The Gemstone of Balance and Other Stories (GGame Engine)

by Gary Arndt


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What is this?
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This document contains some hints that should help you if you are having trouble or don't want to discover various aspects of scenario 2 while playing the game (meaning, via NPC conversation, exploration, strategic trial and error, etc.).  This is in-game scenario-specific information; the subject of how to play the game is explained in the manual.

Note that this document is specifically about scenario 2, "The Gemstone of Balance"; no other scenarios are addressed here.

The information here consists of "spoilers"; this is information that you would otherwise discover while playing the game.

You may want to read this document if your reaction to the game is any of the following:

- This game looked fun at first but is too hard so I'm thinking of just giving up

- I don't have the time and/or desire to learn the game using the more difficult/lengthy methods.  I think that I'd have more fun if I could just play through it knowing what to do in advance.

- I wish there was a hint/clue book


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Some basic hints
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- Don't fight the goblins at the beginning without a plan; you start the game unarmed and inexperienced.  This game is intentionally an old-style CRPG and this is typical in those games.  See the section about this below if you want more information.

- You should definitely explore, but be careful doing so.  The game is all about exploring and you will be rewarded for doing so, but some areas will be too difficult until you become more powerful.

- If something is too difficult, come back later when you are more powerful and try it again.  Another aspect of this being an old-style CRPG is that you can go a lot of places early on but many will be too difficult until you become more powerful.  Take note of these places and come back at a later time.

- Talk to all the NPC's; much of how to play the game successfully depends heavily on this, including how to be successful in combat.  And talking to the NPC's in games like this is a lot of the fun.  You can check who you have not talked to yet with the "show object state" command (ENTER or Control-ENTER).

- Combat is tactical and must be approached strategically; don't expect to win more difficult battles just by running up to the enemy and pressing "Attack" over and over.

- If you are going through healing potions like water, you need to reconsider your combat strategy and/or whether you are trying something too difficult for your level.  When I test the first part of the game, I only have to use healing potions every once in a while.

- Another aspect of this intentionally being an old-style CRPG is that you may get killed in some cases and need to reload.  Getting killed every once in a while is not unusual or a sign that you are doing something wrong.  Save often and use the "named saves" (which can be accessed in several ways such as with the F3 key) so you can go back to different save points if you make a mistake or the random rolls happen to go badly.

- Like many old CRPG's, this game does not tell you what you need to do; you would normally discover this while playing the game.

- There are many more basic hints in the manual; search for "A few tips".


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The beginning battle
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You start the game next to a group of goblins.  If you press "Z" to view your stats, you may notice that you are level 0 and have no weapons or armor (!).  And you don't know how many goblins there are in that group.  On the other hand, there is that treasure chest sitting there just waiting for you ...

First of all, before you do anything else, save the game using F3 so you can restart if things don't go well.  Enter any name you want, maybe something like "start" or "1" or some such.

You have several different options:

- Use the terrain to trick them.  This is what I do every time I test the game.  Run south along the coast until you see the hills forming a pass to your east.  Lure them towards you but don't let them get any closer than necessary.  If you move just right the goblins will get slowed down in the hills after you do and you can circle back up to the north and back around west towards the treasure chest without them chasing you.  If you run into a combat with the sea serpents along the way, just retreat from them; they can't reach you if you don't approach them within the combat scene.  Once you have lured the goblins south of you and of the mountains, they won't be able to reach you and you can get the treasure chest without them attacking.

- Fight the goblins to see how many there are and try to retreat if there are too many.  If there is only 1, you may be able to win even without any weapons or armor.  But if there are more than 1, you would be better off trying to retreat.  That said, there IS a chance you will fail to escape.  The chance that you can retreat depends on a number of factors including how close they are to you, how many there are, some stuff you won't be able to do at this point in the game (such as casting particular spells or using particular magic items), and a random chance.  If you retreat before they move, the risk of not being able to escape is fairly low since they will be far away, but there is still a danger due to the random chance.

- Move onto the treasure chest and try to retreat when they attack you.  As mentioned above, do so right away so they can't get close and reduce your chances of being able to escape.  If you are successful, you'll be standing on the treasure chest.  Press "G" to get the chest.  You'll find it contains magic items which will allow you to easily win the combat if you want.  Or you can run away and save those items for later.

- Run away and head for the nearest town (go south following the west coastline).  You'll find that inside the town you can obtain numerous benefits that will let you win that combat very easily.


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The benefits in town
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Combat is vastly easier if you prepare for it.  The following all help:

- Buy a weapon.  If you are a fighter, also buy armor and a shield once you can afford it (the later only if you aren't using a 2-handed weapon).  But don't forget to save enough money for food.

- The cleric is free, so use his services.  If you got hurt opening the treasure chest, ask him to heal you.  And be sure and ask for him to cast bless on you.

- If you don't have good morale, you won't perform well at anything including combat.  You'll need to boost your morale to be most successful.  Morale wears out quickly, but at this early stage in the game it makes a huge difference, in fact is critical.  You gain morale through several different methods that are tied to several distinct categories.  One involves a visit to the pub.  Drinks aren't very expensive so that's a good option.  The food is much more expensive than trail rations, but the price will grant significant morale points.  You should also sleep.  You can do so safely at the inn or you can camp outside by pressing Control-R to set up camp and rest, although that is much more dangerous because you could be ambushed.  But you will need the morale granted by sleeping (some minimum sleep is implied during overland travel; this is above and beyond).  And talk to the cats; since cats are awesome, you will gain morale for doing so.  Note that only a given number of morale points can be gained in each category which usually means about twice per type if you have no points left in the respective category.  You can check your current morale by using Control-Z to view the complex stats information.

- Talk to Joreth and if you ask enough questions and agree to help him, he tells you to talk to Corelith.  If you do as Joreth says and mention "Joreth" to Corelith, he will offer potions at a reasonable price.  Healing is important for everyone but you'll get a lot of healing potions as treasure so it may not actually be the most important thing to buy.  A spellcaster will benefit from mana potions.  Having a few cure potions is essential, although early on when your gold is limited you can wait to buy those as long as you have at least 1 with you.


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Combat strategy
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- Use terrain.  A lot of being successful in combat is about choosing where you fight the enemy.  Terrain all has a movement cost involved with it, although that can differ depending on what you are fighting.  Hills and forest are very slow for most creatures, although forest can be a problem because you can't well.  Bushes are fairly slow.  If you fight in the hills and wait for them to slowly come towards you, combat can become very easy.  If there are no hills nearby, try the bushes.  If there is only 1 left, you can walk around the battlefield until they try walking through terrain like bushes and then attack them while they are slowed down and they won't ever have a chance to get even one attack in on you.  Note that as mentioned earlier, this doesn't work on all creatures, particularly those that can fly.

- Don't forget about the things mentioned earlier regarding the benefits of town; you'll want to keep up the cleric blessing, your morale points, and have decent weapons and armor.  Stick close to town at first so that you can refresh your hit points, cleric blessing, and morale points.

- If you are a wizard, go get the Pacifism and Mass Pacifism spells as soon as you are able to get to Seaport (this is part of an early quest given in Friel so you'll eventually end up there).  A wizard won't do well early on in the game without spells like Stun and Pacifism.  Note that Pacifism is particular useful on archers.

- Use the "look" command (Control-L) and the "show object state" command during combat.  If they are delayed, you can attack them without them attacking you back.  Delays happen for a variety of reasons, some of which include moving through slow terrain, spells like Pacifism, and archer delay.  The look command will also tell you if they are retreating so you can focus your efforts on more dangerous enemies.

- Count how many spaces away archers can attack and don't let them get close enough to do so unless they are delayed and you are not.  For example, if you can get them moving through the bushes but you are moving across open grasslands, they will only be able to attack you minimally before you can reach them.

- Don't think archers are more powerful than non-archers; most archers are delayed every time they fire so they only fire every other turn.  But don't let archers hide behind the other fighters and attack you over and over; lure out enemies and use terrain delay against them so this doesn't happen.

- If you are a spellcaster, count how long your spells like Pacifism last.  And note that how long many spells last increase as you go up in level.

- If you retreat the enemies will all be healed the next time you fight them, but any you have killed or that have completely retreated will be permanently gone.  And the enemies will start back across the battlefield.  You can use this technique to chip away at a difficult enemy group.


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Resting is important .. and NOT for healing
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Sleep in this game is not for healing; I've intentionally diverged from other old-style CRPG's on this point (along with several others).  While you will gain a small amount of HP, it is primarily for two other purposes:

- Morale: This is beneficial for every character

- Spell points: This is crucial for spellcasters

You rest using the Control-R option


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Healing
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You can heal using the following methods:

- Visit a town with a cleric (or any other NPC who can heal)

- If you are a cleric, you can heal yourself

- Healing potions, which, as mentioned above, you can buy most cheaply from Corelith.  (Again, if you are going through these like water you may want to rethink your strategy.)

- If you are desperate, resting will give you a very small amount of HP


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Where are things?
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- Corelith sends you to Seaport to find a merchant named Ightys.  Seaport is very large and it may be difficult to find him.  The idea of this low-level quest is to get you to explore the town since everything is very useful, but if you want to find him more quickly he is in a large manor house in the main part of town to the south.  When you enter town (by foot), go to the fountain, turn south, go across the bridges, and then onto the small path leading east.  Follow this path towards the house.  You'd normally have to figure out what to tell him, but words like "goods" or "Corelith" are some of the options.

- If you are a wizard, you'll be looking for the spell merchant.  He is in the main part of Seaport in the big building in a set of shops accessed with a staircase between two pillars.  When you enter town (by foot), go east until you see the pillars with the staircase to the north of the path.  Go up the stairs, continue north down the hallway, and go up the second set of stairs.  His shop is the first one on the east at the top of the stairs.


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This game looks pretty basic ...
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Actually, it is VERY complex under the surface and there is a lot to explore and discover.  There is a huge amount of detail in this game, both in the game engine and in scenario 2.  The scenario intentionally starts off with a fairly basic approach but becomes increasingly complex as it progresses.  For example, the easier dungeon near Friel is a very old-fashioned one in that it uses only some random encounter table creatures, some secret passages, random treasure, etc. (although it does also contain some very significant specific treasure).  A later dungeon to the east uses dungeon rooms (some of which with a very complex design), special objects like fountains, traps, pits using special scenes, and many more such complex features.  Later dungeons like the arctic dungeon adds to that open sky and other special graphics, special terrain, special creatures, special encounters, more special objects such as portals and crystals, and even more of the more complex features.  There are many other continents and other main overland areas available by ship to explore, a huge number of special items to find that help to beat the final battle, etc..

While I do not have every feature of some of the older CRPG's (such as a multi-character party, although I plan to eventually add that), instead I do have an extremely large number of other special features that I included because as a fan of older CRPG games I would have liked those in the games I have played.  You will discover these as you progress in the game.  Many of these are very subtle like how a NPC will shift when you enter a map and would otherwise be standing on the same position or how combat scenes in dungeons carefully and properly represent the layout of the terrain, while others are more obvious like a very wide variety of features related to ships and boats and various aspects of the most complex dungeons and other locations.

In other words, as you progress in the game more and more interesting features and other aspects of the game will appear, but you won't see these when you first start the game.


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Is that all?
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No; this document is still under construction.  I'll try to add more in the future, but I hope this helps for the time being.
