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Tactics mod question


Guest Sabba

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Hi

 

I'm new to BG2 and AD&D rules in general but I don't mind a super hard challenge. I installed Tactics and was wondering if it is beatable starting fresh with a new character?

 

Whenever I read about reviews on the Tactics mod and when people talk about it, it seems everyone imports a strong character.

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Learning BG2 can be difficult enough as it is--things like which quests are too difficult for a low-level party, the mystifying array of Wizard protection spells, etc. The Tactics mod was written who thought many enemies had very poor AI (this is true), and lots of bosses needed to be made less difficult (less true).

 

On the whole, leave Tactics until you've beaten the game a couple of times. And even then, the difficulty/quality of the various components of the Tactics mod are very different: Some are great, some are pathetic, some are insanely difficult, some are so easy you won't even notice the change.

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I'm not totally new. I've played a little bit before I had to do other things. For quest, if you're to low, don't you figure that out when you get there? I don't really mind all the stuff that might be considered "tedious" for a new player. Like the load of learning a new game plus dealing with the challanges of the game at the same time.

 

I just want to know if Tactics was meant for starting out with higher lvl chars...because I don't want to waste time trying to get through the first dungeon when it's impossible when starting with a new character.

 

I've played a little bit of it. I have Improved Ilyich installed. I love the challenge so far and all the little things I tried out and tactics employed. I managed to get up to the room with the two Golems standing there. But at this point I started to have doubts on whether it was possible to get through this without higher or slightly higher lvled characters. It's not like I'm getting frustrated, at least not yet. I find the challenge very compelling because of all the little "tricks" I have to do to get pass an area, and it keeps me playing, despite having to reload a bunch of times.

 

I remember it being pretty easy the last time I played, and all I did was mindlessly click on stuff. But then again I never really got that far.

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That was what I was going to suggest: If you like Improved Illych, and don't mind the fact that he is insanely hard to beat, you probably won't mind tactics overall. Just be ready for alot of reloading unless you cheat.

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Thanks for replies.

 

Since nobody answered my question directly, I'm assuming it's yes.

 

And if you get stuck, don't forget the in-game difficulty slider

 

In the manual it says there's an experience point penalty for reducing the game to easy. What does that mean exactly? Is it okay to move it down then back up later or is the penalty permanent?

 

I'm resisting the urge to turn the slider down. I have it at core right now.

 

Any detailed advice on how to deal with the Duergars =P It seems the only way I can get pass each encounter is by luck(they don't save vs spell). I pretty much use up all my spells for each encounter. I have:

 

Wild Mage

Mincs

Jaheira

Imoen

 

The only way I've been able to survive is that I was able to rest two different times without them spawning. I'm not sure if it was designed so that you get one rest in certain spots or if it was random luck.

 

So if one gets to an area where one cannot rest, how do you deal with that seemingly deadend? Maybe I'm not using the correct strategy.

 

I've scanned the Hint files and they only seem to deal with...the Ilyich battle near the end?

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For quest, if you're to low, don't you figure that out when you get there?

Not typically, no. You find that out after you get there. You enter an area that was safe enough before (it might be the site of a fun boss battle, or it might have been an area with practically nothing in it at all), and you discover . . . something unpleasant. Like you start out with your entire party right next to a big group of Beholders, and you have no protection at all. Or the way you came in magically seals behind you, so you have no way of escaping until you've killed the bunch of bad guys who are cheated to have things like infinite spells. That sort of thing.

 

Take the number of Reloads you typically take in a given major quest, and multiply that by about five. If you're new to the game, multiply it by ten. That's all Tactics basically is, Reloading.

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That's what multiple save files are for =) I see what you mean though.

 

I uninstalled Improved Ilyich. It would have been fine to me if it weren't for the spawning Duergars right after a rest. I liked the actually battles, fun and challenging, but I just couldn't make any progress with the infinate spawning like that.

 

I went back and installed the components that had an B or higher on your review site. I left out some Bs here and there.

 

I would play unmodded but I don't believe I'll be able to play over again.

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I think the point about Tactics is that it assumes you play in a certain way: you scout lots, you put up a lot of pre-battle magic defences, you pause lots in battle and shuffle stuff into and out of your inventory, etc, etc. This is certainly my playing style; I gather from his review that SixOfSpades plays very differently.

 

If you do play my way, then I think most of Tactics isn't that bad. My wife and I played using it on our second run-through of BG2. We had a reasonably carefully chosen party but we didn't do anything ridiculous (no mage/kensai PC, that sort of thing). We skipped Improved Ilyich because it's obviously a joke, Kuroisan because it's slightly less obviously a joke, and the Always Spawn Toughest Monsters, Improved Small Teeth Pass, and Tougher Wilderness encounters because they sounded unmanageably dangerous. During play we uninstalled Lich In The Docks and Gnome Illusionist because we found them irritatingly cheesy.

 

All that said, the only fight we found crazy-hard was Improved Bodhi. We probably had to have two or three reloads for a couple of the other improved battles (notably Improved Irenicus) and we probably had to reload circa 10-15 times otherwise. But it certainly wasn't dozens or hundreds of times, and (perhaps with the exceptions of Bodhi and Irenicus) we didn't have to use extensive Reload Knowledge, and we didn't have to use game-engine abuses.

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