Ultima IV Walkthrough/FAQ
Version 1.0.0 4/22/2000 copyright Andrew Schultz
Ultima IV copyright Origin and Richard Garriott(Lord British) 1985
Please do not redistribute this for profit without my prior consent.
Although I cannot presume it is the best Ultima IV Walkthrough/FAQ out
there(it was my first try at a FAQ), and Ultima is one of my favorite
all-time games, this took considerable effort on my part. However, if
you contact me with a specific question(i.e. mention this game), I will
probably let you display it.
This FAQ and others can be located from my classic Apple gaming page
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762/games/games.htm
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I prefer to be a mage. It allows you to buy a magic wand and start in
Moonglow, where you can go directly to Britain and accumulate levels
rapidly. To be a mage simply select "A" every time at the start.
However, the virtues are pretty much embedded in each question, so it
shouldn't be too hard to become whatever you want to be.
The eight virtues are as follows:
Virtue,principle(s),stone color,profession,party member
name,town,dungeon,mantra.
Honesty,T,Blue,Mage,Mariah,Magincia,Deceit,AHM
Compassion,L,Yellow,Bard,Iolo,Britain,Despise,MU
Valor,C,Red,Fighter,Geoffrey,Jhelom,Destard,RA
Justice,TL,Green,Druid,Jaana,Yew,Wrong,BEH
Sacrifice,LC,Orange,Tinker,Julia,Minoc,Covetous,CAH
Honor,TC,Purple,Paladin,Dupre,Trinsic,Shame,SUMM
Spirituality,TLC,White,Ranger,Shamino,Skara Brae,Hythloth,OM
Humility,0,Black,Shepherd,Katrina,Magincia,(Stygian Abyss),LUM
Honor being below sacrifice seems a slight glitch, as does "destard"
instead of "dasterd." Note Blue=(T)ruth, yellow=(L)ove, red=(C)ourage.
Also when you use stones at an altar of XX, use each stone whose virtue
contains XX. So for love, use yellow, green, orange, and white.
I will assume that the walkthrough starts in Moonglow. If not, you can
get there pretty easily.
Right away, pick up the rune under the chest Mariah is guarding. Then
go to Lord British's castle via the moongate(Britannia=1st phase-see
below for rapid moongate travel) and visit him; you'll get a level.
Then search for the spirituality rune in the treasure chamber before
heading to Britain to pick up the compassion rune at the end of the
hallway. Back to Lord British to pick up yet another level, and you're
just starting! Whatever you do, be sure not to pick up two levels at
once. That allows you only one increase of your attributes for two
levels gained. Of course, you can break this walkthrough any time to
see Lord British. It's also good to break the walkthrough in order to
buy reagents, go back to Lord British for healing, etc., or to gain
experience/gold(see below). Use your judgement.
Anyway, you're up to level 4 and have barely had to raise a finger. Get
a sling in Britain and go south to Paws, where you find the rune of
humility in the southwest mountain before trekking to Trinsic-rune of
honor, the fifth one, southwest corner behind the poison fields. Be
sure to have a cure or dispell spell handy. Then go to where the
moongate is(south across the river) and go back to Moonglow when you
have the chance-while you're at it, plan ahead and pick up a few dispel
spells. Overpay the blind lady selling reagents as well. Then search
the spot where you are teleported when both moons are in their first
phase and the gate is up. Bravo! Wait a bit, then jump out and in to
get back to Britain. You should be level 5 by now; go see Lord
British. Next stop is Yew-get there by walking or the gate(Yew is just
southeast in the forest). Rune of Justice is in the northwest corner of
Yew, in the felon's prison. From there go to Jhelom via the moon-gate.
In the southeast corner tower, you'll find the rune of valor. But
you'll need those dispel spells prepared for the lightning fields.
The pesky rune of sacrifice is last, but there's something even better
first. Pick it up by going from Jhelom to Moonglow and looking north to
the Lycaeum. In the library, search for the BOOK OF TRUTH. Cut back to
Britain via the moongate(dropping in on Lord British if need be) and
then to Minoc. The rune of sacrifice is in the forge-dispell is OK to
use here.
You should have 800 experience from the runes and 400+200 for the book
and stone, respectively, now. With 100 original points and beating 100
points of monsters, that'll put you at level 6. You can get more points
for other items, but soon or later you'll have to start having to be a
decent person or something. How to do it without wasting time?
First use a blood-giving racket to get close to avatarhood in sacrifice.
In Lord British's castle, go up to Lord British. Ask him about his
health and tell him you're not well. Now go to the healer on the first
floor and say no when he asks if you need help. As long as your hit
points >300, he will. Then go back up to Lord British, visit the
healer, and so forth. Obviously being level 7 or 8 is even better for
this racket, but you can elevate in sacrifice pretty quickly. You don't
get free cookies and juice for all that blood you give away, but you'll
have to deal with it.
Getting to level 7 or 8 quickly can tie in with other virtues, too.
Valor's simple, especially on the free Windows version, since 100+
MHzPentium processors speed up fights. Sit on a bridge and hit escape;
when trolls attack, line up and just start firing at 'em. My favorite
bridge is the one just east of Britannia, because you can always get
healing from Lord British, although if you want to buy reagents with
your loot, the one west of Moonglow's nice, too. Bridges are an
unlimited(up to 9999) supply of gold. Repeat and make sure you don't
get too low on hit points. When you get to 5000 gold, if you have a
ship(and odds are you've found one-Britain and Moonglow are good places
to fight with pirates, if you haven't), it's time to go to the
Buccaneers' Den and pick up a magic wand. The Buccaneers' Den, you ask?
It's to the east of Paws. You should buy a sextant at some point to
figure out co-ordinates; you may be able to pick one up in the guild in
Vesper as well as the Buccaneers' Den. The sextant is "off the menu" as
item D, and that is because it's so powerful and useful, especially with
the hints.
But I digress. All this fighting on bridges should give you Avatar
virtue in VALOR. Sail around Brittania for a while; the BELL, the
SILVER HORN, Mondain's SKULL(search with both new moons), and the WHEEL
for the HMS Cape are lying around the ocean. I also recommend picking
up the white stone. You're supposed to use the balloon, but I find
buying gems and PEERING into them can tell you of a spot directly south
of the area in the mountain. Then you cast a blink north. Search and
cast another blink(don't get stuck without reagents and spells, and be
warned if you just bring two spells-a blink spell can fail! But you
should be hoarding spells a bit anyway at this point, so this advice
isn't necessary. Right?) Another place where a blink is useful is when
you want to get to Cove. Don't worry about mapping the terrain. Just
peer into a gem and cast blink in the appropriate place. It's easier
than the white stone, because there's a lot more space to blink to. The
CANDLE of LOVE is in Cove behind a secret door.
All this fighting valor plus the honor from the stuff you've found
should get you ready for HONOR. In fact, if you've been hoarding
spells, the best way to buy reagents is to give 1 GP more than the blind
reagent sellers ask for-and don't buy 99 reagents at a time. Each
honest transaction gets you more points in HONESTY and JUSTICE.
Compassion's the same way-I generally pick out a "favorite beggar" and
just talk, give 20, bye, and repeat-although I think it's a bonus to
give your last gold piece to a beggar.
The toughest shrine to get to is the shrine of HUMILITY. To get nice
and humble-like, I recommend talking to X, the strange fighter in
Jhelom. Ask him about RED, and say NO when he asks if you're the
Avatar(I remember this particularly-as an Avatar, I answered YES,
thinking I'd lose an eighth in honesty if I didn't. So I lost an eighth
in humility!) Say bye, and repeat this until the novelty wears off. If
Jhelom's not your kind of town(and it isn't mine. But it's probably
better to bug a weird guy like X than others in the game), there are
also other conversations where NPC's ask if you're proud or unbelievably
virtuous--answer them humbly. You are now as 'umble as Uriah Heep.
When landing on the island with the Shrine of Humility, use the silver
horn every three steps. It is tedious, but fighting an infinite amount
of demons and losing, causing you to lose that hard-earned eighth in
valor, is worse than tedious. Amazingly, the horn, which doesn't stay
active for many moves, stays active for three whole cycles while you're
in the shrine. This is one nit-pick I'm not going to pursue, however.
But you should still use the horn on the way back.
Man, all this meditating must be good for your SPIRITUALITY, and it
better be, because other than chatting up Hawkwind, there's no way to
improve it-you should be ready for elevation. Go to Minoc's moon gate
when both moons are full, and you're an Avatar now.
General advice on shrines: just save your games before entering shrines
in case you type in the wrong mantra-especially after you've become a
partial Avatar in spirituality! Also, pace yourself with regard to
shrines. You can only meditate so often.
Next are the stones. In the dungeon, you probably want a lot of Y and Z
spells. These work randomly, so if you're in a spot where you can only
use up and down stairs and you cast one of these, you won't go directly
up and down unless you are very unlucky indeed.
There is one colored stone in each of six dungeons; Hythloth has none,
but it does have a neat balloon which you were supposed to use to find
the white stone. There are also balls you can touch to improve your
attributes. Which attributes do they improve? Look at the dungeon, and
find its opposite virtue(i.e. Shame/Honor). What of truth, love, and
courage does it have? If it has truth, you get +5 intelligence. Love,
+5 dexterity. Courage, +5 strength. For each +5 attribute the hit
points you lose doubles, starting with 200, so touching something in
Hythloth loses you 600 hit points. This would kill most characters, but
it may be a good strategy; for instance, going to Lord British's
castle, taking the back stairway, casting Y/Z spells, and killing your
party off(you don't lose an eighth for losing in a dungeon room) and
doing it over can get everybody to 50 if you want to. It's neat, but
it's not really necessary.
Beware most of all rooms with gremlins. Gremlins steal 25 food units
for each move they're near you in battle. Combat with gremlins is OK as
they are weak and you can shoot them from afar, but there are some
tricky rooms. If gremlins do take all your food, an XIT spell along
with a gate travel spell(or even blink spells) could be a lifesaver-
healing spells can help ward off starvation, too.
So what do you do, finally, in the dungeons? At the bottom level,
there's a link to the altars of courage, truth, and love. On each altar
you use four stones-the stones that correspond to the virtues containing
whatever the altar is for, truth, love, or courage.
Example: the altar of truth(blue) uses four stones-the stone of the
attribute with TL, TC, T, and TLC. These are justice, honor, honesty,
and spirituality, which give colors blue, green, purple, and white.
Alternatively, you can mix the colors; T+L=blue+red=purple,
T+C=blue+yellow=green, T=blue, and T+L+C=blue+yellow+red=white(the last
one's iffy, but....) Note that there's no altar room that connects to
humility or uses the black stone. That corresponds to the Stygian
Abyss, which is the end of the adventure.
I suggest only going down once-Covetous has a link between courage and
love, and then you can find truth pretty easily in Wrong. Altar rooms
are great ways to link dungeons in general, necessitating far fewer
trips. Also, since most stones are on the lower level, using altar
rooms can make your trips very quick indeed.
Always have an XIT spell prepared; I highly recommend a blink spell
also, since many dungeons are inaccessible by land. Shame's a good
dungeon to exit from if you blink to the east. It'll take you back near
Britain. Same for Despise.
Before adding members to your party and entering dungeons(At this point,
you'll need to; I recommend only two, Iolo and Jaana, at first), pump
your gold and supplies up fighting bridge trolls. Specifically, get
your gold to 9999. Go back to the Buccaneers' Den, buy a magic wand,
sell Jaana's staff(?), and buy another wand. You now have three party
members with wands. Get Iolo and Jaana up to level four before they go
to dungeons. Bridge trolls are good for that. If you want to be sure
your sidekicks kill the monsters, don't give your mage a weapon.
Okay. Only two items left to pick up-the mystic weapons and armor. I
think you'll have to pick up the rest of the gang for this. A few are
hiding out a bit. Iolo's across the bridge in Britain and Jaana's in
the forest in Yew by the fireplace. Dupre's easy to find in Trinsic,
Shamino's straight to the east of the entrance to Skara Brae, and
Katrina's just south of the entrance to Magincia. Julia's helping out
in the poor house in Minoc, and Geoffrey's behind a locked door in the
Jhelom inn. That's it.
Before picking these people up, I recommend buying proper weapons.
Crossbows for Dupre, Shamino, Geoffrey and Julia. Sling for
Katrina(she's close to worthless, at 5 experience and no magic/fighting
skills!) You may want to buy a magic bow. I forget which classes can
equip the item, though. I don't think magic plate/chain is worth it, as
you're headed straight for the final conflict, where only Mystic
Armor/Weapons work.
The armor(robes) is found in the grove at Empath Abbey. Just scour each
square in your search-shouldn't take over ten minutes. The weapons are
found in Serpants Hold, in the training room. This is an even easier
search unless one of the fighters is standing in your way. They will
move, eventually. The neat thing is that if you have no robes/weapons
left, you can go back and search for more. This occurs whether you sell
all the items(for 4500 and 3500 gold each!), get killed, or have
everyone equip them.
All right! So, you've hoarded spells when you were still "single," and
now you've got the whole gang together. Mosey on down to the island
with the shrine of humility. There's a huge cove on the west side with
a bunch of pirate ships. Probably you'll want to use the wheel, and you
may want to switch ships, too. Even better, though, is just to GET OUT
OF THE BOAT. It works-I swear. You'll be treated as if you're on land.
(This is a nice trick, BTW-you can even hole up and camp if you XIT your
ship first!) Rogues on the ships can be dispatched easily. Climb over
the poison, cure yourself, rest up, and go to the center lava square.
Use the BELL, BOOK, and CANDLE before throwing the SKULL into the
abyss(don't use the skull anywhere else!) and then enter the abyss.
The abyss has a tricky level where you have to cross through several
rooms, some a couple times. Keep track of where you are there. There
are a lot of one-way exits and turns. Other than that, all you have to
do in the abyss(besides not get killed by tough monsters) is to use the
following stones on the following levels and answer the puzzles as
follows. The stairs down will not appear until you do. And Y/Z up/down
spells are not effective.
Level 1: blue
Level 2: yellow
Level 3: red
Level 4: green
Level 5: orange
Level 6: purple
Level 7: white
Level 8: black
The puzzles after you use the black stone are answered as follows:
VERAMOCOR is the word of passage(get VER, AMO, and COR from the castles)
HONESTY
COMPASSION
VALOR
JUSTICE
SACRIFICE
HONOR
SPIRITUALITY
HUMILITY
TRUTH
LOVE
COURAGE
INFINITY(Each time you achieve an "eighth" you see one of these
characters. I is what you see for Honesty, N for Compassion, etc.)
Quick reference on where to find items:
(Note: each town/village/location seems to have exactly one item of
importance in it. It's another way to keep track of what you've done.)
Rune of Honesty Moonglow, Mariah's gold chest
Rune of Compassion Britain, End of hall in inn
Rune of Valor Jhelom, Southeast tower, behind lightning fields
Rune of Justice Yew, Felon's prison
Rune of Sacrifice Minoc, Forge in armory
Rune of Honor Trinsic, SW corner, behind poison field
Rune of Spirituality Lord British's castle, treasure chamber
Rune of Humility Paws, in southeast mountains
Blue stone Deceit L7
Yellow stone Despise L5(Z to level 5, then exit)
Red stone Destard L7
Green stone Wrong L8(down the hall from the Altar Room of
Truth)
Orange stone Covetous L7
Purple stone Shame L2(Cast Z from level 1, explore, then exit)
White stone Mountain range NW of Britain--only space "inside"
it
Black stone Moonglow moongate, new moons
T key Altar of truth-white, blue, purple, green stones
L key Altar of love-white, orange, yellow, green stones
C key Altar of courage-white, red, orange, purple stones
Skull of Mondain New moons, by lava in middle of sea PF MF
Wheel of HMS Cape South tip of Britannia, close to Jhelom NH GA
Silver Horn By Skara Brae
Bell of Courage At Sea, in an enclosure of reefs NA LA
Book of Truth Lycaeum, Library(under "T")
Candle of Love Cove, secret door to left of Ankh
Magic Armor/Robes Empath Abbey AE BG
Magic Weapons Serpants Hold AP AI
Sextant Guilds(Vesper/Buccaneers' Den), buy "hidden
item"(D)
-------------------------------
Addendum:
A brief guide to moongates-an easy way to transport. They barely take
any moves if you use Ztats and then just wait-handy for avoiding
monsters!
For each phase the left moon moves, the right moon moves three phases.
Thus, if you want to get to phase X, there are three phases you can get
there from. A table is below.
Town---Phase+---From(numbers, towns)------+-------To(numbers, towns)----
----
Moonglow 0 |0,2,5 Moonglow,Jhelom,Trinsic|0,1,2 Moonglow,Britain,Jhelom
Britain 1 |0,3,5 Moonglow,Yew,Trinsic |3,4,5 Yew,Minoc,Trinsic
Jhelom 2 |0,3,6 Moonglow,Yew,SkaraBrae |6,7,0
SkaraBrae,Magincia,Moonglow
Yew 3 |1,3,6 Britain,Yew,SkaraBrae |1,2,3 Britain,Jhelom,Yew
Minoc 4 |1,4,6 Britain,Minoc,SkaraBrae|4,5,6 Minoc,Trinsic,SkaraBrae
Trinsic 5 |1,4,7 Britain,Minoc,Magincia |7,0,1
Magincia,Moonglow,Britain
SkaraBrae 6 |2,4,7 Jhelom,Minoc,Magincia |2,3,4 Jhelom,Yew,Minoc
Magincia 7 |2,5,7 Jhelom,Trinsic,Magincia|5,6,7
Trinsic,SkaraBrae,Magincia
For the curious:
Let x=the phase you're in. Then (3x mod 8, 3x+1 mod 8, 3x+2 mod 8)=the
phases you can go to(note that the phases you can go to from there are
9x mod 8, ..., 9x+8 mod 8, so you can get anywhere in two jumps!) And
[x/3], [(x+8)/3], [x+16/3] are the phases you can get to x from, where
[y]=the greatest integer less than or equal to y.
Note you can also use moongates to visit every town exactly once: 0->1-
>4->5->7->6->3->2 is one solution. This is useful when you "swoop" to
pick up characters late in the walkthrough.
Credits: Ultima: The Avatar Adventures, by Rusel DeMaria and Caroline
Spector, helped me to look up some location details I didn't have on
hand. "Oh--it's somewhere over there" is not specific enough for a
walkthrough, I fear. It also helped me to figure any quick ways through
dungeons.
Versions
1.0.0: Converted RTF to text 4/22/2000 and submitted it. The bulk of
this work was done 7/99 before I had FAQ experience so it may be choppy
and subject to review.
Files : 2, NeW:26.04.00, oLD:26.04.00
uL Node : 1, NFo:NONE, D?Z:NONE
