I - The Run About

Sources

The Ultima Codex and Codex of Ultima Wisdom - Fantastic fan site and adjoining wiki. Excellent source of information and especially helpful on mechanical matters.

Tolkien Gateway - Informative wiki on Tolkien and his works.

eXoDOS - A vast collection for DOS, including complimentary media (scans of feelies, guides, etc.)

Sierra Gamers - The homepage of Ken & Roberta Williams, cofounders of Sierra Online.

Data Driven Gamer - Excellent articles on the nature of the math and mechanics of games.

Game Corner Guides - A collection of guides for various rpgs, with a good collection of Ultima ones.

Pix's Origin Adventures - A fan site dedicated to note just Ultima but all of the Origin Systems games.

Personal Experience

We're getting into familiar territory for me now. I played Ultima 1-3 for the first time about a decade ago and with some minor issues (glaring at the boat) I recall having a good time of it. As covered previously, my first real exposure to the Ultima series was via the Spoony Experiment retrospective on it. Wow, looking back, its really funny to think that in the before times 20 minutes was a long time for a video. I've heard Majuular has done an excellent and thorough retrospective but I've been deliberately holding off on that until I have played the rest of the games. Yeah, I know, I've watched a series of videos on it before but I won't watch another one just yet. In my defence it's been a long time since I watched Noah's videos on Ultima and my recollection of the plot of the games I haven't played yet is minimal. I think there's a guy called Dupre? Might be a Paladin. I'd like to come at them daisy fresh.

Lead In

Akalabeth originally sold a handful of copies from a computer game store - until it landed in the hands of a California Pacific Company. They came to an arrangement with Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) and ended up selling 30,000 copies ($15k back in the day - over half a million at time of writing). With that kind of incentive he threw his next game to them and that gave us Ultima, coming out in 1981 for the Apple II.

Something I didn't cover in the Akalabeth entry was that the name comes from the fourth book of The Silmarillion, Akallabêth: The Downfall of Númenor, by JRR Tolkien and his son, Christopher Tolkien. Its almost funny to me to think of The Silmarillion as being for so long a part of the broader Legendarium of Tolkien now. It might not have the popularity of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings (or the readability of them from what I've heard - its on my to do list) but it was new and fresh at the time, having only been published in 1977, two years before before Akalabeth. It must have left a fairly strong impression on a young Lord British. The term translates to mean "she has downfallen" or "the downfallen". My initial impression of this would be that this refers to sorry state of the land we explore in that game. The realm has suffered greatly from the horrors unleashed by Mondain and is in dire need of a hero. I will accept the call to arms backed by either Bonnie Tyler or Jennifer Saunders, maybe I'll take the version from Bullet Train, that film was a lot of fun. To lend credence to this theory, the land is known by some other names in Ultima which suggests to me that it is overcoming its downfall.

As a final thing I found in reading more was that Akalabeth's original title was D&D28 as it was the 28th game he made - at no older than 19! Genuinely impressed at how solid the game is for its time with that in mind.

The Story So Far

Its been fairly simple to this point so far. We find ourselves in the land of Akalabeth following the rise in power of the terrible wizard, Mondain. His father was a great king but his brother would inherit so Mondain packed up his things, dug into the earth like a polecat and started summoning monsters. Not sure if polecats can do the last part, maybe that's weasels. Lord British, champion of the undefined White Light, came to blows with Mondain and pushed him out of the realm. This left a lot of monsters to wreak havoc on the lands still so we, a Stranger in a fairly ordinary fantasy land, take on quests to vanquish foes within deeper and deeper levels of the dungeons that Mondain left behind. This lead to me finding a secret lower level (at least by the luck of my random seed it seems) where-in I, a humble lizard-lizard-lizard-man, did battle with the Balrog and punked it out in two hits. Following this, Lord British was suitably impressed and conferred a knighthood on me. We never did square off with Mondain but that is soon to change.

The State of Akalabeth

In some estimations, Ultima I is a remake of Akalabeth. The world is definitely far larger over all and, owing to the minimalist terrain and random generation of Akalabeth, it is unlikely to directly resemble the original game. Quests also echo the "go to dungeon, kill monster" type that Akalabeth centred on but those are by no means the only quests here. The world has changed and so too has the name. It is now known as Sosaria and, as we covered in the art section, it has many named continents, if "Land of Danger and Despair" counts as a name.

I don't think it is essentially a remake, even though it can cover some similar ground. My argument is that it is an Evil Dead 2 - a superior sequel that also acts as a refresher to the original piece. I feel like whatever held true in Akalabeth still holds true here (except for the name of a couple of monsters at least).

These games, as I understand, were being made up as they went but it is fun to imagine how they can work together. As such, I will argue that Akalabeth refers to the lands in a state of downfall. As we don't start far from the Castle of Lord British, I'd say that the "Akalabeth" were the region around his castle and Sosaria is the world at large. Why do things look so different? Because the map is a more zoomed out affair. When exploring the overworld in tabletop RPGs, the scale of the map can be quite variable - local regional maps may use 5 mile tiles, some will use 50 mile tiles if they want to get across continents! Food may then be more expensive here than in Akalabeth as you need to buy more of it to cross a similar number of tiles because they represent further distance. This would break down if food was still expended in dungeons at the standard rate but it has dropped to 1 food per 10 steps.

The only thing this would leave out would be the mountains that boxed in Akalabeth's overworld. I think this can be explained away too if we don't perceive them all at mountains but as hostile or impassable terrain, after all, Lord Bordy's castle is largely surrounded by the coastline in this game. Perhaps the rest of the region were hills occupied by thieves and snakes and such that were driven off as some semblance of security came over the land again. It isn't great still (as we'll soon see) but it is a little better than it was. We also start out with a lot more than we did originally - more health, more money, choice of stats, race and more class options. We also begin this game with food so we don't instantly starve. This says we're more prepared this time around than we were last time. Our stats are, however, much lower than we ended the last game with but I think even that can be accounted for. Firstly, the stats work a bit different now as I'll get to in the section on mechanics. Secondly, the battle with the Balrogn likely taxed us more than we realised and we are still recovering. Finally, we're no longer a triple-lizard and the last of our magical amulets has lost its charge. The duration of the Lizard Man spell might have been greater than was possible to wear off in Akalabeth, but by now it well and truly has. A sad day for scalies.

The Doom That Came To Sosaria

The manual gives us a run down of the state of affairs in the lands. Sosaria is still reminiscing how it used to be rich and there was lots of food and now villages have been reduced to mounds of ash. Even if we have made something of a difference and proved ourselves in the slaying of demons, Mondain (the evil wizard who Lord British gave the heave-ho out of Akalabeth) is still at large and filling up the world with monsters. The nobility of the world of Sosaria have all retreated to their castles, though Lord British has it in mind to see peace and unity brought to Sosaria and is eager for the aid we might bring to end Mondain's Mondreign of terror.

It is interesting that though Lord British is a central character and general good guy, the manual makes it clear that the lords have all set themselves up as "self-proclaimed" kings and are being titanic assholes. They largely ignore the state of affairs, bicker amongst themselves and extort a king's ransom (well, a lord's ransom) to actually give anyone aid and succour. Nobody is really helping each other because they'd rather see the other lords fall on their ass. Oh and they've all got kidnapped princesses, yearning to breath free - including Lord British. All of them have some of the means to help deal with Mondain, but no one is willing to reach out and make it happen.

II - Eye of the Beholder

Art of Darkness

Before we crack into any of the gamier elements, I'll be soaking in the material that surrounds the game - art, story and manual. As discussed in the my Akalabeth overview, I think these are extremely important especially in older games with less graphical fidelity to express the vibes of the game. The art of the box and other material is not solely a matter of marketing - it sets the scene, it informs the tone. When you're doing battle with wireframes, your imagination is assisted by what came on the cover. Ultima went through a few name changes - first, simply, Ultima with CPC, then Ultima I - The Original with Sierra and, finally, Ultima I - The First Age of Darkness. Yeah, first. They had a lot of them - three games worth, even, as The Age of Darkness is used to refer to the original trilogy collectively.

Runed World

Going through some of the items, I noticed a lot of them had runes, similar to the map in The Hobbit. Looking it up, the games eventually come use a runic script similar to Tolkien's use of it. Apparently this becomes a significant thing in the world of 4, but in the meantime this will allow us to translate a few bits and bobs here and there.

The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom points out the lack of Q and V in Ultima 4's take and I smile in recognition. Tolkien also points this out in the Hobbit's foreword. Translation is a simple matter of swapping runes for their corresponding letters - they will spell out words that way.

Box Art

I haven't done as much research into how old games used to be sold back in the days of the Apple II so the first inkling of actual box art I could find is from the 1983 Sierra release!

A nice little enigmatic cover. There's something of the traditionally gothic about the castle and its precarious, winding path that leads to it. That the path itself emerges from the framing, gives me a feeling of something magical happening. We are being invited into another world and, though no one appears initially present, you can catch flaming torches by the gate and lights in the windows to one side. It gives me a feeling that someone is waiting there, for the viewer. You can't get by without noticing the planets swirling around the castle though, which makes me feel like this is not quite a conventional gothic scene. Something else is afoot here, be it fantasy, science fiction or perhaps both. Considering the early Ultima games I can feel pretty safe in saying that its. Admittedly I initially thought the bottom right circle was also a planet but its actually a sticker. Based on the channels cutting across it, my initial guess would be the planet behind the castle is Mars and remembering that people used to think canals had been constructed there. Following this we get the Origin Systems release.

This is a really cool look it! I adore just the heat radiates from the image. The hero is outfitted in armour that brings to mind a mix of medieval and bronze age equipment which isn't inappropriate for how eclectic the equipment in this game is. They stand alone on a precipice against a titan, a draconic form rising from a lake of what might be magma based on the skyless nature of the piece. I believe this is a Dragon Turtle based on art from Ultima Online - similar beaked head and slender horns.

They only appear in Ultima I otherwise so I think that's good odds. It gives an impression of the drastic battles yet to come and of the harsh fantasy world we'll be plunging into. I like it a lot, though admittedly I do think Akalabeth's Balrog box art gets me that little bit more pumped up for the game.

Maps

Some versions of the game have come with paper maps to get a feel for the world. Before I present them, however, each has a number of runes naming the map as well as on the key. I've decided to translate these prior to posting the full maps, so I can post each with its name.

Map Key - Sea, Grass, Forest, Mnts (Mountains), Castle, Town e (Town), Sign, Dungeon

Map 1 (Black Title) - Lands of Lord British

Map 2 (Green Title) - Lands of the Dark Unknown

Map 3 (Orange Title) - Lands of the Feudal Lords

Map 4 (Red Title) - Lands of the

So, the Lands of Lord British is up first. Could this be Akalabeth or is that name out of use now that a hero has shown up?

Lands of the Dark Unknown becomes known!

Lets not forget about the Feudal Lords!

And to follow, a little bit of Danger and Despair!

I 100% adore these maps! Simultaneously, it feels like Origin's got some money and art behind them here but there's something just so wonderfully homemade about these. I would put these on my wall. Hell, if I can get someone to cloth print these, I WILL - my office could do with some decoration. These are extremely helpful as they give a basic layout of the world - the locations of dungeons, castles and, of course, Townes. There's no indication of what the specifics are of each site, however, so I will need to get exploring if I want to know! I am in love with the "here be dragons" aspect of this map, with the scattered monsters across the world.

Feelies

Adorably the 1986 version comes a little bag of coins, thankfully preserved in part by eXoDOS and the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. Looks like we got a runic script on them as well. That said, the imagery of them is not necessarily appropriate for the time of Ultima I - the Ankh in the second image definitely is more associated with the later games from what I recall. Funnily enough, I always did wonder why my dear and beloved Exile III: Ruined World used an Ankh for priest spells - once I heard about Ultima, it made a lot of sense to me. I think its a fantastic way to have a conventional and recognisable religious symbol without relying on the Christian Cross, even if the two are similar.

I think they might actually be made of metal from how the light hits them. I'm very charmed by them and it feels like it would be nice to bounce them in my hand and let them clink together.

So, lets give translating the text a go!

Gold Coin - One Gold Crown

Silver Coin - One Silver Piece

Copper Coin - One Copper Pence

Oh. Well, that makes sense! I had to infer the Copper Pence because it was really small in the photo, but the currency names are given elsewhere so I think it stands to reason.

Manual Dexterity

There's a couple of iterations of the manual, owing to be spread across multiple releases. First up, California Pacific Company!

California Pacific Company

Cover

This one is completely wild and very fun. It has an anarchic, clipart quality that, were it any other game, I would feel it unfitting. This is Ultima however and all I can do is look at what would otherwise be conflicting imagery and go "this is actually canon". Interesting note: our intrepid hero appears to be a left handed swordsman!

Monsters

We get a nice mix of monsters throughout this manual, covering some of the creatures we'll encounter on the overworld and within dungeons.

I'm sorry, Evil what? I guess Evil Ed was already taken. Okay, so, D&D lifted Ents from Tolkien but I recall that was one of several things they weren't entitled to keep under that name, alongside Hobbits, Balrogs and a couple of other things. They renamed Balrogs to Balor (as Ultima did with Balron) and Ents to Treants. Ultima looks like it had to resolve this issue as well and went with combining the two into Trent. Sad day for anyone named Trenton.

The art here has a classically monster manual vibe, I'm particularly fond of the bold outlines and intricacies in scales and armour that give them a lot of texture. Iolo's got kind of a Brian May thing going on with his hair and the intensity of his face makes me think he's really rocking out on that harp. The Dark Knight strongly evokes Monty Python's Black Knight, as well. I think the Roc is probably my favourite. The sense of scale between the bird and the knight and the way the beams of sunlight twist like streamers really delights me.

Origin Systems

The DOS re-release has some fantastic work done on it, however, there appear to be two different copies in circulation. One of which I think is the original manual (36 pages) and the other is a cleaner reproduction I believe may be from a collected version of the first trilogy, as is available on GOG. The latter, however, does not include any of the monster art. As such, I will take art from each to give a full picture of it.

Cover Art

The cover of the manual pulls in elements I like from both box covers - the valiant hero against the terrifying beast with the mysterious castle thrown into the shrouded distance. The hero's identity is obscured in this one - it could anyone below the armour. That feels like a further invitation towards the player to imagine themselves in the shoes (well, sabatons) of the hero. The hard contrast along the rippling back muscles of the creature provide a nice contrast to the cleaner, gleaming armour of the knight, setting up a neat little contrast and conflict between man and monster, the artificial and the atavistic. Some simple little order and chaos stuff but its nicely presented and I like the composition a lot, with the curve of tail and neck creating a loop that leads you from dragon to knight and knight to dragon.

The Reference Card also has a cover, depicting a wizard of some description casting magic in the woods. Could be a Necromancer, could be Mondain, could even be the player. The high collar gives a little Dracula, a little Ming the Merciless which angles me more towards thinking they are a villain rather than the player. I'm sure the pierced skull probably thinks them a villain either way. The symbols on them are largely astrological and alchemical symbols. In the least we have moon/silver, the sun/gold, verdigris or earth, etc. I think we deserve more very serious wizards in the very silly robes.

Monsters

Between the Apple II and DOS manuals, I've gathered up the art of the various monsters of Ultima I. Not everything has art in both manuals though the art style between the two is distinct. The simpler art will belong to the Apple II manual - the other illustrations come from the Origin Systems re-release.

All that said - and despite including a monsters section for the other manual - I'm not going to post them right here. The simple reason is there's a whole alphabet of them! This manual has a full on monster manual of art and descriptions of its monsters and so I'm going to give the breakdown of them as they get encountered! The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom thankfully also includes the statistics and abilities of each monster - and they do have unique stats this time, instead of having HP change with the dungeon level. I think this will let me drip feed them. I really like it, especially some of the returning monsters from Akalabeth.

III - Matters Mechanical

Statistics

Phew, that was a lot of work! Now for... work!

As before, the Statistics are not particularly explained. In fact, in none of the manuals I have for this game are they covered at all!

We've moved from random rolls to point buy this time, with a minimum of 10 in each. No hints as to what each does or how they work though in the game or manual, alas. GOG does not include the reference card for Ultima I but it isn't too hard to find a version that includes the attributes.

Joining Strength, Agility (formerly Dexterity), Stamina and Wisdom from the first game, we now have Charisma and Intelligence, too. Hit Points, Food and Gold are no longer random - you start with 150 Hits, 200 Food and 100 Gold. We additionally have Experience and Levels this time too though it doesn't quite work quite how one might thing.

Despite the continued opacity of the stats, they are fairly simple to explain. At first, anyway. As before, I shall lump in HP, Gold and Food, as well as the new Experience and Level.

Hit Points - Still something like standard experience points and hit points; lose them when you take damage, gain them from donating money and from accomplishing certain quests. Its also possible to gain some through prayer if things are very dire. After emerging from a dungeon, you gain double the experience you earned in HP.

Strength - A character's damage is equal to Weapon Damage + Strength. No percentages this time and it affects all weapons, melee or otherwise. Apparently there is Carrying Capacity also equal to 4 x Stength + 20 x the number of carts the character has. Carry Load is equal to Weapons + Armour + (Gold/100) but this only matters when buying new weapons and armour.

Agility - Chance to hit with weapons is 50% +1% per point of Agility. Yeah, magic isn't based on this anymore! Apparently this affects Stealing/Being Stolen From but I'll discuss that lower down. The chance to unlock chests is 50% +1% per point of Agility, with Thieves always being successful.

Stamina - Chance to evade enemy attacks is 56 + 1/2 Stamina + Armour. So, for a Stamina of 20 in Leather Armour (8), that would be 77 out of 256 or 30%. It also increases the amount a character can drink safely.

Charisma - Items sell for a percentage of the item's price equal to Charisma/50. Thus, a Charisma of 20 means items should sell for 40% of their value. I am uncertain of this, however, DDG asserts this, whilst the Codex says it is a half this, allowing items to be sold for 0.5% value per point of Charisma. I will test this in time.

Wisdom - In theory Spellcasting success is equal to 50% + 1% per point of Wisdom apparently, though Clerics automatically succeed. The Codex says this, DGG says that Intelligence affects this. May affect Magic Missile damage. It also apparently reduces the chance to be hit by spells by 0.5% per point and reduces the cost of Spells (uncertain if both the XP and gold cost) by the same.

Intelligence - The character gains a discount on purchases equal to 0.5% per point of Intelligence. Thus, an Intelligence of 20 should let character's buy at a discount of 10%. The biggest thing Intelligence does for the character is for Spells. May affect Magic Missile damage. The maximum number of spells the character can have is, in theory, equal to Intelligence. I'm not sure how this works yet - I will update when I have a better idea of this.

Experience - Gained from defeating monsters and completing certain quests. Is necessary for buying spells. Every 1000 XP increases the character's level by 1.

Level - Apparently improves the stock carried by stores and increases the HP of monsters in the Overworld. In some versions it might not have been coupled to XP and instead increased over time. In any case, a character needs to be over level 8 to be able to complete a quest to win the game. This feels then like Level still represents difficulty Level more than character Level. It feels like an improvement over how things were in Akalabeth as you needed to play that on difficult level 10 to fully complete the game and it wasn't adjustable in game, as I recall.

Gold - Still money! A lot more things to spend it on this time around.

Food - As before, you'll die if you run out of Food. Food consumption is seemingly at a variable rate, starting at 1 per 2 moves on the overworld but apparently decreasing with better transport. You also consume it in dungeons (1 per 10 steps) and in towns and castles (1 per 100 steps).

Easy enough, right?

Actually Its A Bit More Complicated...

Because chance is often going to be an "out of 256" thing so percentages are a bit more... yeah. According to Data Driven Gamer, enemy attacks are a random number up to 15 squared, compared against the character's Defence value, which is (D+1.5) * Agility, where D is determined by Armour/5 but cannot exceed 0.5? Well. Lets say, number goes up good, at least. Computer mathematics has never been my strong suit, so I'll trust the Codex is reasonably accurate on translating the 256 stuff to percentile. If I'm wrong (I almost certainly am), feel free to tell me and I can update this with corrections. In the meantime, I cannot recommend the article DDG made enough.

Update - It turns out attack damage is a lot weirder than I thought. In towns/castles its a random value up to Strength + 1/2 Weapon Damage +1. In Dungeons and against the final boss, its a random value up to Strength/5 + Weapon Damage x3 and then the full value of Strength /5. On the overworld, its simply a random value up to Strength + Weapon Damage + 1. I think its interesting that the game essentially as multiple scales but it is a little confusing!

Ancestries

This time around we get an array of different species we can play as, even though canonically the protagonist will prove to be human. Apparently folk got along much better before Mondain shook things up but I don't know, I've read-

Okay, I've watched Lord of the Rings (I'm still working on the Hobbit) people didn't always play nice!

Bobbit - Oh, speaking of Hobbits. They are implied to come from another world (yeah, Arda) and be pretty chill. -5 Strength, +10 Wisdom, the highest modifier for all ancestries, but the only one with a stat penalty.

Dwarf - Burly miners, best of drinkers. By volume, at least, not mechanica. They have neither the Stamina or Wisdom modifier for that so I guess they don't do it well, they just do it often. They get a +5 to Strength.

Elf - Actually a foot and a half shorter than people. Skinny and swift, apparently good at music and stealing, wonder if any of the thieving bards are elves. +5 to Agility.

Human - Humans. You probably are familiar with these. +5 to Intelligence.

Classes

We have a full array of standard D&D style classes. Well, at least what was present for Basic D&D. Man, at some point maybe I should blog about the OD&D sometime, I spent way too long making spreadsheets about that bugger. I digress, this isn't a D&D post, this is a not-quite D&D post. One thing I'm very happy to see is that each class gets just a little more to make it special...

Except Fighter, obviously. Poor, unloved Fighter. In this game, they don't even get special weapons only they can use, but at least they don't suffer from being blocked off from casting with any semblance of control.

Cleric - +10 Wisdom, spells apparently always successful. Not sure if they need the bonus Wisdom for that but it does impact spell costs and damage of Magic Missile so they still get some benefit starting out.

Fighter - +10 Strength, +10 Agility. Ah, there we are, they do get a little bonus. This bonus will become irrelevant before the game is through but I could see this smoothing out the beginning of the game a bit.

Thief - +10 Agility, better stealing chances. This benefit is discussed below in the Stealing section. I could absolutely see this helping out in a speedrun of the game by nudging up the chance of getting the better weapons and armour.

Wizard - +10 Intelligence, additional spells. They gain access to 4 more spells than anyone else - Blink, Create, Destroy and Kill. Kill does not work I believe on the final boss but it feels like it'll be a godsend at higher levels.

Kit

Items

We still have weapons but we also have armour now. Anyone can use any piece of equipment and, even better, there are some items to actually discover this time! Not everything will be available and affordable from the start. That honestly thrills me, it gives you something to look forward to. Furthermore, some of the items have additional utility, which I will get to when we encounter them.

A few notes - Daggers can be thrown in this game, Ranged Weapons have a range of 3, possibly, 5 I believe and, in some editions, Rope & Spikes allow the character to avoid pit traps. Pit Traps might not be on the DOS edition, which I think is a little bit of a shame, as those buggers genuinely made for some occasional panicked moments and made me ever more cautious in exploring once I realised they were even a thing!

Spells

We have spells this time around! Magical Amulets are still present, but are now limited to enhancing the damage of Magic Missile. Some spells are adjusted depending on if the character is in the Overworld, a Dungeon or in the final battle.

Blink - Teleport to a random open space in the dungeon.

Create - Creates a wall of force in open space ahead of caster.

Destroy - Destroys a wall of force in front of the caster.

Kill - Kills one monster adjacent. Doubles the final boss' hp!!!

Ladder Down - Makes a ladder down, as per Akalabeth. Disappears on use.

Ladder Up - As Ladder Down, but the Up.

Magic Missile - Deals variable damage, depending on the area. Has a range of 5 - in Dungeons at least.

Open - Disarms traps on coffins. I'm not quite sure how this goes yet, so I'll have to see what happens if I don't.

Prayer - Random equal chance of doing one of the following - kill all nearby monsters, heal up to 10 HP if lower than 10, gain up to 10 food if lower than 10. Does not work in dungeons, in theory.

Unlock - Disarms traps on chests. It may also unlock chests, I'm not certain. Some places suggest it also unlocks certain doors though I'll have to determine this in action.

Magic Missile Damage - Interestingly, the damage of Magic Missile is quite variable and seems to depend on both equipment and where you're fighting. More advanced magical weapons increase its damage (ranging from +50% to +200%!).

In Dungeons, Magic Missile's damage is 1/2 Wisdom + 11. On the overworld, it is simply 1/2 Wisdom. Lastly, in the final battle, it is a random value between 0 and the combined total of Wisdom and Intelligence.

Transport

Transport exists now! Our food consumption adjusts the more advanced and faster the transport. If carrying capacity is indeed an issue, it might also increase the amount we can haul. There are also some special benefits to some of them that we shall see in time.

Adventuring

Stealing

We can now make like a Gremlin and do some robbery of our own. Finding the specific numbers on this was pretty difficult, fortunately Data Driven Gamer has an article on Ultima's mechanics that helps elucidate matters. Its a little bit odd! Whatever happens, a failure to steal will alert the guards and turn the area hostile until you revisit.

Thieves have an 85% chance to successfully Steal in Towns and an 80% chance to successfully Steal in Castles.

All other classes have a 59.5% chance to successfully steal in Towns and a 64% chance to do do in Castles. I'm not quite sure why they're better at stealing in Castles than they are in Towns though.

On a success, you gain a randomly determined item from the store - if stealing food, you steal up to 30 food from the store.

There was a Steal spell initially but it was removed as you are unable to cast it in the places you could actually steal from.

Being Stolen From - Bards (and possibly Jesters, will find out) have a chance to steal from the player. I see some conflict in what they actually steal, however. Data Driven Gamer says that it is the player's worst unequipped weapon, Game Corner Guides suggests it is the best unequipped weapon. I suppose I'll have to test this in action in play and update accordingly. Apparently the chance of noticing is Wisdom/50 (so 100% for Wisdom above 50 I would guess).

The Codex cites a 50% chance of being stolen from when next to a Jester or Bard, reduced by 1/256 chance per point of Agility. So, if that's a base chance of stealing in 128 in 256, a 50 Agility would reduce that to 78 in 256, which I think is a 30% chance of being stolen from.

Drink and Gossip

The game allows you to hit the pub for rumours. There's a 70% chance of getting a rumour. If standing next to the wench and the character has drunk more than their Stamina or Wisdom/5, they'll be seduced and lose all their gold and a point of Wisdom. I will try to avoid acting on knowledge I haven't discovered, unless I become unbearably stuck. These games can, after all, be a little obtuse, but I would like to exhaust options within the game first.

Quests

Ultima I still has the monster slaying quests ala Akalabeth but not they serve a greater purpose, with rewards granting items of plot importance in addition to providing us with improvement. There's also optional journeys to allow the character to improve instead of character advanced being largely tied to how big a lizard you become. Finally, there's princesses that could do with rescuing, though we'll get to them when we get to them.

Secrets

There are some bonuses that make cheesing the game significantly easier, but they must be learned about through play. I pinkie promise not to take advantage of any of this without somehow finding it out in game.

Monsters

This time, each level of a dungeon definitely has 10 levels, though there is a significantly wider arrange of monsters to fight in them! Some of them appear only in dungeons, some on the overworld and some in both. A few have special abilities or may engage at range and now they all have specific health and damage values. Health appears to increase at higher levels, meaning that difficulty will go as a player gains power.

Each step on the overworld has a 5% chance to spawn a group of monsters - a 10% chance if its in a forest or upon the water.

In the overworld, moving away from an opponent can let them get an opportunity attack in but the path of this is quite complex, so I will again defer to the Data Driven Gamer article. Its a mix of strength, agility and your transport's effective power.

Controls

The game has grown a lot more advanced and, with it, it has called for a more advanced control scheme. Like Akalabeth it largely translates letters into commands.

Attack - Attack with equipped weapon. No longer need to hit it, pick a weapon and pick the attack method!

Board - Board a transport (be it a horse, a boat or otherwise).

Cast - Cast a readied spell. Spells will need to be memorised through Ready, just like equipping a weapon or armour.

Drop - Drop any item. Once its gone though, its gone. Can only do in castles and towns, presumably if carrying capacity is an issue and buying is blocked.

Enter - Enter a site you are standing on.

Fire - Discharge a weapon. Probably for vehicular weapon, but might be used for ranged weapons.

Get - Pick up an item.

H-------- - Just you wait.

Inform/Investigate - Okay, technically its Inform/Search but I prefer this. Lets you know the name of a place you can enter, looks for secret doors, examines surroundings.

Klimb - Our first word alteration to make it fit a key. Climb up and down ladders.

Noise - The game lacks music, even in the remake, so this will determine if you get your bleeps and bloops on combat.

Open - Opens a Coffin.

Quit and Save - Saves your game and quits. Resume from the main menu.

Ready - Equip a weapon or armour, memorise a spell.

Steal - Try to successfully steal and item or successfully not do that and piss off guards.

Transact - Talk and trade, used for buying things and getting service, shirt or shoes be damned.

Unlock - Give opening a chest or prison cells a shot. The latter is also a no-no for guards.

eXit - Getting cute again. This lets you dismount from a transport. I think maybe it would have been simpler keys wise to have B be emBark/disemBark. Maybe that was harder to code in basic.

Ztats - The classic is back! At least this time S is used for Steal. Pauses the game, shows you stats , kits and spells.

Space Out - Okay, that's my own title for it, but Space lets you wait. Consumes some food though.

The Stranger Returns

And not the Orson Welles one, things didn't go quite as well for him as it did for ours. We're bringing Warner back and I shall be assuming that he's been plum tuckered out from his first adventure. As such, he has taken a break and spent some money on a tri-lizardectomy to improve the skin condition that made him such a broken warrior.

During his convalescence, he's had some time to think about things and become quite the little thinker. These cap at 25 though bonuses can push them above that. Intelligence was unmodified but plus 15 from Human and Wizard push the Intelligence up significantly. This should hopefully make things a little bit cheaper starting out but make them a capable fighter as they find their feet.

With that, we're ready to go on our next adventurere!

By god, this took all morning to set up as I kept scrabbling to find and cross reference how different attributes and spells worked. If its anything like Akalabeth, it'll be over in about as much time, haha.

See you soon!