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exile 1 grah-hoth speedrun route


curi

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here are my current notes for speedrunning exile 1 for the grah-hoth mission. some stuff in these notes ought to be skipped i think, though it's hard to tell b/c i'm not quite finished. i've done the earlier parts a bunch of times but haven't killed grah-hoth since years ago, will kill him today though. looking for suggestions/feedback.

 

party:

fighter who gets most of the xp

mage/fighter

priest/fighter

priest

priest

mage

 

turn sounds off and the game goes WAY faster

 

supplies, sword, bandit fort (clear, get mace, leave) + cache + bats (gauntlets+ambrosia). underground fort (silver ring prot ring bot right to sell for 750, bronze key top left). iden/sell + buy 2 lockpicks. get train+sword+fireball+food+armor. go buy a 250 armor at cotra.

 

cotra neph fort (prisoners in the middle, ruby a little left), 2 neph encounters behind main fort, rest back there, magelore fort (take boat south), draco buy steel saber + shield, another shield or helm if gold. rest at inn.

 

main neph fort (clear main floor some, go up, grab gold necklace special, do bronze key area than anastasia. then her passage down, plate armor + 3 chest on bottom level bottom left, then leave secret door top left). cotra reward, buy cotra boat and sail it to silvar. iden, sell, train.

 

then go get protection (up a little then right into building, up a little, then left and back down). stop by tower of magi to buy revive (800, buy 2 if money, can also get major haste for 500). around level 14/4/4/4/4/4

 

then rob formello (top one hurts more) + buy spells and energy potions, rob motrax (say bribe first and grab brooch to his left), draco want 3 helm 2shield 1saber. then boat to almaria, get fire resist ring (1200) and wine. then get heartfinder and buy revive all (1500).

 

then crystals: 2 islands kinda near cotra. right about dranlon up river to right. go left from dranlon under swamp then do top right slave camp, same screen. south a screen from dranlon is island fort mid river (boat top right, south a little on island for crystal; go bottom left then secret door to up right has plans + chests), and then directly left of island fort is passage to hungry drake.

 

then dispel barrier. swamp right across from dranlon. go top right area. then up/left for tome+key, and up/right then secret door south for chests [chests not worth effort?]. say "steal" to turn in tome to mage, say "plans" to mayor

 

slith castle: secret entrance bottom left, stairs up in bottom middle. floor 2: bottom middle secret passage has boat to get bow [skip?]. then you go up the left side and back around to top middle. prebuff for big fight. gila cloak through secret door on left top. to right use the bottom button only to cross bridge

 

then orb of thralni. take first waterfall, go right, then left, then down to arrive. inside, take boat to top right. orb on body outside, giants, lich and shockwave tome inside [skip?]. special on way out has beholder fight with cryos armor. buy food, train, blessed athame at tower of magi

 

go get smite. armor is in the middle, have to walk through a little explosion special then send up fighter. then go up top to find smite (a little left of center) [skip this probably?]

 

then go abyss. talk to the mayor guy "check" [not sure if i ever need to leave once i go through] before going through gate. do giants fort, giant key is middle left in basement in secret door in the bottom left of building. then take boat and grab +1 dex, bottom/right in water area [could probably just train the mage/fighter and priest/fighter to 4 dex myself and skip this]

 

then go free grah-hoth and go up to his fort and kill him and win [i just freed him and went up to bargha yesterday, still need to test the ending but i think i'm almost done and have more than enough levels.]

 

 

got 11/6/7/4/4/4 after turning in necklace

reached giants fort at 21/12/12/7/7/7

after freeing grah hoth and unnecessarily talking with erika, 25/19/19/9/9/9

 

[i think this is significantly more xp than i need, especially on the fighter/mage and fighter/priest. thinking 25 fighter and rest all 8 would be enough with enough mana potions, major blessings and protections for the end. needs testing though.]

 

the basic method early is bless/haste the fighter and have him run through a dungeon and clear it. then end combat and walk party through empty dungeon.

 

one tricky part is robbing motrax. don't cast any light spells. take his stuff. cast major blessing several times and 1 protection. save. then land on short next to him. he attacks but probably no one dies. go combat mode. your entire party is now on the same square next to motrax. moving can get people killed. use WAIT a ton to do the following steps in order:

 

1) cast protection on fighter

2) move fighter 1 step away, motrax can't hurt him due to invulnerability

3) move a character onto the fighter. swapping places means motrax doesn't get an attack on you. then run him away.

4) move fighter 1 square away again

5) move another character onto fighter

6) after you run away 5 characters for 2 turns of movement, and invulnerable fighter stands by motrax, end combat and flee.

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just did my first timed run. got 2:14:27 from "create party" button to victory at micah. here are my notes on route/party from before i started this run and then some more notes after. (main thing i changed is i found out grah-hoth isn't that hard so i tried to cut out a lot of optional stuff like crystals, the fort that gives magelore, bat cave, and cotra prisoners).

 

new shorter route:

 

start timer when clicking "Make New Party" button

 

silvar get sword, scroll, food and buy fighter armor. clear bandit fort (don't walk in), neph fort #1 (silver ring prot ring bot right worth 750, bronze key top left). 2 neph encounters, rest behind fort.

 

main neph fort. clear main floor some, go up, grab gold necklace special, do bronze key area than anastasia. then her passage down, plate armor + 3 chest on bottom level bottom left, then leave secret door top left.

 

go iden/sell duvno. formello train, mayor reward. buy slow group (250), cure all poison (150), MANA POTS (80*7). go draco buy steel saber (1000), steel helm (400).

 

buy boat in cotra (250), go get dispel barrier. swamp right across from dranlon. go top right area. then up/left for tome and slith castle key

 

orb of thralni. take first waterfall, go right, then left, then down to arrive. inside, take boat around to right. top/right body outside door.

 

say "steal" to dranlon mage. take boat down to almaria, iden, sell, train, more MANA POTS. Heartfinder, Revive all (1500).

 

get Protection from ogres (up a little then right into building, up a little, then left and back down), buy revive (800), get blessed athame (left barrier). refresh tower junk shop to spend remaining gold?

 

slith castle: secret entrance bottom left, stairs up in bottom middle. floor 2: up the left side and back around to top middle. prebuff for big fight. gila cloak through secret door on left top. to the right, use the bottom button only to cross bridge.

 

walk down by blosk, talk to micah. iden/sell/train/MANA POTS at almaria. (buy a fire resist ring if fighter lacks resist) STOP LOOTING.

 

go fort remote. walk up to abyss then down left to skaragoth. 2 buttons, fight. free grah.

 

giants. key is middle left in basement in secret door in the bottom left of building.

 

take giant boat to grah-hoth. fly to angel left wall. enter. above east statue: 6N, 3NW, 2SW, 1W, 4N, 3NE

 

pre-buff heavily for grah fight. bless/haste/resist. run casters out of room. protection on fighter. kill grah. run back to micah

 

 

stat builds. numbers in paren are the level you get it. hp numbers are the amount of skill points to spend on that specific level.

 

 

ftr: 16str 4dex 1edged 2traps (1). 3edged (2). 6edged (3). 8edged (4). 11edged (5). 19str (7). 6dex (8). hp. [note: next time get like 7 traps]

priest: 4priest 4str 6int 11hp 17mana (1). mana/hp [cure all poison]

priest: 7priest 4str 4int 7hp (1). 2hp (2). 6int (3). 9int (4). mana/hp [revive, revive all]

mage/priest: 3mage 2priest 4str 4int 9hp 5magelore (1). 1hp 8magelore (2) 6int (3). mana/hp [note: kinda sucked, do something else next time]

mage: 7mage 4str 5hp 2int (1). 4int (2). 4hp (3). 6int (4). mana/hp

mage: 7mage 4str 5hp 2int (1). 4int (2). 9int (5). mana/hp [slow group] [note: no slow group next time]

 

 

notes after the run:

 

for sss fight was at: 18/5/5/5/5/5

entered giants at: 21/6/6/6/6/6

ending: 24/6/7/7/7/7 (2nd guy died to poison near end and i saved, oops)

 

big problems: can't disarm fire trap for heartseeker, ppl die, need protection first (or higher traps skill might work?). can't dispel barriers in tower of magi, i assume because i was level 3. can get athame with 2 piercing crystals and save/load. gold was an issue at some points. i bought like 8 mana pots in formello and then had to rest a few times and kill some wandering monsters to afford cotra boat. cut slow group and be careful. get mana pots last and make sure to save 1650 (saber + helm + boat). turn in slith tome immediately after you get it. next time i want to do slith castle right after orb of thralni so i don't have to go back there and the reward gold + selling loot will let me buy revive and revive all. when i went to almaria i had nothing to sell. in run i got piercing crystals by using save/wait at the tower of magi shop, that sucked, find out where to buy them. had around 2500 extra gold at end. grah-hoth fight takes quite a while but is very easy with all casters outside the room and fighter invulnerable, just bring plenty of mana pots. dual wield from the moment i bought a steel saber worked fine. run from hard fights. like the demons on the way to grah-hoth, protection the fighter, major blessing, run everyone out of fight. main problems with my run were trying to get heartfinder, giving up, then having to shop piercing crystals to get athame, wasted a lot of time in that area like 20min. also i got lost trying to find dharmon wasted a few minutes lol, need notes about where it is (similar height to castle, like 2 full screens left, i think).

 

didn't split very accurately but finished neph fort at 21min, got boat in cotra at 33min, slith tome and thralni done at 21min, had athame at 67min, started slith castle 79min and finished it 91min, got into skarragath at 103min, into giants at 111min, enter grah hoth forst at 122min, and won at micah at 2hrs 14min 27s.

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2nd run took 1:30:12. much smoother. finished at levels 20/6/6/6/6/6

 

can definitely get under 1:15 with better play. this game is a lot shorter than i thought!

 

main sticking points were sss-thss fight (didn't have protection yet, and didn't buy slow group. definitely buying slow group next time), fort remote fight (my casters are squishy. after a few failures i just hasted everyone and ran away. should do that from the start next time), demons on the way to grah hoth's fort (especially you have to do an encounter where you started slowed/cursed. one mage/priest died there which is fine, and it took some reloads) and the grah-hoth fight itself (took a couple early restarts that were my fault, and just generally took a very long time and i had some difficulty keeping my fighter hasted).

 

new party build. paren is level. brackets is number you see and spells above level 3. numbers are totals except hp numbers are skill points to spend.

 

 

ftr: 12str 4dex 4edged 5traps (1). 9edged 6dex 7traps (5). 11edged 19str hp

mage/priest: 1mage 3priest 4int 4magelore 25mana [13] 13hp [32]. hp

mage/priest: 1mage 3priest 4int 4magelore 25mana [13] 13hp [32]. hp

mage: 7mage 4int 9hp [24] (1). 4hp (2). 6int (3). mana [protection, major blessing]

mage: 7mage 4int 9hp [24] (1). 4hp (2). 6int (3). mana [protection, major blessing]

priest: 7priest 6int 10hp [26] (1). 5hp (2). mana [cure all poison, revive, revive all]

 

 

for the route now, i skipped the bandit fort. silver first for the sword + 30 gold on armor + 70 gold of food (enough for whole game), then just straight to the bronze key dungeon then the main neph fort. then sell/train, get a steel saber at draco and energy pots and spells at formello. then dispel barrier, orb of thralni, and straight into slith castle. then take boat left and run down through fort emerald, visit castle then sell/train at almaria and buy a big pile of mana pots. then go get protection, revive and athame. then back the other way for heartfinder, revive all and fort remote. then up to set grah free, get giants boat, then go kill grah.

 

dispel barrier is necessary to use twice in the game to get the athame, and a key for the slith castle is right next to the tome. thralni is necessary to get to grah-hoth's fort at the end. athame is necessary. the 2 neph forts at start and slith castle are necessary for royal questline. i thought giants were necessary for the boat but maybe you can just orb of thralni over the river near erika!! you're down there anyway. heartfinder saves some time fighting at skarragath and grah-hoth, could be skipped though and just buy a 2nd steel saber earlier, it doesn't take that long to get though.

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got 1:09:27 by skipping heartfinder (2 steel saber good enough) and giants (thralni over river near erika), and doing all the hard fights better (e.g. before grah i cast minor haste on the fighter, with all mages, until they ran out of spell points. pre-buffing a very large amount is better. next time i think i'll do some more honestly, cuz haste ran out before the fight ended. and for sss-thss fight i used slow group. fort remote and the big demon fight special i just ran for it without trying to fight.)

 

i did waste a few minutes in the slith castle. i ended combat with my fighter standing on a special in front of the door to the stairs up. didn't realize. tried to unlock and bash the door for several minutes. then kinda gave up, moved up, saw the special where you put in the key. oops! i also wasted a minute early by having someone die to a neph special behind the fort and i stupidly hadn't saved right before it.

 

all the time improvement this time was in the second half. i was just 80 seconds ahead leaving almaria, then gained 20 min in the ending areas with the improved strats.

 

now thinking under an hour to beat exile 1 is probably possible. i think it will be tough though. removing the 2 significant mistakes from my last game will get it to around 65 minutes. i think the last 5 minutes will have to come from lots of little optimizations.

 

one funny thing is i only had 2 PCs left at the end. a mage died on the big demon special fight when walking up to grah hoth. i can live with that, that fight can waste time, kept going. then after grah hoth i dropped both mage/priests out of my party so i'd have fewer people to run away on any more fights. then while holding down on fights while going home my other mage died. so just the fighter and priest made it to the victory lol.

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