Exile III - The Golems

[S M Adventurer]

Okay, in Avernum 3 I managed to end the Golem plague without any trouble at all. (Lightning Spray easily killed the first four types of Golems, and Fire spells killed the fifth kind.)

 

However, in Exile 3, the Golems consistently own me. I guess it's because of the different engines between Exile and Avernum. Avernum is much easier than Exile I noticed. The Golems are very powerful and hard to kill in the Exile 3 engine.

 

A Fire or Ice Golem's breath does upwards of 80 damage, and the Jeweled Golems are very troublesome since they have an even more powerful breath weapon, plus their acid spit. The worst are the Demon Golems, due to the fact they resist pretty much anything, cast spells, and have a lot of HP.

 

Golems of Blades are a little easier though, since they have no long range breath attack, although they do a good amount of damage in melee. However, most Golems seem to be heavily resistant to both physical and magical attacks (especially Demon Golems.)

 

I just wonder how I'm supposed to get through this quest without either dying or resort to using the character editor. (I don't want to cheat.) They are still hard even with the Make Game Easier option enabled in the Preferences menu.

 

The last time I went through the Tower of Shifting Floors really killed me, even if I did cheat. Especially considering the Golems regenerate and I often ran low on SP.

 

Anyway, enough of that ranting about them. Does anyone have any good strategies or techniques to make taking down each kind of Golem easier, and help me survive the Tower of Shifting Floors? Exile 3 that is.

[Randomizer]

It's been years since I played Exile 3, but each golem type was vulnerable to a damage type. Fire took damage from cold, Ice from fire, the Jeweled and Demon were more vulnerable to physical.

 

Mostly that tower was a pain because you need lots of energy potions and/or an alchemist with ingredients to make more potions as you go through the place. Plus if you make a mistake on the shifting floors then you have to go back around.

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

I also haven't played either E3 or A3 in years. I also noticed the comparitive easiness of A3 compared to E3. It took me about 2 months of playing to beat E3 (I could only play a few hours a day and not even everyday because of military service.) It only took a little more than 3 weeks to beat A3 (even with the above restrictions).

 

Post #480

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Arch-Mage Solberg

It took me about 2 months of playing to beat E3 (I could only play a few hours a day and not even everyday because of military service.) It only took a little more than 3 weeks to beat A3 (even with the above restrictions).

Then again, A3's plot is nearly identical to E3, so there was a lot you should've already known to do, and how to do it.

[Arch-Mage Solberg]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Originally Posted By: Arch-Mage Solberg

It took me about 2 months of playing to beat E3 (I could only play a few hours a day and not even everyday because of military service.) It only took a little more than 3 weeks to beat A3 (even with the above restrictions).

Then again, A3's plot is nearly identical to E3, so there was a lot you should've already known to do, and how to do it.

That's true, but some parts of the game went by like nothing. Especially the fighting. I played E3 after playing A3 and confirmed that many of the fight scenes are harder in E3. Sure I might have known my way around better in A3 than I did in E3, but I still think A3 is easier to beat than E3.

Post #487

[ppd]

It's been a long time for me too. I have a vague feeling that golem battles were really difficult because of the stressful feeling brought on by trying to remember about them!

 

My general strategy against most enemies is to use Slow Group, Curse All, Major Haste, and Bless Party. This makes all six party members effective fighters and you can try to knock out your enemies.

 

But the golems are tough. That's a trying part of the game.

[Ishad Nha]

Major Blessing is pretty good for combat, when you eventually get it.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

Major Blessing is pretty good for combat, when you eventually get it.

Agreed.

Instead of spending several rounds buffing your PCs, you can do it in one spell.

[Hondero]

I third Major Blessing. Buffing your fighters and having them be unstoppable seems so much more SP-efficient than direct damage spells.

 

In a long dungeon like the Tower of Shifting Floors, you might want to bring a lot of energy potions (and the Ring of Magery to regain SP if you have enough charges) so that you can keep your party healed and keep major blessing powered for when you have a decent amount of fighting.

 

Although the Tower is a pain, the many walls mean that your blessed fighters can take down the golems with your weaker spellcasters hiding around a nearby corner, away from all the missiles -- just make sure a bunch of golems doesn't appear around the corner.

[Ishad Nha]

Major Haste costs 8, the same as Major Blessing. Latter can be cast anytime, unlike the former.

Bless Party costs 6, then Envenom casts 2SP per PC. With Major Blessing you are getting 6 + (2*6) = 18 SPs of free spells.

Generally in Spiderweb games buffing the party is the way to go, in terms of conserving spell points, unless the party is high level and the monsters are low level. Troublesome monsters usually resist the party's spells well enough.

[Slawbug]

The blessing offered by Major Blessing, IIRC, is problematic, as it SETS the bless level to 8 rather than raising it by 8. Since bless is actually broken in Exile, whereas Haste is just overpowered, this is a drawback. The other bless spells just boost the bless level.

[The Mystic]

Sounds to me like instead of casting Major Blessing multiple times (I never thought to try that), it would be better to cast it once, followed by Bless Party.

[Jean-Philippe]

In the Exile games, physical attacks after hasting and blessing the whole partie is the most efficient way to fight at mid and high level. Direct dammage spells are more usefull at lower level when monsters don't have much resistance.

 

In big dungeons, you should always carrie at least a couple of energy potions in case of emergencies, like the encounter with a mug demon. It's also a good idea, to save on equipment slots, to always carrie a LOT of energy herbs and use alchemy to make weak energy potion when needed to keep your mage at least at half their max SP.

 

One problem in the golem factory (or whatever its name) is the limitations on movement, it's not always easy to reach a golem pestering you with fire/col bolts.

[Ishad Nha]

Decrypting of the save game files would enable you to see exactly what the blessing level was when you cast the spells. Enter combat, cast a spell, end combat and save.

Exile save games have a simple XOR encryption that can be removed in a hex editor. Ormus wrote a simple program too.

XOR encryption numbers are discussed here:

http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=101210#Post101210

Most of the file is not encrypted?

[Celtic Minstrel]

Pretty sure the entire file is encrypted, though I don't remember exactly. I wouldn't recommend a hex editor though; probably better to write a short program to decrypt it before opening in a hex editor. (Unless of course you have a hex editor that can do that kind of thing, which is unlikely.)

[Ishad Nha]

We only need the PC records decrypted here, the rest of the save file is not needed for this purpose.

Users of Windows have the freeware editor Hexplorer which does this quite easily, the relevant menu path is:

Edit > Operation > XOR Selection.

You can enter the XOR value as text or hex, so for the PC records part of the Exile 3 save file you can enter "k" or "6B". It only takes one second.

Mac users may have something comparable in a hex editor somewhere, I don't know.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Ah, you simply have a more feature-full hex editor than me. Fair enough.

[ppd]

You all should not be decrypting files! I'm pretty sure that is only allowed for Blades of Exile and not for any other games. You are probably breaking the terms of the licence.

[ppd]

Back on topic, I always felt that the improvement from Major Blessing was always less effective than that from Major Haste and Bless Party. That's why I suggested Major Haste and Bless Party. Although I used Major Blessing in emergencies, as it is a quick way to get everyone blessed and hasted.

[Ishad Nha]

Here we are only decrypting the save files created by the game on our own computers. Jeff has never complained about this and he reads the forums.

Decrypting the files would answer the question about the effectiveness of the various spells.

[Slawbug]

No, looking at the source code for BoE answers that question a lot better.

[Ishad Nha]

Assuming that BoE has no differences to Exile 3...

[Mestalidd]

That's true, but some parts of the game went by like nothing. Especially the fighting. I played E3 after playing A3 and confirmed that many of the fight scenes are harder in E3. Sure I might have known my way around better in A3 than I did in E3, but I still think A3 is easier to beat than E3.

 

Post #487

 

I find A3 much faster simply because I can walk into things to kill them, instead of opening combat and having a whole battle over a little mauve slime in the alien beast place. I beleive that whole function saved a good day of play time.

[Walker White]

I am a huge fan of Exile 3, and not a fan of the Avernum 3. The problem is the lack of tactical depth because of the move away from area-effect abilities (which return in the later Avernums). This design change cripples a lot of areas that were really challenging in Exile 3. The changes to the Golem area are the most notorious.

 

The thing you are missing, likely because you started with Avernum, is anti-magic cloud. This spell does not exist in the Avernum series, again because of the removal of area-effect abilities. However, it is an absolute necessity in Exile when you are up against golems or rakshasa. You need to cast the cloud right on top of yourself, protecting everyone from spell-like abilities.

 

The other trick to the golem fortress is to stay in combat mode at all times, with haste cast upon you. This allows you to navigate the conveyors with ease.

[DarkNinjaZelda]

It is rather difficult fighting them and managing to survive. But I've learned a good trick. They can fall asleep. Just keep casting sleep cloud until they do. It may take a while to do so but it is possible. If they are reluctant to fall asleep and start dealing some damage just make sure you have a strong healer at the ready to keep your party alive. Then once they're all asleep dice them up with some melee combat. Save your magic for healing and sleep cloud casting. This works on most enemies. But not all fiends can fall asleep.