[Pirengle]

Originally posted by Tyrion: I lack patience, therefore i never try different strategies when my main one (smashing!) fails...i have learned some trixs, but mos of them are described as powergaming i believe. i am also a compulsive cheater if i play when tired or grumpy and things don´t go as planned

Solution: NEVER play BG2 when feeling anything other than okay. If you're mad or angry, not only will your performance stink but you might do more harm than you realize. (For example, playing Starsiege to work off relationship tensions resulted in a busted joystick.) Load up Doom, give yourself god mode, cheat in a chainsaw, and go work off those aggressions. Better than therapy.

Originally posted by Tyrion: My problem is that bg2 is so BIG, bg1 is smaller and more comprehensible. there i can come up with my own strategies and tactics...im doing good there. but bg2 is SO much bigger, the 1000:ths of spells alone give me a headache.

Solution: Play a melee-heavy party. The only reason you need arcane (mage) magic in this game is to counter a mage's protection spells. The only reason you need divine (priest) magic is to heal characters. That's it. Play as an Inquisitor (paladin kit) or take Keldorn into your party--Inquisitors have Dispel Magic and True Sight as innate abilities, both of which can remove mage protection spells. A thief class with a high enough Detect Illusions percentage can also shave off protection spells. Just dump enough points into it (about 100% for SoA), press the "find traps" button around enemy mages, and voila. As for priest healing, there are potions for that, right? (Or you can romance someone. Did you know that all four Bioware-created romanceable NPCs are healers? )

Originally posted by Tyrion: i end up just going around with my tanks (often shadowkeeperd) and smashing things and have my mage stand behind and doing the ususal damage-spells. i never use any breaching spells, i use ctrl-t and the spellprotections go away... the spells are my main problem i think...but the cheating has to stop!

Solution: Stop using the CLUA console--delete the "debug mode=1 line from the baldur.ini file. Uninstall Shadowkeeper. Uninstall your mods, including Tactics. Maybe leave in some of the harmless ones, like the NPC flirt packs. But Improved Items, Tactics, Ease-of-Use, all that, chuck 'em. Reinstall the game if you think it's necessary.

Originally posted by Tyrion: so i started a new bg1 game...only cheat to make things go faster...but i worry about bg2...i plan to have the tactics mod on but cant figure out how the darn i will beat the improved encounters if i cant beat the regular ones...im simply to lazy to plan ahead, and it ruins a bit of the gaming experience, IMO.

If you can't figure out how to take on Tactics without cheating--especially if you can't beat the original battles without cheating--UNINSTALL TACTICS. NOW. It's not helping.

As for not planning ahead, that might be why you cheat so much. A few boneheaded decisions, like forgetting to purchase more potions or restock your crossbow bolt supply or forgetting to rest to rememorize spells, and your party gets so close to death, and you don't want anybody to die, so you crack open the CLUA console and cheat in some "assistance."

It's okay to die in this game. Once you've mastered that concept, grasshopper, the rest will be easy. [img]smile.gif[/img] Six, Dundee, Alson, Jim, Xen, Link, etc., they didn't become the Grand Champions of the Universe overnight. They became the Grand Champions of the Universe by getting their butt handed to them many, many, MANY times. But each time, they figured out what they did wrong, and tried something different. If your characters are close to death because of a mistake, just let them die, reload your save, and try again.

Save your game...A LOT. And never re-write a save. I always make a "core save" when I enter an area, meaning I select "options" and create a new save file. Once in that area, I press the quicksave key ("Q") after major battles and whenever something's been written into the journal. ("Hmm. 'My journal has been updated.'" *presses Q*) Experience has taught me this. It wasn't an easy habit to make, but now that I've been doing it for several Black Isle games, it's a hard habit to break. Get into this habit. It'll be harder to cheat if you realize you have a recent save game to reload.

Some people recommend that you keep a different BG2 game as a "cheat game" in which you can cheat to your heart's content. I don't recommend this, as it's easy to pollute your clean saves and even your clean game with your cheated game. Instead, if you get frustrated, save and exit, and ask us for help. After all, that's what we're here for. [img]smile.gif[/img]