Exile Escape from the pit - lost more than 300 food south of first Nephilim Fort

[Traute Springer-Yakar]

 

Went to buy abt. 350 food at Silvar, then went north to start the Neph fort. Fought a few battles on my way there, suddenly the game wouldn't let me rest as my food was at zero.  Just made it to Fort Duvno, my guys already damaged by hunger, they're only at lvl. 7/8.  Does anybody know what might have happened? 

-> felpurr42

[Randomizer]

I'm not sure what caused the food to disappear, but one thing in old games was to save memory space Jeff used small integer variables for some things. That's why there is a money cap, because if you have too much money, the value can go negative as the game interprets the amount as rolling over into the negative complement when the next bit is added to it in binary format. Usually the money value just is given as the maximum value.

 

So maybe you having so much food exceeded the maximum value at 255 and it reset to 0.

 

Welcome to Spiderweb Software. Please leave your sanity at the door. Then you won't mind these problems.

[Traute Springer-Yakar]

Thank you. Anyway, I always carry a lot of food at the start of the game when I let my guys run about looking for random battles to gain levels.   I haven't played  Exile Escape from the pit for many years so I can't be sure it hasn't happened before. I still love the game to pieces.

-> felpurr42

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello Traute Springer-Yakar,
 

I think it’s important to correct what’s been said on this thread so far.
 

While there are limits on the gold and food you can carry, the limits are so high that you’re unlikely to come across them. It’s not something you should ever really need to worry about! After all, if Exile was so poorly programmed that players stumbled onto the limits even in the early game, I imagine it would be reported widely – and there would be a lot more complaints on these forums!
 

That’s not what you’ve been experiencing.
 

Given what you’ve said about where you’ve been exploring, I think it’s far more likely that you’ve come across some gremlins.
 

This isn’t something that appears much in games written these days, but back in the days of the Exile series, gremlins were commonly represented as creatures that stole food. In the Exile series, and in many of its contemporaries, gremlins will not only attack the party and cause damage, but they will also steal the party’s food when doing so. This isn’t always made obvious, since it was in some ways a piece of pop culture. Players encountering gremlins in any game would be wary, since there would be an expectation that the characters would steal supplies, so games wouldn’t feel a need to particularly flag it up.
 

It’s possible this has happened to you, and that you happened not to notice the little prompts in the game. They’re easy to miss! It’s entirely possible to lose hundreds of items of food in a battle with gremlins if they catch you unawares, or if you’re not used to the mechanic. It always pays to be careful around gremlins, and to attack them from a distance if possible.
 

There are other explanations, but this seems the most likely to me!

[ex post slarto]

Also, I don't remember what the food cap was in Exile, but it definitely was not 255, as this screenshot from google proves:

 

[Randomizer]

I haven't played Exile in over a decade, but I do remember not buying that much food at a time. From where he said he was playing I didn't think he would run into the gremlins.

[ex post slarto]

Between Silvar and Duvno is exactly where the first Gremlin Grove in Spiderweb's history was.  And they can definitely steal your food.

 

Might be worth correcting the misinformation about game mechanics, at least.

[Ess-Eschas]

Ah, sniped by Slarty! Still, for my take on the gremlins at least, and for more information about the food caps:

 

For the sake of reference, the caps for gold and food in Exile I are both 25,000 units.
 

While it’s possible to reach the gold cap using certain styles of play, reaching the food cap is quite a bit harder. As it happens, for a little fun, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. How long would it take for the average player to buy 25,000 units of food?
 

In Exile I, most food merchants sell food in small batches of a few units each. For this example, let’s consider the merchant in Almaria, who sells food in batches of 4 units. Let’s assume that the average player can click the buy button twice a second. If the player were to start with 0 food, and did nothing but repeatedly click the buy button, it would take them over 52 minutes to buy enough food to reach the cap.
 

That takes some patience!
 

Granted, those are fairly extreme circumstances, since a player will probably already have some food, and food can be picked up from battles. But I hope it shows the point. Reaching the food cap in Exile I is hard.
 

Also, and I don’t mean to be deliberately contrary here, but there are definitely gremlins in the vicinity of Silvar – you encounter them very early on, since they’re fairly weak adversaries! After all, think of the friendly tribe of gremlins north of Fort Exile (who guard a patch of alchemical ingredients in Exile I, and send you on a quest to the giants in Exile II).
 

By the by, I noticed that this particular encounter in Exile I can rob the party of all of its food, and the game doesn't record this per se in the log. Perhaps it was that that caused your problems, Traute Springer-Yakar, and not a roving band of gremlins?

[Traute Springer-Yakar]

Ess-Eschas:

Thank you, that's exactly what happened to me!!! I had forgotten about the bottle of wine,, and I repeatedly tried to enter the gremlin's grove just to see if I could.

I've forgotten such a lot, haven't played the game in at least 15 years.