Much like returning to some books and films time and time again, I feel occasionally compelled to complete Ultima IV. This is not as time-consuming as it sounds, as DOSBox makes the game very fast. I also use any help available on-line, such as the dungeon maps. The last few times I've played the 256-color modded game, but now I chose the more vanilla version. I know there's the luscious Commodore 64 update, but I can't bring myself to play a slow version any more.
It's always wise to keep the party small in the beginning, but this time I tested a theory that I would be better off without recruiting anyone until absolutely necessary (i.e. the very end). This makes the solution even faster, as the combat sequences and dungeon rooms are more simple to navigate with just the one guy. The battles are generally so easy in this game a fully maxed party is not really needed even in the final Abyss dungeon.
I picked a class that can use magic and can wield the magic wands (Mage, Druid, Bard). This time I chose a Druid, although I usually go with a Mage. I upped the character XP and gold by repeatedly exploiting dungeon rooms with a good monster/treasure ratio. The first room in Dungeon Despise is a pretty good starting point for this, it's near the British Castle and you don't need to waste torches to find the room.
When I had the ship and enough gold I went to Buccaneer's Den and bought that Magic Wand plus some of those oh-so-necessary lock picks.
After I had the 8th level character with 800 HP, I simply collected all the runes, all the stones, all keys, all special items (book, bell, candle), all "bonus" items (horn, wheel, skull) and gained Avatarhood in all virtues.
Rune locations I could still remember, but I had forgotten some of the mantras, this wasn't the case last time...
For the end, the party has to have eight characters, and levelling them up is a very tedious business. The game doesn't care if the characters are dead, though. So maybe having three persons with good-ish stats would be enough for the Abyss?
When my party had two members, I tried to educate Iolo by having my main player killed, so as to have an one-member party again. However with my (dead) character at 8th level I could easily encounter Balrons and stuff so it was a bit dangerous. I was happy with Iolo at 6th level and Mariah at 5th level. Then I recruited everyone else, mixed a huge amount of useful spells and headed to the Abyss.
When approaching the Abyss Isle pirate hideout, I came across a bug, shown above. I'm not sure if it is in the original code or a DOSBox (speed) artefact, but amidst proper ship-to-ship buccaneer battles I had to fight a bunch of miniature ships! The game resolved them as "phantoms", which is OK, but they could not move in the water. This means the south-easternmost ship could not be killed as it is out of reach for the players. However, I was lucky to have a couple of Tremor spells which destroyed the phantom shiplet.
And yes, the party was good enough to get through the eight levels of the Stygian Abyss, with on-line help to guide me of course. A couple of dudes died, but this only served to make the combat a bit more bearable. My party began starving inside the dungeon, but that's not a big deal as it's mostly combat rooms anyway.
Then I thought, perhaps the Abyss could be beat with just one character. I reloaded the game, killed off the party except my main character and entered the volcano of Abyss again. I kept my guy in good health and M.P, and also poisoned to avoid the enemy sleep spells. Quickness spells come in handy in certain situations, as having a bunch of Daemons around you can still be dangerous. But yes, it's silly how much easier and faster it is with just one character!
The Poison status preventing Sleep status can be considered a bit of a bug, but it's also a clever counter-move in an otherwise simplistic game engine. Why would there be the poison fountains in the Abyss, if not to offer a chance to gain immunity to the Sleep spells? There are versions that "fix" this feature, and I can understand the Abyss becomes reasonably difficult if this feature is removed, and the one-character approach probably would no longer work.
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