Impression of SoA + WK under IA 4 Options

[rbeverjr]

Hello all,

I’m an old time campaigner in Baldur’s Gate II; however, I played SoA far more than ToB. I considered ToB to be too much a hack-fest. I also considered the game very easy and invented all sorts of restrictions to help in that regard. These restrictions and mods to enhance difficulty were unsuccessful, as I generally lost interest in the game after the underdark.

Now enters Improved Anvil (IA). I am a newbie to this mod. I played an incomplete game of IA 3. I have just now finished a complete run through of SoA under a combination of IA 4.0-4.2. In general, I am very pleased with the added challenge this mod brings. Thanks Sikret.

I am also now a huge fan of Weimer’s Solaufein mod’s autobuffing script. I use this as a pre-battle buff (wait a few seconds for Improved Alacrity to wear off) and probably would not play IA without it. For me, I need buffs to do well in the improved battles. I would prefer a different script routine, but this suffices. It takes a huge amount of repetitive drudgery (buffing) from the game, and I recommend it.

So, I am obviously not at the same level of expertise as some players here. I would probably do better now in my second game. Nevertheless, these are my current opinions and should represent at least a certain percentage of the player population. One of my most difficult battles was the first ambush (Suna?). I think this encounter is a bit rude, too sudden in appearance for a low level, poorly equipped party. Now, with meta-gaming in gear, I may do better. Taking the fighter keep and obtaining the flail of ages (which I never really got because I chose not to replay after version upgrade) was a difficult challenge. I would have appreciated a little less difficulty here. Unless the other keeps adjust difficultly to party level, then obtaining the mage keep would be a terror. The slaver ship was another big challenge. I didn’t face any other improved encounters until after the underdark. That was a good decision for me, because I found the play after leaving the underdark to be much easier in general. There were two battles I did not care for: I did not like the viper queen extra quest in Windspear Hills, and I did not like the horde in the Watcher’s Keep. The first was boring, and the second was boring and difficult. (Maybe fixing the shield bug will make the battle less difficult and a more appropriate difficulty level. The ancient dragon is an epic battle and should be more difficult than a horde, but wasn’t to me.) I could not beat the demon prince that wants the judgment day sword. With advice from other posters (like using imprisonment) and enough reloads, I probably would succeed eventually, but this encounter is extremely difficult – easily the most difficult of any encounter in SoA or Watcher’s Keep. I guess that I really don’t care about its difficulty as I find it an easy battle to skip. The final battle with Irenicus had my eyes bugging out. This is probably 10x tougher than IA3 (no comparison). It reminded me of the time when I first saw the opposition in Tactics Improved Irenicus. I suspect that IA’s version is tougher. I was worried that I would be unable to finish the game, but I reloaded, switched tactics, and set the difficulty slider to easy. One and a half hours later or so, I finally completed the battle and did so successfully. I think I may be able to beat it on Normal or Core, but not that eager to spend so much time doing the battle over. I’ll leave insane to thetruth and other people like him.

I’ve learned a lot about what spells to select, tactics to use, and the best classes to employ them for success in IA. Now, I’m off to ToB.