Weimer Mod Upgrades

[Jerr Conner]

My justification would be to find more powerful items.

But I never got Yoshimo before completing level 1 of Chateau Irenicus.

[Hank Parsons]

Wow, neat. I like how Tactics caused you to use a creative, different tactic that, IMO, is different and smarter and more interesting than Hack'n'slash. I am referring to your use of Dire Charm. Good strategy.

[Leslie]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: quote: Originally posted by Leslie: Don't forget that you can pick Yoshimo before the Ilyich fight. His traps and backstab can make the difference.

I've done that before and I seriously considered it this time too. But my characters wouldn't know there was a Bounty Hunter just waiting to join them on Level 2, so I couldn't really justify going through the portal to get Yoshimo and then bring him back. [/QUOTE]Would your characters know that Dire Charm would eventually work ?

(It took several tries (probably 20+ reloads), but I finally managed to Charm Ilyich.)

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Leslie: Would your characters know that Dire Charm would eventually work ? (It took several tries (probably 20+ reloads), but I finally managed to Charm Ilyich.)

Good point. I suppose that if I had wanted to completely justify the strategy, I should have faced the group straight up first, but I had used Dire Charm on the fighter from the Duergar Duo a couple of times when they showed up right after I rested and managed to turn him back on the spellcaster, so I did know it was a possible solution.

I'm playing the Joker as someone who likes to face as little risk as possible. In the last series of reloads, I had Karamazov, Ilyich and Rasputin all 3 showing up in front of him at the same time.Ilyich is the obvious leader and looks to be the toughest. He also described how nice his weapons were when I tried to talk to him, so it just seemed natural to try to Charm him first. I was actually hoping he would be strong enough to take one of his cohorts out before he was killed. That way, I could literally have killed two birds with one stone.

The second Dire Charm was just a matter of survival. The cleric was starting to cast a spell and I saw Karamazov behind him, so I Charmed him and made him attack the cleric to disrupt the spell.

Jerr - I could actually justify going to the second level before meeting Ilyich since I found the portal before I even met the dryads and learned about Ilyich. So I could have just gone through to see where it leads and then decided to bring Yoshimo back with me after meeting him. But I wanted to see if I could handle Ilyich and his party on my own first.

One thing I will say is that my hat goes off to anybody that can solo through Tactics Mod. I'm not the best player or strategist by any means, but I couldn't even come close to getting through the easier encounters on my own, much less going up against Ilyich 20 and company. I would die quickly and often.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Getting back to the Weimer Mods themselves, I have another question. I should be getting my main PC out of the shop today (it needed an upgrade to it's harddrive among other things). I have most of my BG2 games on that PC and I have the earlier version of Tactics Mod installed.

Can I download the Upgraded Mods into that game? Will they just overwrite the files that are already there? And are the other BIG encounters (Maevar, Torgal, Firkraag, etc) buffed up and even tougher in 20 also, or is it mainly Ilyich that was made more difficult?

[LennonCook]

To get the games exactly the same, you need the same mods in the same order. There are a couple of ways you could do this - one is to simply copy your install folder over (install the game on the other computer first, though), or you should be able to use the multi install tool ( http://limbomods.hyperboards.com/ind...ed&board=multi ), and copy over the files in the folder it creates (except bgmain.exe) to your install folder on the other computer, aswell as weidu.log from your main install on the current computer - and then simply reextract your mods onto the other computer (they will already be installed). The first way is simpler, the second will have you copying over a fair bit less data.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by LennonCook: To get the games exactly the same, you need the same mods in the same order. There are a couple of ways you could do this - one is to simply copy your install folder over (install the game on the other computer first, though), or you should be able to use the multi install tool ( http://limbomods.hyperboards.com/ind...ed&board=multi ), and copy over the files in the folder it creates (except bgmain.exe) to your install folder on the other computer, aswell as weidu.log from your main install on the current computer - and then simply reextract your mods onto the other computer (they will already be installed). The first way is simpler, the second will have you copying over a fair bit less data.

Thanks for the info, LennonCook, but it looks like it will be a moot point. A call from the shop today informed me that my computer was in worse shape than I originally thought. My old drive was very close to crashing. When I bought the PC, I had a local shop install Windows XP on it and I asked them to copy the data from my old PC onto my new one. Apparantly, they installed XP as a Windows 98 Upgrade rather than an XP fresh install. When the current company tried to "ghost" the data from my old drive onto the new one, they ran into multiple problems. The final solution was to simply UN-install XP and do a Fresh Install from scratch. That means that - while I made sure they kept the Saved Games in my Black Isle folder, the game itself will have to be completely RE-installed when I finally DO get my old PC back.

That leads to another question.

I downloaded ShadowKeeper and IEEP onto this system, in an attempt to download and import items from Arundor's Abode. But every time I tried to add the TGP files to Shadowkeepers Inventory, I kept getting an error. I noticed that Arundor had a new set of instructions on his Homepage for downloading and installing files off his website, but SK and IEEP were still working fine on my old system before I took it in.

So do you have any suggestions on which files I need for adding some of those items?

[Hank Parsons]

As far as justifying Dire Charm strategy: Remember characters start BG2 at 7th-10th level already. They are not new to the idea of "Dire Charm," in fact they have probably fallen victim to Charms by enemies (presumably in BG1 or whatever life they led before Irenicus got you). This, in my opinion, sounds like a TACTIC that characters would use, not a powergame move based on special knowledge supposedly exclusive to the player and unknown to the characters themselves.

Now, about SOLOING. I agree, that sounds 'impossible'. But I have to question whether soloing in general is actually that much harder than playing with a party. On equal levels it might be harder to solo (lvl 7 solo VS. lvl 7 party), but in a short period of time you would have 5 times as much xp as a party-member would have. And you take away at least one tactic from the enemy -- charm and confusion, which normally make you attack your own party. A soloist would just be ignored, right? I've solo'd on and off, but admittedly not the entire saga.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: As far as justifying Dire Charm strategy: Remember characters start BG2 at 7th-10th level already. They are not new to the idea of "Dire Charm," in fact they have probably fallen victim to Charms by enemies (presumably in BG1 or whatever life they led before Irenicus got you). This, in my opinion, sounds like a TACTIC that characters would use, not a powergame move based on special knowledge supposedly exclusive to the player and unknown to the characters themselves. Now, about SOLOING. I agree, that sounds 'impossible'. But I have to question whether soloing in general is actually that much harder than playing with a party. On equal levels it might be harder to solo (lvl 7 solo VS. lvl 7 party), but in a short period of time you would have 5 times as much xp as a party-member would have. And you take away at least one tactic from the enemy -- charm and confusion, which normally make you attack your own party. A soloist would just be ignored, right? I've solo'd on and off, but admittedly not the entire saga.

The quick rise in levels is the main reason I'VE thought about doing a solo adventure also, but I just don't have enough strategy savvy to pull it off yet. Most members here would probably recommend a sorcerer as the best solo class, but many others recommend fighter/thief. I just hate dividing my XP between two classes - but that wouldn't be as much of a problem if I weren't "sharing experience points" with other party members. So it is worth considering.

[Xen]

Originally posted by Leslie: If anyone is interested I can also get some walkthrough for a no reloads dance with Ilyich friends. And yes, that is with version 20. But it is written for a multi mage/thief specifically designed for Ilyich and a no reloads game through SOA. (and hopefully further)

That`s on Insane, right?