanseatic League, town leader, leading merchant, pawnshop owner. These will often have tasks to perform, three types in general: dealing with raubritters, recovering stolen articles, recovering lost articles. Each of these has a specific method of dealing with the problem. The amount of money you will be offered won't appear to be much but it's enough, if you keep your expenses down by travelling overland.

NOTE (AvL): Success in getting jobs is only likely with the Fugger, the Medici and the Hanse in the beginning, which means it is uncertain. The merchants, the herbalist and the town leader will only offer you tasks, if your reputation is high enough. Note that town leaders and Dukes in a city's fortress won't pay for the job; success only increases your local reputation, which is achieved through other jobs too (but paid more accurately ;-) ). So you'd better leave the town halls and fortresses alone and check out the marketplaces.

NOTE: We received the following from Jerry Hagen (ja-hagen@students.uiuc.edu) dated Fri, 17 Apr 1998:

Thanks for a well-designed, exhaustive FAQ. I did find one error in section 3 of v2.0. It is mentioned in the section on "getting jobs" that town leaders do not pay for the successful accomplishment of their tasks. This is incorrect. If you successfully accomplish a task for a town leader, look at your money total before and after you talk with him. You'll find that you have received between 20 and 40 florins as a reward, although the text doesn't tell you that. (The cash reward varies slightly if you save and reload, but not by more than 2-3 florins--so I've found--not enough to justify a minor act of cheating for me, especially since my party's pretty rich by that point in the game anyway.) The best rewards, I have found, are for defeating raubritters--in addition to 30+ florin cash rewards, your party's reputation is increased to at least 50 (local hero). For other town leader tasks, I have found only a 20-30 point increase in local rep. By the way, I'm running v483.07.

Updated: April 19, 1998

NOTE (AvL) The easy way has been described above. But, assuming your characters are strong enough (I'd say, having a weapon level above 65, assuming you're using the pre-generated characters, with people of greater strength and/or endurance this might work much sooner) and owning kinds of missile weapons, the most money-providing way is to lay siege up on the castle. This lets you engage up to four parties of bandits and the Raubritter and some companions eventually. Taking all their stuff and selling it in town makes you much wealthier.

NOTE (DA): Some of you may disagree, but I make it practice never to recover stolen items. The risk is too great, the rewards are too small, and the distances involved are sometimes great indeed.

Once the group has been given a raubritter to terminate, other towns in the area may also give the group the same job. If the group is lucky, it can pick up a good deal of money by checking around various towns for the same raubritter job. I have always felt that the game had some intelligence about when to first offer the group a raubritter to handle (at least on standard and expert levels); that is, if the group is offered this type job, then in principle, they are ready to do the deed if they are careful.

Getting help (extra people, prayers to saints)

One easy way to get help is to keep pumping the Hansards for employment. Eventually, one will offer to send a young knight with you for assistance in dealing with a raubritter. If you accept, which you should, you can perform a number of more difficult tasks with an extra pair of hands. Try to keep these additions until you really need them. If you perform the task as specified right away, the young Hanse will leave you when you next exit the city of his employer, or if you're travelling by river, when you exit a city next (which is to say that he will accompany you until you exit through any city gates). Eventually the young Hanse will leave you, so try to organize your tasks in order to take advantage of his presence right away. This of course also makes it difficult to determine whether you should be spending money to equip the knight or not, or to improve his skills. The conservative approach would be to use his services and part with him. As he is not a permanent member of your party, you need not worry that he will take a share upon leaving. He NEVER offers to stay beyond his "appointed time".

NOTE (DA): In addition to the hanse offered for raubritter quests, the group may find in one of the small villages a Mayor who will consent to travel with the group in pursuit of an infamous raubritter. The hanse or town mayor who comes with the group on a raubritter quest will always stay one year. Make sure the group gets all the stuff he's carrying before saying adios.

NOTE (CMB): Shouldn't that be "auf weidersehen"? :-)  I've also encountered once the leader of the miners who offers to join you in defeating the knockers. But I've never been able to repeat that.

NOTE (DA): One way to enhance the chances of getting a job is to enhance the group's local reputation with a saint. My favorite is Cecilia, because praying to her will increase the local reputation in every city. Her only requirement is that the person praying must own a musical instrument.

Fighting tactics

This depends on your opponent. While town robbers and cutthroat-thieves may be just wiped away like nothing without any particulary strategy, other foes may take a great deal of tactical considerations. First rule is, only hunt what you can kill. Be sure your characters can take care of themselves. If necessary, "train" them by searching out robbers in town. It might be a good idea to put your weaker characters in the first row or even let them fight alone if facing such "training fights". At stronger enemies, even when your party appears strong, you should use all your fighting skills. That means using missile-, bow-, and alchemical-weapons at long-distance and good weapons at mêlée. Use the full bandwith of your Alchemist. Let him (her) throw potions at longer-distance and use healing potions on your seriously wounded party-members.

The Thunderbolt potion is an excellent all-round alchemical piece (see below), a Stone-Tar potion is of use when you are outnumbered by the enemies and you need to slow down their approach. In buildings or dungeons (mines) put your stronger characters in the first row. Enemies often show up after opening a door. While two of your party (of course the strong ones) block the doorway and engage the foe in mêlée, the rest of your party can shoot at them with their missile weapons. I made a scene:

                       x

                   x       x

---------------------|x x|-----------------

                      o o

                    o  o   o



        x = Your party

        o = Enemies

        - = Wall

        ||= Door

Darkland's excellent battle engine is real-time, but allows you to halt a battle and change strategies on the fly. You are basically a quarterback, giving instructions to your players individually. Your characters are not dumb, however, once they defeat their opponent, they move on to the next. If they are hurt, they try to retreat. This engine is the best I've seen in a game, giving the advantages of both real-time and turn-based combat... the ultimate armchair-warriors battleground!

Fighting strategy. I use two or three sword swingers to intercept attacking enemies. My weaker characters remain in the background and throw darts and potions, fire bows, crossbows, and guns. I also have plenty of stone tar to slow down large groups of opponents. High bow and throwing ability lets you use this strategy well.

Since guns fire so slowly and are so heavy, only my fighters carry them, and fire an initial volley, potentially killing some enemies before the first blow is struck. These swingers then enter the fray, armored well enough to withstand the hand-to-hand onslaught. I try to position them in such a way that no enemies get past them. While this is going on, my back characters with high skills fire between my front-line characters. If a strong opponent gets past the sword-jocks, I lead them on a merry little chase around the battlefield by having my weak characters move around just out of reach. When my fighters have dispatched their unworthy opponents, they intercept the pursuer.

The most important tip I have for fighting is to gang-up on opponents. Try to isolate enemies and beat on them without mercy. The trick is that a fighter can only defend against ONE opponent. The others basically get free shots. What I try to do is get my highest-armored character to pick an opponent and fight normally, and have my weaker characters beserk the enemy who can't defend himself. This allows battles to end very quickly. A modification of this is to have all your bow/gun shooters shoot the same opponent and kill him before he gets into the fray. This is a quick way to even out a fight. As soon as one is killed, begin shooting another. Remember that bow/gun firing characters won't automaticly pick the next target- they may begin hand-to-hand, or just mill-around!

Of course, the gang-up strategy can be used by the enemy to quickly take down one of your characters. Beware of being surrounded by enemies.

Fighting with Potions: At the start of a battle, the enemy may be entering the battlefield at a small entrance. Immediately throw several stone-tar potions in his *expected* path, as there's a lag in how quickly your potions get tossed. Always use the highest quality stone-tar (45q). It is MUCH better at slowing down opponents than the others. Once your enemies are stuck, I use exploding and irritation potions to weaken them. NOTE: Be very careful of these potions. If you throw them in the vicinity of your own characters, they will be injured as well.

The above strategies are for slower-moving and human opponents in open areas. Faster moving opponents and tight passages don't really allow these strategies. A single volley may be all that can be fired before engaging the enemy. The only advice is try to gang up on enemies when possible.

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Alchemy

First of all: Get your Alchemist the best training he or she can get. Training is provided by alchemists in town and at universities. Next thing: get formulas and ingredients. Alchemists in town will trade and sometimes sell formulas. Getting ingredients can be a pain, some stuff is rather rare. Be sure to buy a lot of a rare item if you once have found it. You'll need a lot of all the kinds of bases. But Sanguine Base and sometimes Choleric Base are not available. Very important are Aqua Regia (for Thunderbolt potions) and Camomile (for Essence o'Grace), and both are darned hard to find. Below is a list of potions which are in my opinion very useful:

Essence o' Grace: A must ! Assure yourself of having about 20 potions at hand during normal travelling. For special tasks, you have to figure out the number according your characters vunerability at that special time. I took over 80 potions to the Great Monastry with me, and even ran low !

Thunderbolt: Necessary as well. Needed as a Throwing Weapon in combat, useful when cracking locks and to get "access" to a castle. All-round potion.

Transformation: Very helpful. Turns an evil altar into white marble, and can get a character out of the quicksand really quickly. Needs pure gold to be made.

Stone-Tar: Should be in the inventory of every good alchemist. Helps you getting out of a pit, slows your enemies to provide you with accurate time to deal with them.

Firewall: Of great use when dealing with dragons and evil alchemists.

Everything else is depending on one's preference. Arabian Fire and Breath Of Death might be a good choice in combat, too.

Buy ready-made potions only if you haven't got the formula of that potion. Purchased potions have a quality of 25q, while self-made have 35q-45q ! In case of Essence o' Grace, this can make a great difference in restoring strength. A nice occasion of getting new formulas is the witch in the forest. After defeating her, she offers you three formulas for her life (among other options).

NOTE (CMB): Many rare alchemical items can be obtained from pharmacists' stalls in market squares, universities, and untroubled mines. You also receive a large amount of alchemical material for defeating the knockers. Furthermore, there is a large amount of information on Alchemy in the file DARKLIST.

Money

This is obviously of great concern. It is best solved by killing enemies. Not only by a reward, but by the equipment you can gain and sell. So if you are travelling and some bandits want to provide you company, don't refuse (:-)) even if you think you don't need anymore fighting training. Otherwise, be sure to get yourself hired for jobs. You should ignore the small jobs such as retrieving documents, for they usually demand a long-distance travel and are paid lousy. Raubritters are a cool way to make money (by reward and by loot) and they enhance your local reputation by 20. On the other hand, if a "retrieving-job" or something like that is not out of way, why shouldn't you agree ?

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On to section 4: Game Considerations (Advanced Game)