MIGHT & MAGIC 6 - MANDATE OF HEAVEN - BEGINNERS' GUIDE From Brian Burke I've been playing Might & Magic 6 for a few days now and thought I'd record a few tips and tricks that I've not seen specifically written down on the Internet as a 'starter-pack' playing guide for new players to give them a quicker learning curve into the meat of the game. FIRST ENCOUNTERS Goblins are the initial monsters you come across. The first thing you need to know is that there is a fountain in the centre of town that regenerates Hit Points, so if you meet a hoard of Goblins run back here where you can recover mid-battle. If your points are dangerously low you can run into the Inn where you can rest overnight for the cost of a mere 2 Gold. Also nearby is a fountain that replaces Spell Points and another than gives +10 Might for a day. Most areas have fountains and wells along these lines. Always best to Save your game before using them though as some fountains poison you, some create an Ambush situation and others bring the grim Reaper - you'll see a lot of him! As this isn't meant to be a walk-through I'll ignore the various buildings and so on, other than to say that both the Magic Shop and General Shop sell Herb and empty bottles. Click on a herb and then on an empty bottle to fill it. At this stage the two important potions are Red = Heal, and Blue = replace Spell Points. Yellow potions increase the 7 basic statistics by 1 point (if I recall correctly - never have bothered much with those potions, only for mixing purposes). Mixing various combinations of colours produces further Potions. These then can be mixed again to produce White potions, which can be mixed again to produce Black Potions. Some of these can give you permanent, one-off skill stats increases (and minor decreases). I won't list them here as there's bags of info on the Web about what colours make what potion. There are wooden crates and Barrels to be found near the Harbour and both Bridges. These contain money and assorted Weapons and Armour, essential for your first encounters. On the hill behind the Inn find a sword in stone. There are a few of these in the game in other areas. In the stable find two horseshoes on the floor. There's some of these in most of the game's major areas (not always in Stables) and they are very useful. Each one is worth 2 points towards improving your game skills. In addition to the skills you first allocated each character, you can buy practically every skill for your band. These need points allocating to them in order to improve them. These points are earned each time you train up a level. The horseshoes are therefore very special and can be used to boost a particular skill at any time. Completion of quests brings mega experience points, which makes all the quests well worth doing. FIGHTING As ever experience points are earned by slaying baddies. Some baddies are badder than others. That's to say they're tough. The whole game is well paced in this respect. Each 'dungeon' has its own challenging monster. Make good use of doorways and the corners of corridors. For instance I met a Lich in an early encounter and kept getting blown away. The scenario was such that if I ran up a corridor I was teleported back into the fray. In desperation I hid behind a door jamb as best I could. The game AI (Artificial Intelligence) then positioned the Lich opposite me such that his spells hit the door frame and not me. I was able to pick a piece of his arm and hit it without losing points myself. Eventually he went down, much to my relief. You should use this situation as often as you can. If there's a torch in a corridor and you poke your head round the corner the torch may catch the spells thrown instead of you. Use Control+ Left/Right arrow keys to slide round corners. Of interest you can use Control+ Click on character positions to move characters. Thus you may place a good bowman at a strategic place to the left or right of the party as required. Having mentioned the Bow I strongly recommend that your early allocation of skill points is given to this, across all characters. You'll bless the day you bought or found your first bow and worked your skill base up. I do most of my fighting in real-time but revert to turn-based when faced either with overwhelming odds or with a real tough monster. In turn-based mode you can use magic spells effectively whilst this is quite difficult in the heat of a live battle. In fact the difficulty of selecting Magic Spells quickly is my major (and probably only serious) gripe about the game. MONSTERS Some areas are tougher than others, your mileage may vary on this. I found the Goblins difficult at first. Round the corner from the Goblins are some Mages. You need to tempt small groups of monsters into a fight rather than activating loads at once. Divide and conquer as it were. The first task when entering a new area is to clear out the terrain monsters, allowing you fear-free travel to talk to Householders and find your Quest `dungeons'. Monsters who fire arrows at you or spells are a pain. You need to get close to them to take them out, or alternatively resort to turn-base conflict. Monsters, once hit, stay hit, so you can nip off and rest, returning later to finish them off. This is particularly relevant when you fight the Dragon in 'The Mire of the Dammed' area. Ghosts and Spectres can add 'Years' to your age. magically ageing your characters. However there are Potions you can make that remove this ageing, and somewhere there is a Fountain or Well that does the same. Some monsters are coloured coded Green (easy'ish), Red (harder) and Blue (tough). So you can identify which to stand up and those you need to run from. MAGIC Magic characters can acquire extra magic disciplines. You just need to find the house of the person selling the skill. Spells can then be bought or found. These take the form of books and are not the wallet looking spells (scrolls) which are one-time spells only. Different levels of spells have different looking/coloured books. Make a check list for each character so you don't waste money buying one you already have. Naturally enough the higher spells require that you develop your skills in that magic discipline - it's easy to see why some folks cheat at this game as you always want to develop loads of skills at once and never have enough skill points to allocate, hence the delight in finding horseshoes! Whilst on the subject of finding things, use of the Wizard Eye (or something like that) identifies the location of objects as well as baddies & NPCs. Objects (goodies) are coloured Blue, baddies Red and NPCs Green. I'd suggest that the critical spells you need early(ish) in the game are - Torchlight - without which you can't see very far! Wizard's Eye - spot those baddies. See when they're coming for you! Light Heal - gives you 7 hit points at a spell cost of 2 Cure Wounds - gives you (variable according to Body skill) 10 hit points for a cost of 5 spell points). Poor value at first when for 4 spell points First Aid gives you 14 Hit Points, but OK at higher skill levels. Stone Skin - deflect those blows. Inferno - works well indoors on all Baddies you can see. Ice Bolt - an effective low cost spell. Mass Distortion - grab up to 25% of a baddie's Hit Points in one shot. Flying Fist - more effective at distance (not too far) than close to. Sparks - stand behind a doorway and chuck these in the room. OK till you can progress to higher based spells. Any 'Protection from...' spell. Cure ... Disease, Poison, Insanity, Paralysis and Stone - until your Cleric acquires these make up Potions or buy Spell scrolls. Beware of walking around too long in a Diseased or Poisoned state. Your character will permanently lose Hit Points if you do. Stocking up on Potions or Spell Scrolls that cure these conditions, until your Cleric is sufficiently skilled, is well worth the storage space it takes. Note that Drunkenness is only cured by resting. NPCs Being a 'tight-wad' I have never yet employed a Non-Playing Character. I refuse to share my gold with anyone else so I can't comment on how effective these are in making the game easier or using them to develop your party's skills. SKILLS Having mentioned money it's more than well worth developing a single character to Expert/Master level in Merchant skill. This character can then buy/sell all your equipment and spells. Bringing the other three characters to Expert level will reduce your training and skill purchase costs. Other skills worth concentrating on for individual characters are: Repair - after some encounters your armour, rings or weapons may be damaged and lose their AC or magic enhancements. Identify - being able to see what attributes the equipment has that you pick up along the way, and its cost. If your backpack is full you can leave stuff in a container (not on the floor or it disappears when you exit) within a 'dungeon'. Disarm - Saves you getting blown up by a trap which lots of cupboards and containers have. Bow - as discussed above. Expert/Master bow skill is essential for all characters or, at worst, your leading duo. Other skills worthy of note are : Learning - which increases the amount of Experience points earned, and more points equal more frequent promotions equal more skill points to allocate. Body Building - increases your Hit Points, stay alive longer! TRAVEL Before you travel or rest you must have adequate supplies to last the journey or rest period. In New Sorpigal the trees are full of fruit which you can pick to tide you over until your party acquire funds. You can travel by foot, by ship or by coach between areas. By foot limits you to the adjacent area whereas the other two allow further travel. Areas `reset' themselves after a period of time (I believe this is variable per area). This is especially useful for grabbing more horseshoes or drinking from barrels. Barrels contain different colours, your on-screen notes text records which colour enhances which skill. Note that not all barrels contain liquid. Black barrels are to be avoided. Some areas contain Shrines which cover the basic skills. Praying at these in the correct month increases that particular skill. Check with the Seer in the Castle Ironfist area to discover which month is for what skill. In the heat of a running fight it's all too easy to find yourself careering off into another area. There you are running and clicking your mouse for all you're worth and the baddie happily runs into another area. Meanwhile you've inadvertently confirmed that you want to travel for 5 days to the next area and off you go - "Save your game" often is the key to keeping your blood pressure in check. ... and finally ...how does this game compare to Daggerfall. Very, very well is my conclusion. It's prettier graphically all round (although I did love the changing seasons and the dogs barking etc. in Daggerfall). Its level promotion calculation is less complex although it can be argued that skill development through usage (as in Daggerfall and Ultima Online) is a more 'realistic' scenario than pure point allocation. Daggerfall retains a marked up map once buildings have been identified but MM6 does not. I could go on but content of this paragraph is not the point of the article so I'll stop now. I hope that the above helps you through the early parts of the game and that you enjoy it as much as I am. Brian Burke - August '98. - o -