Randomizer

I forgot to mention that if you haven't built up combat skills, you really need to. Jeff made northern Illya a bit easier than in the early betas, but by this point you really need to have more than the initial fighting skills.

You may have to do the waiting several times because if you are too close then these people will leave. You only need leadership of 5.

You actually need to balance melee and missle since some creations (drayk, kyshakk, and wingbolt) do significant less damage if you can back them into a corner so they have to use a melee attack. There are some encounters where melee attacks mean that they will get to slow, curse, or weaken you each time either you or they hit. Monarch in Chapter 3 is a slow when he does melee attacks. Slarty - since you seem not to have played much. Be sure to kill enough patrol roamers in Chapter 2 the Secured Crossroads to get the nimble sandals (dexterity +2) and Chapter 4 Fort Raevinn the stability boots (dexterity +2) dropped if you help the Rebels.

I had luck of 2 (one from skill points and one from lucky charm). The thahdskin tunic I got twice the first few times and then never saw again until the Illya West Road where the patrol thahds dropped them. The fyoraskin cloak is the same way and I got them in Shardfied, Spireford, and Dillame Fields from fyoras. Both items are nice if you can get them before better items come along. I used the minimum luck of 3 with the Mayor in Dillame. I found that having more luck wasn't worth it.

There are two approaches through the Purity Workshop B. The combat approach is along the east part and you have to fight off vlish, roamers, and clawbugs in the largest room and then hellhounds in the next room on your way to the kiln and its ruby. You need to be buffed and hasted before they see you. The best bet is to jump into the middle and try to daze as many as you can. Jeff thinks you can pick them off on the edge, but that's never worked for me. The mechanic approach is along the south wall and requires about a dozen living tools to do all of it. There is a closed door on the south wall that opens to a spore box control. The first control panel only has two controls that can be changed and doesn't waste any tools for the ones that are stuck. This will allow you to safely pass over the heat panels to going north to the first door that opens when you get next to it. Save the game often so you don't have to do too much if you go the wrong way. Pass through the door into a corridor and go north past the now deactivated electrified field. The first room on the west side has Tinker's gloves. The path north goes to a library and eventually to the second control panel and healing and essence pools. The controls that you need are I think the first section A and vat controls for quadrant 4 need to be turned off. The other controls will let you loot the southwest corner and a few other areas. Make sure you are fully healed and recharged before going back south past the library and take the first door on the west side, You then follow the heat pads north until you see the pools of poison gas. Turning the vat controls off will reduce the poison/acid damage. Go into fight mode and haste yourself, There are some nice items in the far northwest corner. The door to the kiln is in the northeast part of the room and takes several rounds to open. Pay attention to heal and haste yourself. Continuing out the door on the other side leads to the Warded Sea Caves. If you want to fight the rogue creations I recommend using a living tool to unlock the door on the east wall near the library since it puts you in the middle of them an gives you a better position to daze the most creations. You have to do the Moseh quest for one side or the other to get into Chapter 3 and meet the trainer. If you help the Shapers enough you can get the Repair Moseh quest which gives you a Passage Bracelet that will make most of the creations in the Western Barrier Zone and Thornton not attack you.

The early Geneforge games were heavily favored towards spellcasting and missle weapons since melee weapon fighting required closing with the target and still having 5 AP (action point) left to swing. The Geneforge 4 combat system allows an attack as long as you have 1 AP left. Now a melee fighter can race across the screen to hit the monster. In hasted mode there are other advantages for the melee fighter. If you cast a spell or use a missle weapon like a baton or javelin, you are now frozen in place until the next turn (will skip the search item cheat). Melee fighters can swing at a nearby target and move to another one without penalty as long as they have 10 or more AP when the do the first attack. Now that massive damage and there are many items to boost melee damage can go to more than one target. In hasted mode if you watch the APs left you can attack/spell, use 3 AP for crystal/pod/spore/rod action, and do another attack/spell. When you have 12 or more AP (usually with bonus AP items) you can do even more between the first and last attack/spell. This means now 3 to 4 actions each round instead of what used to be less under even the Geneforge 3 system. But the new combat system makes melee fighting at least equal to a spell casting Agent type.

Never got to wipe out the 31st Regiment to find that canister. Burke in Chickweed Bridge will train you and trade with you if you have leadership 6. You can get spellcraft for about 2400 and create artila. The best is that he teaches augmentation. In the Sentinel Woods, a guardian shade will quest you to kill the other 3 shades in the crypts to the southwest that are locked. The reward is Spellcraft +1. He's in the north along a narrow path. I'm not sure if you need more than leadership 6 for Shaper Darnell to improve your spellcraft. I really need to type up my notes because I'm doing this mostly from memory. Derenton Freehold, Orios Blaze has quest to slay Imprudent Drayk with the reward Dexterity +1, You need leadership 7 or more to suceed in quest.

I did Chapter 3 as a Servile without recruiting anything but the 3 Servile Techs when I went into Northern Grosch to kill Monarch. The mines are worth almost a full level. The downside was that I got almost no experience killing the remaining creations in the Fens afterwards. I went through the Bunkers helping out the Shapers. Once you kill Moseh or any of the others the remainder turn hostile. I tried repairing Moseh as a lifecrafter, collected the reward in Rivergate Keep, and went back to kill him. I got him surrounded by his hostile summoned fyoras and roamers in hasted bless mode. Over 400 points of damage a round for about 10 rounds and he wouldn't die. I know that Eliza is harder to kill after Moseh is repaired but she and Shaftoe are killable. You get one mental health charm from Greta for killing Monarch and getting the papers. I don't like forging them because the madness gem is useful and hard to make.

It might be from the betas. The Sunstone Belt recipe was added much later in testing. I think once you make the item the info stays with it.

Keep crossing with you Synergy The Forsaken Lands Shaper Camp has a hut just past the electrified field on the north side with the spore box controls. Then there are four more huts with a few items like healing spores and other things that are of much value by the time you can get to them. Next is a minefield with a trigger that I couldn't disarm but I did survive buffed with augmentation, essence armor, steel skin, and protection. There are more troops with some agents, guardians, and shapers in a larger compound. There are 4 shaping platforms that provide an endless stream of kyshakks, war tralls, rodhizons (?), and I think it was wingbolt. There are 4 essence pods back here. You only get experience for the troops. The best thing is to buff and attack the troops as they pass the electrified field. Then run when their numbers increase. Pop out to Southforge Citadel and back to loot and fight over again. The Western Morass is a hit and run operation in Burwood. As a lifecrafter I had enough creations to kill everyone after a few trips. The west end has two shaping platforms that create vlish, but you can station creations to kill them while you explore after you kill the Shaper forces. Every time you return there will be some new guards that appear at the entrance. You need to clear it to be able to find the entrance to Matala's Workshop along the north side following a path along the northeast corner. There is the recipe for the Girdle of Succor and the blademaster charm locked away so you need to fight the Golem. Running a 35th level servile after Chapter 3 and killing Shaftoe. I went back and found that if you repair Moseh you still get the quests for Shaftoe and Eliza and the agate stone for the Eastern Rise. Then you can do the Rebel quest in Chapter 3 and still get the Shaper missions for Chapter 4. I tried to do the Soul twins by myself and kept getting slowed too much. The golem I found will key on the nearest creation so if you spine shield it with the usual buffs then keep healing with major heal and essence shackle the golem it should be doable. When I did the Breeding Pit against the Unbound I sent my highest health creation to fight it and hung back healing. Doing Jared's Wrecked Labs quest cuts his prices so I only bought the strong daze and other spells that he doesn't sell. The creations are better in the Shaper Camp for this point in the game except you can't get the barred drayk.

The second dose is in the Western Morass (chapter 4) in I think the area with the summoning platform for the vlish (south side). My notes aren't clear in what was the next building past the Agent.

I did Mystithus after the change as a Servile and I died the first time. The images scatter after the first time I did spray crystal to determine the real one. I used crystals to track down the image each round. As a lifecrafter with 4 hasted creations it wasn't too bad in the changed form. I misses it the first time through as a pure Rebel since I couldn't keep fighting the other creations after one calls for help. Did anyone else go all the way to the end of the Forsaken Lands Shaper Camp? I did after starting Chapter 5 with an army of creations. Finding out about the endless source of summoned and therefore no experience creations made me not even try to get out alive after I searched the whole area.

From a strictly experience point of view being an amoral mercenary and trying to help both sides gets you access to the most quests and item rewards. You have to be careful in order to maximize this because the cost for spell training from the Shapers depends upon your current score. Some Rebels and Shapers won't help you if your score leans too much in one direction or towards neutral. Betray the Shapers for both of the major quest in Chapters 2 and 3 and they cut you off completely. The Rebels are somewhat more desparate and will still help you to make the next area. The pure Rebel path will prevent you from getting several quests and make it almost impossible to visit some areas. You need to do some Shaper quests in Chapter 2 in order to gain the Aziraph Pass to visit Shaper Camp Gamma. Doing the main quest for the Shapers in Chapter 4 will restrict access in Chapter 5 to Khima-Uss. Update - doing too much for the Shapers can cause you not to get the Kill Infiltrators quest in Chapter 4 until you do enough for the Rebels. Thur in Chapter 2 won't join you if you have helped the Shapers too much and check out the scripts for his reactions to you helping the Shapers if he joins you first.

In Chapter 3 at Rebel Camp Aziraph there is a trainer, Captain Archibald. He trains melee weapons, missle weapons, quick action, and parry. There are some people that with enough leadership or fulfilling a quest will increase spellcraft. The Chapter 1 training in spellcraft is expensive and usually it takes until Chapter 2 before you get enough money for both points. By then I think it's too late to sell him out for the reward from General Crowley.

The walkthrough at this site will give you the information you want. You can join all the factions to milk them for their benefits by doing so one at a time.

While it's possible to get by with low mechanics, having mechanic around 10 by the middle of most games will help a lot. It reduces the number of living tools that you use and will allow you to disarm traps. Also some items will increase your mechanics and you can swap them when you just need to do locks and traps. Tinker's gloves and bauble, and infiltrator items.

It's worse in the Windows version of Exile where the diagonal keys in the numeric keypad weren't read by the program and I had to use the mouse for all diagonal movement. You wouldn't believe how far I got before I found that diagonal movement was possible.

I forgot about that one. The essence infused skin is in a chest or jar in one of the summoning platform rooms. It's hard to get to since you really need to kill everything to have time to explore.

They appear to be flavor text. I tried the different dialog options with no discernible result. They give so information about Rocky Point and some other areas, but nothing useful.

For the Windswept Farm the first time I killed all but the rotgroths in stasis. Jeff made it harder after I told him that. For a lifecrafter I just plugged the door with high health creations and spine shielded them. It was easy to fire over my wall of bodies and sometimes the Eyebeast never got to flee.

In the opening screen you see a wingbolt curled around a pillar in the upper left of center. The first time you can see one is in Chapter 2.

I tried most of the regular creations as both a fire shaping and magic shaping lifecrafter. Fyora are the cheapest and easiest to get for starting characters with the bonus that they never run out of missle attacks. Jeff improved it some, but kyshakks and wingbolts both suffer terribly when they run out of spell energy in long hasted fights. The wingbolt's melee attack with poison is better than the kyshakk or even a gazer. Vlish are just a shadow of their overpowered self and I prefer an artila with a little extra essence for strength. Glaahks are okay but they are only a stop gap. Wingbolts and gazers are still great but you have to watch their spell energy to switch over to melee. If you have helped the Shapers enough in Chapter 2 then you can gain access to Shaper Camp Gamma at the start of Chapter 3. This gives you a chance to get kyshakk and wingbolt ahead of the Rebels. By the time you could get them in Chapter 4 they already have at least 3 levels of experience. Kyshakks are just meat shields with decent attacks. Drayk, cryodrayk, and drakon are all better for attacking although the cryodrayk can run out of spell energy. War tralls are underpowered for their level. Unless you have a Shaper bias against barred creations go with a drakon or gazer. Attacking the new creations - I found that drayk does the best damage versus wingbolt for cost. Kyshakks are fairly resistant but force them into melee and they are weaker. War tralls are overgrown battle alphas and are usually destroyed in a few rounds. Drakons are the hardest to kill with the new creations so you are better off using drayks, cryodrayks, or drakons against them. Charged creations are upgraded pyroroamers. Kill them from a distance and try to get them to provide collateral damage to monsters that are around them. In the expert area a few well placed shots can kill a whole pack so they never can attack you.

There are some special monsters in Chapter 5 that are resistant to magical and the whole FEC type group, but take physical. The Maddened trall in Valeya Ruins is the best example. This is a list of all the creations, but some of the essence costs maybe off since they came from different betas and I didn't always remember to copy the saved game over to the current one to recheck, Battle creations have only a melee attack except for the war trall and its creation level 3 counter part, Creation level 3 monsters require a higher shaping level than the base creations. Creations sh lvl lvl base Int+2 missle melee Fire shaping Fyora 1 2 8 11 fire bite Roamer 2 10 28 35 acid bite Drayk 3 24 60 75 fire bite Kyshakk 3 25 125 152 lightning aura bite Drakon 3 32 183 fire bite Battle shaping Thahd 1 4 12 17 physical Clawbug 2 10 30 39 poison Battle alpha 3 20 55 68 physical Rotgroth 3 28 125 152 acid War trall 3 32 175 212 physical physical Magic shaping Artila 1 4 12 17 acid bite Vlish 2 12 32 41 acid/curse magical Glaahk 3 20 60 75 physical/stun Wingbolt 3 28 125 152 magical poison Gazer 3 32 180 219 energy magical Level 3 creations Fire shaping Cryoa 2 7 25 32 cold bite Pyroroamer 3 4 15 20 fire bite explode Cryodrayk 4 28 90 111 cold bite Burning kyshakk 5 28 160 195 lightning aura bite charged Ur-drakon 6 35 220 267 fire bite area attack Battle shaping Unstable thahd 2 12 25 37 physical charged Plate bug 3 16 50 63 poison Battle beta 4 26 80 99 physical Corrupted rotgroth 5 37 160 181 acid charged Shock trall 6 33` 230 279 physical physical charged Plated artila 2 12 40 51 acid bite Charged vlish 3 12 75 92 acid/stun physical charged Ur-glaahk 4 30 80 99 physical/stun Unstable wingbolt 5 28 140 171 magical poison charged Eyebeast 6 38 240 291 magical/stun magical

it's supposed to be a bonus versus undead, I'm guessing some increase in damage. I'm trying it out now on the road to the Forgotten Ones. Using all 4 items and it doesn't seem to be significantly better.

Since the game is still only been officially released yesterday it's a little early to start a Strategy Central similar to the one in GF3. Still the beta testers have enough experience to make a list of possible threads and start discussing what to call the different character styles. I didn't know how effective terror was until I read Delicious Vlish's description. Having been underwhelmed by the earlier game versions I just used daze and destroyed everything starting with the ones that resisted. So let's get started so we can have a central thread and several specific threads related to the five classes: warrior, servile, shock trooper, infiltrator, and lifecrafter and the different attack methods: melee, missle, spell, mental, etc.