Triumph

Woah. I had no idea G4 was so complex. I had the impression is it was pretty similar to G3, except with the option to sabotage the Unbound and go Trakovite. It looks like most of the ending-affecting factors occur in (or can be left until) the end of the game (i.e. they deal with the endgame sequence or with stuff you can go back and do easily, like use canisters or kill Litalia). "Reputation," whatever that means (is there any way to narrow down for sure what that is?) presumably depends on earlier activities, and stealing the Unbound Specs is a one-time opportunity. The rest of it, though, it looks like you could get all the way to Northforge Citadel while keeping your options open, create a save, and then start experimenting. Actually, if you made the save at Quessa-Uss, at the decision point of whether to grab the Unbound Specs, you wouldn't be adding that much to your endgame drudgery, but could keep that option open too. Surely there's some way to figure out this "reputation" thing?

I remembered that G3 has an editor available, so I tried using that pump my abilities and then went and killed Rahul. Elek doesn’t acknowledge it, however, and demands I kill Khyryk. (Oddly, Khyryk also doesn’t acknowledge it, though all the friendly towns on Dhonal's Isle turn against me for it.) So, offing Rahul does not enable one to skip the step of killing Khyryk to become a rebel and go to Isle of Spears. Using this powered-up save, I still plan to experiment with a couple of the other possible routes we’ve discussed here. Also, odd thing: Elek says you can go to Khor’s Deep and get help for killing Khyryk from a fellow traitorous shaper…but when I go there, Hoge attacks me. Is that supposed to happen? Also, sad thing: apparently helping the creator results in General Greiner’s death – when you tell Rahul that you fixed the Dhonal Creator, he says he had just learned that Greiner had been killed, too. OUCH. Some of the Shapers in G3 are nasty jerks, but a fair number of them seem like decent people. It's hard to embrace the Shaper cause as a whole, but it's much harder to turn against many of the actual people you encounter on the shaper side of things. I think one of the great deficiencies of G3 is the total failure to generate sympathy for rebels. As I've said before, the first and really only place that lets you see the rebels in a sympathetic light in G3 is Icy End, and you don't get to see it that way unless you're already committed to the rebels.

Gull North Docks: You can run around dodging rogues fairly easily, but can’t clear the zone. Crumbling Lab: You explore most of the area by dodging rogues. You can lead some to Diamant and she’ll kill them for you. This zone be cleared by exploring enough of it; I think maybe the trick is to reach all the exists of the zone? Tower Gates: You can defuse the mines or sneak past the turrets to reach the exit and clear the zone. Khyryk’s Tower: friendly town. By sneaking + Mechanics, you can deactivate the pylons. You can talk the drayk into helping you fight Khyryk, and you can use mechanics to blow up the giant crystal pillar to hurt him. The Tower Path: It’s tough but possible to run like crazy through this zone from one end to the other, which clears it. Cultist Freehold: this zone seemed to be automatically cleared as soon as I entered it. Huh. It’s also possible to run / mechanic your way across the lower half of the map without engaging the horde of enemies to the north.

Assassinate Rahul before ever visiting Spears? That would be crazy sequence-breaking...but I suppose it might work. I wish G3 were more fun so I'd feel more motivated to test these. LOL. I doubt the super-lacking-combat-skills Leadership/Mechanics build I'm playing has any chance of killing off Rahul; I'm pretty sure the help Jeff put in is the imprisoned drakon in the Inner Keep, and he won't work with you until you're already a confirmed rebel. I might be able to test the visit-Spears-as-a-Shaper-then-go-back-and-kill-Khyryk idea, though.

Hmm. Yeah, to get the Shaper-ending-yet-dead-Khyryk combination, if you went to the Isle of Spears while Khyryk yet lives, you might be able to lock yourself in as a Shaper, then go back and murder Khyryk without losing your access to the Shaper endgame. Maybe? Someone should try it. For a rebel-ending-yet-live-Khyryk combo, helping Lankan and the Creator is not enough. You still face the choice of either killing Khyryk or aiding him in order to move on from Gull. I still don't know of any path to get a rebel endgame without killing Khyryk. The rebels on Gull won't let you move on until he's dead. If he's alive when you go to Spears, you're a Shaper and there's no further chance to join the rebels. Perhaps this where confessing treason to Rahul comes in? Maybe if you did that and escaped Elek would let you go on without insisting you kill Khyryk? Seems unlikely though. Sure, the two Gull endings are in the game, but does that necessarily mean both are available to each ending? Why couldn't each side only have one Gull ending? Related to all this, I'd love it if you could confirm how one gets ending 1C. I didn't know it even existed!

There's a way to leave Khyryk alive AND become a rebel? I was pretty sure from my own experimentation that the one real decision point in the game is whether you kill Khyryk. You can play as the most fervent Shaper right up until you click the boat to go to Isle of Spears (having freed Agatha et al.), but if you then go kill Khyryk, when you go to Isle of Spears, you are a Rebel for the endgame. Likewise, you can do lots of pro-rebel stuff like help Lankan and the Dhonal Creator, but if you work with Khyryk, you'll be locked in as a Shaper in the endgame. I know neither helping Lankan nor fixing the Dhonal Creator fixes you as a rebel. I know you can tell Rahul you fixed the Dhonal Creator, or killed General Greiner; I assume those actions may also set your affiliation to rebel, but I've never managed to escape the Inner Keep and then Dhonal's Keep after so doing, so I'm not sure what effect telling Rahul those things has on the rest of the game. Is there some way to change your alignment after you get to Isle of Spears?

Seven years later, I’m going to try to finish this. Finish what? In the tutorial section of each Geneforge game (except maybe G1?), Jeff basically says if you find the enemies too difficult, there will always be an alternative to fighting so that you can reach your goal. I wanted to test that and discover just what means he put in the game to get through without fighting. What if, hypothetically, somehow I created a build that was too weak to ever win any combat, how would I get through the game? I am relying stealth, mechanics, leadership, allied NPCs, and any other environmental features all the way, never taking direct action against an enemy. To my surprise, I found my saved game was farther along than I remembered. I knew I got through Harmony Isle (as the notes farther up in this thread reported, but I apparently cleared a bunch of Dhonal’s Isle, too. I don’t recall how I got through the bulk of Dhonal’s Isle seven years ago, but I’ll pick up where the saved game is and try to recount how I ninja my way through the rest of G3. On Dhonal’s Isle, I have cleared (turned green) every zone except Darkstone Core and Spharon’s Lands, plus the cluster of zones at the very western end of the island. Overgrown Road: sent the shaper army NPCs to attack, followed along using some healing and curing spores to give a little support (which in the end I don’t think they really even needed), but the NPCs did all the fighting. Searing Chambers: Just a matter of sneaking carefully and using mechanics. It’s a little tricky figuring out what path to follow through all the hazards, but very feasible. Creator’s Hall: You can complete this by either fixing or killing the Creator monster. If you side with the creator and repair it, it easily trounces Shaper Erika. If you side with Erika against it, things are more dicey, but she will kill it. I had to heal her and her creations multiple times, and heal myself repeatedly as well; had I not done so, the Creator would have won the day. Onward to the next island! Gull South Dock: just walk through and it’s clear. Cultists’ Woods: The first time you pass through, you can talk the guards on the road out of attacking you. However, that doesn’t clear the zone, and the next you come through, they will attack. Annoying, but oh well. I wonder if this is a bug? Beastkeeper Woods: can’t clear it, but can sneak through relatively easily. It’s annoying that you can’t clear either of the zones leading to the docks, though. Stonespire: a friendly town. Display Warren: This is a mech / lead / stealth zone, easily passable. Clawbug Infestation: it is possible to run through this underground zone (getting whacked quite a bit along the way), but it's rather difficult and isn’t really worth the effort. Breeding Caverns: start off with an application of Leadership and then focus on sneaking and you’ll clear the zone.

My guess would be that the names of towns just got changed, such that at one point Rising was the name of a Taker town but then got changed used as the name of the Barzite base, but the reference in Beka's dialogue got overlooked. Or maybe Jeff just forgot which town belonged to which faction when writing her dialogue.

Right. You should be able to go non-aligned and skip Zakary (but you'll have to take out Barzahl), or go Loyalist and skip Barzahl (but you'll have to talk to Zakary to join). Fascinatingly, the Barzite ending is the only route through the game that actually requires you to personally encounter both Zakary and Barzahl (the latter to join his group and the former to kill him).

Does anyone else know how to make sense of the servile you meet who calls herself Beka of Rising? She talks as if she's as Taker, in terms of rebelling against Shapers, yet Rising is the Barzite base. This happened in the zone before Secret Tunnel. I started a new G2 game to take Slarty's No-Zak Challenge and see if I could skip meeting Zakary. Turns out, you CAN avoid meeting him. When I got to Drypeak, I skipped following Shanti to Drypeak Warrens and instead I went all the way to the door in Secret Tunnel, where I got message telling me I couldn't get through and I'd have to talk to Shanti about it. She hadn't appeared in the house in Drypeak, which meant I couldn't tell her about the door. I entered Drypeak Warrens zone, then left without talking to anyone. I checked the house in Drypeak and BOOM, there's Shanti. I told her about the tunnel and then went back to it. The door was locked but passable after I raised Mech and found enough living tools. And thus I passed through to Freegate without ever completing the Locate Zakary quest in my log. I tried to end the game by returning to the Entry Valley, but get a prompt saying I haven't learned enough and can't advance to the end of the valley. Incidentally, as I walked through Entry Valley, I also met Shanti again! (The text popped up where she talks to you like at the beginning.) I'm not sure how much further one would have to play in order to be allowed to leave and trigger Major Ending 1, but I presume you could definitely complete Major Ending 4 or Major Ending 6 (i.e. joining the Awakened or the Takers) without ever completing the Locate Zakary or Locate Barzahl quests (obviously the Loyalist, non-aligned, and Barzite endings cannot be done without interacting with Z and/or B ).

If you've done the Wild Hunt sequence, just go back to the palace in the Halls of the Dead zone and talk to the boss again. However, since you talk about needing to go somewhere for a platform and a fight-or-flight activity, I think you're probably confused and haven't done the Wild Hunt yet. The platform you need to stand on is the northwest corner (i.e. the upper left part) of the Halls of the Dead zone.

Okey-day, I'm getting in the . Even though I still have no idea why Slarty is doing it again, the peer pressure is overwhelming. Every time I watch this, I laugh.

You're saying which servile faction you ally with, or whether you choose at one all, has no bearing on the ending? All three factions will always get some kind of ending, and the ending they get is not directly affected by whether you became allies with them? Very interesting. This is fantastic work, Slarty.

In each game where you meet Litalia (G3, G4, and G5), she tells you her origin story. And each time, that story is different.

Never trust a phony caco, that's what I always say. Also, I had no idea that playing the Wizard of Oz backwards would make it sound like they were speaking German.

Does this mean that you don't have to do anything at all (other than talk to Greta before you leave the Fens) to retain the option to play for the Rebels when you get to Burwood? Talking to Gen. Crowley can yield the following: Looking through the script, I don't see a comparable failure-and-rejection text from Greta. It appears that while you must prove yourself to the Shapers in either Ilya or Aziraph, your default status as a rebel will enable you to skate by, even if they do feel suspicious about you. Edit: if you don't open the Rebel path into Aziraph (by talking to the dude at the safehouse), does THAT lock you out dealing with the rebels?

The Ashen Isles are north of Burwood Province (i.e. north of the G4 map). You land around Poryphra at the end of that game.

Sadly, the single best argument for joining the rebels in G3 is Icy End...which is found on the last island after you've already been forced to choose your faction alignment.

There is no geneforge for humans in G2.

The most powerful thing to do in G3 is play a shaper with Vlish. When you get the second island, learn to shape Vlish and create a full pack of them ASAP, and the go forth and conquer. This post notes some of the reasons why Shaper is better than Agent for getting maximum value out of G3's Vlish. Basically, you want enough Intelligence to have enough essence to make 7 Vlish on Harmony Isle, and you want to raise Magic shaping as high as you can by the time you get there.

Not so much. There's a big difference between repairing damage & restoring something to its natural state, versus implementing permanent alterations. Healing craft is the former; canisters and the geneforges are the latter.

Nope, it's quite clear in G2 that the rotghroth is something new.

You do see the addition of Wingbolts, Kyshakks, and War Tralls to the creation arsenal, and I'm pretty sure it's clearly indicated that all of those were devised by the Shapers (all that done during the war as a response to the needs of the war). Also, technically, rotghroths, gazers, and drakons were NOT actually invented by underfunded, inexperienced rebels. They were also invented by a powerful, experienced, ambitious shaper named Barzahl who, judging by the state of his facilities, was actually pretty well funded (albeit funded by illicitly siphoning away resources meant for Drypeak).

Shaping skills only play a role when you make a new creature. If gear boosts shaping skill and does nothing else worthwhile, you put it on, make something, and then swap it out.

This is not entirely true. Guardians are *unquestionably* the most powerful class in G2 (the Parry mechanic when first introduced turned out to be a little over the top). Shaping is also probably the most powerful thing you can do in G5. (This is not to say any class is unplayable in any game, only that as the game mechanics shifted from game to game, certain classes or strategies would be "most powerful" for that particular game). Oh, and yes, the name is gene-forge, not jenna-forge.