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this is my first time playing through with a modded bgII and as much as i am
enjoying the many duegar random attackers but i am having quite a time with the improved illyich i was just looking for a couple of strategies to help me through this battle.

thanks

Here's my advice: Uninstall that component and start over.

I came here asking the same basic thing you are, and was informed that it was intended as a "joke" mod. And it is - it even says so in the readme, if I remember correctly. The only way I've ever seen anyone claim they beat it is by using copious amounts of cheese.

There's quite a few components of Tactics that are cheesy to greater or lesser degrees, but the Ilych mod is 100% Velveeta processed cheese, and intentionally so. If I were the maintainers of that mod, I'd remove that component, or make it much clearer that it's a joke (like, during the WeiDU install procedure). Given how many people were already saying that Tactics was cheesy on several boards, that experience was successful in turning me off to the whole thing, and I wound up uninstalling all of it. I'm sure that there -are- components that are worthwhile, and eventually I'll cautiously try them, but something my mama always told me - if you want to be taken seriously, don't start off with a joke.

Qwinn

Well yeah... if you wanna beat Ilyich cheese him to death... in fact most of tactics assumes you use cheese and so makes monsters tougher to counter that fact.

People like it because even though they try their hardest and are as cheesey as can be they still have to struggle.

Someday someone will make a version of Tactics that -doesn't- assume that players will cheese I'd download that in a heartbeat.

Qwinn

just for all of you who are reading this thread i just beat improved illyich and co. without useing cheese so it is possible to do it

peace

Same here. If someone is asking for advice on how to beat tactics, perhaps some improved battle tactics would be in order, guys, instead of immediately suggesting to uninstall the component.

As for general tactics: traps, summons and luring your enemies one by one, is the way to go. Minsc's ‘charm animal’ works wonders too, when there are wardogs in the dungeon.

Standing in front of an absent Bhaltazar right now in ToB I can hardly remember Chateu Irenicus, but I remember beating it with almost no cheese (the only one being that I have used the stats of a character from a P&P game that are higher than average and sometimes higher than racial max). And that it was extremely hard. I also remember thinking "Hey maybe this Tactics mod is not so bad anyway and can be done without cheese" I got wiser later for while I could beat Improved Illyich by a hair (it was the last spell my sorcerer sidekick had that killed the Pit fiend) and bringing a sorcerer sidekick to supplement Minsc, Jaheira and Imoen probably tipped the scales, I had much trouble with Mae'Var and the Acid Kensai early in SoA, and with Bodhi and Irenicus later.
IMO the ideal hostile game encounter lets you win if you use the optimal tactic at optimal strength for that level of the game (Chateu Irenicus should be easier than Sendai's enclave), and lets you win by a hair and with no fatalities if you use a mediocre tactic or are weaker than expected, but otherwise will beat you.

Best wishes; Palle

Keep in mind the definition of "cheese" is amorphous...

??? ???

I believe what he means is that what one person might describe as "no cheese", another person might consider to be pretty darn cheesy.

I'm finding it hard to believe that that mod could be defeated with "almost no cheese". Seriously. I know there's a few clever tactics involved that I wouldn't consider cheese (like using Charm Animal to get the dogs to turn on the other mobs, providing them with targets other than you), but I don't think even those non-cheese tactics are sufficient. A handful of level 7 characters with, at best, a single +2 2-hand sword and maybe one or two +1 weapons is not going to beat that overpowered gang in a straight up fight. To just say "I didn't use cheese" isn't convincing, cause I've seen people come in and argue that what almost anyone would consider pure 100% Velveeta isn't cheese at all (basically, "defending the indefensible"). If you want to brag that you did it without cheese, give details, which is what was being requested in this thread anyway, and let each person decide if it's really cheesy or not.

At any rate, I don't feel a need to apologize for explaining that it was, in fact, a "joke" mod, because it most definetly was intended to be, and it's rather annoying to get yelled at for not noticing it was a "joke" when I asked how to beat it, and then get yelled at again for passing on that same information :/

Qwinn

[QUOTE=h_parsons]just for all of you who are reading this thread i just beat improved illyich and co. without useing cheese so it is possible to do it
[/QUOTE]

Just for all those of us who are reading and remain skeptical, please state in some detail those non-cheese strategies you used to beat the Tactics mod.

Did I ever yeall at you? If you percieve it to be so, I apologise. But would like to know in what way. Thing is, I cannot actually remeber how I did it. I can just remember that I felt that this was exactly what I wanted a mod to be, hard enough to challenge me, but not insanely hard. As I mentioned I got much wiser later...
What I do remember apart from having a sorceror sidekick captured with me and having two stats above 18 (St and Char) on my Kensai main Character, was a lot of cloudkills and running away to deal with surviving pursuers one at a time. And sleeping on Lvl -2 (the lowest level, the one where you are caged) in Chateu Irenicus in order to reload the sorceror's spell inventory. I specifically recall it being the last miserable Magic Missile that killed the Pit Fiend. That could be considered cheese, both the running away and sleeping part. Personally I dislike sleeping in a hostile dungeon, but sometimes there is just no other way, or I may be a lousy tactician...
The one Weimer mod I hate is the Ascension Party. Usually you have a hostile encounter where somebody gets the jump on you, whether they talk or not does not change that, they have the jump on you. You can offset that by using sensible tactics, HLAs etc. In the Ascension Party encounter they get the jump on you AND use the same tactics that you do. So that when you finally get to react you are stunned etc. That I HATE

Best wishes; Palle

"Did I ever yeall at you? If you percieve it to be so, I apologise. But would like to know in what way."

Nah, wasn't referring to you Edar. Sorry for the confusion.

"That could be considered cheese, both the running away and sleeping part."

Yes and no. Here's the way I look at it. If part of the "tactic" is to do partial damage to a mob or three (such as with cloudkills), and then run away and heal completely and rest while the mob just sits there damaged and doesn't do anything to rest or heal itself or -chase you- for 8 hours, yes, it's cheese. In other words, if you attack and take down one mob, run away, rest, take down another, run away, rest, then it's not too cheesy. But if the "tactic" is to partially damage a mob, run, rest, partially damage him some more, run, rest, and finally go back and kill him - yes, indeed, I consider that cheese, because any non-idiot creature would either heal itself while -you- rested or hunt you down under those circumstances. It's taking advantage of stupid game AI, which is a fair definition of cheese.

Qwinn

Well, I only rest the party when they are so totally out of magic that a magicusing white mouse could kill them.
No problem, I did not think it was me. When (if ever) I get my "real" computer to work again I am not certain I will install Tactics, it has good and bad points and I want to improve my own tactics, but it is just so horrendously lethal. The worst for me was Improved last battle in Hell, Improved Bodhi, Improved Mae'Var and that Acid Kensai out to get Celestial Fury.

Best wishes; Palle

I managed to kill half of Illyich's party before I thought it was a moronic waste of my time, and uninstalled it. I think I ran into the small tunnels to avoid the giants, but I might have remembered wrongly.

Other than that, I've beaten Improved Maevar with 1 Sorceror (me), Aerie, Edwin and Jan. By that time I already had Bracers of AC 3, so I dropped my Sorceror's AC as low as possible. I prepped first by casting Mirror Image, Blur, Stoneskin, Melf's Minute Meteors and Protection from Normal Missiles on everyone except Edwin (the clown can't cast Stoneskin). I then went down the stairs, and threw four or five webs into the T-junction near the stairs. Almost everyone got stuck in that thing, except for Maevar, who was Mislead and invisible, and kept trying for a backstab. My party then stood on the little stairs and threw fireballs and chaos spells into the mix, and I believe a chaos spell got to Maevar, who proceeded to backstab at least three of his own archers. Only my Sorceror stood away from the stairs to draw Maevar away from the rest. After waiting for the Mislead to expire (and recasting Stoneskin and Mirror Image for my Sorceror), when Maevar appeared I Breached him immediately and pelted the fool with Minute Meteors. I must say, It was a matter of luck that I didn't get backstabbed. A possible way to remove the Mislead could be making Jan invisible and sending him into the fray, detecting traps all the way, because his detect illusion skill is quite high. However I think Maevar sees through invisibility, and I'm not sure how to get Jan through the webbed area.

I've beaten Improved Bodhi before with two characters, a FMT and a CR,because Sola got converted and Tashia ditched me. I don't remember how I did it, but I know it involved alot of running away and casting invisibility, protection from magic weapons and creeping doom. Improved Hell was another pain in the ass - again, PfMW and NPP were lifesavers, especially vs. that idiotic level draining sword. And Kuroisan was a matter of casting Mass Invisibility, PfMW, a large number of PfAcid scrolls, and Breach. After a while my FMT managed to get through and whack him to pieces.

For some reason Kuriosan always seemed to get away when he was low on hits and was saying "uuuhhh, this is not a good day".

I cannot remember how I got Mae'var. Irenicus in improved hell... Just how many teleports and healing spells has he got? I know I have counted at least 25 before I finally got him in some way:-(

Anyway, my "real" computer seems to be working now, so I will now reinstall it all after that damned format.

Best wishes; palle