Konung 2

Description 

The sequel to Konung: The Legend of the North includes elements from role-playing, real-time strategy, and adventure games. An evil bracelet transforms the hero from the original game into a dark master, and now, only the six descendants of the Titans can stop the threat. You must guide these warriors through a fantasy world rife with wild hunters, noble traders, and fearless tribes. Improve each characters skills and characteristics as you undertake a variety of challenging quests.

Game Explanation

A.  Character Options
          1. Ratibor  - Ratibor will start the game with 2 extra hirelings not
available to the others (they have no special abilities), and these hirelings
will already be in his party, so you can fight right away.  He starts with extra
money, owns Pinesville already, and is a competent fighter himself.  Ratibor's
drawback is that twice as many hunting parties will be on the map potentially
threatening your towns, and their strength is greater.  Depending on your play
style this may require a lot more town micromanagement, a lot more "protective"
combat via interceptions, or you might just ignore them.
Ratibor is the easiest to start with but has a more difficult mid and late game.

          2. Velmira  - Velmira starts in Blackwood and has it available
immediately.  She is a well balanced character but won't allow you to hire some
of the "weaker" potential party members.  Velmira is moderately difficult.

          3. Helga  - Helga starts in Lower Camp.  It's available to her quickly
and she has access to 1 good mercenary others do not.  Her healing skills exceed
her combat ability and she is a bit unbalanced in this respect, but it means
less micromanagement early.  Helga is one of the easier characters to start with
unless you want to be fighting right away.  With just a little patience however
she is one of the easier characters to play overall, and it doesn't take long to
build up her combat ability.

          4. Aanastasia  - Aanastasia starts in a special location which
eventually leads to the main map/continent.  Players should save the game
immediately after starting with her.  Immediately!  Careful choices will lead
into the rest of the game with little trouble.  Aanastasia will not hire male
mercenaries (not at all that I am aware of, perhaps with exceptionally high
charisma it's possible), and obtains a town slower than most other characters.
She is a hard character to play later in the game, but only moderately difficult
to begin with.  She is probably the most difficult to play overall due to her
finicky hiring practices.

          5. Einar  - Einar starts on an island, in prison.  He has the worst
ability scores but a good combat ability.  His lack of healing skills and
location make his start the most difficult by far.  Starting with Einar requires
more patience and careful battle management, but Einar can potentially be a very
strong character, in part because his scores are so low to begin with, and in
the hands of an experienced player, Einar will probably finish the game the
fastest.

          6. Alexander  - Alexander starts in a (normally hidden) cave, and
provided you run out without trying to be overly brave, has a relatively easy
start due to his high statistics.  Alexander is the equivalent of a 3rd or 4th
level character when he starts.  Alexander has the easiest overall gameplay.

     B.  Ability Scores
  You have 6 attributes (ability scores) that you can increase.  At the start of
the game you have 25 points to spend - each level you'll have another 25, both
for your main hero and any hirelings you have that level up (they each
individually get 25 points to spend per level, keeping in mind that your hero's
level is not tied to your hirelings, I.E. they go up separately).  It's
important to note that you don't have to spend the points right away, not even
when starting the game.  You can wait until the game starts to distribute your
initial points, once you know what you're facing early in the game.  At later
levels, after level ups, you can spend as few or as many points as you want.
Points are not lost, but carry over to the next level.

  Each attribute costs 2 points to increase.  Each skill costs 1 point.
Increasing your skills is difficult because your maximum score is limited by the
number of points you have put into various attributes.  Sometimes you will have
to spend most of your level-up points increasing 2-3 attributes a few points,
just to then increase 1 skill by 4 or 5.  Raising skills to very high levels,
especially your starting skills, should be seen as a long term process.  Don't
expect to have a 100 sword skill after playing for a few hours.

Attributes have a maximum value of 150, though only Charisma requires that you
exceed 95 in order to have everything in the game available to you.
          1. Strength  - Affects how much damage you will do with melee weapons,
and types of shields, and swords you can use.  Surprising impacts to the skills
blacksmith, bow, and unarmed combat.
          2. Dexterity (Agility)  - Affects what bows or crossbows you can use.
Characters will run faster and be harder to hit, though these differences are
hard to notice unless you have 30-40 point differences.  Surprising impacts to 2
weapon skill, mortal strike, and sword.
          3. Intelligence  -  Affects several skills, including, oddly enough,
blacksmith and magic.
          4. Learning  -  Affects almost every skill, though to a very small
degree.  A few points are enough.
          5. Vitality  -  The most important attribute after Charisma (Charisma
is for your hero only).  Vitality affects how much you can carry, the armor and
helmets you can wear, and the clubs and axes you can wield.  Vitality increases
your maximum carry amount by .3, then .4, then .3 kg (3 points = 1 kg).
          6. Charisma  - Determines how many people you can hire, who you can
hire, and how people react to you.  For the most part you will be increasing
charisma to make room in your party to hire new members.  You'll be able to hire
a new member after adding 15 points, until you have 130 charisma, when you can
have every slot filled.  Note that this applies to hiring (paying) mercenaries
as well as picking up people for quests.

     There are no variable "hit points" in the game that increase with level, so
your vitality is crucial, because surviving depends heavily on what armor you
are wearing.  Agility (dexterity) and dodging attacks has a minimal impact on
gameplay.  For the most part you can count on being hit in combat, even by low
level creatures.  Your armor is going to be the difference between surviving
unscathed and having a healing-potion drinking problem.  ##Contrary to what the
manual implies re: lightly armored and fast archers, even archers need to have a
high vitality, both for armor, but also to carry the extremely heavy arrows they
need.##
     Unlike other games a balanced approach in your ability scores isn't a
requirement.  Your Hero has a special need for Charisma, which no other
character uses at all.  Other than a high vitality however, you can focus on
giving characters high strength or agility or both, and you won't find them
virtually paralyzed after a few levels.

     One confusing issue with the onscreen display of the ability scores is the
Base and Current values.  The Base value is your actual unmodified score, the
Current value reflects the score after any bonuses are applied, including any
permanent or item bonuses you have.  (Normally, in other games, permanent
bonuses not tied to items would change your Base score)  Sometimes your ability
to do something is based on your Current score, such as using an item, but
sometimes it's based on your Active score.  This is your modified Current score
(though your Base score changes also, which seems to be a bug) as caused by
temporary conditions like curses, potions, etc.
     In other words, "Current" should be seen as the number which shows your
score after permanent and item modifications are applied.  It should probably be
called "Modified", because if you drink a potion that temporarily increases your
strength, you will see your Base and Current values BOTH rise....you cannot tell
what your original values (Base and "modified") were until the potion or
temporary effect wears off.  (in the case of a wisdom potion this can be quite
alarming :) )

     Please note that both certain skills and certain attributes can be
increased by items in the game, but not ALL skills or attributes.  Prior to
investing heavily in a certain skill or ability score, you may want to play the
game for a little while so you have a chance to see which skills, etc. you can
"purchase" upwards (via items that give permanent increases), and which ones
must rely on level increases.  Items that increase scores/skills, other than
potions, are permanent, and always increase the score/skill by a fixed amount,
even at higher levels.

     C.  Skills
I have only included some notes on skills that behave in an unexpected way.  Not
all skills are listed.  Skills have a maximum value of 100.  In the case of the
fighting skills this roughly corresponds to a percentage chance to hit, modified
by the enemies dodge ability and other factors.
----------------------------------------------
          1. Unarmed  - Includes the use of spiked knuckles, though there are
few available in the game.  Still a viable fighting method with enough strength.
Note that if anyone asks you specifically to fight unarmed, they also mean you
must remove your knuckles.  You can fight with a shield.

          2. Two Weapon fighting  - Can be used with 2 different weapons or two
identical ones, though you must have points in 2 different weapon skills to
start learning this.  2 weapon fighting is essentially a double attack in place
of having a defensive shield available.  Once you spend points in 2 weapon
fighting it's not necessary to increase the individual skill in the weapons
you're actually holding.

          3. Mortal Strike  - Can kill an enemy in a single hit.  Note that 100
in mortal strike does not give a 100 percent chance to kill in one hit.  In my
experience your actual instant kill chance is 1/2 to 1/3 your mortal strike.
You cannot add points into mortal strike unless 1) the character already has it,
or 2) you have at least 50 points in 1 melee combat skill.  Mortal strike does
not work with ranged weapons.

          4. Healing  - Critical ability for at least one character in your
party.  Healing will always and automatically heal to the level of your ability.
For example, if your healing ability is 20, and you have 30 hit points left, you
cannot heal.  You must increase your healing score to 31, then you can heal 1
hit point.
  It's important to understand that unlike most skills, healing improves with
use.  When you heal someone you gain 1 point in your healing skill.  Say you
give yourself 40 points in healing.  After being hurt, you have 25 hit points
left.  You heal, and now you have 41 hit points (your skill level plus the point
you gained for successful use).  Now you gain 1 skill point in healing, because
you successfully healed.  Your skill is now 41.
  Each time you successfully heal (it always works, by successful I mean your
healing skill was greater than the damage, so it has an impact (healing occurs))
you gain 1 skill point.  This means that if your party is hurt, say you have 5
party members and each gets healed, then you just gained 5 healing points!  Not
only that, but each time you heal you gain a point immediately - healing 5
people results in their each having a different amount healed, increasing by 1
point for each person, reflecting your rising skill.  I.E. 5 people all hurt
might have the following damages after healing : 40, 41, 42, 43, 44.  Now your
skill is actually going to be 44 or 45 - so after a slight delay you can heal
again, and gain another few points!

  HOW TO USE HEALING - Like the blacksmith skill (weapon and armor repair), you
use these abilities by talking to people inside your party.  CTRL- click on
their portrait and you will have dialogue options to use these skills.
  Healing is on a time delay.  Once you heal you cannot use the command again
until ~ 4 minutes have passed for each person who uses the ability.  Having
multiple healers in a party is a big convenience for this reason.  Each person
has their own individual delay before they can heal the party again.
  There is a heal self and heal party option available on the menu - you can use
heal party in every situation.

  IMPORTANT NOTE - You can CTRL-left click on portraits for party members while
in combat and have them heal or perform other actions.  Your hero must actually
speak to them however, and there may be a delay while your hero runs over to
them.  Doing this on your hero itself to have the hero perform a healing, etc.
never has a delay (for movement to the character).

          5. Alchemy  - Critical ability for at least one party member.  Alchemy
is always successful in creating a potion if you use either a valid recipe, are
making one from an empty vial and an herb, OR combine 2 potions of the same
type.  Alchemy also improves with use.  Each use of alchemy that results in a
valid new potion, whether mixing two different potions or creating one using an
herb, results in an extra point of alchemy skill.  The best potion you can make
has a concentration of 1.00 (alchemy skill 100).  It is possible to make a
potion with a concentration of 0, so you can actually start from scratch and
give yourself 100 alchemy skill just by creating 100 potions.

          6. Identification and Magic  -  Identification works only with the so-
called singing items, which are rare, and I've never seen one that seemed to be
unidentified.  The magic score works with standard weapons and armor that have
magic properties, plus, the magic score determines the impact certain items
have.  Note that the character with the magic score must actually be holding the
items to identify them, and it happens automatically.  Your Hero does not have
to be the person with a high magic score.

          7. Blacksmith  - Can be used to repair weapons and armor.  Very
important skill, as items in the game can wear down with great speed.  I
strongly recommend repairing your equipment after every single combat.  Unlike
healing there is no delay for repair to work.  Blacksmith also increases your
skill as you use it.  Repairing a bunch of junk items, even things you intend to
sell, can cause your skill to jump upwards by 5-10 points at a time or more (you
don't have to be holding them, and it works on the entire party at once).
  Caution - Very low Blacksmith skill can cause items to have their durability
permanently damaged if you try to repair them.  I recommend having a skill of at
least 20 before you attempt to use it.  You cannot use the repair option
selectively, so be careful in clicking this option.  Always have your best smith
repair your items first after a fight, so that if you need to speak to/heal with
other characters you don't accidentally badly damage a lot of your equipment
while you're talking to them later.  Note that you will not damage items unless
they had some durability loss (I.E. the smith skill has to activate on a damaged
item to have a chance of hurting it.)

          8. Masonry  - Limited use in the game, reserved for a single side
quest and 100 masonry isn't required.  So far as I can tell the manual is
incorrect, ##masonry is of virtually no use in the game, even for hirelings##.

          9. Village Management  - Increases the amount of money you get in
tribute.  Depending on your playing style this may not be important at all.

          10. Trading  - 100 trading skill = 20% discount on purchased items.

          11. Pathfinding  - Has no impact that I can discern, even when the
Hero has the skill.