Zeviz

I agree with everything Thuryl said. Agents are more difficult at the start, but easier near the end. Guardians are easier at the start, but very difficult later. Shapers are relatively easy throughout the game, if you rely primarily on creatures. (So intelligence skill is shaper's first priority.)

Unlike in previous games, you can use trainers even after using canisters. So you can buy 2 levels of spells even if you got these spells from canisters before. As for max level for spells and creation-making, it's limited only by the number of trainers and canisters available in the game. The max level for trainable abilities is 30, if I am not mistaken.

Troglos and Giants are at war. Giving something to one of the sides might escalate the war so much that they will lose interest in you. (Use a special item in the correct area to give it to area's inhabitants.) (*Spoiler below.*) . . . . 1. Go up the mountain until you find a Troglo Khazi, who is living alone. . 2. Talk to the Khazi and he will give you map to their main base. . 3. (Optional) Loot the base. . 4. Go to the Giants cave and Use the map there. . 5. Pass through the giants cave. . . . . (*end of Spoiler*)

No, in the previous 2 games Terror Vlish actually induced terror with every hit. I personally didn't like that, but some people preferred it, because it allowed them to deal with a few enemies at a time, while the rest were hiding in fear.

I prefer ranged attackers, but always keep a couple of mellee creatures (Alwan/Thahd Shades) around. Ranged attacks are tactically better, but sometimes you can't avoid enemy's mellee fighters from getting to you and sometimes you want a couple of your creatures close to the enemy. As for creature types, I always go for whatever available creature gives the largest bang for the essence cost. I reabsorb old creatures as soon as I can spend the same amount of essence to make something stronger.

Congratulations with mission completion. About your mage, you can try casting spells like Sanctuary or Bless on him if archers are causing him trouble. If things get too bad, just end every round by covering the mage by Sanctuary spell. I sometimes notice archers attacking the character they consider "most dangerous". So if your mage casts firestorm and your priest casts sanctuary on him, archers will be very likely to waste their shots on hidden mage.

When you are certain who stole it, you have to attack that group without provocation, making their town hostile. (*SPOILER below.*) . . . . 1. Attack the chief in Trader outpost. 2. When you have his key, go to Trader base on an island in the middle of the marsh/lake. 3. Find a secret passage to get into the back part of the base. (consider going north-west) 4. Search that area. . . . (*end of spoiler*)

If you use this bug to go up several levels, you might as well save yourself some time and use a character editor. (Or at least modify the script to give you 5000 experience each time, rather than just 100. )

I think that once items are gone, they are gone forever. Either way, I'd recommend restarting from an earlier save (and keeping several backup saves), because once your savefile is corrupted, you never know what other problems you might encounter. As for why this happened, I can only give a random guess that perhaps you were running too many programs at once and the game ran out of memory. PS If you want to report this bug to Spiderweb, e-mail them at spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com, because Jeff doesn't read these boards.

You can't drop food in Exile. That advice was given for Avernum, where food is an item you carry. I guess you could sell your food (if I remember correctly, a village somwhere buys food from you, but that might be E3), or just don't worry about it and buy more later.

Silverlocke lives in a house on a hill in the south-western Avernum (not too far from the castle). However, she will not sell to you unless your reputation is pretty high.

Here is Shrodinger's walkthrough for Sixus quest in A2: http://www.geocities.com/zeviz1/ch4.html#sixus The games are slightly different, but I think this part is mostly same. There is supposed to be some secret passage, and statues eating food happens automatically when you walk past them.

If you are using Windows, there is an even better combination: Alt+Tab (Hold down Alt key and press Tab) This switches to the last program you were using before the current one. So if your last program was whatever you were supposed to be working on, it'll look like you are hard at work. Alt+Tab is also useful when switching between game and notes/walkthroughs. (If you hit Tab several times, you'll scroll through the list of previous programs, so you can select the one you want to switch to.)

I guess it somewhat depends on your playing style. For me, Shapers are easiest. For you, Guardians might be better. However, most people consider guardian to be slightly harder in Gf3. (In Gf2, he was much easier because of super-strength parry skill.)

Thank you very much to everybody for your advice. I am thinking of making something on the scale of (and in the style of) Roots or Emulations, although it will probably be less technologically advanced. Creator, your example of Jack Sparrow is exactly the level of effectiveness I am trying to achieve. Can I e-mail you my ideas for scenario for your feedback?

Thanks for telling us. So it looks like my first answer was right after all. I remember seeing a cursed tome somewhere near the start of A2/E2.

EDIT: Looks like the faq was talking about a different tome. According to Shrodinger's faq ( http://www.geocities.com/zeviz1/ch1.html#nephil_fort ) it gives you Move Mountains spell.

Thanks for your answers. A weekend per town?! Is that over 20 hours of work? And, putting that together with your suggestion of 15-20 towns, would it mean that I'll have to spend 3-5 months to make a good scenario?

Check your stats very carefully before and after you use it. I think this might be a cursed tome that drains your experience.

I am thinking of trying to make a scenario for the peal contest and I have some questions about scenario design: 1. How long does usually take to design a town with a lot of dialogue and a few minor quests? 2. How long should a scenario be if it's important for the player to develop a connection to some characters in the story? (I want to try something stronger than just saying "you've been best friends for several months and you feel terrible about his death".) 3. When making a scenario, should I start by writing out dialogue, or by completing town design and coding? Should I work first on story or on quests? 4. Is it worthwile to make half a dozen possible endings for a very short scenario, or will it be just a waste of effort, since players are unlikely to play through more than 1 or 2 times?

Guardian is the hardest class to play. (Shaper or Agent would have much easier game.) If you have relatively high leadership, try using items to boost it to 10 and using Leadership/Mechanics routes. In some areas you can completely avoid fights even without leadership. In infiltrated shore (I think that's the one), where you are attacked by large patrols, you can make it less likely for patrols to notice you if you find and activate sporeboxes hidden in the forest. When you reach the General, you'll be able to use the help of hist troops in many areas. Another suggestion would be to decrease game difficulty.

In that case it sounds like you are doing fine without these gauntlets.

Since you've killed the rebels, you can go on to the next island. (Just tell Diwanya that you've killed rebels.) However, if you are having trouble with infested pathway at this point, you might be doing something wrong. What are your stats/creature? And what creatures are causing you trouble?

That depends entirely on what other equipment you have and how much extra effort it would take to cure that desease. If these gauntlets double the armor value of your main fighter, they are very helpful. If they are only slightly better than the alternative, dump them. Since I don't know the stats or equipment of your party, I can't be any more specific. Try fighting a few battles with the gauntlets, then reloading the game and fighting without them. And if you do decide to dump them, put them in a storage room, instead of throwing them away, so you could pick them up later if you change your mind.

If you start getting desease for no obvious reason, these gauntlets might be at fault. Carrying a bar of radioactive metal could also make your entire party sick at random times. Otherwise, check if these gauntlets have negative effect on any of your stats, or increase damage taken from some forms of attack.