luke nysen (1) on 4/2/2017 6:40 PM · Permalink · Report

I had a lot of fun coming back to this game and beating it so many years after first attempting it. In the past I didn't fully understand the game mechanics, but once you do the game really opens up. Nothing I write below is a spoiler/cheat/walkthrough (except for island coordinates which, trust me, you want). This could probably all be included in the official game documentation without any loss of enjoyment of the game.

MONEY: First, you need to understand how to make money, which comes down to caravaning goods from one city to another. You'll basically want to visit several towns at the start of your game and write down all the prices of goods in the store (and stables which sell horses/wagons). Note that the store has a 'more goods' button next to the buy/sell buttons. This is important because the more expensive selection of the goods are hidden until you press this button. Goods include milk, wheat and cheese on the first screen and machines, slaves and beer on the second.

Another important detail is the city info button which you have to be in the city view (not the store) to use. It sits next to the save/load buttons and looks like a starburst. This button tells you what goods the city you are visiting produces, and is important because those goods will be the cheapest (though prices are always fluctuating so watch the price). You typically want to buy goods from a producer city and transport it to a city that is far from a town that produces the same item (the further the town is the more it will pay for said good). You can make a FORTUNE doing this.

Final point. Wandering armies criss cross the entire map but won't do you any harm IF you have NO money or goods on you (with the exclusion of horses and wagons). This means you can safely begin the game trading wagons and horses leaving all your money in the bank (or by just reloading any time you encounter an army while travelling with goods/money).

If you do have an unwanted encounter, you can bribe wandering armies 10,000 to leave you alone. Which comes to SCOUTS. If you have 100 to 300 scouts, you'll be able to clearly see all the wandering armies as they travel the map (note that for every 50 men, you want 1 wizard to save men from dying in swamps/magic forests).

You can also make money from taxing cities you have captured (the money isn't that great) and mines (which you will start to discover as you search for treasures).

OBJECTIVE (pc version): As you've probably already read, the goal of the game is to find the 5 rings of medusa so you can call her army and defeat it in one massive glorious battle. In the process you'll find one ring in a wandering army, and four rings in buried treasures. Only two of the buried treasures lie on the main continent. The other two are buried on islands that are tough to find. There is one treasure per map-screen (which the game calls "countries"). Temples in all the cities on that given screen/country will give you hints of where to search for the treasure (in the form of approximate coordinates). You have to search around those coordinates until your scouts report the exact coordinates for the treasure (make sure you have at least 100 scouts).

To find the rings on the islands, I think you're basically meant to sail around until you find the islands, but the map is so big that that can be an arduous feat. SO, I'm going to give coordinates for 3 islands (there are more but I didn't find them all).

ISLANDS Some Island Locations (you only need 2): 11° 17' N, 114° 19’ W 16° 12' S, 27° 31' E 47° 17' N, 13° 52' E * Note, if you dig up a treasure on an island and it doesn't contain a ring, reload and try again unless you want to sail the ocean searching for the final island(s). I recommend not doing this on the main continent since that may detract from the enjoyment.

HINTS: 1) My biggest advice is to save often.
2) The more wagons & horses you have the more smaller ticket items you can carry (which have some of the biggest ROI). So buy lots. At one point in the game I had 850, which was enough wagons to buy all the low priced products in multiple cities. 3) You only pay soldiers that are travelling with you on the first of each month. SO, you can put your soldiers away for safe keeping in the barracks where they don't cost you anything. Once you have enough money, wandering armies are cheaper to buy off than paying for your soldiers (though you'll want to always keeps 100-300 scouts on you and 1 wizard for every 50 soldiers).