asterix404

So this is an old topic and I have read many things about this but... I am trying to avert an impossible game where impossible is not defined in terms of difficulty but if it is actually possible to win. I have a huge problem with the SCS component where you have all your stuff taken in the Gauntlet, for example, because you have to face greater mummies and a Rashka with a +2 spear. You die. It isn't really all that fun. Even most summons can't hit a greater mummy and how about we don't assume that I have a level 18+ sorcerer and a priest that can cast HLAs. 

To this extent I am worried about tactics. I have 0 problem crtl-Ying most fights but I don't always want to do that. I was thinking about which components to install assuming full pre-battle casting and SR. Improved Illich is out. There is no way I could beat a lvl 22 priest alone, in +2 full plate with a group of level 8 critters when the priest has excellent AI, pre-battle casting and able to summon divas and gate in demons. I don't have +3 weapons or anything that can take down shield of acorns or spell reflection so basically this fight is a wash. It cannot be won unless you cheat like mad. Perhaps that is how people beat it but I have been playing for years and I stare at this as impossible. It is locking you in a room with monsters with 100% magic resistance and immune to +2 weapons and below and giving you non magical weapons and a bit of rest. 

I am concerned about other aspects like this. Sure, tactics cheats. I don't even have a problem with that but which are the better components I should install and which are the ones I shouldn't?

Thanks!

Hi everyone. So I basically want to run through the game again and I got about 5 minutes in when Imoen sees the dead Kahlead and there something is not triggering correctly. Basically, every time the talk ends, it starts right back up again.

Also, when the Imoen Romance was installed, her dialogue options would not trigger correctly either. I always got the "I sure have to hand it to you for sleeping in this place". Actually, I got that for every trigger when it didn't have to do with the area triggering an event. Now I just get a state flag not getting set but I worry for more.  I really would like to figure this out. I suppose I could do a whole new reinstall but I would prefer not too. My currently Wei. du.log (without the romance and a few other mods which I thought might have been the issue) is attached. Please let me know if you see anything... let me know. Also, for some reason, all of the char select sounds are coming from BG1. I don't mind that but I can't figure out what mod caused that and if this is related at all. 

Thanks,

~Ben

The subject says it all. I downloaded the latest Ascension for WeiDu and BiG World Install doesn't pick it up and doesn't install it. It is also not on the list of available mods. I don't get it. The documentation says that it should work. Anyway. I installed it on top of a fresh install before I ran BWI. I think I did the correct thing but I am not sure. It is fine that it isn't recognized but please make a note of it in the PDF and tell me when I should install it. 

Thanks!

~Ben

So I was playing this through for the 10th time and I was getting a bit board of all the chatter so I decided to go to the swamp, got the stick, and backstabbed the first person who talks to me (I think the archer around the fountain). They never got the chance to talk to me which I think threw off the sequence of the dialogue since no other NPC who was suppose to talk with me ever did. I think a few mods get around by just knowing when a PC goes into the visible rage of the NPC (though I don't know the code behind making this work). Then they just have all dialogue automatically and the sequence is fine. 

Also, I have to request that the staff be amped up a bit to a +4. When a +4 staff is available from essentially the start of the game, any special staff should really be either a +1 with mage specific attributes or a +4 for warriors and thieves. It is really useful and nifty but as a +3 it should not get used while for a +4 it should. Also, I made the item pulse since it was so powerful but that is just for fun really. I modified it up to a +4 and it is really quite fun. BTW, that wouldn't be overpowered. It is the last item you get after clearing an entire map and those fights can be very hard. Also, this way I have another weapon against demi-liches as oppose to just another nifty weapon which I won't use and most likely sell. 

Just a few thoughts. 

~ben

Hi everyone. So I had spent many many hours trying to get this all to just magically work with linux when I realized that I had a windows computer. Wine will not use .bat files which is a huge pain if you want to use Big World Install.bat (which I did because it makes life so much easier) . If you have access to a windows computer I highly recommend doing a full install and run the Big World Install.bat with all of your mods. For the widescreen mod, make sure that this is the screen resolution for the computer you are going to play on. For me, I have a very nice 1080p monitor so I did 1920x1080. I also included the beta of SCS for some of the party AI script fixes. I also used the generalized biffing mod because you just have to. The SCS AI slows down the game quite a lot, generalized biffing makes it playable. 

Anyway, so once everything worked on the windows computer I copied over the 30GB folder. I dd'ed the ToB disk and loop mounted it so wine could find it. Then I ran wine TobExLoader.exe and it just all magically worked. I had BG2, fully modded, in beautiful 1080p. Actual frame-rate depends on location but ranges because 20 in umar hills to 30 in a single room. TobEx is fully wine compatible. There are some dll's which you need to install to get multiplayer to work but that is about it. I am really impressed. 

So I had a mess of pitfalls getting there. Mods are generally not compatible with linux+wine+Weidu.exe. The Weidu for linux died on me a few times and complained that I wasn't running it in the game directory. There are a ton of errors I think accessing a weidu file which causes the mods to crash. This was discovered when I wanted to change something in a mod and 5 other mods had to be uninstalled and re-installed. The mods were installing perfectly under windows but errors caused it to break in linux. 

My message to people trying to run BG2 under wine is to build everything under windows, make sure everything is the way you want it to be, and then move everything over. Assume you cannot change anything once you move it to linux but once it is on linux, everything will work. Not even sound is an issue anymore. It plays with a few flaws but nothing major. It runs at or better than on windows. 

Oh yea, I also have a 10$ Radion graphics card with 512MB of DDR3 memory. It is cooled by a heat-sink. This is not a high end gaming computer and it will play flawlessly. Most of the time I get 27FPS with a full install of SCS running and generalized biffing. I know that this might not be the most coherent post, I am just jubilant right now. I can make this into a step by step guide if need be.