Wages of War - first time playthrough ever!

[Schrijvertje]

Since I finished the remake, I've imported my character in the third game. I've never played this one before, so it'll be an exciting experience. Any advice, tips, pointers? Any major differences between this game and the others? Things I have to keep in mind so I don't make it "unbeatable", or are there no such dead ends?

So far I've played through the first day. It's night, I didn't do much. Chased a thief, defended Rakeesh's honor, bought some stuff in the bazaar, talked to the apothecary guy. I'm supposed to wait for Rakeesh to get back.

I'm not interested in a "pure" playthrough of a particular class. I'm not a heavy gamer, I don't need ALL points - I like to spend the little gaming time I have just following the storyline.

[Erpy]

There's some class-exclusive stuff in the game (more so than QFG2), so no class is gonna see everything. Thieves kinda get the shaft in the game, since there's no guild nor truly optional break-in scenes.

A few general tips:

Talk to everyone each day. Several people's dialog trees change depending on the day and you actually miss some optional dialog if you don't talk to people at the earliest opportunity. You may get some optional dialogue if you go back to Tarna ever so often.

There are no vigor pills in QFG3. There's a pool in the savannah that has a similar effect, so buy plenty of waterskins. You'll be happy you did.

Money is not that important in the game. You don't have a lot of opportunities to earn it either, safe from some pocket change monsters carry.

You can make a camp fire by clicking the rest button while on the overhead map. This avoids you being woken up by a monster.

As a fighter, practice your throwing and agility...you'll need it at some point.

If you want to practice your spells as a mage, do so near the tree in the jungle. There's a spot there where your mp gets completely refilled by simply entering that screen.

Carry lots of daggers if you having throwing skill. It's possible to kill monsters with daggers before they reach you. Yeah, dagger tossing is broken here.

Make sure you have Newrisingsun's patch and play in Dosbox if you can.

Talk a lot to people. One of QFG3's best aspects is that the land of Tarna's culture is pretty well defined. You'll definitely feel foreign here.

The savannah, the jungle and the jungle near the waterfall all have unique monsters.

Visit Rakeesh and Kreesha early and often. If you spoke to the apothecary Salim about his dreams, tell him about a certain something you did in Shapeir.

Remember that clicking the mouth on yourself is used to tell people about stuff.

I can't really think of any dead ends in the game. Practice your skills in the Simbani village or the savannah/jungle. Behave with honor. Most of the time, the game gives you a pretty clear idea of what to do and even guides you a lot.

[Asrai]

You did forget one important little tidbit, buy a tinderbox before trying to camp in the savannah. I think magic users can get by without it, but they're the only ones.

[Schrijvertje]

Thanks!

I'm at the Simbani village now, practicing spear throwing. My stats are rising, but it appears where the spear lands is totally random, no matter where I aim. I check the wind, but throwing twice in a row will land the spear at far different spots.

Apart from that spear throwing, I don't really know what to do. Rakeesh told me to try and win the Laibon's respect and trust, but I can't even go into his hut. I suppose it's getting back that Spear of Death, but I wouldn't know where to start looking. I went to the pool in the south already, but there's nothing to do but drink and fill the waterskin. I also got the poison vine fruit. I'm going to explore the jungle next.

[adeyke]

You probably work on the spear-throwing more. If you have too much trouble with it, you could try turning down the game difficulty or just train your throwing skill (it might be faster to go to a random savanna screen, pick up piles of rocks, and throw them).

[Schrijvertje]

Discovered there's more to the village than I first thought; Uhura challenged me on the bridge. The Awari game, which is fun. Is this a real game or did they make it up? Finally was allowed in to see the Laibon. The storyteller dropped by.

[Erpy]

It's a real game. It has a lot of names, depending on the African region. It's also called Oware.

[Schloss Ritter]

After (or shortly before?) I played QfG3, I discovered a friend had a version from the Philippines he called Mancala.

[Asrai]

I also knew it as Mancala before I ever saw it in QfG, but the rules were the same.

[Schloss Ritter]

There are slight variations in the rules out there, besides the variety of names, also. For example, sometimes there's four (or more) stones per pit instead of three as in QfG3. Some variations let a player go again if he gets a stone in his home, others don't. There are other rules too that I may not know of.