Ultima I FAQ version 1.2.0
by Andrew Schultz(schultza@earthlink.net)
This FAQ is copyright Andrew Schultz 2000-2001/2007. This FAQ is not
associated
with Origin in any way. It's part of my attempt to expand awareness of
classic games(and I seem to learn something out of the process too!) Please
do not use it for profit without my explicit consent.
I recently submitted graphic maps to GameFAQs. So look there for them, except
the dungeons, which are generated and you can just cast spells to get through
them anyway.
AD SPACE:
Home page http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762
Games page http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762/games/games.htm
Page with Ultima I overworld and town maps
http://members.fortunecity.com/cartographics
********************************
Outline
1. INTRODUCTION
1-1. APPLE VERSION
1-2. APPLE VS PC
2. STARTING OUT
3. IMPROVEMENT
4. ITEMS, SPELLS, MONSTERS, AND TRANSPORT
5. BAR TALK
6. WALKTHROUGH
7. QUESTS
7-1. MAPPING
8. CHEATS
9. FOR HISTORY BUFFS
10. VERSIONS
11. CREDITS
********************************
1. INTRODUCTION
Mondain has taken over the world and holds it in thrall with an evil gem.
You must go back in time and defeat him(no-one explains why a bad guy can't
go
back in time too and undo what *you* did, but oh well,) solving in the
meantime various quests on four different continents and even going into
outer
space, in one of the strangest side-excursions in computer gaming. Except for
when you go back in Ultima II. This game is the second Ultima I, the first
being Akalabeth, which Garriott wrote in basic in his spare time. While not
perfect, it's better and takes up less memory than those text adventures
polluted with IF-THEN statements that I used to write.
1-1. APPLE VERSION
I found that I needed to create a new character using the ApplePC emulator.
You can run it in DosBox so it doesn't take up the whole screen. But once I
created the character, with the new single-sided disk, I switched to the more
versatile AppleWin.
U1 disk:
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/rpg/ultima_I_enhanced/
AppleWin and ApplePC(David Ellsworth) can be googled.
dosbox.sourceforge.net has DosBox. It's handy for this and other games.
1-2. APPLE VS PC
The Apple awards attribute bonuses of 100-[current/10] but the PC is closer
to [current/10]. There is some roundoff here, but you can see the PC is
pretty harsh about getting started. So you may wish to start all attributes
at 20, or as many useful ones as possible. It takes the same amount of
shuffling to get to 99, but you only really need to get to 80 or so, so the
PC takes a bit longer.
Rondorin(PC)=Rondorlin(Apple)
2. STARTING OUT
There are four character classes and four races in Ultima I. You are given
an initial allotment of thirty points to add to your original traits, which
consist of STRENGTH, AGILITY, STAMINA, CHARISMA, WISDOM, and INTELLIGENCE.
They all start at 10. You cannot manually improve characteristics over 25,
but race/class choices can bring an attribute over that mark. Your character
class/race options and how they further change your statistics are charted
below.
A character's gender does not affect statistics in any way. How P.C.
Human: +5 intelligence
Elf: +5 agility
Dwarf: +5 strength
Bobbit: -5 strength +10 wisdom
Fighter: +10 strength, +10 agility
Cleric: +10 wisdom
Wizard: +10 intelligence
Thief: +10 agility
My recommendation is to make a fighter, just because you get ten extra points
that way compared to everyone else. If you feel you don't need stamina or
charisma(you really don't need to sell things much,) just improve everything
else first.
So there are two approaches I see:
1) 40 intelligence. This lets you buy food more easily(10 for $3 not $4) and
gives a quick start. You won't get trapped before you get a frigate. Be a
human with 25 intelligence and agility. Then be a wizard.
2) good across the board. Improve intelligence, wisdom and charisma to 20.
Then choose a dwarf fighter. Stamina is in the toilet a bit but you don't
need it.
3. IMPROVEMENT
Below are ways to improve cash flow, hit points, and attributes.
You can find gold in dungeons and when you kill a monster outside. This
happens even when you shoot a monster from a frigate or an aircar. A bit of a
bug, that. You also get gold for rescuing a princess.
Experience occurs in the natural order of killing monsters or when you
rescue a princess or shoot a spacecraft, so you don't really need to worry
about it.
Various signposts(usually off the mainlands) will improve your abilities IF
1)you aren't visiting the signpost twice in a row and 2)you're not already
maxed out at 99. Solving a quest to find a signpost also grants you extra
strength when you return to the lord in question. If you jump between two
signposts, you can improve two attributes rather quickly. Without question,
it's important to get off the mainland, as visiting the signposts can provide
an immediate boost. You can also get a lot of gold shuttling around, as
monsters will constantly appear on the coastline. Fire at them to pick them
off.
Hit points are gained when you exit a dungeon safely based on the monsters
you defeated. You can also buy them off a lord at any castle at two gold
pieces per three hit points(rounded down if you give an odd amount of gold.)
The first few levels of dungeons are the best way to improve rapidly. The
main barrier to progress while outside is how much food you eat. In a
dungeon, you don't use up food as quickly, but there are still plenty of
monsters. They're just tougher on the lower levels.
And some of them even steal your food. But in general, dungeons can help you
bundle hit point and gold increases.
Buying armor is great insurance against dying. If you die and need cash for
food/hit points, just sell some extra equipment. Fortunately, your transport
doesn't disappear if you die. Later on monsters may destroy your armor, and
because it is cheap, you might as well pick up several Reflect Armors.
At some point you go over a critical threshold where you stop getting
killed all the time for not having enough gold/food.
4. ITEMS, SPELLS, MONSTERS, AND TRANSPORT
You can acquire the following ITEMS from a store:
4-1. ARMOR
1. Leather armor
2. Chain mail
3. Plate mail
4. Vacuum suit
5. Reflect suit
The cost is the above number of the item times an index determined by
your
charisma.
4-2. WEAPONS
No one shop sells all weapons--in fact, each sells about exactly half of
the total.
1. Dagger
3. Axe
5. Sword
7. Bow/Arrow
9. Wand
11. Triangle
13. Light Sword
15. Blaster
[0. Hands]
2. Mace
4. Rope and spikes
6. Great sword
8. Amulet
10. Staff
12. Pistol
14. Phazor
The weapon cost increases with n-squared, roughly. For instance, a dagger
may cost 5, an axe costs 7 more, the sword costs 14 more than that, the
bow/arrow 21 more than that, etc.
Selling armor and weapons: with your charisma at 99 you can buy/sell at
only a 4% margin. below that the margin is approximately one minus
(charisma/100). However, you won't find many weapons througout the game, so
charisma is not critical.
4-3. TRANSPORTATION
You can only buy one shuttle at a time, and frigates/rafts are only
available in coastal towns.
1. horse[faster than walking, use less food]
2. cart[faster than walking, use less food]
3. raft[no weapons, travels over water]
4. frigate[weapons, travels over water]
5. air car[weapons, travels over water and ground]
6. shuttle[leads to space scenario]
Cost = (some index) * (item number) ^ 2. So a shuttle costs 36 times what
a horse costs. You can only buy one shuttle at a time. I recommend buying a
frigate when you can--this leads to lots of safe fights. Then buy an air car
when you can afford it and a shuttle too. You may not use the shuttle right
away.
When you die, you will lose your transport if you were on it when you sunk.
So try to head for the shore of the mainland or a safe place if food/HP are
low.
4-4. SPELLS
The following SPELLS can be cast(arranged in order of power/cost/spell
points used, with magic words the game puts out on the screen):
1. Prayer "APERTUS!" or "POTENTIS-LAUDIS!"
2. Open "PECUNIA!"
3. Magic Missile "VASTO!"
4. Steal "NUDO!"
5. Ladder Down "INFERUS"
6. Ladder Up "ASCENDO"
7. Blink "DUCIS-EDUCO!"
8. Create "STRUXI!"
9. Destroy "INTERFICIO!"
10. Kill "DELIO!"
The cost is (spell number - 1) * (index determined by charisma).
Wisdom affects the chance a spell will work, while Intelligence determines
its force.
5. MONSTERS
DUNGEON MONSTERS (IN ORDER OF DIFFICULTY, EASIEST-->HARDEST)
Ranger
Skeleton
Giant rat
Bat
Spider
Viper
Cyclops
Gelatinous cube[eats armor]
Ettin
Chest[a mimic, actually]
Lizard man
Minatour
Carrion creeper
Tangler
Gremlin[steals 1/2 food on Apple]
Wandering eyes
Wraith
Lich
Invisible seeker
Mind whipper
Zorn
Daemon
Balron
Thieves attack you and steal items too.
OUTDOOR MONSTERS
[SEA]
Ness creature
Giant squid
Dragon turtle
Pirate ship (range)
[LAND]
Hood
Bear
Hidden archer [FOREST] (range)
Dark knight
Evil trent
Orc
Knight
Necromancer
Evil ranger
Wandering warlock(range)
Some of these guys shoot at you, so be careful. The shooters also line up
diagonally. While enemies can attack you from a diagonal they in general line
up horizontally and play fair.
6. BAR TALK
The bartenders in this game help you with hints if you buy beer(watch out
for getting drunk, though!) Here are the things they can say.
All conversations begin with "Thou hadst best know"...
about space travel!
Thou must destroy atleast 20 enemy vessels to become an ace!
to watch the jester.
that the princess will give great reward to the one who rescues her, and an
extra gift to an 8th level ace!
thou must go back in time.
thou should destroy the evil gem!
that many lakes and ponds~ have strong magical powers!
this is a great game!
that over 1000 years ago, Mondain the Wizard created an evil gem. With this
gem, he is immortal and cannot be.
The quest of --Ultima-- is to traverse the lands in search of a time machine.
Upon finding such a device, thou should go back in time to the days before
Mondain created the evil gem and destroy him.
7. WALKTHROUGH
This walkthrough assumes you do not use sector-editing. The biggest
barrier to winning this game is improving your person. When you die, you lose
all weapons and come back with 99 HP, 99 food, and zero gold. This takes a
long time to rebuild. So expect to get killed a lot at first(you get
resurrected in a random location on the continent where you died,) and make
your first purchase(outside of necessary food) armor.
I recommend the starting continent as a home base, as you will be
familiar with how to map it. I also recommend fighting one monster in a
dungeon and then exiting, because that gets you hit points. Save up for a
frigate. Once you have it you'll be able to knock out land monsters and get
gold at no risk.
More importantly, your attribute build-up starts with getting a frigate.
Alternate between
the two pillars/signposts in the same map sector to build up attributes
quickly and without risk. You can also complete quests to find the signposts
more than once to build strength--do so. This will allow you to damage
monsters more easily.
On the Apple, you will be able to improve low attributes quickly. On the
PC it will take a little longer to get rolling but you can hit the maximum
quicker. Still as you shuttle back and forth you'll improve and kill enemies
too.
In order of priority you should go with Lord
British's(agility/intelligence) then to the east(Pillar of Argonauts gets an
item all the way up to phazor) and then go south(build up charisma) then
west, why not. Along the way you should also go to all the castles and ask
for whatever quests they have.
OK, now you're ready to go into the lower reaches of the dungeons. I
recommend buying a lot of "ladder up" and "ladder down" spells. Ladder Down
is more critical as you will want to just go through the dungeons once if
possible. But you should have enough gold for both. If you get killed it is
no big deal, though you lose some wealth. But if you can cast spells to get
back to the top, it saves rebuilding later. You can complete all four kill-
quests in one dungeon, so why not do so.
The best sort of dungeon to go to is the one surrounded by water in any
of the four continents. It has ten levels, so you'll be able to fight a
balron. Gelatinous cubes are on levels 3-4, carrion creepers on 5-6, liches
on 7-8, and balrons on 9-10. Make your way up quickly with ladders; it's not
worth messing about with dungeon maps. They are generated, not in the disk
themselves.
In this interlude, you should be able to use the spaceships. You'll also
only be able to have one spaceship at a time. Once you blast off, you'll want
to view the grid. Find out where an "H" is, and warp there. Combat is not so
bad; just use the arrow keys, and the dot that is the enemy ship will bounce
around. You can slowly box it in(using space key will re-center and can be a
handy trick) and then fire. Just try not to let the enemy go off the screen.
Once the sector is cleared, warp somewhere else. If you're low on fuel, warp
to a "+" sector. You'll need 500 gold to recharge and probably some spare
fuel; go to the 2-d view and get your ship parallel with a docking port.
Approach it cautiously and make sure your ship's nose is linked pixel-by-
pixel to the base's port, or you will crash and lose some of your shield. If
your ship is aligned, you can re-charge and go back to shooting bad guys. It
might even be worth returning to earth and going back up, as that replenishes
the enemy, and you don't have to go gallivanting about. You'll probably
suffer a nuisance death or two, but you should be so strong now that getting
back into space shouldn't be a problem. Kill twenty enemy pilots, and you are
a "space ace."
Go back to the castles and receive your gems. Then go to Shamino's castle
and rescue the princess as follows: kill the jester, and use the key south
of the princess's cell. This may be annoying in case you've picked up the
wrong key, but it seems to work more than half of the time. Bust through the
guards and escort her out. She'll tell you about a time machine to the
northwest. It's annoying to look for it, but it is not too hard to find.
Mondain is not too tough once you're in the time machine--I mean, he
doesn't require a lot of creativity to kill. Use a blaster to shoot at him--
eventually he'll go to the left-hand corner, where you beat him up some more
until it looks like he's had it. Then go right and take the gem, and you have
won. But do be sure to have 9999 hit points in reserve.
This walkthrough may seem short, but it cuts out a lot of the constant
fighting you need to do to develop a decent character. The fighting is made
easier by boarding an aircar and shooting the you-know-what out of every
monster you find. You even get gold for that!
7-1. MAPPING
General notes about the maps are as follows:
You start out on Lord British's Continent, and movement is not completely
on a grid when you move to a different continent. Here is how each map
connects to the other--actually, you can travel boundlessly in any direction,
but this covers all possibilities.
3 -- 4 -- 1 -- 2
| | | |
| | | |
1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4
All coordinates are from the upper left.
1=Lord British's Continent
2=Rondorlin Continent
3=Black Dragon's Continent
4=White Dragon's Continent
8. QUESTS
There is no limit on the number of times you can fulfill any one quest.
There is also no limit on the number of quests you can be on simultaneously.
It doesn't matter which order you solve things in, either.
Lord British[1] asks you to find the Grave of the Lost Soul[4, NW].
The Lost King[1] asks you to kill a gelatinous cube. Reward=white gem.
Castle Barataria[2] asks you to find the Southern Sign Post[3, SW].
Castle Rondorlin[2] asks you to kill a carrion creeper[3]. Reward=green
gem.
Castle Olympus[3] asks you to find the Pillar of Ozymandias[2, SW].
The Black Dragon[3] asks you to kill a lich. Reward=red gem.
The White Dragon[4] asks you to find the Tower of Knowledge[1, NE].
Shamino[4] asks you to kill a balron. Reward=blue gem.
You must rescue the princess from Shamino's, and she will reveal that there
is a time machine to the NW.
For finding landmarks, you receive 100-[x/10] strength where x is the tens
part of your strength.
Pillar of Protection(1, N) gives agility
Tower of Knowledge(1, NE) gives intelligence
Pillars of Argonauts(2,W) gives item up to phazor
Pillar of Ozymandias(2,SW) gives wisdom
The Sign Post(3,NW) gives stamina
Southern Sign Post(3,SW) gives charisma
Grave of the Lost Soul(4,NW) gives stamina
Eastern Sign Post(4,NE) gives nothing
9. CHEATS
If you have a hexidecimal editor, this is a relatively easy game to modify.
If you've never used a hexadecimal editor, www.kahei.com is a good one and
you'll learn more and waste less time than if you just mindlessly bashed
monsters.
In DOS, there should be a file called player1.u1. If not, perform a file
search including the text of your character name. There should be a small
file--820 bytes or so. Edit that file.
Find where your character name starts at, and the following byte offsets will
allow you to modify different characteristics(each takes up two bytes in
low/high byte format, and the maximums are either [63 00] or [0F 27], which
turn out as 99 or 9999 in decimal:
0x16 Hit points, in low byte-high byte format. Maximum is [0F 27], or 9999.
0x18 Strength
0x1a Agility
0x1c Stamina
0x1e Charisma
0x20 Wisdom
0x22 Intelligence
0x24 Coin(# of copper pieces)
0x26 Experience
0x28 Food
A similar cheat works for Apple and Commodore as well, but I'm not sure of
the
exact locations. You can just create a character with distinctive stats and
then search for the sequence of hex values (strength, agility, stamina,
charisma, wisdom) with and without 00-byte spaces between them.
For the Apple you can use save states, with AppleWin states starting with
character name at 7f28. Or you can look at the disk. I'm not sure how to edit
spells, but you don't really need them. Anyway, you can just cheat your gold
and buy them.
9. FOR HISTORY BUFFS
Lord British and Shamino, of course, reappear in later reincarnations of
Ultima. A few towns are also brought over from Ultima I--Paws and Yew and
Britain. It may be a bit surprising that the size of the overworld is 156 by
168, which is almost exactly two-fifths of the size of the Britannian
overworld of Ultima IV(256 by 256) and V, which each took a disk as well.
You also have towns named after some of the people who worked on U1,
according to Shay Addams's guide to Ultima.
*****************************
10. VERSIONS
1.2.0: 8/17/2007 got rid of text maps which are graphic and on GameFAQs now
1.1.0: 4/9/2001 added monster names and space walkthrough, re-formatted as
text(1st version was badly spaced)
1.0.0: 10/4/2000 submitted to GameFAQs.com after original idea conceived
9/25/2000
11. CREDITS
Credit to Plaid Dragon's original walkthrough for reminding me how to
complete
the game.
Thanks to Shay Addams and his Official Book of Ultima for more history
details.
ftp.apple.asimov.net for having the disk image of this old fun game.
Thanks to the usual GameFAQs gang, current and emeritus. They know who they
are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done.
Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow
Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog,
honestgamer and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-
banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him
to be part of mine.
