i am thinking of downloading this mod, and would like to know a couple of things.
Exactly how hard is it? i am quite an experienced player, i have been through bg2 and tob countless times, but most of the time i have just been a hacker and slasher, relying on a few fighters with greater whirlwind and a lot of persistance to get me through any tough patches [img]tongue.gif[/img] , however i have done a solo game on insane difficulty so will i find this extremely difficult?

Does it bring any cool new items or NPCs into the game? something to liven up playing through the story again ?

thanks in advance [img]smile.gif[/img]

edit, also what kind of party is a good one to use?

[ 04-20-2005, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: Demonheart ]

It depends on what components you install. Some are harder than others and some are more ridiculous than others since Weimer was not very picky or choosy when he added diff. peoples stuff to Tactics, he more or less threw them all together and the player needs to decide which ones should be installed.

If you play the game in a hack and slash mode you will be owned.

Do not install Improved Ilyich, Small Tooth Pass, or Improved Fire Giants. Well II is a good joke but it's not exactly balanced because a guy in the first dungeon summons a Fallen Deva.

I suggest you install the improved undead/dragons/mages components. Imp. Dragons makes these fearsome beasts a threat again ( I normally walk all over Firkragg and Thax at early levels, usually as soon as i find/can cast a few lower resistances. Walked in to fight Firkragg after 'improving' him and got my tail severely whipped at level 15. The usual tactics are MUCH harder to use effectively.
Imp. Mages basically makes enemy mages smarter. You know how you cast stoneskins/armor spells and such as soon as they go down or you wake up? well now mages cast these sorts of protection spells as soon as you get near them or enter their map. Makes sense.
Imp Undead makes the undead a little more scarey, with most under having some extra abilities such as fear, spook, greater malison ect.

There are some other great parts, look here for the txt file assosciated with tactics.

I highly recommend it. In addition you should install Ascension for ToB. I do agree with disabling the Fire Giants in ToB, the constant debuffing causes massive lag on my computer and I don't find them fun to fight.

Once you've been through SoA and ToB a few times and figure things out the game gets too easy. You can crank up the setting to Hard and Insane but it doesn't make the AI think any smarter. With Tactics you finally get an AI that has half a brain and makes the game challenging again. The best part is that all your effort leading up to the final Irenicus is finally worth it. It's a far cry from that pathetic, anti-climatic cakewalk in the original.

The Ascension improvements in ToB are also very enjoyable. I never understood why Illesara was such a pushover when you can come out of SoA with a powerful party. Now she's a damn fun fight. Gromnir is slightly harder and Yaga-shura turns into a wild yet fun hackfest. Haven't got to the Improved Abazigal yet and unless I'm missing something I didn't notice any improvements in Sendai and Draconis.

I think what turns most people off from Tactics is the Improved Ilyich. It turns Chateau Irenicus into a very brutal slugfest with every step you take. I almost gave up and uninstalled this part but something in the back of my mind kept saying to me "this is tactics, it's supposed to be hard". I let out such a huge sigh of relief when I finally made it out of there with Acorns in hand. I'm glad I did it once but I uninstalled that part for my other parties.

Just about everything else in Tactics is well worth it and make the game challenging again. The other subtle improvments like to the undead, smarter mages and dragons are a nice little touch that was sorely missing in the original.

Keep in mind than almost any improved fight in Tactics can still be turned into a cakewalk with enough levels. This is why I laugh when I see people say Bodhi in chapter 6 was easy with their 20th lvl party full of HLAs. Well duh [img]smile.gif[/img] It's a wee bit tougher when your party is low to mid teen.

There are also some parts of Tactics that can be quite clever, like Gebhard Blucher's lich in the docks. When it used its plan b, so to speak, it was so amazingly surprising [img]smile.gif[/img]

well after a little work, illyich and co. are dead, and i'm out into the sunlight, albeit minus jaheira and minsc, who unfortunately perished [img]tongue.gif[/img] i didn't find illyich's group as hard as i expected, i killed them with myself, minsc jaeheira and imoen without using any wands, and lots of magic missiles [img]tongue.gif[/img]

i've playes a bit of tactics and have turned into one of those people off the forum who think it's normal BGII [img]smile.gif[/img]

i've never beaten illyich without massive reloading and often i just avoid him

i've managed to stick to a tactics party game recently and think that it's definitely harder with a party - the extra XPs for a solo shoots you up really quickly to the point where you can start shrugging things off

enjoy

You sound heartbroken :D Congratulations on getting through it. I think there must be an element of randomness to it as I finally beat him relatively easily too, but after hours of banging my head against the screen. I think sometimes the patrol patterns come right for you and other times they don't.

doing de'arnise hold and getting annoyed with tor'gal....... all my party (myself, level 11 sorceror, nalia lvl 11 mage, edwin lvl 10 mage, jaheira lvl 9/12) beating on him, hasted, mages using MMM and jaheira attacking with club+3 can never get him past injured.... any suggestions?

Firs dispel his invisibility, lower his saves and hit him with Slow. When done, his regeneration speed will slow down very much. Another option is to put someone under PFMW and lure Tor'Gal to attack him. Then attack Tor'Gal and kill him. Re-cast PFMW when it wears off.