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BLACK & WHITE
PLAYER GUIDE PART 2 - UPDATED 12 FEB 02
Taking you on from Part
1 of our Black & White (B&W) player guide, this second
piece simply provides you with some help for levels 3 & 4 and
some more guidance.
This second article does
not aim to be a complete walk-though, rather a help on some of the
puzzles and strategies available. This is because you may be playing
as a naughty God or a well behaved one or something in between.
As I play a somewhat mischievous God with an exemplary behaved creature
(the smart Monkey), how I go about winning villages over (fireballs
from me, rain from the Monkey) might not be the way you do it.
Having completed the
first two levels you should have by now figured out just how you
like to do things and what degree of good or evil is needed in your
partnership. Remember, your creature can cast spell anywhere he
likes, very useful in the early stages of a level where your influence
is weak, and you cannot affect things beyond the Red mist. Make
sure he is adept at casting the type of spells required for your
style of game play. The easiest way of doing this is to spend time
in skirmishes. Once you have a bit of real estate to your self,
make a point of leashing your creature and teach him what he needs
to know. He retains this knowledge back in the main game. Even though
he might know how to cast a spell, petting him after carrying out
what you wanted will encourage him to do it again in the future.
Stategies. There are
several available to you. Here are time tried and tested ones:
Neutral
The most obvious is
to build on the very edge of your territory to gradually creep your
influence towards unconverted villages.
Make sure you own people
are happy.
Prevent incursions
from rival creatures.
Good
Dumping a missionary
through the Red mist at the edge of your sphere of influence quickly
into an unconverted village before the X appears on your hand.
Plant trees in unoccupied
(unconquered?) villages.
Supply wood/food/cattle/water.
Moving people about.
Converting unaligned
villagers (assuming you can grab them from the village if its close
enough).
Flock of birds (if
available) - the first one you cast gets masses of belief. Make
sure your creture learns this spell.
Evil
Attack with Rocks,
Fireballs, Storms or whatever.
Heat a rock with Fireballs
and throw that in enemy village (points for flying, smashing buildings,
setting fire to things & killing people).
Set fire to some trees
and throw the flaming ones into the enemies' territory as cheap
Fireballs.
Destroy their resources/buildings.
Lightning strikes.
Pop a forest up in
their village & then set it alight.
Kidnap their villagers
and sacrifice them.
With that said, let's
have a look at the next two levels:
Level 3
You start at opposite
the end of the island to your rival God atop a high mountain with
narrow twisting populated areas. Food is you first problem, make
sure you do the multiple click on the edge of the store to get
maximum amounts of wood/food (anything up to 60,000 food &
25,00 wood can be done this way). Your creature is trapped between
3 obelisks and is being tortured; you have to capture 3 villages
in turn to deactivate each one of them. Without your creatures
help for the majority of this level you face a long hard slog.
You are required to micromanage your people which is time consuming.
You face three puzzles;
Spoiler - skip the bullets if you wish to work these out yourself:
Tree Puzzle. At the
base of the spiral Mountain, the tree puzzle from level 2 re-appears
with a twist. Clicking on trees now toggles 3 types of tree. Work
through this in slow time, avoid adjusting the central tree. Unfortunately
the reward is not as useful as in Level 2.
Mystic. The old mystic
who lives in the temple on top of the spiral mountain goes for a
walk down the hill. This is a tricky and annoying puzzle. You have
to follow him down the hill. You must keep him in sight, but if
he sees you he disappears and you have to start all over again.
There are two places coming down the hill that he shimmers &
sparkles at. When you reach these, they become the re-start points
making life a bit easier. When he stops, zoom out a bit, too far
he vanishes, but if you stay too close when he holds his hand to
his face he spots you. When you reach his meditation spot he offers
to help you later in the level:
o The first time
is when the first village is threatened with fire.
o The second time is when wolves attack.
o The third to place a Wonder just beyond the second village.
Fool. You will hear
a voice taunting you every time you move over the water between
your temple & the mystic's mountain. Zoom in to the shore and
you will find this Blue chap who you cannot kill or drown (or even
sacrifice). When you throw him you can temporarily cast spells where
he lands. Getting him to land in the villages is useful. Throw him
a second time if he didn't make it.
This level is easily
the longest to complete. The amount of help required to keep villagers
happy is ridiculous. Make full use of the single shot wood miracle
at the foot of the waterfall. Bookmark it a return their often.
It is possible to create
fishermen if you are quick enough placing them through the Red
mist at the foot of the valley past the single field. Handy considering
how hungry they are a t the beginning.
The second you capture
a village, expand directly towards the next one. This will expand
your influence in the right direction for the next assault.
Use your main village
to supply kit to the newly captured ones later in the game.
Move villagers from
the second village as soon as they start moaning they need houses.
They breed like Rabbits for some reason!
As soon as you release
your creature heal & feed him before attempting to go near
the final village. They can be swayed with miracles your creature
will need to perform. Alternatively destroy it!
You are then faced
with a choice of obliterating the opposition or not when he offers
you the Creed. This is a heart shaped fluffy leash as far as I
could tell!
When the vortex opens
through as much wood/food and people as you can be bothered too.
You need all the help you can get on the next level. You could
drop a Miracle Forest in the vortex...
LEVEL 4
You are required to
obtain 3 pieces of the Guardian Stone before collecting the second
creed. Your initial village site is constantly bombarded with
fireballs. It is extremely difficult to protect and feels overwhelming
unbalanced in term of learning curve, particularly with the lack
of belief you suffer from the outset.
This level suffers
the failed save problem. Where the game simply is unable to save
your current status. This occurs at random with no indication.
Going into the temple the next time you play allows you to go
to the last auto-save position before the game failed to save.
Check the date stamps. You should download BWBackup
before going too far on this level until the game is officially
patched. You could also try Defroster,
which gives partial success, but the error manifests again. Rebooting
you machine also seems to cure it for a while. I believe it may
be because B&W leaks memory like a sieve.
Puzzles are trickier
than before. Spoiler. Skip the bullets if you want to discover
the solutions yourself:
Bells. You can tackle
this puzzle once you have converted the Japanese village, which
is North West of your temple. This is just the old Simon electronic
memory game. 123523141 from left to right. This stops the Fireballs
and gives you a Guardian stone. Difficult with the pointer though
:(
Sleg. You have to win
a fight against him. He is harder than a big hard thing. Use whatever
magic is available to your creature. Dodge plenty and make full
use of your special move. Took me no less than 5 attempts. Stops
the Thunder & Lightning. Wins you a Guardian Stone.
Missing Relative. You
can either return them from the Aztec village to the top of the
hill when your influence covers the area, get your creature to carry
them there, approach from the shore or simply kill them. Gives you
another Guardian Stone and clears the skies of storms.
Fishing Net. Simply
click the water like a man possessed until the fish are in the net.
Easy, and it unlocks the Turtle creature. He is slow & as far
as I could tell, brain damaged. Monkey returns.
5 Totems. Don't bother
trying to move the second from the left. It does not affect any
other pole when lifted. Concentrate on getting the others up in
slow increments. A little experimenting soon solves this and makes
a single shot Mystic Shield generator available.
Maze. Getting the boy
out is straightforward; use the obvious pen the hold the Wolf as
you move the boy round the long way to escape. The second puzzle
seems impossible to solve as the Wolf walks through fences to get
at you. This is because some of the fences from the first puzzle
remain on screen, but are not really there. Use a pencil & paper
to work out which are real. Use the pen technique again.
Creature Trainer. Not
a puzzle per se, but if you have downloaded any of the creature
unlock programmes, the Gorilla, Horse, Leopard & Mandrill, you
can exchange you current creature for one of them. More importantly,
should you dislike them, change it back. The new creature has all
the skills of your old one, with the slant of its own personality.
Lady with the Medicine.
You have to escort her from the shoreline to the Aztec village.
You face 3 problems:
o Wolves. If you
have the Aztec village under your influence, pick them up and
throw them away. Failing that drop them off a snack (sheep will
do). Should you have enough belief, Fireball them.
o Burning woods. This is a problem only is you have not defeated
Sleg, as a lightning strike ignites the wood. Pull all the big
trees up as soon as you have dealt with the Wolves. Then monitor
the situation and firefight as necessary.
o Ogre. He constantly whinges about sheep keeping him awake
at night. Enough said.
Skeleton Village. Having
been cursed by Nemesis, the villages are reduced to being the living
dead. You creature can impress them for belief points. The village
lacks everything except housing & a totem. They have two. Your
creature needs totem training so that you can do one each.
Use the Mystic Shield,
as the fireball attacks commence, not before. Though this is hard
work, as you need everyone worshiping, so nothing gets done. The
difficulty here is even with you and you creature on the job, the
mixture of Ogres & Fireballs soon obliterates your village.
Your first priority
is to convert the Japanese village to the North West and solve the
adjacent puzzle.
Solve the totem puzzle
quickly (it is in the North Western corner of the isle adjacent
to the Fishing Net puzzle, for more shields.
Get your creature to
convert villages; obviously he needs to be well trained to do this
by himself. Good creatures cast rain, provide grain & wood,
convert villagers and cast the flock of birds (Seagulls? Is that
an in-joke?). Bad creatures simply Fireball or Lightning everything,
smash up the place, eat the residents and so on.
Some puzzles only appear
once you have converted certain villages. After converting, zoom
out and look about for Silver Scrolls.
Back
up your creature & game before exiting Level 4.
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