22/04/02
B L A C K & W H I T E F A Q
-------------------------------
Version 1.0 FINAL
by
Thunderball
t b a l l @ t i s c a l i . s e
Software (c) 2001 Lionhead Studios Ltd. Black & White, Lionhead and the
Lionhead logo are trademarks of Lionhead Studios Ltd.
This FAQ may be freely published on the web as long as it is not modified
in any way. There must be no charge for the viewing or downloading of
this FAQ.
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THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END
I have played alot of games for countless of hours, and some games are really
immortal and sees no end in their (re)playability. Games such as Alternate
Reality: The City, M.U.L.E. or even Powermonger.
However, Black & White is not one of these games, and I am currently sick and
tired of it. So, if you want to mail me with a question which is probably
answered here anyway (or if it's not, the reason is that I PROBABLY DON'T KNOW
THE ANSWER), expect it to be printed, put on fire and tossed out the window...
THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END
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0. INDEX
1. Version History
2. Introduction
3. Comments from the author
4. The Basic Gameplay
4.1 Playing Good
4.2 Playing Evil
5. Creature Training
5.1 Basic knowledge
5.2 Basic behaviour
5.3 Basic learning
5.4 Specific creature actions
5.4.1 The urges of feeding and sleeping
5.4.2 The eating of villagers
5.4.3 The art of throwing objects
5.4.4 The assisting in village duties
5.4.5 The importance of housekeeping
6. Village Management
6.1 Additional village tips
7. Island specific tips and secrets
7.1 The first island
7.2 The second island
7.3 The third island
7.4 The fourth island
7.5 The fifth island
8. Silver scroll solutions
8.1 Quests on the first island
8.1.1 Throwing Stones
8.1.2 The Savior
8.1.3 The Lost Flock
8.1.4 The Singing Stones (1)
8.1.5 The Explorers
8.1.6 The Pied Piper
8.1.7 The Hermit
8.1.8 The Ogre
8.1.9 Mushroom cooking quest
8.2 Quests on the second island
8.2.1 The Plague
8.2.2 The Sacrifice
8.2.3 The Sea
8.2.4 The Singing Stones (2)
8.2.5 The Beach Temple Puzzle
8.2.6 The Greedy Farmer
8.2.7 The Idol
8.2.8 The Slavers
8.2.9 The Riddles
8.3 Quests on the third island
8.3.1 The Shaolin
8.3.2 The Rejuvenator
8.4 Quests on the fourth island
8.4.1 The Fish Puzzle
8.4.2 The Treacherous Path
9. General Questions
9.1 Where can I find Easter eggs in the game?
9.2 How does one use miracle dispensers?
9.3 What makes the creature grow faster?
9.4 What do I need to do to unlock all the creatures?
9.5 How can I backup my creature?
9.6 What does the different wonders do?
9.7 What is the effect of eating mushrooms?
9.8 What features were left out of the game?
9.9 What bugs are currently in the game?
10. Final Notes
11. Credits
* Marks a section which has been updated since the last release.
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1. VERSION HISTORY
v1.0 22/04/02 Added all unused piled up info... this is the end.
v0.9.3 18/07/01 Updated bug list section with a request for information.
v0.9.2 14/07/01 Patch is out, bugs are not. Added a missing features section.
v0.9.1 06/06/01 Minor updates. Waiting for patch to remove showstoppers.
v0.9 14/05/01 Reached island four and updated some tips there.
v0.8.2 13/05/01 Got the entire FAQ spelling and grammar checked again.
v0.8.1 11/05/01 More bugs and another silver scroll quest for island three.
v0.8 02/05/01 Made it to island three at last. First silver scroll added.
v0.7.4 29/04/01 The FAQ got a new homepage!
v0.7.3 26/04/01 New bug warning on the creature which may be controversive.
v0.7.2 24/04/01 Added a bug warning on the greedy farmer quest on island two.
v0.7.1 22/04/01 Split the creature training into several more sections.
v0.7 19/04/01 Rewrote creature training. Subsections currently unchanged.
v0.6.5 18/04/01 Finally added the missing quests on island two.
v0.6.4 15/04/01 Another bug warning on the wolf quest on island four.
v0.6.3 14/04/01 Index now shows all updated sections in the latest release.
v0.6.2 13/04/01 Even more bug warnings added.
v0.6.1 12/04/01 Added a bug warning on disciple breeders and the creature.
v0.6 11/04/01 Thanks to user contributions, some island four tips are up.
v0.5.3 11/04/01 Rewrote the comments from the author for the first time.
v0.5.2 09/04/01 Added some more bug warnings and other peculiar notes.
v0.5.1 08/04/01 Did a small rewrite of the creature food and sleep section.
v0.5 06/04/01 Rewrote the village management with a bit more hands-on info.
v0.4.4 04/04/01 Got a little grammar and spelling checking done.
v0.4.3 03/04/01 Even more contributions and even some new sections.
v0.4.2 03/04/01 More contributions, fixes and additions. Keep 'em coming!
v0.4.1 03/04/01 Finally located the last darn sheep!
v0.4 02/04/01 A bunch of old info added, along with some new contributions.
v0.3.2 01/04/01 Some additions, corrections and beginning of new sections.
v0.3.1 01/04/01 Found out about the Sheep creature in the sheep quest!
v0.3 01/04/01 New sections for village management and creature actions.
v0.2.1 31/03/01 Fixed some small silver quest stuff.
v0.2 31/03/01 Added a silver quest and corrected some evil solutions.
v0.1 30/03/01 Initial release.
2. INTRODUCTION
IMPORTANT: This FAQ does not include information about any "add-ons" or
"mission disks" for the game. However, updatets found in patches is taken
into account. A (probably outdated) patch and bug history listing is kept
for reference.
...
3. COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR
The most hyped and anticipated computer game ever? Well, I can't think of many
games that come close.
But is it what people expected? This is a topic which I probably will have to
rewrite, but there are currently much heated discussions in forums about this.
I believe that many people where suprised with the game when they got it.
Before it was released, not many previews or interviews mentioned much about
the micromanagement of the villages. Many people assumed that this would work
similarly to Populous where the villages managed themselves if you didn't
touch them.
As it turned out, this wasn't the case. Villagers complained when they didn't
get enough micromanagement and you couldn't survive without them. I believe
that this caught a lot of people off guard and caused the initial uproar.
I personally think that the villages do place high demands on you, but if
you read the tips sections, I believe you will be able to handle that now.
This, however, puts the creature in a bad position, with it no longer being
the most important thing in the game. In fact, it does seem that you now can
win the game without giving much regard to the creature at all. Something
which clearly wasn't advertised before the release of the game.
So, let us turn our attention towards the creature. Peter Molyneux promised
that every time you start a new game, the creature would be totally unique.
Well, it actually is (even though it may not always be obvious).
You see, artificial intelligence in computer games is more than just heuristics
and being as non-deterministic as possible. Up until this point, it has also
been to cheat in order to fool the player into thinking that the opponent is
actually intelligent.
The problem with Black & White seems to be that it doesn't cheat, and because
of that, its shortcomings are more apparent. Mind you, the AI doesn't at all
have to be bad in the game, I know nothing thereof! What is bad is the
extremely limited set of actions the creature can perform.
No matter how advanced the neural net in the creature is, if it doesn't see
the world as we do, it won't be able to act the way we want it to (especially
when its actions are hardcoded). Take the Creature Help, for example. It can
actually identify exactly what the creature is doing at every point in the
game. An AI with more freedom would evolve its solutions beyond that which
the Help text can produce. And that may also be the answer to why some don't
think that the creatures are unique:
The creature has been limited on purpose in order to make the game easier.
And now it's rant time: I can't understand why PC gamers put up with patches.
On consoles you CAN'T have a buggy game. Why is this tolerated on a PC?
Console games never (raaarely) have bugs. PC games have them all the time.
"It's hard to program for PC since all customers have different systems"
the PC programmers complain. Yet nearly all patches are gameplay related.
Go figure.
Also, the latest trend in PC games seem to be to hold back half of the
features until the sequel. This is just a sad state of affairs.
To me, PC gaming isn't fun anymore. The products have gotten so large and
complicated that the "game" and "fun" parts have got lost somewhere.
There also even seems to be a lot of debug information left in the Black &
White (just check the amount of statistics the game keeps track of) and there's
even a tech demo map and a number of unused models left in the game folders.
I'm glad I still have my Atari ST to play Powermonger on.
Anyway, I'll shut up now and get on with the important stuff.
Note that I will call the good conscience "Whitey" and the evil conscience
"Blackie" in this FAQ...
4. THE BASIC GAMEPLAY
First of all, there is no way to skip the tutorial. By watching the forums and
various IRC channels, I'd say that this is a very good feature (the manual is
rather weak anyway).
Second, read the signs.
Third, read the signs.
Always read the friggin' signs! Signs next to houses contain valuable
information about what's in the house and how to operate it. Signs in the
terrain can contain valuable information on how to properly train your
creature, small gameplay tricks, or even hints on how to accomplish certain
goals.
The game teaches you the basic gameplay very well, if you'll just have the
patience to look, and it will be much easier than reading a tutorial (and if
you are intelligent enough to appreciate a long detailed tutorial, you have
probably learned your basic gameplay already, so I won't waste space writing
about it).
I will say this for a reminder, though: Leaving your hand on an object is very
useful (for example over a construction site where you'll find out the exact
amount of wood needed for completion or over a village totem to find out
how many people your village has room for).
The sections below will go into a bit more detail. Note that these sections try
to cover both extremes. That is, if you want a white, or even rainbow colored
creature or hand, read how to play good. If you want a black creature with
horns, and a red hand, read how to play evil. If you just want to stay neutral,
mix in a little of both.
In a similar vein as one of Peter Molyneux earlier games, the rather similar
Powermonger, the Black & White manual tries to explain the basics of gameplay,
but in the end fails to cover anything not already discovered within the first
five minutes of playing, and then leaves you to figure out the rest of the
game for yourself.
4.1 PLAYING GOOD
Now this is a challenge. Here you will need to spend a lot of time managing
your villages, which is an utter pain. But you cannot neglect your creature
either, if you want it to be good aligned too, and performing the two together
can initially be extremely difficult.
If you train your creature well, though, you might be able to leave it on its
own for an extended period of time, while you are away managing your villages.
Staying good means that you must have the flags of a village storage raised as
low as possible, or even not raised at all. This is an enormous task in itself.
But not only that, you will have to carefully watch all your worshippers at the
temple shrines so they don't starve and die, which even Blackie disapproves of!
You must also act passive, and avoid any killing whatsoever. This means
that taking full control of an island will be done by sending missionaries,
traders, yourself and your creature to enemy villages to assist and impress
them with miracles, food and wood. The Flying Creatures miracle and increased
Heal also work fine to generate lots of belief.
Note that the more people who witness your miracle, the more belief you will
get.
Casting lots of Heal miracles on villagers may cause them to live longer, and
thus, in the long run, they may increase faster in numbers since less people
die and disappear.
You can train your creature to only heal sick villagers, though. Zoom in close
and listen to pain sounds or watch for crawling villagers, then target a Heal
miracle on them and have the creature watch with the Learning Rope. This may
take time, though, since it is not often villagers get sick.
Also, don't overfeed your villagers, since with lots of food comes the
desire to breed, and with the desire to breed comes the desire to expand,
and soon enough there won't be any empty spots on the island to expand
upon (much less any forests left).
As a good player, you can also sacrifice at the temple shrines to get prayer
power, if you want. A shrubbery and any other plant will work fine. Never try
to sacrifice a stone, though. It will cause damage to your shrine and scatter
your worshippers!
And even if you get attacked by an enemy, you cannot fight back! Use the Shield
miracles to protect your villagers, and try not to have your creature attack
another creature unless it is wreaking havoc in one of your villages. Your
creature may get provoked into a fight as it is.
So if it is so frustrating to play good, what are the rewards? Well, if you
don't know the answer to that, my bet is that your creature won't turn
rainbow coloured anytime soon.
Some of the visual effects of playing good are: a white temple, white hand,
white creature, clear skies, longer days, shorter nights and a rainbow over
your temple. A good creature will also glow white.
4.2 PLAYING EVIL
First of all, evil isn't stupid and it isn't nasty. It's sinister and devious.
If you kill for fun, sure you are evil, but you are mainly being blunt, and
there's much worse you can do than that. Instead, try torturing people with
fire. Starve them, wreck their homes, play catch with your creature using
villagers or just leave the creature with the Aggression Leash on in one of
your own villages... Be creative.
Since you can do pretty much anything while being evil, I won't dig deep into
the details here. I will try to give out a few usefully tips, though.
Being evil will finally let you ignore feeding the worshippers at your shrines.
There are much better ways of gaining miracle power than dancing. Sacrificing
new born children for example, is much more effective.
Sacrificing your dead also works.
If you want to wipe out a village, or atleast cause some serious damage, you
can taint a food storage by throwing a toadstool or poop in it.
Some of the visual effects of playing evil are: a black temple with spikes,
red hand with long nails, black creature which grows horns, red skies,
and everlasting nights. An evil creature will also emit black smoke.
5. CREATURE TRAINING
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
It seems that the creature, although having fully learned a miracle, may not
it after loading a game until you have shown it to the creature an additional
time (whereupon a lightbulb will show up above the creature and it will start
casting the miracle like normal afterwards).
These miracles may also fail to show up on the scrolls in the Creature Cave.
Whether a creature sometimes totally forgets a miracle or not, I will leave
unsaid, since I have not witnessed this myself.
The creature can also get stuck in a worship site if it walks directly from
its pen into the shrine (while being small). If this happens, you have to
leash it and click close to the ground by it in order to find a path to lead
it out of there (which can be tedious).
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Be aware that you can only have ONE creature for each player profile and that
creature will be constant in ALL games you play using it. It will grow older
and remember everything you have done, no matter how much you load the game.
It also remembers everything from a skirmish or multiplayer game. The only way
to reset a creature is to restart your game.
Your creature does not have to be of the same alignment as you do. The
creature can be so good it glows white, while at the same time, your castle
is growing spikes.
Also note that the Creature Help doesn't initially show up in the game, even if
you have it activated in the Options. The first time it will show up is after
you have activated the final golden scroll on the first island, but it will
stay activated after that, even if you restart a new game or load an earlier
save.
If you start an online game or a skirmish game though, the creature help will
also get activated and stay so, at least until a part of the tutorial kicks in
again, whereupon it will become deactivated (so just save, start skirmish and
then load, to get it back).
Oh, and when a creature selects a location to travel to, it only seems to
consider the route from a bird's perspective, and thus may end up walking
around the entire island in order to reach the destination.
5.1 BASIC KNOWLEDGE
In order to develop a healthy creature, you need to know about its vital
statistics. Those are the stats which can be seen when you focus a creature,
and are also the only stats which can kill it. The vital stats are Damage,
Hunger and Tiredness.
In order to develop a well-trained creature, you also need to know about a
number of other statistics. These can be found in the Creature Cave, and
though they are not vital, they still represent some sort of basic need for
the creature. Those stats which are non-vital are Exhaustion, Dehydration,
Strength, Fatness and Poop.
All of these stats should be kept as low as possible, with the exception of
Fatness, which should be kept at an average level (note the amount of fat
a creature has when you receive it).
In addition to this, there are a number of trivial stats, which aren't really
important to the creature, but which may be important to you. These stats are
Alignment and Growth.
Further, the creature seems to use Energy in order to cast its own miracles,
since it decreases when it casts a miracle. Feed your creature in order to
raise that stat again.
Illness and Warmth will be explained at a later point.
When a vital stat gets maxed out, your creature will collapse and regenerate
back in its pen at your Temple. The stat will still remain high after that,
so you need to take care of your creature in order to prevent it from
collapsing again. If your creature collapses too mcuh, it will shrink
noticeably in size (although it will grow back in size over time).
Note that when a creature collapses, you may still have a few seconds to
try to fix the situation (heal or feed it), if you are lucky.
Also, the creature may forget things over time, and will have to relearn that
again. The same goes for strength. The creature will need constant exercise in
order to keep itself fit and keep its strength up.
5.2 BASIC BEHAVIOUR
You should know that the creature knows a number of actions by instinct. These
actions are mostly those it uses to stay alive, such as sleeping, eating,
drinking and pooping. But encouraging or discouraging these actions may have
several different outcomes, which will be explained in a later section.
The creature can also learn a few new actions, either on its own or by copying
you. However, the amount of these actions is not that important. The thing
which is important are the variations of these actions.
The creature does not simply observe you doing something. It observes exactly
what you did, what you used and to what or whom you did it! It can also learn
whole series of actions in a later stage.
Training a creature is accomplished by encouraging and discouraging different
variations of actions by either stroking or slapping the creature accordingly.
The way the creature carries out its actions also determines (or may be
determined by) its mental state. The creature may show you how it is feeling
if you focus on it and you can also read a lot about what is going on in its
mind in the Creature Cave.
If you want your creature to like you more, pay more attention to you or show
you it is feeling more, just stroke it when it asks for attention or wants to
mess around (but not too much, since that will only cause the creature to get
distracted and stop to look at you when your hand is near it).
Keep in mind that the creature's AI is very short-sighted and not very
reflective. It does not understand many of effects of its actions so if there
is a bad side-effect on a particular action (either by accident or all the
time) only slap it if you do not want it to continue doing that action anymore.
For example, the creature always throws an object over its shoulder when it
doesn't know what to do with it. If that object damages anything (stone on a
house) or becomes damaged (villager down a cliff) the creature doesn't know how
to associate that event with what it just did. So there is no way to punish it
for that, as it doesn't count as an action (neither can you slap the creature
for noticing either, since that is a separate action). You simply have to wait
until the creature has learned to properly deal with the object, whereupon it
will pick up and put down the object properly.
Another consequence of the creature's basic behavior is that is observes, and
even obeys other creatures as well. Remedy this in the way you see fit.
The creature also does not seem to know what area of influence it is in.
However, it can differentiate your villagers from other villagers.
5.3 BASIC LEARNING
If you want the perfect creature, hang around on the tutorial island until it
has learned every possible thing to be learned there (some spells will be
unavailable as well as certain methods for helping villagers). Your villages
on the tutorial island won't have any high demands (since you can't build
anything) and as long as you don't active the final golden scroll, there is no
time limit.
Note that it is rather hard to become immensely good during the tutorial
islands. This is probably due to not all features being activated yet.
For those of you interested in AI, the game supports both supervised and
unsupervised learning, as well as reinforcement learning. A decision tree is
also used to select which action a creature will perform.
The first method of learning is simply to show your creature what to do. Leash
it with the Learning Rope and carry out the exact action you want it to
perform. Make sure that it is watching you, or your actions will have little
effect.
Note that you shouldn't stroke the creature for simply noticing what you just
did (it will point in the direction of your action, and then look at you).
The real reward should come only after it has properly copied your action.
Sometimes the creature will understand immediately and copy you, sometimes,
it takes forever to get it to do the same thing as you.
A second method of learning is to let the creature find things out by itself.
But, if you let the creature wander around and it accidently manages to learn
something you didn't want it to know about, you will have to spend a lot of
time supressing that behaviour, since nothing can be "unlearned" once found
out.
In order to properly control a creature's behaviour, you need to catch it at a
precise moment in order to get a precise response out of it. If you are too
late in praising or punishing your creature, you may affect a whole different
action. This means that you may need to anticipate what your creature is going
to do.
Get to know your creature! This is the only way to be safe.
You sometimes also have to plan ahead. When you start out, the creature will
only perform basic stuff. Later on, you will want it to carry out more complex
series of actions, and if you haven't taught it the basic stuff properly, it
can be too late when one of the basic things it got wrong is part of a more
complex series of actions (for example, when picking up a tree is a part of
the being generous to villagers action in order to resupply the storage).
Though the game says that handing the creature a one-shot miracle will cause
it to instantly cast it, it has to be trained to cast those too (you will have
to slap it for eating or losing the miracles).
Note that your creature may see more detail than you are aware of. If you cast,
for example, heal on healthy villagers and water on grown trees, the creature
may do so too. A better way is to only cast heal on unhealthy villagers and
tiny trees.
All of the above applies for fighting too. Tell your creature to move around a
lot, and it will do it by itself after awhile. The same goes for concentrating
attacks on special body parts (note which targeted body part carries out the
different attacks you want it to perform more).
Finally, there are some things which may seem backwards, but really aren't.
Some may instinctively want to pat and comfort the creature when it is afraid,
however, this will only serve to make it more afraid, as stroking is an
encouraging action.
5.4 SPECIFIC CREATURE ACTIONS
The previous sections were meant to be very general. Anything you read in those
sections can be applied to any action -- no matter what creature you have. And
if you can't get your creature to do what you want, try again until it grasps
the concept or change your method of teaching.
Please don't mail me simply stating that you can't get your creature to do what
you want it to. It's not the creature who hasn't tried its best, it is you.
5.4.1 THE URGES OF FEEDING AND SLEEPING
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
When the creature eats fish by itself, it will lower that creature's alignment!
I do hope that this is a bug which will be fixed, since fish is the absolutely
best source of food (and you cannot make disciple herders on your own in order
to make sure proper meat doesn't run out).
Your creature also seems to get hungrier whenever it eats fish (according to
the help text atleast), which is fishy...
*******************************************************************************
First of all, getting it to eat and sleep on its own is rather easy. However,
trying to control how fast it gets hungry and how fast it gets tired can be a
nightmare. Sometimes, the effects of slapping and stroking can seem to be
totally at random. In this section, you will find some helpful tips, although
you should still be very careful, since they will not always work. Only slap or
stroke your creature a little bit at a time, in order to minimize the damage
of a wrong outcome.
Since the creature will initially eat anything, sleep anywhere and poop
everywhere, the of basic training will mostly be to control these behaviours.
You may have noticed that discouraging the creature from being just generally
tired may either make it sleep less, lie down less on that location or become
less tired. The outcome may seem to be selected totally at random.
Careful consideration is a must before punishing or praising the creature.
For example, when it sleeps you have to factor in several things. How sleepy
was it? Was the creature exhausted or low on energy? When did it go to sleep
and where did it lie down?
Your creature will also initially eat any moveable object. However, it has a
built in learning factor here, since it will puke up anything that isn't good
for it (grain which isn't ripe, for example).
The creature can also eat by its own initiative or by command (rubbing
the belly when given food). But before you slap or stroke the creature for
eating, there are a also number of factors you must consider.
Consider what it is eating. Is it a food source which is good for him or not?
Does the source replenish itself fast or slow? Is it stealing from someone?
Is it eating because of hunger or greed?
To get a creature to eat more of a certain type of food, just hand feed it
with the food you want to increase its appetite for and stroke the creature
after it has finished eating. This will always make it appreciate that type
of food more (note that this isn't an exception to the above rule since you
carry out the action here and then reward the creature for the effect).
And yes, overfeeding will cause it to poop more and get fat. To get it thinner
again, just keep it hungry a bit longer and don't feed it as much for a period
of time, and its weight will go down.
Water is lacking a graph in the creature info (although you can read its
dehydration level in the Creature Cave), but it is not that important since
the creature always knows how to drink and will do so when thirsty (and since
it is not that often, you shouldn't need to adjust its drinking habits if you
don't feel you simply have to).
There doesn't seem to be any way to bring a creature water.
Finally, fish would be the recommended food for any creature, since fish
regenerate well without any care and it won't be considered stealing from
the village. Cattle and other animals regenerate much slower and can run
out if you're not careful (and though herders help, there is a strange
lack of a herding disciple in the game).
5.4.2 THE EATING OF VILLAGERS
This can be considered a special case of feeding. Now you either want to or
don't want to have the creature eat villagers, depending on your alignment.
An untrained creature, even if it is a Cow or a Sheep, will sooner or later
eat a villager if you have it wandering in a village while being hungry.
Initially, this can work to your advantage if you keep a close eye on your
creature. When the creature picks up a villager, immediately focus it. If it
shows you that it is hungry, slap it silly. If it doesn't show you its
intentions, unfocus and quickly click on the ground next to it to make it drop
the villager. Stroke it for that action, if you wish.
You can also slap the creature after it has eaten a villager, but only if you
get the Help Text saying that "your creature will eat more of that stuff"
(if you slap it without that text appearing, you may affect another action).
Also, stroke the creature if you want it to continue eating villagers.
Although, remember that an empty village belongs to nobody, and that strength
comes in numbers.
And note that even if you have taught your creature not to eat people from YOUR
villages, there is nothing which stops it from eating people from other,
neutral or enemy owned, villages. You'll have to teach it how to behave to
other villagers separately.
5.4.3 THE ART OF THROWING OBJECTS
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
Sometimes when you try to hand the creature an object, an "extra" click will
occur out of thin air on the creature, telling it to drop the object before
you have time to issue any orders yourself.
*******************************************************************************
Throwing (as with kicking) seems to be an aggressive action, so if you want a
passive creature, slap it for throwing stuff. The exception is when it is
throwing trees or food into the village storage, which doesn't seem to count
either as a throw or an aggressive action (same goes for when it is playful).
The biggest question seems to be how to get the creature to throw stones. But
if you are looking to increase the strength of the creature, remember that the
sign said that the creature needed only to be carrying stones.
To exercise it, simply give your creature a stone and action click on a piece
of ground away from it. When it gets near the spot, click (or double-click)
somewhere again to give it a new goal. Repeat this in order to walk or run
it around the island for a while. The creature's strength will increase over
time because of this (make sure it gets sleep, though).
Anyway, if your creature can copy you throwing stones, all is well, and it
should be praised for it. Note that the creature will take notice of where you
aim your stone and even if you fetch the stone or not.
If the creature refuses to copy your actions, things may get more complicated.
Action clicking on an object with a leashed creature is supposed to be the
command of getting it to pick the object up. However, this doesn't always work
with stones.
A reason for this may be that the stone is too large. But if you crush the stone
into smaller pieces while the creature is watching, it may very well copy that
action instead the next time it is told to pick up a stone, so be careful.
A better course of action is to crush a number of stones far away from the
creature and have it travel there only after they are the appropriate size.
I personally can't see any use in throwing an object other than a stone, so
when the creature tries that, just slap it to keep it from doing that again.
Also, don't make the mistake of praising it too early. If you want it to throw
a rock, don't praise it immediately after it has picked the rock up, since it
will most definitely eat the rock instead (no matter where you stroke it).
The creature can also be trained to catch stones (and other objects... such as
fireballs). Have it in a playfull mode and practice with the beach ball. Just
throw the ball at it at the appropriate height and it should try to catch it
after awhile. Then move on to other objects you want it to catch.
Sometimes, double-clicking on a spot on the ground when the creature is holding
a stone will make it throw the stone there, but I haven't nailed down the
details around this yet, as it may run to that spot also.
5.4.4 THE ASSISTING IN VILLAGE DUTIES
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
If your creature picks up a villager who has just died and turned into a
skeleton, the skeleton will come to life and walk around the village! This may
be a side-effect of the healing effect being picked up by a creature instills,
but it is still a bug.
And if your creature decides to eat a Dead villager, it will count as having
killed a person!
Also, some people do say that the creature can make disciples other than
breeders, but I have seen NO evidence of this. The creature always seem to
create a disciple breeder if it cuddles a villager (even if there is nobody
around of the opposite sex, and even if there is, action clicking on the
ground to make the creature drop the villager will NOT produce a breeder).
It must be a bug, or have a really weird explanation.
When the creature brings home a villager, it might accidently drop it on top
of the villager's house, instead of by the house (which, as explained earlier,
you cannot punish it for). And, I don't know if this is a training thing or
not, but the creature never seems to bring home the villagers who are actually
on their way home...
*******************************************************************************
If you play the game by micromanaging your villages, you will almost certainly
spend such a large amount of time doing it that the creature automatically
will adapt your actions over time.
However, if you do have trouble teaching it to help villagers, have the
creature leashed to you using the Learning Rope, while you perform the actions
you want it to adopt. Performing the same actions in different ways may also
help. For example, the food storage can be filled by either dropping grain or
livestock on it or by casting Food miracles.
Note that having a creature leashed to a building won't automatically make the
creature interact with the building unless you have taught it what to do. In
fact, it seems to be a rather poor use of the leash (except for a well trained
creature, but even then, unrestricting its area of movement will most
definitely have it moving out of the village sooner or later).
And, if you do have your creature leashed to a building in the village, make
sure you unleash it when it needs food and sleep, which it otherwise might not
prioritise.
An area of trouble seems to be if you want to have your creature deliver food
to the worshippers at your temple. This is very hard for it to copy, since
there doesn't seem to be a clear distinction between the different parts of
the temple to your creature (it seems to regard the tower, the surrounding
shrines and its pen as one and the same).
If you have taught your creature the Food miracle, however, the best way is
simply to leash it to the food desire flag on a temple shrine and have it
figure out by itself that it should cast a miracle on the worshippers. Remember
to stroke the creature when it gets it right. This method is very effective.
Also, if your creature is kind to the villagers, it may pick one up from time
to time, pat the villager a little and then put it back down. That villager
will then have a very high chance of turning into a disciple breeder!
This can happen very often with a creature which is kind to villagers, so be
watchful of your creature so your villagers won't cause overbreeding, which is
a nightmare.
So, if you want your creature to continue being nice to villagers, but not
create that many breeders, leash it the moment it picks up a villager. Then
action click by its feet to make it put the villager down and make the
creature do something more useful instead.
The best thing is to assign all disciples yourself. Remember which villagers
you put to work far from your village, and seek them out when you have your
creature leashed to the Learning Rope. Disciples who work far from home have to
travel great distances and will have less time to go to the storage for food or
go home and sleep very often and because of this, their health will
deteriorate. So, cast Heal miracles on these villagers and make sure your
creature notices it. Then give it a big reward when it casts Heal on a villager
itself. The deaths in the village will decrease over time if your creature
learns this well.
5.4.5 THE IMPORTANCE OF HOUSEKEEPING
An untrained creature will have a rather high urge to poop anytime and
anywhere. It is uncertain how the villagers react to having poop all over the
place, but I suspect that they might not approve.
You can actually teach your creature to stop pooping entirely. To do this,
slap it immediately when you first witness the creature pooping against
something.
Hopefully, the creature will still need to poop, and will show you this by
farting. Slap it again, but this time give it a good go. Sometimes, this is
enough to have it give up ever wanting to poop again. (Though it is unknown if
this will have any damaging effect on the creature.)
Although it has been suggested that you should train your creature to poop in
the fields, it seems to be of little use. Personally, I'd rather use the Water
miracle, as it is much more effective and pleasant.
6. VILLAGE MANAGEMENT
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
If you drop too much food in a temple shrine, the ENTIRE PILE will be gobbled
up in a second the next time a worshipper decides to eat. Since you don't get
any Prayer Energy for this, a sacrifice of the leftover food hasn't been made,
so it would seem that this indeed is a bug!
The expand desire flag is also unreliable. Once you create a construction site
for a building (or drop wood on a construction site), the flag will slide down
and disappear completely, but once the building is finished, it will pop right
up to the top again! A similar behaviour can be seen on some fields. If you
empty all food and then water it, the field will pop right up, and then slowly
slide down again. Seems like some graphical bugs to me, but still...
*******************************************************************************
Though handling the creature might be a large part of the game, next to
managing a village, getting a creature trained is a piece of cake. If you want
to play really good aligned, satisfying all the needs of the villagers will
become so time consuming that you might suddenly find that it is all you do.
Now, I always knew that this was true in the real world, but it is nice to find
that they accurately portrayed this in Black & White too: Animals are smarter
than people!
Humans are the most annoying thing in the game. They are never satisfied,
always want more, devour natural resources in seconds, breed like rabbits
and spread like locusts.
I will complain a lot about expanding and breeding desires below, and since it
is vital to expand in order to gain more influence and power, you might be
puzzled as to why it is so bad. Well, the thing is that if you are unlucky,
villagers will want to expand until there is no more room on the entire island,
not even for forests!
And forests are life. Without them, you will die.
A tip to keep easier track of all the villagers is to use the "S" key, as
described in the manual, to activate small information bubbles above each
villager. And note that villagers, although seemingly originating from
primitive cultures, may live until they are well over eighty years old
(probably one of the perks of living in "Eden").
Also understand that villagers have their own unique personalities and
attributes. If you notice a lot of people in your village "chilling out",
you may have a problem with lazy villagers. Put these villagers to work
immediately to prevent disillusion (or if you are extremely kind, cast a
nice miracle near them to impress them and get them to work that way).
Good disciples for these kind of villagers would be fishermen, foresters or
traders, since they would have to walk a lot, and not have time to sit down
much. Do monitor the health of people who work far away from the village
storage, though, as lack of food and sleep will affect their well being.
Also be aware that breeding one lazy villager with another may produce an
even lazier offspring. Inbreeding is not taken into account, which can be
used to your advantage.
The manual fails to highlight a lot of things about how demanding the
villagers really are. In fact, there is a whole evil circle involved in
managing villages.
First of all, villagers will need food to survive. But too much food
will induce a desire for breeding, and satisfying breeding will induce a desire
for expanding from the offspring, which in turn will require wood and thus
raise the desire for that. And after all the new villagers have new homes, they
must feed again and so the food desire once again goes up. This, if not
countered, will spiral downward towards your doom.
Usually, the first problem you encounter is that your initial village has a
maximized expansion desire. Now, to expand, you will need wood, and you can't
just keep giving the villagers wood forever, since they will become
disillusioned. You will need forests near your village, and a lot of them.
Training your creature to water trees is a very good idea as a couple of
disciple foresters in a village with a high forest desire can devour a huge
forest in no time.
Another problem with trees is that the stupid villagers cut down the smallest
trees first, which won't yield as much wood and which will prevent the forest
from growing at its fastest rate. Always water the small trees to counter
this!
Also note that since the buildings you construct vary depending on the current
needs of the villagers and the location you are trying to place it, you can
sometimes get a better building by trying a couple of different places (this
can be important with bigger houses, since they all cost two scaffolds, but
house different amounts of villagers).
The workshop is a very good target for the Wood miracle, with no risk of
disillusion, since the villagers won't deliver wood to it by themselves
unless you assign disciple craftsmen to it (which you should definetly do).
Construction sites are also equally good targets.
This leads to the second problem. The villagers won't deliver food to your
temple shrines no matter what you do! This is a veritable management nightmare
since the shrines are the source of your Prayer Energy.
Temple shrines don't work like the village storage either. You cannot dump a
large amount of food on a shrine and expect it to last. A large amount of
food dumped in a shrine will last almost exactly as long as a small amount
of food. Instead, keep your deliveries regular and don't concentrate on the
amount of food, but rather if the food pile is gone or not. The food pile
in a shrine should NEVER be empty!
You can get the creature to deliver for you, but it can only carry small
amounts initially so it is a rather ineffective use of your creature. Teach it
to use the Food miracle instead and leash it to the food desire flag on a
shrine. This way, the creature will automatically try to lower the flag
using what it has learnt.
Note that leashing the creature to the shrine altar won't accomplish anything
(except if you have an evil creature, in which case it may start sacrificing
villagers).
Worshippers produce Prayer Energy by draining their own lives, so they will
also need healing from time to time, or they will die at the site (even if
the flag which indicates the need for sleep isn't visible at all).
Next up is breeding. This is the worst thing that can happen, since when
villagers decide they want to breed, it will affect all other desires too,
as mentioned above. Breeding doesn't cost you anything to fix, but the
consequences of too much offspring will.
Note that male breeders can impregnate more than one woman. A female breeder
will only produce offspring once every 9 months (about one real minute). Select
the gender of the breeder according to your expansion plans for your village
and your current needs.
Luckily, even if you are playing good, you can ignore the breeding desire flag.
Breeding is apparently something villagers revert back to desire when all their
other needs are fullfilled. So, even though they may complain, you actually
do have happy villagers (assuming that the rest of the flags are kept low,
that is).
Finally, we have food. This is the least of the problems, yet it still is a
problem, since even though you can have one field per ten villagers, a couple
of disciple fishermen and a good supply of grain coming into the storage
regularly, if the storage isn't extremely well loaded, the villagers will
complain. Food miracles cast on the storage by either you or your creature
in addition to many fields will remedy the situation, though. But be careful;
overfeeding will cause the desire to breed to increase, and you'll soon have
worse problems than just disillusion on your hands.
Civic building desire is the only thing which isn't a problem, since only three
types exist, and after you've built them, the villagers will be satisfied.
The créche, which keeps children in one location, can also serve another
purpose. Usually, the kids just run around after their mothers until they grow
up, but if you drop, or throw, a couple of rocks outside the building they may
start dancing around them and make Artefacts out of the rocks. The Artefacts
can then be used to convert other villages by dumping them there instead
(after they have started glowing and showing your symbol).
Note that if you are passive, people will stop dancing around the Artefacts.
To remedy this, perform some miracles in and around the village in order to
impress the villagers into getting them dancing again (area effect miracles
such as Flying Creatures and Increased Heal are very effective for this).
A balance between expansion and breeding can be achieved, but you will
probably sweat and swear a lot before you find it. One way to do it is to
acommodate all needs but breeding. The villagers may then die without leaving
any families behind, and houses will start to empty. If that happens, you
can put a couple of breeders to work without having to expand or watch out
for other increasing desires until the houses are filled up again. Check when
the amount of children in the créche roughly matches the number of empty
positions in your houses, and then convert all (or most) of the disciple
breeders to something else.
Note that the amount of people the village can hold, as shown by the Totem
will NOT be the same as the number of empty rooms in the houses. The houses
only show how many adults they can house! The children capacity of a building
can't be seen. Villagers can ask for more homes even if there seems to be
enough space, since there can be a child who is homeless.
Also, a building can be moved as long as the scaffold is visible. If you want
to change the location of a building, you will have to tear it down so that you
can reach inside it and grab the scaffold (it will appear once the building is
enough damaged). Placing buildings too close can also have the effect that your
creature won't be able to reach certain areas, since it can't fit between the
houses! (Until it gets so large that it can walk over houses, that is.) Reduce
or Enlarge Creature miracles can temporarily counter such situations, though.
Note that if you need help with a certain desire in the village, you can
actually leash your creature to an individual desire flag, and it will try
to assist in the best possible way it knows.
Finally, the scroll in your Temple which contains village statistics only
displays the total of all your villages. To see statistics such as available
space or disciples for a single village, you will have to run around to every
village and knock on houses, look at Totems or inspect villagers by yourself.
6.1 ADDITIONAL VILLAGE TIPS
Lightning always seem to hit the exact same spot during storms. Put a shield on
that area, but be aware that a too small shield makes the lightning pierce
through...
If a town center catches fire, everyone from the worship site will come running
to try to put it out. The totem will also be set to zero and you won't be
able to raise it until the town center is restored...
If the creature becomes stuck in a village, it WILL act in a destructive manner
while it tries to get out (that is, it will kick and wreck structures so that
it can pass and you cannot punish it since then it will remain stuck)...
7. ISLAND SPECIFIC TIPS AND SECRETS
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
Design decision or cosmetic bug? Well, the sun rises and sets in the exact
same spot on the horizon...
Also, the transparent building on a construction site shows the building
properly sloped against the ground, but a finished building will always be
completely horizontal and thus may be "buried" under a hillside.
*******************************************************************************
Below I will try to give a general overview of the islands, with some strategy
suggestions and tips on how conquer each of them. There will also be notes
about gold scrolls and solutions to secret island quests (those without any
scrolls).
Note that I will write the general tips first, and only dig into the secret
stuff in the last couple of paragraphs, so there should be minimal spoilers
on the first couple of lines for each island.
7.1 THE FIRST ISLAND
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
After a while on island one, Whitey will always say that you killed someone!
This happens when an Actor turned Vagrant Start dies (press "S" to see their
titles). Usually, it is the Singing Stone guy who dies of old age after some
time, but all the other Actors eventually die too if you wait long enough
(except the Stone Cutter, it seems). Naturally, you shouldn't have to take the
blame for this, so it is considered a bug for now.
*******************************************************************************
Since this is the tutorial island, all the features of the game aren't
accessible. But on the other hand, the demands placed on you here are extremely
low, so it is a very good place to hone your creature training skills and also
teach the creature every miracle on the island. There is no time limit on how
long you can stay here.
But, there's also a drawback. Since not everything in the game can be accessed
yet, you may not be able to teach your creature everything you want. You can,
however, save the game and play a skirmish for awhile, and then load and take
your creature back to the island with all its newly gained knowledge.
You will have to do certain gold scroll quests in order to get a creature, but
don't do the last one (the one the Guide creature warns you about) if you want
to hang out on the island.
Note that no quest should be of any trouble here, since the camera will always
zoom to show you any important places of the quest, and both Whitey and Blackie
will give you hints and tips.
Also, the best way to help the farmer woman is to simply drop the sick brother
by her. Wrecking her house is evil, but you can do better than that! Kill the
brother and then drop the corpse by her. Or even worse, trash the house, kill
the sister and drop her corpse by him (he'll then die of shock).
When you decide to activate the last gold scroll, make sure you stack up on
one-shot miracles (by picking them off the dispensers and dropping them) and
anything else you want to take with you, since you can drop it all in the
vortex when it opens and it will be there on the next island. Remember to bring
all your villagers too!
Note that the natural way to complete the Ogre quest would be after the Piper
quest, but if you do it the other way around, the improved miracle dispenser
you get as a reward will be given after the Piper instead.
When you finally leave the island, make sure your creature is trained and ready
to handle itself, since you may not have much time to spend with it on island
two (the demands of the villagers there are bound to keep you busy for long
periods of time).
If you have downloaded new creatures, there is a hut with a silver scroll
beyond the beach with the Ark, where you can exchange creatures.
7.2 THE SECOND ISLAND
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
You can focus and feed (for example) other creatures than your own! This may be
another of those very strange design decisions, but one I can't figure out at
all. This also reveals an embarrassing fact about the enemy AI in the game:
Creatures belonging to other gods have 100% hunger and thirst without
collapsing!
Also, the time (and thus distance) an AI god can reach out and act outside its
area of influence might also be questionable...
Some people have complained about huge saving and loading times when they reach
the second island (or play a very long skirmish game). Well, hopefully this
will be optimised in a patch by Lionhead, but in the meantime, if you have an
additional 200mb of disk space, copy the Audio folder from the CD to its
corresponding folder on your hard drive. Note that you do this on your own
risk! There is no guarantee that your game will work 100% after doing this.
*******************************************************************************
Note that the tutorial isn't quite over when you first arrive on island two.
You still can't construct buildings yet, even though your villagers will want
them. Be patient, though, since you will soon be taught how to. In the
meantime, it would be wise to teach your creature how to water forests, since
they are so scarce on this island that BOTH of the other gods will steal trees
from you!
Also, you are probably meant to learn how to micromanage villages on this
island, since you absolutely have to! The stupid villagers won't lift a finger
except for doing massive breeding and devastation of forests.
In fact, the closest primaeval forest to the village will usually be devoured
in a matter of minutes, and there is no way to get it back. Use the Water
miracle on the surviving trees quickly in order to regenerate as many trees
as possible, and get your creature to help you! Also, once small trees pop up,
target them instead of the larger trees and your forest will grow even faster.
Once you do get a workshop and the ability to construct buildings, note that
you will need to expand initially to get all the villagers from island one
into houses. It is also alright to expand a bit further, since it will give
you more power, but watch out so you don't run out of space to build new
homes (it can happen, if you don't take control over their desires). If your
expansion does get out of control, do everything in your power to keep
forests growing, since without them you will be doomed.
Also, when you have managed to house all the villagers you brought with you
from the first island, you will get the knowledge of the Forest miracle.
Because of all the lazy villagers on this island, you will have to keep a
steady amount of disciples to get anything done. To be able to do this, you
will need a good memory and a keen eye. Because, when a disciple dies, they
won't transfer their knowledge over to their offspring, and thus, when you
notice that the disciple count is dwindling on the scroll in your Temple, you
must zoom around over every village to find out where it was that one of your
disciples died.
In order to be able to cast your own miracles and start using the Totem in
your village center, activate the first couple of golden scroll as soon as
possible. When you reach the right golden scroll (the one where you get taught
how to use the gestures), Khazar will want you to impress a village. Note that
you do not have to take over the village, you only have to impress them until
the point where Khazar leaves. You can then go back to your first village
again, and continue managing that until you feel comfortable with it.
You do not have to worry so much about breeding initially in the first village,
since the food levels will be low and you can keep them that way by constantly
taking food from the storage to supply your temple shrines (or divert the
villagers to other duties instead).
Khazar will also urge you to conquer Lethys' villages far too soon, in my
opinion. Make sure your own villages are well balanced first!
So, this is the first island where you have to take over other villages.
Depending on whether you are playing good or evil, choose your desired method
of converting the other villages, but it won't require much belief on this
island... it is harder to keep them satisfied (if you are evil, you only
need to keep them, which is easier).
However, there is a hidden quest near Lethys' first village. It's a tree
puzzle, which will grant you a Flying Creatures miracle dispenser if it is
solved, which in turn will make it much easier to impress the village.
(To solve the puzzle, note that each moved tree changes all trees around it.
So, work your way around the edges and have it so your last move is to change
the middle tree.)
Note the amount of lazy people in the village closest to your first one. When
you take over that village, deal with them in a way you feel is appropriate.
There is also an unclaimed Greek village near Khazar's realm, where there will
be a person sacrificing children in order to keep the villagers constantly
youthful. He will curse if you pick him up, and if you do kill him, all the
people in that village will die.
Once you take over the first village from the enemy god, Lethys, you are
on your own. Lethys will rarely attack you, though, and will mainly cast
protection on his own villages if you try to convert them. He will, however
attack your creature with his arsenal of miracles if it gets too near a
village of his. Make sure your creature can both cast Water AND Heal on
itself (this may actually have to be taught during an attack).
Also note that you cannot damage or destroy his temple until ALL of his
villages are either neutral or under your control. And for disposing temples,
throwing flaming boulders (heated with fireballs) are very effective.
Casting a Teleport miracle outside far away villages and next to your Temple is
also a very good idea, to save people the long walk to and from the worship
sites (especially during the time that they are being built).
When you have conquered all but the final of Lethys' villages, you will witness
a small cut-scene and a Vortex will appear (and yes, what happens is
unavoidable). This Vortex will only stay open for a limited amount of time, but
all is not lost if you miss it. A second Vortex will appear if you conquer all
of Lethys villages and destroy his temple. That Vortex will also stay open so
you can drop artefacts, villagers, miracles, wood and grain to take with you.
Oh, and on a final note, really evil players can totally ignore Lethys (or not)
and instead try to defeat Khazar, and it will have the same effect as in
conquering all of Lethys villages!
7.3 THE THIRD ISLAND
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
Even though villagers supposedly shouldn't be cutting down trees (planted)
inside a village, the people in the initial village on the island will cut
down every single tree around the village no matter how many forests you plant
around it.
The Tree Puzzle also seems buggy on this island. After pulling trees for a
while some of them will shrink and not display any change (although they do
actually change in the puzzle, but still sabotage a correct solution).
The behavior of Lethys is also extremely puzzling on this island. Sometimes he
will Lightning Bolt thin air for minutes, sometimes he will walk back and forth
for hours and I've even observed him and his creature standing still in a pile
of burning food for about half an hour...
Also, if Lethys' temple vanishes (along with the leashes), his creature may
still be leashed to something, and that leash will never disappear.
*******************************************************************************
This island is a bit trickier, since it requires a lot of belief to convert
villages, and some are quite far apart. Your initial area of influence is
also rather small, but it will as usual grow with more belief and larger
villages.
You do have an initial village on the third island, even though it may not look
like it at first. A couple of civic buildings are scattered amongst the hilly
terrain and they need to be finished. This requires wood (and some workers).
The wood can be found at the bottom of the waterfall next to your village on a
strategically placed miracle dispenser. Only use this wood on construction
sites though, in order to prevent disillusion.
Since a workshop is one of the civic buildings, you may be tempted to start
building housing for your villagers, but you actually don't need to do that
here! The villagers will create construction sites for enough houses to
keep everyone happy for awhile, and all you need to do is supply them with
wood.
However, when you do need to start to expand by yourself, consider leaving the
mountain paths unblocked by new buildings.
After your first village is according to your satisfication, it would be well
advised to complete the Shaolin quest as soon as possible (before you try to
conquer the second village, even). The rewards for that quest are triggered by
events on the island, and once those events have happened, the chance of
getting the rewards will be lost.
By now, you should have noticed a small Celtic guy sitting by a campfire
between the first and second villages (he is the one you always hear whining if
you get close). This man is seemingly invincible and will challenge you to
throw him around. If you do, you will notice that he has a small area of
influence around him, which you can use to your advantage if you like.
When you conquer the second village, Lethys will start messing with you again.
He will cast a couple of fireballs to set some of your villagers on fire. This
will cause them to start running around, setting fire to anything they come
near. If you haven't got any worshippers at your Temple yet, you obviously
can't cast the Water miracle on them. However, there is another tactic for this
situation. Pick up someone which is on fire and drop that villager by a beach,
about knee-deep in water (just so he or she doesn't start drowning). This will
put out the fire and you can quickly move on to the next villager.
A similar incident happens after you have conquered the third village. A
possessed pack of wolves will be conjured up to attack the people in the
village. As before, there are a number of things you can do to save Prayer
Energy here. Setting fire to the forest they run through is an energy saving
alternative, but since forests are valuable, it is not one of the better ways.
A much more proficient strategy is to swiftly pick up each wolf and drop them
in the village storage for food!
Note that you can use your godly powers to freeze ("Pause", that is) or slow
down time (using Alt + 1 and Alt + 2), if you don't consider that cheating,
that is.
After awhile, a tree puzzle, like the one on the second island, will appear
above the invincible guy's camp. This one may be harder to solve (it has three
types of trees instead of two) but will yield a Flying Creatures miracle
at your third village, which will help a lot when trying to conquer the fourth
one.
On this island, you may also have to look out for thunderstorms, since
lightning may hit your villages and kill people or set buildings on fire.
If you have a lot of Prayer Energy, Spiritual Shield miracles will protect
against lightning during bad weather.
Also, don't underestimate your enemy, even though he may be down to his last
village. He will sacrifice everything in sight to get Prayer Energy!
And although Lethys' creature will still roam the land after he is gone, it
should not be able to pose any threat or real danger.
Note that you do not have to destroy Lethys in order to move on to the next
island. In fact, Whitey will give you a compliment when you reach island four,
if you let him live.
7.4 THE FOURTH ISLAND
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
During the second part of the wolf puzzle, there is an "extra" gate which
really isn't a part of the puzzle, and which can make it harder to spot it's
solution.
This bug applies to every island, but I discovered it first on this island
while building the hedge. If you stack rocks upon each other and then remove
the bottom rock, the above rocks will be suspended in the air. An optimization
of the physics engine, I guess, but still.
Also something I've discovered on this island is that sometimes a transparent
scaffold stays in the workshop even after the building site has been completed,
thus preventing any additional scaffolds being built.
*******************************************************************************
The fourth island is actually the first island, but everything has been shot
to hell. Nemesis cursed the land with thunder storms, fireballs and a blood red
sky. All is guarded by three Guardian Stones, each one assigned to power one of
the island's curses.
The most imposing problem here is that you are being bombarded by fireballs.
Note that these can be temporarily avoided using shields around your village or
simply by catching them.
The easiest way to catch fireballs is to grab one off the ground first, and
then point your view up towards the sky and locate the point from where the
fireballs are originating. Then use your burning hand to absorb other fireballs
as they come falling down. You can also use your godly powers to slow down
time, same way as with the Wolves on the previous island. Blackie will let you
know when the attack is over, and Whitey will warn you before the next one
begins.
Note that shields require a lot of Prayer Energy to stay up (if you run out,
they will disappear, just as a Forest miracle), but there is also a Spiritual
Shield miracle dispenser near your Temple. These one-shot miracles can also be
activated, and then shaken off in order to transfer their inherent power to
your Temple instead!
Additionally, there is a Totem puzzle on a hill beyond the huge gates. If you
solve it (by keeping all the totem poles at their highest level) you gain
another Spiritual Shield miracle dispenser. The key to solving the puzzle is
to note which totems only affect one other totem, and save the totem which
doesn't affect any other totem for last.
To stop the fireballs permanently, you need to solve a puzzle. This puzzle must
be unlocked by conquering one of the villages first (it is the Japanese village
next to the Guardian Stone with the physical and spiritual shield around it).
A good tactic here is to bring a couple of Artefacts from previous islands,
since they can generate several hundred in belief. However, it might be hard to
lob them into the village from afar, and having the creature drop them into the
village doesn't seem to yield any belief at all. So, the best way is to have a
creature which is able to impress villagers on it's own. If you have trained
it correctly, you should be able to leash it to the vilage center (or just
leave it there) while you catch fireballs. Feed the creature between attacks
and just wait for it to conquer the village. The bell puzzle itself is very
simple and it is always the same one so even if you fail the first few times,
you can always try again.
However, the fireballs will initially not harm your village or the forests
around it, so you should take care of a more pressing matter first. This is the
attacks on the village by the gremlins. There are four gremlins who will storm
the village from time to time to steal villagers from you. Killing them is evil,
but there are other ways to make them stay away.
Your creature can temporarily scare them off by its presence alone, and
Physical Shield miracles will also help. Much better, though, is to block off
their access to your village. This is done by building a hedge of stones or
fences on the top of the hill at the mouth of the narrow passage they come
from (have your creature guard the passage while you fetch stones, and remember
that you can split large boulders into several smaller stons). After the hedge
is built, you can ignore their raid attempts.
To stop the gremlins permantently, you must stop the thunder storms. That stone
is guarded by an ogre named Sleg and this time, a fight is unavoidable. Defeat
him and the thunder storms will stop (but note that if you haven't stopped the
fireballs when you do this, there will be no rain to help you put out the
fires).
Near the ogre is also a wolf maze puzzle. You have to guide a boy named Thomas
out of the maze without having the wolf catch him. There are two mazes, but
both are really easy. You just have to keep Thomas moving along the edges
(usually away from the exit at first), until the wolf becomes stuck in an
alcove. After that, the way to the exit should be free. The reward is the
knowledge of the Creature Strength miracle, which can be a good thing to use
while fighting the ogre.
You may have noticed that nobody is dancing in your villages, and that people
(even disciples) tend to stay at home rather than work. This is due to the
blood red sky and that is the last thing you have to fix. In order to do this,
you have to reunite Adam and Keiko. Adam is the lonely man on the mountain by
the temple with the last stone, and Keiko is in the village closest to it
(although the popup will only say Actor if you press "S"). You can, however,
also kill her to solve the quest.
Finally, you will be asked to deal with the cursed village with the skeleton
tribe. You need to raise the buried village totems to their full height in
order to reverse the curse. To be able to do this, you will need to extend
your area of influence over the village, so you can reach atleast one of
the totems. You then need to have your creature raise one of the Totems AT THE
SAME TIME you raise the other one! If your creature knows how to use Totems,
it should be able to figure out what you want it to do. If not, just try again.
Note that the Skeleton tribe will die out because of old age, which may (or may
not) seem strange, but it does not make any difference in completing the quest.
If you want to change back to your original creature, the hut with the silver
scroll from island one is still here.
7.5 THE FIFTH ISLAND
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
Many people have reported this bug: If you complete the game, the curse on your
creature will still be in effect and there is no way to make it go away!
Your creature's alignment will reverse and it will constantly shrink in all
network, internet and skirmish games afterwards!
Until the issue has been cleared or a patch is out, I recommend people NOT to
venture into the fifth island! Play skirmish or on the internet and train your
creature in the meantime.
*******************************************************************************
8. SILVER SCROLL SOLUTIONS
The silver scrolls are the mini-quests of Black & White. They're not essential
to finishing the game, but they may grant rewards if they are solved properly.
Most quests have good and evil solutions to them. Below, both ways and their
rewards will be described in as much detail as possible.
Note that I write more or less abstract tips in the first couple of paragraphs,
and then move on to become increasingly detailed in my descriptions the more
text there is. This is to reduce spoilers for those who just want some basic
tips.
Some of the scrolls must also be activated before they show up on the islands.
The triggers for these are usually when you take over a certain village or
when you reach a certain point on an island, so they are not easily missed and
thus not worth mentioning here.
8.1 QUESTS ON THE FIRST ISLAND
The first island is the tutorial island, and thus, its quests don't have
time limits and you get very good tips on how to complete them. Miracle
dispensers are the most common reward here.
8.1.1 THROWING STONES
Location: Near the mountain, next to the shore near your temple.
Good Solution
-------------
Do as Whitey and Blackie suggest and throw a bunch of stones at the rock
lying on top of the pillar. Just watch out so you don't hit the house which
lies in the same area, or its inhabitant for that matter.
If you are lucky, having your creature leashed to you with the Learning Rope
while trying to score a hit might actually teach him how to throw stones into
the water or on land and trees, which will make it grow stronger.
Note that on other islands, stones won't be limitless as in this quest, so
it might be a good idea to return the stones to their original position, and
hope the creature copies this course of action too.
There is also a secret to this quest! If you keep throwing stones on the
pillar, it will drop Water miracles. You can keep this up for some time before
it stops (note that the limitless stone supply will end once you start doing
other qusts).
Good Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot Water miracles).
Evil Solution
*************
You can, of course, have your creature leashed to you with the aggressive
leash too. In that case, when you throw stones at the pillar, the creature
will more likely aim at the house, its inhabitant or at some trees.
If you do destroy the hut, you can rebuild it to get a rather hefty belief
award.
Naturally, throwing villagers to try to knock the stone off the pillar will
also work.
Evil Reward: Chest with a Beach Ball (and secret one-shot Water miracles).
8.1.2 THE SAVIOR
Location: By the shore with the fishing spots near your temple.
Good Solution
-------------
Simply do as Whitey says and have your creature pick them up. This is easily
accomplished by leashing it with the compassion leash and action clicking on
the drowning men. When the creature has reached the men and picked one up,
quickly click on the beach next to the woman who gave you the quest. Hopefully,
your creature will drop the fisherman and wait.
If you have an inexperienced creature, the danger here is that he will either
throw or eat the fishermen if you take too long time between the pick up and
destination drop commands.
Good Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Letting them drown, or even throwing in the farmer woman who gave you the
quest are definitely evil ways of finishing off this task. The fishermen will
also be excellent food for your creature.
Evil Reward: Creature Strength miracle dispenser.
8.1.3 THE LOST FLOCK
Location: In the village near the créche.
Good Solution
-------------
This is the first tricky quest in the game. In order to return the sheep to
the farmer, you have to find them. This isn't easy at first, since they are
very small, and you have to look closely to the ground to spot them.
However, you can also listen carefully when you search the land. When you are
close to a sheep, you will hear it, sometimes before you see it.
The farmer requires five sheep, but there are more than that on the island...
And if you do return all the sheep, he will reward you by letting you select
a Sheep as your own creature!
The locations of all the sheep are the following:
* Next to the stone sculptor's house.
* Behind the huge gate.
* Fenced in with some pigs in a farm outside the village.
* On a mountaintop, close to the hermit.
* Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick man was).
* Near a singing stone by the sea, close to the fishing spots.
* By the pillar where you practice stone throwing.
* Under some palm trees next to the beach where you started.
* On the mountainside near the palm trees where you started.
Good Reward: Stack of Food (and the Sheep creature if you return ALL sheep!)
Evil Solution
*************
Kill the sheep, feed them to your creature, kill the farmer, wreck his house...
Use your sinister little imagination.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.1.4 THE SINGING STONES (1)
Location: Near the shore outside the second village.
Good Solution
-------------
Not only will you need to find the singing stones here, but you will need to
find the CORRECT stones and place them in the right order. (The singing stones
are the teardrop shaped rocks with a rune on them.)
The right order is simply a musical scale, going from the lower tones to the
higher. Action click a singing stone to hear its tone, then place it on one of
the dark spots to have it join in the playing of the scale with the other
stones.
You can pick up and rearrange any of the stones you find, but note that the
three stones which are already in place cannot be moved, but also doesn't need
to, since they already are in the right spot.
There also exists three false stones on the island. They are recognized by
their low pitch tones, which doesn't belong to the scale.
The locations for the correct stones are the following:
* Next to the circle of the singing stones.
* Behind the graveyard in the village.
* In the hermit's quarry.
* Amongst some trees, close to the hermit (where the sick man was).
* In the mountain backside, close to the starting beach.
Good Reward: Food miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Well, I don't know if the stones can be destroyed, and not doing anything in
this case won't complete the quest. I guess you could try to destroy the hut
of the caretaker of the stones, if you feel that it will accomplish something.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.1.5 THE EXPLORERS
Location: By the shore behind the huge gates.
Good Solution
-------------
First of all, it has been said that taking food out of a village storage may be
an evil act, but for this mission, it seems to be overlooked. Whitey's comment
upon completing the quest might also imply that he wanted them to stay (he says
that he "hates goodbyes"...) but it is the only way to get rewarded in this
quest.
So, you need to supply them with what they want. Trees will do you no good, as
they need "prepared wood". This has to be taken from the storage or from any
stack of wood.
Next, they want grain. A field or storage will provide that.
Note that it may be evil to take food from villagers and use it on anything
outside the village. If you don't want to risk that, use fish instead, since
fish transform into grain when you pick them up.
Finally, they need meat. There are several options for the meat, but if you
drop a sheep by them, they will say that it has "a lot of uses", which they
don't say if you drop any other animal.
Note that I have had several kinky references to syphilis on that above sheep
comment. Has nobody considered the fact that you get wool from a sheep?
Just make sure you have completed the sheep farmer's quest before you give away
a sheep, or you won't be able to finish it perfectly. A cow is a good substitute
for a sheep.
You can also drop a woman by them when they ask for "meat". Since it sounds
like they have good intentions, I believe this is a good bonus. You can also
give them additional men as crew or a child for scrubbing the decks. (If you
accidently kill one of them, you can also drop a male villager by them to
replace the dead crewmember.)
Being kind to the emigrants will also let you help them on island five, where
you will receive an extra village and the Polar Bear creature if you help them
again.
Good Reward: Water miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Since you will have no means of torching the ship when you get this quest, the
only evil option left is to kill the sailors.
Evil Reward: Nothing! (Except for a comic scene after the killing.)
8.1.6 THE PIED PIPER
Location: By the village créche and the cave in the mountain beside it.
Good Solution
-------------
As Whitey says, the key to rescuing the children alive is to somehow get the
piper to release them. Since you can't reach into the cave, and not even
pick up the piper, you'll have to try another way.
The solution lies with your creature. However, the creature won't be fast
enough to catch him either. So, the only option left is to leash the creature
to the piper.
The piper will panic and freeze, so your creature can calmly catch up with him
and pick him up. Though make sure you are using the compassion leash, or
chances are that the creature will either throw or eat the piper, which is
very bad.
Now all you have to do is drop the piper in front of the cave (action click
in front of the opening) and he'll release the children and become a good
villager again.
Good Reward: Heal miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Since you don't care about the echo of crying sounds from the cave, naturally
the piper must die.
Have your creature eat him, throw him into the sea or drop a stone on him to
finish off this quest.
Evil Reward: Lightning miracle dispenser.
8.1.7 THE HERMIT
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
If you drop the Hermit in the Vortex, Whitey will say that you killed him,
although he will still be alive on the second island.
*******************************************************************************
Location: In the mountains by the starting location.
Good Solution
-------------
The easiest way to complete this quest is simply to let your creature grow
over time and return just before you leave the island to see if it has gotten
large enough.
If you are lucky and find an Enlarge Creature one-shot miracle you can also
use this to impress the Hermit, although the locations of these are totally
random.
Another trickier way is to carefully watch which tree the Hermit uses to
measure the height of the creature, and then replace it with a smaller
shrubbery.
The last solution above does not always work, it seems. But to increase its
chance of success, return with your creature to the Hermit until he stops
talking to you. Then remove every tree around the house (water the area to make
sure that every tree is gone) and replace a few with shrubberies. When you
return with your creature to the Hermit after this, chances are that he will
be impressed.
Good Reward: Water miracle dispenser (and a tip on fireflies).
Evil Solution
*************
Now that's a rather large and luxurious hut for such a despickable hermit,
isn't it? And what is the worst thing one could do to a hermit, I wonder?
Well, have your creature try to impress by carefully aiming a boulder on
the building and watch the hermit's reaction.
Watch out, though. The hermit will try to return the favour by sneaking
into your village and setting fire to your village storage.
Having the creature throw the Hermit into the sea might impress you, but
I'm not so sure about the Hermit... Whitey isn't impressed, though.
Evil Reward: Chest with a one-shot Water miracle.
8.1.8 THE OGRE
Location: Valley outside the second village.
Good Solution
-------------
Whitey obviously has a point with the ogre being hungry. You can try to drop
food by him, but since he's outside your area of influence you'll have to be
extremely quick before your power drains.
Another way of getting him food is to have your creature wear the compassion
leash and bring him food. However, the ogre is an aggressive creature, so
keep your distance and make sure your creature backs away as soon as it has
dropped the food.
Once properly fed (you'll have to feed it twice), the ogre will fall asleep
and you can sneak past with your creature and claim your reward.
Good Reward: Beach Ball and an improved power Healing miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Blackie, of course, suggests a fight. Just have your creature approach the
ogre with the leash of aggression and battle it out!
It shouldn't be hard to slay the ogre. But if you do fail, and loose the
battle, don't worry, since you can try again as many times as you like.
Evil Reward: Beach Ball and an improved power Healing miracle dispenser.
8.1.9 MUSHROOM COOKING QUEST (1)
Location: Forest covered peak by the shore near the circle of Singing Stones.
Note that this quest REQUIRES an enabled force feedback mouse in order to
appear in the game!!!
Good Solution
-------------
Feel your way around the circle of mushrooms in order to find the right one
(the one which shakes the most).
It should be the third one from the left of the biggest stone. Just put in
in the cauldron to complete the quest.
Good Reward: Loving Creature miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Well, choose a bad mushroom and the little hut will explode!
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.2 QUESTS ON THE SECOND ISLAND
The second island is a bit larger than the first, and the quests come a bit
further away here. The rewards also vary a bit, as does their solutions.
8.2.1 THE PLAGUE
Location: Indian village in the middle of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
Now this is tricky, morally that is. Running around healing villagers won't
do much. The disease will spread anyway. You need to find the source of the
problem.
It is quite easy to spot, however. All the food in the storage is green and
spoiled. Healing the food doesn't seem to help, so the only way is to drain
the entire storage from grain... which is stealing from the villagers,
and evil.
Throw the grain in the water to get rid of it and quickly try to replace the
food to silence the cries from the villagers. Then quickly heal all of them
before more people die, and the quest will be complete.
Good Reward: Lightning Bolt miracle at the village center.
Evil Solution
*************
If you are truly nasty, you will convert all your villagers to farmers and
farm the hell out of the village until every last one of them has died.
What you are left with is a very effective weapon against enemy villages
(or even enemy creatures). Just throw some of the spoiled food near enemy
villages and watch the naive people eat, suffer and die!
If you gathered enough food, you can empty all of the villages on the entire
island, since the other gods will have no idea of what you are doing.
Evil Reward: Nothing! (Well... except some cool means of chemical warfare...)
8.2.2 THE SACRIFICE
Location: Third Indian village, next to the Singing Stones.
Good Solution
-------------
This quest is meant to teach you about sacrificing.
Whitey is absolutely right. A good god does not sacrifice living creatures.
But a sacrifice is still needed to complete this quest.
The simplest thing to do is just to sacrifice trees (or a shrubbery!) until
you reach the same amount of prayer power as sacrificing his first born
son would yield.
Good Reward: Increased power Heal from the village center.
Evil Solution
*************
Well, dinner is served, so to speak. Start out lightly, with the first born
son, then move on to his wife and to round off, sacrifice the Shaman himself
for some serious poetic justice.
Evil Reward: ???
8.2.3 THE SEA
Location: Indian village in the middle of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
Well, since the children are being naughty, they refuse to come out of the
water.
Of course, as in the drowning fishermen quest, the creature can remedy the
situation, and bring the kids back to their mother (or just pick them up
yourself).
Note that bringing the mother to the kids, although an amusing way to complete
the quest, won't yield any reward.
Good Reward: Enlarged Creature miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
The creature can help here too. Chances are that, by now, it will know
what to do with food which has strayed too far from the village...
But if you want to be even more cruel, have the children witness the death of
their mother. After which, of course, they can become creature snack too, if
you want.
Evil Reward: ???
8.2.4 THE SINGING STONES (2)
Location: Next to a mountain by the village near the center of the island.
Note that all the tunes have to be played in order to fully complete the quest!
Good Solution
-------------
If you have a musical ear, this quest might be easy. If not, it is rather hard.
The stones are arranged in a scale, and this time you need to get them to play
certain melodies by action clicking them in the right order.
A clue to the first melody can be found in the Indian village nearby, where
there is a piper who whistles a well known French traditional folk song named
"Ah! vous dirai-je maman"...
Though the song may be more commonly recognized as "Twinkle, twinkle little
star".
The correct notes for the tune are the following (ordered left to right):
1, 1, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 6, 6, 5, 5, 3, 3, 1
1, 1, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1 (alt. version)
The day will then turn into night and the stones will change into gravestones.
As for the second, good tune, you have to ponder a bit. Now, what is the game
called again? And you are playing good. So the other tune would be... I wonder
if they do celebrate Christmas on these islands?
And yes, the correct piece of music is "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin.
The correct notes for the last tune are the following (ordered left to right):
2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (alt. version)
After this tune has been played, snow will start falling on the landscape.
Note that the evil song has to be played in order to fully complete this quest,
and that the Silver Scroll will stay even after completion (probably because
you can play the tunes over and over again).
Good Reward: ???
Evil Solution
*************
The same activation tune as for the good way is in fact required for the evil
way too.
The clue to the second tune can be found by searching the shores behind the
huge mountains beyond the centre of the island (not the snowy ones) where there
is a piper whistling on something.
More precisely, the correct piece of music is Chopin's "Marche funébre: Lento"
or piano sonata No. 2, B flat minor, Op. 35, third movement. More commonly
referred to as the "Funeral march".
The correct notes for this tune are the following (ordered left to right):
2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 2
5, 5, 5, 5, 8, 7, 7, 5, 5, 4, 5 (alt. version)
You will get a magical ring where you can ressurect dead beings in, which will
disappear after awhile, but just play the tune again to power it up.
Note that the raised person will come back as a skeleton...
Evil Reward: A magical ring where you can ressurect dead beings.
8.2.5 THE BEACH TEMPLE PUZZLE
Location: Shore near the lake in the middle of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
This is a simpler version of the classical towers of Hanoi puzzle. It is
simpler, since you only have 3 pillars to act upon here.
Note that the priest will complain about his belonging being wrecked while you
move the temple, so completing the quests with the minimal possible moves
would be desired.
Here follows a solution where you only have to move the base once:
(The "first" is the smallest piece, "fourth" one is the largest.)
1. First piece to middle peg
2. Second piece to right peg
3. First piece to right peg
4. Third piece to middle peg
5. First piece to left peg
6. Second piece to middle peg
7. First piece to middle peg
8. Fourth piece to right peg
9. First piece to right peg
10. Second piece to left peg
11. First piece to left peg
12. Third piece to right peg
13. First piece to middle peg
14. Second piece to right peg
15. First piece to right peg
Good Reward: Temple will cast increased power Heal on anyone near it.
Evil Solution
*************
Moving the poor priest's home until every belonging inside it is totally
trashed is probably rather evil (or just dumb).
Note that you cannot throw the temple pieces anywhere, since they only stick to
the pillars.
Evil Reward: ???
8.2.6 THE GREEDY FARMER
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
The script for this quest will start running even before you have activated
the Silver Scroll! If you take too long you may not be able to finish this
quest and get a reward.
*******************************************************************************
Location: First Celtic village in the snowy mountains.
Good Solution
-------------
If the children are already on their way with a cow, you can pick it up and
put it back with its herd to get a small compliment from Whitey. The children
won't give up because of this minor setback, though.
(Alot of people have told me that placing all the kids in shallow water until
one of the gets scared will complete the quest, although I have NEVER been able
to do this without one of them drowning...)
Good Reward: ???
Evil Solution
*************
Finally a mission where you can go postal and still succeed. Throw, burn, rain
lightning or feed one of the kids to your creature to discourage the other kids
from continuing to steal cows.
Though Blackie will dig you, the farmer won't even say thanks, so there is no
reward for child murder here. But, the other way around, of course, would be to
kill the farmer instead.
Evil Reward: Increased power Lightning Bolt from the village center.
8.2.7 THE IDOL
Location: Outside second village on a mountain path by the shore.
Good Solution
-------------
The idol clearly has to go. The question is how to do it. Throwing rocks at it
won't do much, because it is stronger than that... Lightning just electrifies
it a bit too, and it doesn't do any damage.
However, it is vulnerable to fire. To set it on fire, place someting flammable
next to it and have a fireball thrown in its direction. The heat from the
flammable object will help get the Idol red glowing hot, until it finally
shatters.
The people praying at the idol will then realize who is the more powerfull god
and place their faith in you instead. Whitey will also dig the fact that you
didn't kill anyone by the shrine.
Good Reward: Increased power Fireball miracle at the village center.
Evil Solution
*************
As Blackie so enthusiastically proclaims, the life expectancy of anyone daring
to pray at the idol would be rather weak. Apply your favourite method of
destruction to anyone near the idol.
Note that you also have to destroy the idol in order to get the reward, as in
the good solution of this quest.
Evil Reward: Increased power Fireball miracle at the village center.
8.2.8 THE SLAVERS
Location: Second Greek village beyond the lake in the centre of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
Here you need to free the villagers which have been taken for slaves by
supplying the circus with some rare animals for replacement.
There are a total of 8 slaves you can free and you can only deliver a maximum
of two of each type of animal to trade. There are, however, a number of animals
you can try:
* Lion, 2 slaves each (mountains next to the circus)
* Tiger, 2 slaves each (outside the first Greek village)
* Wolf, 2 slaves each (forest near Indian village beyond the Beach Temple)
* Horse, 1 slave each (middle of the island)
* Turtle, 1 slave each (islands outside your Temple)
Note that Cows and Sheep will be zapped if you try to give them to the circus.
Also, the slavers don't like you stealing from them. You can steal ONE animal
back from them and then drop it back into the pen to get some more slaves
released and you can steal ONE slave back without any reprisal from the
Slavers (but remember that stealing is evil). However, if you continue stealing
from them, they will attack the village! Be warned.
Good Reward: Flock of Wolves miracle dispenser.
Evil Solution
*************
Be warned, this quest is dangerous to finish in an evil way, and won't grant
you any rewards.
If you kill one of the circus men, the others will declare war upon you and
run down to your village and zap villagers! You have to make sure you kill
all six of them fast if you do not want this to happen.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.2.9 THE RIDDLES
Location: Tiny Indian village near the lake in the middle of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
The answers to the riddles are really simple, but make sure you double check
that everything really is inside the circle if you can't seem to get the reward
(remember that you can deactivate and then reactivate the shield at will, if
the wolf, for example, manages to sneak out while casting it).
Something which howls is a wolf (found in forest next to the village).
The simplest thing which is hot is a heated rock (heated with a Fireball).
That which is unique to your creature is poop (but any creature poop will work).
Good Reward: The Zebra creature!
Evil Solution
*************
Yes, you can trash her house and behave in a generally destructive manner, if
that pleases you, but the woman will refuse to talk to you and you won't be
able to solve the quest.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.3 QUESTS ON THE THIRD ISLAND
Since the third island isn't as large or as well populated as the second one,
the quests here are rather scarse, but the rewards are even more diverse.
8.3.1 THE SHAOLIN
Location: Base of the path to the tall mountain outside the second village.
Good Solution
-------------
You should know by know that gods appear as bright lights with their symbol in
the center. This is also the "eye" of that god. The same is also valid for
yourself. The angle and height of the position you are currently looking from
is the place where your bright light is shining from, and this is what you need
to keep the yogi from seeing.
The yogi should at all times have his back towards your direction. You can't
get ahead of the yogi, nor lag too far behind or zoom out by a great distance.
When the yogi starts walking, just follow him. He can't see your hand, so you
can move that around wherever you want. After awhile, you will reach a
"checkpoint" from where you will be able to restart if you fail your first
attempt.
Now things get tricky. When the yogi reaches a patch of tall, blue mushrooms,
swiftly circle around to the left, towards the center of the mountain. The yogi
will look around twice before starting to walk again. You need to rotate back
to your original position before he starts walking. Time your move carefully
so you start rotating precisely before he has finished looking around the
second time.
After this, you will reach another checkpoint.
Then yogi will then walk up to a second patch of mushrooms, this time with
small turtles around it. Just repeat the same process you did for the first
patch and you should be fine.
The yogi will then reach his place of meditation and the quest will be
completed.
Good Reward: The yogi will help you on the following occasions...
1. When the people get set on fire upon taking the second village.
2. When the pack of wolves attacks the third village.
3. When you go for the fourth village (he will get you a wonder).
Evil Solution
*************
------------------------- INCOMPLETE SOLUTION! --------------------------------
Is there an evil solution?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evil Reward: ???
8.3.2 THE REJUVENATOR
Location: Small hut outside Egyptian village in the middle of the island.
Good Solution
-------------
The woman in the hut can magically transform grown up people into children.
After having supplied her with enough adults, she will become dizzy from the
effort of converting them to children. At this point, supply her with a
youth instead (someone under eighteen years of age).
Her spell will fizzle and her hut will blow up, leaving the child turned into
a Chimpanzee creature for you to use instead.
Good Reward: The Chimp creature!
Evil Solution
*************
------------------------- INCOMPLETE SOLUTION! --------------------------------
Is there an evil solution?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evil Reward: ???
8.4 QUESTS ON THE FOURTH ISLAND
The fourth island is the biggest one yet. However, since there aren't many
villages on this island, it tends to have more puzzles than actual silver
scroll quests.
8.4.1 THE FISH PUZZLE
Location: Peninsula with turtles, next to the Totems outside Japanese village.
Good Solution
-------------
As the boy explains, the goal is simply to get all the fish inside the buoys.
Note that if you click on top of a fish, it will be impossible to tell where
it will swim to (fish swim in the opposite direction of the disturbance in the
water). The trick here is to begin slowly from the outside and then work your
way in. Try dealing with both schools of fish at the same time, since if you
start concentrating on one of them, chances are that some fish from the other
will sneak out.
Good Reward: The Turtle creature!
Evil Solution
*************
Aside from getting rid of the boy, you can also keep all the fish for yourself
in this quest (simply grab it like normal), which will end it in an evil way.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
8.4.2 THE TREACHEROUS PATH
******************************** BUG WARNING! *********************************
This quest has a script bug. No matter how swiftly, or in what way you get rid
of the obstacles, the woman never has enough potions to rescue her sick brother
so there is no way to complete the quest.
*******************************************************************************
Location: Shore beyond the Aztec village.
Good Solution
-------------
The goal is just to keep the healing woman safe while she travels to her
brother.
The first danger is a pack of wolves. The wolves will be sleeping, but some may
awake and attack when she gets close. Quickly pick those wolves up and relocate
them somewhere appropriate (the sea or a village store).
The woman will then walk into a forest set on fire. If you plan on putting out
the fires, make sure you water the trees until they are entirely green, or
else they may flame up again. A simpler way is just to uproot the trees and
bushes in her path and throw them away. Also make sure you remove the hot rock.
Finally, we have the strange creature. Simply remove all his stones or remove
all the sheep (keeping an eye on his stones is easier, though). Fighting him
with your creature is also an option.
Good Reward: The Wolf creature!
Evil Solution
*************
Just let her and her brother die.
Evil Reward: Nothing!
9. GENERAL QUESTIONS
Well, since this is a FAQ, I'll try to answer some of the most common questions
here. If you want an answer to a question which isn't listed here, nor anywhere
else in the FAQ, mail me about it. I won't, however, mail you back with an
answer. If the question was a valid one, the answer will appear here.
9.1 WHERE CAN I FIND EASTER EGGS IN THE GAME?
There is a mind boggling amount of Easter eggs in Black & White. I guess that
they have accumulated over the three years it took Lionhead to complete the
game (but one has to wonder if the time spent programming eggs couldn't have
been used to tweak other factors of gameplay instead).
So far, the Easter eggs which have been found are the following:
* Moving the mouse during the particle animation with the Lionhead logo will
cause the particles to scatter. Using a mousewheel you can also speed up
or slow down the animation.
* The particle animation Lionhead logo will sometimes change into one of
your symbols instead, with your profile name under it.
* The game will sometimes speak out your name. The game actually has a database
of names it can say, and it is suspected that it gets your name from
registering the software online.
* In the créche on the first island, first village, there are a couple of
dice and a teddy bear (this is the reason the creature is so interested
in that building).
* The emigrants with the ark have a Southpark reference if you kill one of
them. You can also notice a scene from Titanic when the ark sails away.
* On the backside of a small island in the playroom of the gods, there are
a number of bowling balls and some skittles.
* You can find dice and a beach ball if you look under rocks in the playground
of the gods.
* If you throw trees into the village storage in the playground of the gods,
fireworks will come out of the store with a crowd cheering.
* When you hold your hand over some of the pillars of stone on the islands
you'll get messages telling you to stop bothering the help function.
* On April 1st, all the footprints in the game will be smiley faces.
* A number of Lionhead employees appear as villagers in the game.
* If you don't do anything for a period of time, Blackie and Whitey will start
pulling jokes on each other.
* Blackie will ask if they will appear in the sequel...
* Blackie does several Southpark impressions.
* There is a phone conversation somewhere in the game where Peter Molyneux
discusses a secret gesture in the game with an unknown person.
* The secret gesture is up, right, down, right, up, right, down, right and up.
It has to be done after the leash gesture and only works on the first island.
A red telephone box will then appear on the north tip of the island. The
cheat associated with this egg has been removed, though.
And though it may not really strictly be an Easter egg, the fact that your
creature will produce its own homepage with its favourite photos in
your profile folder is pretty darn nifty.
9.2 HOW DOES ONE USE MIRACLE DISPENSERS?
From the readme.txt:
Miracle Dispensers - You are able to build your own one-shot Miracle
Dispensers by combining six scaffolds created at your workshop. Once placed
on the landscape, you can create one-shot Miracles by charging a Miracle in
your hand and casting it on the Dispenser. These can be moved from the
Dispenser, placed anywhere and saved for later use. You can cast any Miracle
on a created Dispenser to create a one-shot Miracle of that type. This is an
especially useful tactic, as you can create one shot Mega-blasts and place
them in the Vortex for use in later lands.
---
The above is also valid for permanent dispensers found on the islands.
Sometimes even three (or four) scaffolds will be enough to produce a miracle
dispenser! You just need to find the right spot where no other building but a
dispenser can "fit". It is not always that such a spot exists, but try
different villages and you might get lucky.
Also, if you activate any one-shot miracle, and then shake it off, its power
will go into your accumulated Prayer Energy pool instead. It could be useful if
you are out of Prayer Energy and need a quick boost (but it only works if you
have a shrine with the ability to cast that same spell, and it will only
fill up the energy pool of that particular shrine).
9.3 WHAT MAKES THE CREATURE GROW FASTER?
Well, everything makes the creature grow, really... remember that it is
only 1 year old when you get it, and everything grows with age,
including the creature.
A signpost says that resting (not sleeping, mind you) will make the
creature grow faster. It's quite easy to get it to rest, just get it to
try to pick up an impossibly large boulder, and it will consider itself
to have nothing to do and sit down.
It's also said that the creature will grow faster when it is in its pen,
so just teach it to sleep there when it is tired.
Note that resting the creature too much will make it move slower if it
doesn't get regular exercise.
Also note that the creature is actually fat when you receive it. So, it
can be assumed that since you probably don't receive an unhealthy creature,
a medium amount of fat is actually good for it, and its growth rate.
Alignment has nothing to do with the amount a creature grows in size.
An evil creature will get as large as a good natured creature.
If your creature collapses due to damage, hunger or tiredness, it will take
a small hit in size (which can be considered "permanent" since it has to
grow back "naturally" again).
9.4 HOW DOES ONE UNLOCK ALL THE CREATURES?
Note that four of the creatures require a downloaded patch to unlock:
The Leopard, the Horse, the Mandrill and the Gorilla.
I believe http://www.planetblackandwhite.com is a good location to get these.
The Rhino patch hasn't been released yet.
The Ogre IS included as a creature in the game (you can hack your creature
profile to get it, but don't ask me how... it is the "greek" creature anyhow).
The Croc creature was supposedly removed from the game (there aren't any files
for it included in the game anyway).
Also note that you can only change those creatures on two locations in the game:
On island one and island four. Make a save by one of these locations so you can
load and change your creature at will.
The other creatures have to be found by doing certain secret quests... (For
details on these, look to the silver scroll quest solution area).
The first island:
* Sheep (return every sheep to the farmer).
The second island:
* Zebra (place poop, heated rock and a wolf in ring and cast shield).
The third island:
* Chimp (bring the witch a child when she gets dizzy).
The fourth island:
* Turtle (help boy catch two full schools of fish).
* Wolf (escort woman to her brother in the Aztec village).
The fifth island:
* Lion (guide the wolf to the sheep).
* Brown Bear (clean up the forest of poop).
* Polar Bear (visit the emigrants a second time).
9.5 HOW CAN I BACKUP MY CREATURE?
I did not want to print this information at first, since it could be considered
cheating, but then I remembered that Black & White is so far only available for
Windows, which you NEED to reinstall from time to time to prevent it from
collecting too much crap in its folders which slows down your system (and
if you reinstall Windows, you have to reinstall everything else too... which
is also crappy).
So, here is the way to properly backup your creature, straight from the
Lionhead Studios tech guys:
To backup your Creature, make copies of these two folders to another
directory :
Program Files / Lionhead Studios Ltd / Black & White / profiles
Program Files / Lionhead Studios Ltd / Black & White / scripts/ creaturemind
Run the regedit program. Start Menu / Run / regedit
Find (Ctrl + F) the folder called LHMultiplayer. Select this folder and then
using Registry on the toolbar menu, 'Export Registry File' as lhbackup.
This will save a file wherever you choose as lhbackup.reg
This saves your creature in his current state.
In order to restore this creature backup, copy your backup folders
/profiles & /scripts /creaturemind over the original files. Double click the
registry backup file you created : lhbackup.reg to complete your creature
restoration. This restores the game including saves to the point where you
backed your creature up.
9.7 WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF EATING MUSHROOMS?
Althought there apparently is a drug-related easter egg in the game,
the creature does NOT trip out on shrooms!
9.8 WHAT FEATURES WERE LEFT OUT OF THE GAME?
Well, beta or not, some planned things were indeed left out of the initial
release of game, no matter what Lionhead says. The following information has
been pulled out of different interviews in magazines (PC Gamer), from the
official website (http://www.bwgame.com) and even out of the files
(infoscript2.txt) of the game itself:
* The Puzzle Master. A character which guided you through different puzzles.
* Creature mini-games. "Sports" events you could play in multiplayer games.
* Random map generation (skirmish and multiplayer).
* Villagers talking back to you (or maybe mind reading, or thought bubbles).
* Creature talking back to you (or maybe thinking or using telepathy).
* More advanced Creature Help Text (more advanced creature?).
* Additional Silver Scroll quests (island two Stones quest was also shortened).
* Croc creature (left out for looking "too human", like the Human creature).
* Diciple Protector for the villagers.
* Docks civic building and boats for the villagers.
* Village sports (and the ability to build soccer fields).
* ICQ integration (was this ever official?).
* More varied good aligned creatures (golden lion, white tiger, etc).
* Variations in tower design of the temples (triple towers, etc).
* Different priced packaging (with partial white box profit going to charity).
* Skeleton army spell.
Peter Molyneux has stated in an interview that "all features [they] wanted in
the game are there", but then again, that is a rather empty statement if he
didn't mean that all PLANNED features are in the game.
To defend against flames and accusations of trolling, I must admit that some
of these features may have been left out because of game balancing or design
decisions (much like the decision to not be able to use any beast in the land
as your creature). However, other features seem obviously cut due to other more
suspicious reasons.
Also, some of these features is promised to be activated in future add-ons, but
since these may affect gameplay and game strategy (forcing me a rewrite of
various sections), they will not be included in this FAQ for now.
9.9 WHAT BUGS ARE CURRENTLY IN THE GAME?
This is just a duplicate of the bug warnings spread across the different
sections in the FAQ, but with a patch history for reference:
Fixed in version: 1.1 Reported by: Thunderball
"Even though the manual mentions it, the multiple clicking miracle casting
trick was indeed a bug exploit (just as I suspected). I guess that prooves that
not much effort are spent on manuals these days."
"A maybe minor, but still annoying, graphical bug is that the original
landscape textures are loaded and shown after each time you restore a game,
and not your saved game's modified ones. However, if you zoom out and in over
a patch of land, your saved textures do show up."
"The creature, although having fully learned a miracle, stops using it
after loading a game until you have shown it to the creature an additional
time (whereupon a lightbulb will show up above the creature and it will start
casting the miracle like normal afterwards)."
"Miracles may fail to show up on the scrolls in the Creature Cave.
Whether a creature sometimes totally forgets a miracle or not, I will leave
unsaid, since I have not witnessed this myself."
Fixed in version: 1.1 Reported by: Thunderball
"The creature nearly always forget how to use the village store after you
load a game. But then it quickly re-learns it when it sees the next
villager who uses the store."
"The creature can get stuck in a worship site if it walks directly from
its pen into the shrine (while being small). If this happens, you have to
leash it and click close to the ground by it in order to find a path to lead
it out of there (which can be tedious)."
"When the creature eats fish by itself, it will lower that creature's
alignment!"
"You cannot make disciple herders on your own."
"Your creature also seems to get hungrier whenever it eats fish on it's own
(according to the help text atleast)."
"Sometimes when you try to hand the creature an object, an "extra" click will
occur on the creature, telling it to drop the object before you have time to
issue any orders yourself."
"If your creature picks up a villager who has just died and turned into a
skeleton, the skeleton will come to life and walk around the village! This may
be a side-effect of the healing effect being picked up by a creature instills,
but it is still a bug."
"If your creature decides to eat a Dead villager, it will count as having
killed a person!"
"The creature always seem to create a disciple breeder if it cuddles a villager
(even if there is nobody around of the opposite sex, and even if there is,
action clicking on the ground to make the creature drop the villager will NOT
produce a breeder)."
"When the creature brings home a villager, it might accidently drop it on top
of the villager's house, instead of by the house (which, as explained earlier,
you cannot punish it for). And, I don't know if this is a training thing or
not, but the creature never seems to bring home the villagers who are actually
on their way home..."
"If you drop too much food in a temple shrine, the ENTIRE PILE will be gobbled
up in a second the next time a worshipper decides to eat."
"The expand desire flag is unreliable. Once you create a construction site
for a building (or drop wood on a construction site), the flag will slide down
and disappear completely, but once the building is finished, it will pop right
up to the top again! A similar behaviour can be seen on some fields. If you
empty all food and then water it, the field will pop right up, and then slowly
slide down again."
"The sun rises and sets in the exact same spot on the horizon."
"The transparent building on a construction site shows the building
properly sloped against the ground, but a finished building will always be
completely horizontal and thus may be "buried" under a hillside."
"After a while on island one, Whitey will always say that you killed someone!
This happens when an Actor turned Vagrant Start dies (press "S" to see their
titles). Usually, it is the Singing Stone guy who dies of old age after some
time, but all the other Actors eventually die too if you wait long enough
(except the Stone Cutter, it seems)."
"On the second island you can focus and feed other creatures than your own!"
"An embarrassing fact about the enemy AI in the game: Creatures belonging to
other gods have 100% hunger and thirst without collapsing!"
"The time (and thus distance) an AI god can reach out and act outside its
area of influence is questionable (grab trees across an entire island, for
example)."
"On the second island, the saving and loading times are extremely long."
"Even though villagers supposedly shouldn't be cutting down trees (planted)
inside a village, the people in the initial village on the third island WILL
cut down every single tree around the village no matter how many forests you
plant around it."
"The Tree Puzzle is buggy on the third island. After pulling trees for a
while some of them will shrink and not display any change (although they do
actually change in the puzzle, but still sabotage a correct solution)."
"Lethys behvaior is puzzling on the third island. Sometimes he will Lightning
Bolt thin air for minutes, sometimes he will walk back and forth for hours and
I've even observed him and his creature standing still in a pile of burning
food for about half an hour..."
"On the third island, if Lethys' temple vanishes (along with the leashes), his
creature may still be leashed to something, and that leash will never
disappear."
"On the fourth island, during the second part of the wolf puzzle, there is
an "extra" gate which really isn't a part of the puzzle, and which can make it
harder to spot it's solution."
"If you stack rocks upon each other and then remove the bottom rock, the above
rocks will be suspended in the air."
"Sometimes a transparent scaffold stays in the workshop even after the building
site has been completed, thus preventing any additional scaffolds being built."
"If you complete the game, the curse on your creature will still be in effect
and there is no way to make it go away! Your creature's alignment will reverse
and it will constantly shrink in all network, internet and skirmish games
afterwards!"
"The script for the greedy farmer quest on the second island will start
running even before you have activated the Silver Scroll! If you take too long
you may not be able to finish this quest and get a reward."
"The healing woman quest on island four has a script bug. No matter how
swiftly, or in what way you get rid of the obstacles, the woman never has
enough potions to rescue her sick brother so there is no way to complete the
quest."
10. FINAL NOTES
The author of this FAQ is responsible for another FAQ for a similar game.
That game is Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. The Dungeon also featured an
extremely complex alignment system, with the game monitoring and remembering
your every action. The Dungeon could also be completed either by being good
or evil, and everyone you encountered in the game reacted on your current
alignment. But not only could you be good or evil, you could also be labeled
as a jerk, which wasn't really evil, just stupid.
Alternate Reality: The Dungeon is a Computer Role Playing Game for the
Atari 8-bit computers. It was released in 1985 and featured (for its time)
a state of the art 3D engine with mip-mapped textures, which didn't see an
equal until over 10 years later with the release of Wolfenstein 3D.
Check it out on the URL below (or on GameFAQs):
http://w1.214.telia.com/~u21405572/alternate-reality/
11. CREDITS
Peter Molyneux for inventing the god genre and finally releasing this game.
Lionhead Studios for promising a BeOS version, and then withdrawing it.
Electronic Arts for managing to destroy almost every game company it touches.
Also thanks to all the people who informed me of various evil ways to complete
the different quests!
Thanks also go out to all the other people who contributed to this FAQ:
Aaron Chen, EazyMo, David Edwards, Christopher Neil Evensen, Mindragon,
Mitchell Gassner, Oz, Knighted, LintFiend, Alexander Sanford, VortexZ,
Mist Wraith.
Special thanks to Tomas Laland Ekeli and Trevor Covert for making this a
better and more correct FAQ.
Finally, thanks to everyone who posted tips on the forums (anonymously or
otherwise) and anyone else I might have forgotten to mention here.
---------------------------------- THE END ------------------------------------
