cbecker78

Bug at low resolution: Can't click on the upgrade button to train Alcander because it is off screen. Workaround: Take him on a mission to train him. I guess that sounds pretty obvious. But I was avoiding his mission because I coudn't train him. It didn't occur to me that I could access his icon in full if I left Avadon with him.

Ok, that is odd. There is only one icon on the top bar and it is on the left. but you encouraged me to keep poking at it, and I found that if I click just right in the center of it, it turns red and minimizes. I don't know why it is so fiddly on my PC - maybe because the pointer is so big... In any case, THANK YOU! you just made Avadon 2 much more enjoyable for me.

I am playing on a netbook at 1224x600... This has not been too bad in general, but the automap is constantly in the way of seeing things and clicking on things. It takes up close to 2/3 of the screen vertical screen. Is there any way to make that smaller or temporarily minimize it (like it does when you click on it to move it?)? Thanks for any suggestions.

There is "Call of the Cthulhu: Wasted Land". It's a tactical computer RPG. Turn-based combat is great. The down-side compared to spiderweb style is no open world and/or friendly-zone exploration. Just scene/combat/dialogue/scene/combat/dialogue.

"Avalon" was also the name of the island King Aurthur retiered too IIRC. There we have a charasmatic King uniting several peoples with distinc cultures under one rule, and fighting off the evil... uh... was it the Saxxons?

Hmmm... I think I started playing Exile sometime in the late 90's. Considering I still haven't finished that game... I'll go with that.

If you purchased the program from one of the few humble bundle sales it was in, you get the apk to install without going through google play. That is probably how those others installed it. I have the Galaxy note 10.1, and will warn that even with the stylus, it can be challenging to interact with the UI on the 10 inch screen in some cases due to the high resolution of the screen. The galaxy note was probably never added, or added then removed from google play because gameplay is just not optimal there, even though it is possible to get the application to run.

As Randomizer Mentioned, West to the Great Cave in EftP can be a good place to gain a level or two if you tread carefully. Make sure you didn't forget to turn in any quests, and have cleared all you can in central and northern Avernum. While playing, I found a level or two often would be the difference whether a fight was tedious or challenging. There is a brief period (about where you are now) that it becomes very hard for a while to find good level-appropriate battles. But then afterwards it picks back up. And hopefully you didn't do like I did first playthrough and miss all of the Job boards untill halfway through the game! Leveling in the second trilogy is different. I'll give details for A5 as it is what I am currently on. You start with a lot of skill points and get to apply them however you want. No skill trees (but some skills are hidden and only unlocked after adding points elsewhere - like a surprise bonus). I think you start with around 60 skill points or so, but different skills have different costs. Adding a point in strength/intellegence maybe costs 6 skill points, whereas adding a point to blademaster or mage skill may only cost 2 or 3 at first. Every level you get 5 skill points to distribute or save as you like. You get to take only two traits at the begining of the game, but those two are pretty powerful and scale up during leveling. You can play also as Nephil or Slitzeraki... however you spell that. Combat is also a little different. You can shoot an arrow next to someone, but you don't get the little grids. You get used to it quick though.

Not to mention that any "buffs" applied through a mage/priest spell or as a battle discipline will also end your turn in the same way as attacking (i.e., consuming 9 AP). The one exception here is adreneline rush. While you can attack three times after activating that, it does stop you from moving further once it was used. There are many times playing this game that I have really wished the moving action was decoupled from attacking/casting. There is nothing more infuriating than activating adreniline rush as a swordsman, only to find out you were actually still one square away from that dangerous dude standing on an incline. At least once my poor fighter just threw all of his mushroom meal onto the ground and pouted.

This cooperativity is the main reason the Ultima series stands out for me still as the most enjoyable computer rpgs I have played. By the time I got to Ultima VI and VII, meeting up with Shamino, Iolo, Dupre, Janna, etc., almost felt like meeting up with old friends for an adventure. The ability to talk with them when you wanted during the game and the extra comments interjected in conversations (e.g., "How darest you! Don't you know you speak to the Avatar?") went a long way towards helping me forget I was sitting alone in the dark at 2:30 in the morning trying to figure what to do next. Playing the Ultima series as "yourself" after traveling trough a mysterious portal also helped me feel more personally engaged, somewhat compensating for the lack of sitting around a table of friends. The lack of those aspects in Ultima VIII is why I never considered buying that game. Spiderweb games come closer to recreating the above for me than anything else does, I think. However, I find it is easier in the Avernum series to feel detached from your other player characters when you need to maintain both your personalities and theirs. There is also loss of continuity where it is clear you are never the same person in a sequel as you were in the last game, even if you make the same characters in terms of stats and names. "Avadon" goes a long way towards a more enjoyable PC interaction with companions, though it is not difficult to find most of them somewhat irrational and annoying by endgame. It is funny though, even the action of having a dog along as in the Bard's Tale IV, and occasionally having the bard exclaim "Why didn't I get a dawg sooner!" or similar made a big difference in the feeling of companionship during gameplay. Little hovertexts or random comments from party members such as "I'm hungry" or "yeah let's go get em!" etc. also help substantially to remind us we are having an adventure with others rather than just moving game pieces around a virtual board to "win". --- MMORPGs though? My only experience there was watching 50 or so sprites at a time all clustered around the same NPC giving out quests, and then running around watching people stand around changing race and gender, droping like flies in battle, and popping in and out of the "world". Far too hectic for the simple adventurer that I am. Playing Halo in arena mode with a group of friends via XBox live was fun though. I think it all boils down to whether I am playing with a group of people I am thrilled to hang out with, or whether I am alone running with a bunch of strangers. I don't think care if the strangers are controlled by real people or Game-engine AI; and to some extent I also don't care whether those I am thrilled to hang out with are also sprites controlled by real people or just very familiar contsructs of my imagination and/or the imagination of the author/developer. That's just me though... Edited b/c I can't count in roman numerals, apparently.

My version has casual, normal, hard, and torment. What is this Adranos? Do you mean the MMORPG? Anyway, I think Dexterity will still be useful in Avadon2, just not quite as useful. In the most recent Avernum (escape from the pit), you could lead with a priest and give about equal points to dexterity and intellegence and evade ~70% of what MOBs throw at you on casual or normal difficulties.

What difficulty level are you playing on?

For outside encounters, a few points in quick action and/or dexterity make all of the difference for me. It generally goes like this: A) If they go first, my party leader gets swarmed and killed. The rest of the group is now too close to the enemy to effectively spread out, and it is a downhill battle (typically less than a few turns) from there. If I go first, I sent the "tuffest" character off to one side, then have them buff the party with sheild chant. Then I send the next best one (or whomever has high dexterity) off to the other side and cast a buff or summon. The two remaining are always casters. They cast summons and wait. Now when the enemy goes, they split up in two or three directions, and usually don't do enough damage to one-turn kill me. Even better if an enemy focuses on a summon for a turn or two. Now I can keep the front runners focused on one enemy at a time, and have the spell casters in the back healing and attacking as appropriate.*** C) If only my archer is going to go first (then the enemy attackts before the rest of my party gets a turn) I'll usually have him run out in the middle of the crowd and hope he can duck and dodge enough to survive through the first turn till we get buffed and can divide the attention of the enemy as described above. The worst thing I was ever doing is I would just stand there in a line and shoot off missle attacks. Getting a chance to buff and spread out (preferably behind a summon to at least take one turn away from the enemy) is the only way I've found to live through most of the tough encounters. What I still hate is the terrain. If an enemy gets on a slope, it is all but impossible to target them. You think you've got it, then BOOM: Rather than fling a firebolt, you run up to them and throw yourself at their feet screaming, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING BUT I MUST WANT TO DIE!" ***Edit: that smiley face is supposed to be a capital 'b' with a closing parenthesis. But since it is the coollest option on the list, I'ma just let it stay there.

The Samsung Galaxy note 10.1 also works really well with the included stylus. And as a bonus you don't tweak your finger to death poking at the screen. It is actually the perfect tablet for these games, with the exception that you can only buy AEftP and Avadon. The problem with newer tablets that are android is the screen resolution. It is so high the the clickable areas are smaller. There used to be some "screen density hacks" for rooted devices, and that would probably make the game more playable on HR tablets.

The UI is still very difficult for touch-interaction on High-Res Tablets. It is a breeze though using the stylus that comes with the Galaxy Note Tablets for the 10.1 and 8.0. This is a pointed, pen-like inductive stylus. One of the rounded capacitive stylus types that you can get at Best Buy or similar would probably improve usibility significantly and will work with your nexus (if you don't mind the 10-20 US dollars you would have to spend on it). Very useful with a tablet though, imo. Don't even bother with the cheapo spongy styluses. (And just in case you didn't know, the Galaxy note styluses only work with Note devices or other screens that respont to that type of stylus).