Thoughts from a Long Time Player (Spoilers?)

[midimastah]

Hey There Spiderweb Fans,

 

I'd like to share some of my thoughts about A2:CS, hopefully for the benefit of all. As a note, I've been playing Spiderweb games since the 90s when the exile series was out. I've been totally stoked about the Avernum remakes, and am really looking forward to Avernum 3, particularly the Golem Factory, because I believe that's where I left off back in the day...

 

Overall, it was a great experience. I finished everything except killing one of the dragons. I played on Torment, 'cause I'm hardcore like that. My party consisted of all humans: a dual-melee fighter, a pole fighter/priest, a full priest, and a full mage. A lot of the first half of the game was quite difficult: the Dark Waters chapter in particlar forced me to make many difficult choices with regards to resource utilization. After I got back to Avernum, it was a bit tricky figuring out what areas were appropriate for my level, but once I figured this out the rest of the game got progressively easier. My the time my characters were level 28ish or so I could blow up pretty much anything thrown at me with a frenzy of adrenaline rushed divine retributions, fire blasts, and dual wield smackdowns. Out of all of the game-winning quests, I found the portal to be the trickiest and most satisfying due to the variety of enemies and puzzles it presented me with. Garzy was a pushover, and the ten (?) of Angierach (sp?) were total wusses due to the overwhelming might of my party at that point.

 

I saw on the forums that the min/maxers were recommending primarily magic-user parties. I tried this at first with a dual wielding tank, mage/priest, priest, and mage but soon found that I would way too often get bum rushed. I switched to the above party and found it to be a good balance overall: the two fighters really helped for survivability, and for much of the difficult early game my pole fighter actually seemed to be carrying the day. By the end, the dual-wielder and particularly the magic users were absolutely destroying enemies but the pole fighter had taken on more of a support role due to learning priest spells, which worked well.

 

I did find that the pole weapons were not nearly as good as the swords: smite, spear of the fens, etc don't create the same devastation that the flaming and freezing swords do, although the molten halberd was a good weapon for a lot of the early game. Numerically, halberds seemed to be significantly better than spears due to the cleave ability, but there weren't any that really stood out after the molten halberd.

 

Some of the repeats from Avernum 1 such as the Spiral Pit were a bit disappointing (I wanted something different...) but overall it was a great experience, in particular with tying up loose ends such as the hot springs inn.

 

I can't wait for Avernum 3: Ruined World! Thanks to Jeff for bringing these excellent games into the 21st century.

[Lilith]

I saw on the forums that the min/maxers were recommending primarily magic-user parties. I tried this at first with a dual wielding tank, mage/priest, priest, and mage but soon found that I would way too often get bum rushed. I switched to the above party and found it to be a good balance overall: the two fighters really helped for survivability, and for much of the difficult early game my pole fighter actually seemed to be carrying the day. By the end, the dual-wielder and particularly the magic users were absolutely destroying enemies but the pole fighter had taken on more of a support role due to learning priest spells, which worked well.

 

The trick to making spellcaster-heavy parties work is to invest in weapon skills and hardiness on your spellcasters as well: they won't actually be using the weapons to attack anything, but the defensive boost and battle discipline access are worth the investment, and holding off on spellcraft for a few levels isn't too bad. It's true that physical fighters are helpful in the early game (chapters 1-3, more or less) before you have access to a wide range of good spells, though.

 

I did find that the pole weapons were not nearly as good as the swords: smite, spear of the fens, etc don't create the same devastation that the flaming and freezing swords do, although the molten halberd was a good weapon for a lot of the early game. Numerically, halberds seemed to be significantly better than spears due to the cleave ability, but there weren't any that really stood out after the molten halberd.

 

The Jade Halberd is pretty nice, especially in terms of defensive bonuses, but it's dropped by an enemy you can only fight while you're in the process of completing the Portal Fortress quest so it's definitely a late-game weapon.

[Hume]

Indeed. Spellcasters are actually better at survivability because their cheap access to skill Resistance. Your front spellcaster take all the defensive skills in the game - hardiness, resistance, parry and luck. Those in the rear usually don't take parry, at least not heavily.

[midimastah]

Good points, Lilith and Hume! I guess I could have built up my initial party differently and really pumped the defensive skills. I guess the different strategies are nonetheless testimony to the fact that one can employ a variety of tactics and still enjoy the game, even on torment level.

 

I'd be curious to know how anybody found the end game quests to be difficulty-wise compared to A:EFTP. I thought that those were a lot more difficult, particularly the fight against Grah-Hoth (I remember having to use invulnerability positions and barely squeaked by), the guardians of the exit (the thing that put death curses on you in particular), and the fight to get to Hawthorne (Hawthorne himself wasn't too bad). As I mentioned in my post, only the Portal fight gave me some difficulty due to the extra toughness of the portal defenders, the large number of magic using enemies, and the number of steps it took to complete the mission.

[Lilith]

Yeah, I found the Hawthorne and Grah-Hoth fights to both be more difficult than anything in A2:CS with the possible exception of Sulfras.

[Alberich]

I didn't think Grah-Hoth was that bad....after I noticed the switch on the wall that let me exploit the geography. (When we all stayed in his main parlor, that was a different matter.) The "Empire Portal" end quest was harder for me, even though I did find many exploits to avoid the worst of the fighting. Hawthorne by contrast was a sonofagun. I haven't yet done the other two CS victory quests so I don't know how they'll compare.

[Randomizer]

The final quests in A:EftP were much harder than for A:CS. Mostly it was the waves of summons that wear down your party when you could only rest up in the Escape the Underworld but not the others. Garzhad is the closest to endless waves and that is only if you take too long in attacking him and don't keep concentrating on him.