..............................Konung 2 ..........................Basic Gameplay FAQ ...............................v 1.0 I wrote this FAQ to help English Konung 2 players work around some of the deficiencies of the manual, readme, and in-game help/information. While Konung 2 is an interesting and fun game, despite being a bit of a throwback in many respects (the graphics, controls, and style are a bit primitive for modern games, personally, I like it), the US publishers have done the game a great disservice by leaving out a lot of useful, even crucial information. I hope this FAQ helps you avoid some of the frustration others experienced shortly after the release of the game to store shelves in the U.S. (and I presume, Europe, though the game is Russian in origin, hence the spelling and translation errors in the English version of the game and manual). This FAQ is not a walkthrough nor is it intended to impair your enjoyment of the game by offering a lot of hints, "cheats", or other information that you probably want to discover on your own as your explore. I'm going to try to describe, in a basic way, how certain things function in the game where it's not intuitively obvious, and not similar to other games. I have not played the first Konung game, but I understand that many elements are similar. Anyone playing the first game probably does not need this FAQ. Because there is relatively little information, I have not created an extensive index. I may add one later, though this is unlikely. If you need something specific, like information on how a certain item works, just use the automated search function. I will add a handful of hints for those of you that find the game too difficult in certain respects. I will try to add this information only at the end of the FAQ so that those of you preferring to find your own strategies can read through the gameplay information without my spoiling too much. If you have questions or information that should be added or changed to this FAQ you can contact me at wrsinger2003 @yahoo.com. I. General Information and Advice .....The Konung (King) experience .....Controls you didn't know existed .....Bugs II. Your Character and You ..........Who are these guys? ..........Ability scores and point distribution ..........Skills III. Ruling your Empire ...............Conquering villages ...............Hirelings ...............Protecting villages IV. Gameplay notes ....................Combat ....................Items ....................Everything else V. Advice .....How to run away .....How to run away even faster .....How to scream like a child and run away, throwing your shield behind you, sobbing and begging for mercy Credits ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I. General Information and Advice ================================================================================ ====================================== A. Read the manual very closely. There isn't a lot of information but what is there should be taken seriously and literally. In other games "suggestions" in the manual or creative descriptions don't necessarily impact game play - in Konung 2 what the manual hints at is generally intended to be literal and explicit advice or game notes. Please note that the manual is incorrect in several descriptions, noted in the FAQ by these double numeric (pound) marks ## "lies in here :) " ## B. Konung 2 is not a fast playing game by any stretch of the imagination. It takes a lot of patience to work with the games inventory system, managing multiple characters, paying close attention to your towns, and traveling to check merchant inventories. Other factors, such as the inability to quickly scroll and have characters move to a particular location, or any teleportation options, sometimes makes the game drag on while your trying to level up or obtain some better equipment. Don't buy this game if you're not a patient and thorough gamer. C. Konung 2 is unusual in that the game can be played with almost no combat, lots of combat, with or without town management, few characters, or many. Being successful is a matter of the approach you take, which you can vary at any time. This versatility in playing the game is refreshing and makes Konung 2 seem much more open-ended than many other current titles, which often more resemble playing characters in a series of scripted movie intermissions. Konung 2 has a lot of humor and clever dialogue, and opportunities to be both "evil" and "good", though being "evil" in the game only makes gameplay much more difficult, at least the opportunity is there. Although after starting the game it doesn't vary the quests very much, the variety of ways you can approach the entire game adds a lot of replay value, even if playing as the same character. D. Konung 2 is not a traditional fantasy RPG. Although it does have swords, it lacks sorcery. The magic in the game relates to item properties and some alchemy, rather than the flashy spell effects from other games. Konung 2 has a medieval setting and some mythology, but don't go looking for spells to cast just because you have a "magic" ability. E. Hidden and lesser known game controls ---------------------------------------------- Shift - A : Get used to doing this a lot to select your entire party. Especially helpful during and before combat. ~ : Used to toggle your inventory belt appearing onscreen, just like double clicking on a character. Can be very helpful in combat to keep this visible. Spacebar : Toggle for the combat mode. You will use this a lot - keep in mind you can attack nearly anyone in combat mode! When entering town make sure your entire party is set to peaceful mode so you don't accidentally start a war; this may require that you hit the spacebar 2-3 times in the event that some but not all of your party members are in combat mode. This is also a problem when characters are training in town - once moved away from the training area characters should immediately be set to peace mode. A : Mass (all party members) attack nearest actively hostile enemy. It is NOT necessary to have party members selected for this to work. Very helpful - trying to click on a particular enemy in combat is very difficult. Best to use the mass attack feature in most situations, though it's not recommended if friendly people/creatures are nearby (sometimes this will result in attacking seemingly friendly people/creatures). Keep in mind that telling your party to mass attack can result in them rushing off the visible map trying to find something to kill. You may need to select the entire party and move them near your hero to keep them from wandering too far and getting into trouble after issuing this command. F : F is the follow command. Surprisingly useful in towns, dungeons, or other tight locations where the game's poor pathfinding doesn't keep up. Instead of selecting the entire party and clicking 20 times to move them to a particular location, just issue the Follow command. To turn following off, select the entire party and issue a move command to any point. CTRL- portrait left click : You can quickly speak to party members by holding the CTRL key down and left clicking on their portrait on the left side panel instead of trying to mouse over their body. This is very helpful in combat and other situations where picking out the individual is difficult. T : T makes the inventory screen transparent, try toggling it on and off while the inventory is up, and you'll see what this means. It's nice to have this ability when you want to level up while paying attention to whether someone is training, finishing a fight, etc. Arrow keys : Right and left arrow keys move the inventory back and forth. Not listed anywhere is the fact that the up arrow moves the inventory to the beginning of your belt, and the down arrow moves to the end of your belt, including while you're buying or selling items. ---------------------------------------------- F. Current bugs : As far as I can determine the following bugs exist in the release version for the U.S.; explanations for some of these issues can be found later in the FAQ. ------------------------- 1. Enemy towns cannot be burned, but your towns can. 2. On very rare occasions the inventory of one character can be duplicated into another. 3. Characters can sometimes become stuck in combat on top of an enemy, preventing you from attacking. Move your entire party away a short distance to resolve this. 4. Curse doll has no impact. (none that I can determine) 5. Grindstone does not prevent all damage at low skill levels. 6. Bow animations and damage/hit rate are too low. (Should be faster than crossbows) 7. Mass attack option can cause nearby friendly people and creatures to be assaulted. 8. Base ability score values change sometimes, rather than just the Current one. 9. Chasing monsters can result in characters leaving the screen and exiting the battle. (using A cmd) ------------------------- II. Your Character and You ================================================================================ ====================================== 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. ---------------------------------------------- III. Ruling your Empire ================================================================================ ====================================== A. A substantial part of the game, though not a required one, is the management of villages for the purpose of both collecting tribute (money) and obtaining certain free services, such as smithery and healing from the village staff. Certain villagers also become available to join your party if you own the village (anyone who occupies a fillable position, per the manual, ##not counting the elder or merchant...I.E. 3 people##). These are compelling benefits, and the game suggests that you can obtain villages by having them given to you (in response to quests, for instance) OR by assaulting and capturing the villages. From my own testing it is not possible to attack a village and conquer it unless you simply kill everyone. This may be a bug, the manual suggests ##that attacking villagers and killing at least one can result in the village surrendering to your superior forces##. I've attacked multiple villages with a vastly superior force and never had one surrender, regardless of who I killed or in what order. It may simply be that the option was removed or never fully implemented. In any case, you will find that obtaining several villages is not difficult, and that not every village can or needs to be captured. If you really want to establish an outpost somewhere, and need to repopulate a village, you can do this by talking to your party members and asking them to stay and fill various roles, even if the village is empty - though this requires a village elder be left behind. B. People left to assign tasks can be taken into your party later, or be picked up and dropped off in other locations if their skills are needed elsewhere. Remember that the people you can take into the party, and even those you cannot, have the same skills and restrictions and ability to learn as you do. Not every healer in the game starts with 100 healing, for example, and they may need to work with you to increase their abilities. (paying for healing doesn't guarantee that it will have any effect!) C. ##Oil of an appropriate level of concentration can be used to burn down buildings of enemy villages.## This does not seem to be true. I've only been able to burn down my own buildings, using a 15.00 concentration oil on a crossbow bolt, by hovering the mouse over a building a small flame appears by the cursor, and you can fire on a building. It takes about 5 shots to burn down a healers hut. Doing this results in the population attacking you. It's not a recommended tactic... D. There are actually very few available people in the game that can be used to fill positions at different villages, and of course those people aren't in your party fighting with you, so letting them go can be difficult. If you kill people unnecessarily it will make it very, very difficult to fill open positions at villages. The manual is very deceptive on this point, so be warned. E. Not all people in your party can be left behind to fill roles in villages. Any mercenary you pay for can be left, and picked up later for no charge. When you buy them, regardless of where they are left or for how long, you always own them. Anyone already filling a role in a village (not including merchant or elder) is also available at any time. Some people will join your party as a result of or as part of a quest. You can speak to them at intervals or special locations and have them activate their quest related behavior, beware, this can include leaving the party and taking their equipment with them! To determine who you really "own" and who you may lose, talk to each party member while in a village that needs a role filled, such as missing a healer (the elder will tell you this). Anyone who cannot be left in the village as a healer (anyone who doesn't have this dialogue option) is a special NPC. If you never meet the conditions needed to release them, you may be able to keep them for a very long time, virtually the entire game, so it isn't necessarily a great risk. F. Most villages have 1 mercenary you can hire once you have the necessary Charisma, and money. They will also have at least 1 person you can take into your party, either as a quest reward, or as part of a quest (because they are a special NPC). NPC's from quest rewards do NOT leave the party or expect to - they behave like mercenaries with respect to leaving them behind somewhere. Expect for the addition of party members to take a long time - your Charisma is a significant limiting factor, and many people aren't available until the mid to late game, especially if your filling out your village positions. G. Your characters can gain skill points by being left in a job, such as a healer, who will make potions on their own. Provided you give them opportunities and a high enough base skill level, healing and smithery will also increase. Smithery at low levels can damage your items and will result in few or no items being made - be sure that anyone you assign as a blacksmith has a skill level of at least 40. (You may need to keep someone in your party briefly to level them up enough to give them these skill points) H. Why bother with managing your villages, other than getting some free services? Because the hunting groups of soldiers the rulers sends after you will attack villages and prevent you from getting tribute. They will also attack you on sight. If you lose a village, the soldiers will occupy the village center. You must fight them to regain control of the village, and even if you win, your citizens will lose all of their weapons and armor, and be vulnerable for a very long time. I. You can help protect your villages by attacking the hunting parties deliberately. These parties start weak and grow slowly in strength throughout the game. Initially attacking them isn't recommended. Most attacks the villagers will be able to defeat themselves, and when you see these messages, it means that the hunting party was destroyed. Whether the villagers win or lose a combat, nobody dies, and buildings are not destroyed. J. You cannot destroy a hunting party by engaging in combat and then running away. The party will still exist. K. Hirelings do not have special abilities or purposes - you don't need to keep anyone in particular to be able to finish the game, so don't panic if someone dies. You cannot resurrect hirelings. L. It is not necessary that any hireling left to fill a village job (role) have any skill at all. You can leave people to be healers that have no healing or alchemy skill whatsoever, for instance. Trainers require nothing but a high level, and a village elder requires nothing at all, so far as I am aware. Although the blacksmith doesn't require a certain skill level, as a practical matter anything less than ~ 40 points will make them useless. Note that if you leave a hireling in a job they will keep their inventories, HOWEVER, it's possible for a blacksmith to replace the items they are equipped with if the blacksmith thinks they have something better....the blacksmith is often wrong. Generally this is only a problem with low level equipment. M. Villages can be protected in several ways. 1. Leave a high level voevode (trainer) in the village to train them. The villagers (not your characters) will train themselves slowly up to 1 level above the trainers level. This may require that you periodically rotate your trainers so that villages don't reach a training cap. 2. Establish a good blacksmith ASAP and tell the village elder you want to buy weapons at the highest level (spend a "considerable" part of your tribute). You will be able to see the villagers getting better weapons and armor, though this is a slow and gradual process. 3. Leave several additional people in the village to strengthen it. 4. Require a high level of tribute. Although the village elder warns you about the villagers being unhappy, it seems to have no impact on the game. A high level of tribute means that the money given to the blacksmith to buy weapons for the villagers goes up substantially (the highest tribute level seems to be 3-4x the amount you get from the lowest level), because the village spends a proportion of what they give to you. N. If you don't "own" a village it cannot be attacked. You won't get free services or tribute, but you also don't have to worry about them. O. One final hireling note - your characters each get experience only from killing creatures. If you find that weaker party members are not leveling up, they probably aren't getting the killing blow. A few wisdom (experience) potions can help you level those characters up to a point where you can increase their combat skills, especially mortal strike, so that they get experience in a more proportional way, if that is what you want. P. Islands are not threatened by hunting parties. IV. Gameplay notes ================================================================================ ====================================== ....................Combat - Archery does very little damage, especially early on. Playing as an archer isn't realistic initially, as you need a lot of vitality to carry enough heavy arrows around, and you won't hit often. Contrary to what the manual implies, archers cannot wear "light" armor and be effective party members. While archery is less effective than other games, there are situations where it's required, so don't entirely neglect it. - HOW POISON WORKS - Poisoning does not get you experience for killing, so be careful in using it. Once poisoned, the target creature or person will die. I promise...just be patient. Poisoning a target multiple times or with a higher concentration is pointless. Poison arrows are deadly and mean...and a great way to lose experience if your not careful in following up with a killing blow that isn't from poison. You can apply poison to melee weapons as well! With melee weapons each time you hit, the concentration level of the poison on your weapon drops by 1 point. (15.00 concentration means you get 15 poison hits...but you must be careful that you are actually hitting different targets each time, otherwise it's wasted. You must actually hit the opponent for the poison to take effect, not just swing at them) - You can run from all combat. On most maps the hero must actually exit the map and the behavior of other characters isn't relevant. On a ship any character can run to the other end of the ship and cause you to leave combat. - ## The manual lies about axes and clubs doing more damage than swords ##. The maximum damage done by clubs, swords, and axes is basically identical, however the axes and clubs have significantly lower durability. ....................Items - Items left on the ground are permanent...you can store items anywhere, and they don't have to be inside containers. Just drop items on the ground, it will form a bag, and presto, you have the start of a storage facility. - There are 2 types of chain armor in the game, they look identical but they are not. Be careful when selling these that you're not getting rid of a better armor than you currently have. - In most games bows are faster than crossbows and frequently make better weapons. As far as I can tell in Konung 2 both weapons fire at the same rate, crossbows have lower requirements however and do more damage. Why use bows? Because the arrows will be available ;) - What does the spiderweb do? Very little...it actually slows the enemy movement speed to about half in a small radius around you. Since you don't do a lot of running away in the game, because you cannot pause or control individuals effectively, the web isn't very valuable. (and even your walking speed is normally enough to prevent enemies from hitting you) - What does the doll do? Seemingly nothing...it may be buggy. I believe the curse is supposed to work by lowering the strength and other scores of your enemies, but this doesn't seem to have an impact on their fighting ability. - What do the Pipe and Whistle do? They let you rule the world...well, almost. The pipe and whistle function the same way, but the whistle is designed to have a maximum effect on "spirits", and hobgoblins, while the pipe has its maximum effect on "animals", which includes everything other than humans and dragons. Right click on either one and enemies within a moderate range will suddenly be interrupted in their behavior, and depending on their level and strength, some will wander off (flee). Using the whistle or pipe repeatedly to "freeze" certain animals in place is possible but very difficult and I don't recommend it. Normally it's more valuable to use it once or twice in combat, observe which creatures break away from the pack and run away. Hit the A (mass attack) key after using the pipe/whistle so that you characters focus their attacks on the creatures NOT running away. Using this tactic you can safely change the odds in your favor and quickly destroy your enemies. Note that in very confined spaces the creatures that might otherwise run away won't be affected. The pipe and whistle are best used outdoors or in areas where the creatures can run away from your party. - What does the Ancestors Blessing (chest) do? As far as I can tell, over a limited range, it prevents skeletons from coming back to life multiple times. Save these for when you need them. - What does the torch do? Right click on it as soon as you walk onto a map. Lasts as long as you are on that map. It will cause a slight glow to appear, even in daylight, around items you can pickup. Recommended! - What does the apple do? Gives experience depending on your magic score - 1000 xp for 100 magic. Best to save these for later in the game... - What do the pretty magic rocks (runes) do? Various effects that mimic the magic abilities already found in the game. The actual impact depends on your magic score. A score of 50 magic means you only get 50% of the possible effect. Note that each item type in the game has a maximum armor and damage score available. A damage rune applied to a necklace therefore won't have the same effect if it's placed on a helmet. Ability score bonuses don't vary. They have a maximum value of 6. (I.E. Vitality +6) If you place a rune into an item that already has a bonus, you cannot exceed the value of 6, so it's wasteful. Note that you CAN apply multiple runes to a single item, so a ring could be given 5 different magic bonuses... - What does the Shovel do? Right click to select it, then left click to dig. Right click to stop attempting to dig. ##This is a complete waste of time, the area you need to click on is so small that you won't find anything digging randomly## - what does the Copper Mirror do? The mirror is your best friend. Right click once on a map the first time and it will reveal (permanently, I.E. it unearths) hidden treasures. There are hidden treasures on almost every map, including town maps, though most treasure is found in obvious locations like dungeons or hideouts... You only need to use the mirror once on each map. I recommend keeping a piece of paper handy to note which locations you've used mirrors on, and buy and use every one you can. Follow up the mirror by using a torch or teardrop potion to highlight the items you can now pickup. - What does the Grindstone do? It can be used to drop on weapons to repair them, and it helps avoid damage to weapons when your blacksmith skill is poor. Basically from about 10 smith skill to 20, you can use a grindstone, on weapons only, to maintain them. At very low levels using a grindstone won't be a guarantee that your weapon won't be damaged. Notes on Potions -------------------- - There are no hidden potion recipes that I am aware of - You don't need to be given a recipe to create a potion - Herbs will respawn in the same locations after a brief amount of time (I think it's about 10 minutes) - Potions have a maximum concentration of 15. Any two potions of different types, when mixed, will take on the concentration of the lower of the two. - Health potions heal 10 points for every points of concentration. So a 5.00 concentration healing potion will heal 50 hit points (half of your health). Healing potions will always heal, unlike the healing skill (you don't have to have a 10.00 healing potions to reach 100 health). - Note that you can use herbs to create new potions and add multiple herbs to one potion but only if they are of the same type. I.E. you can add healing herbs to an existing healing potion multiple times. However you cannot add healing herbs to an oil potion to mix them. Mixtures for new potion types must come from 2 different actual potions. - Pure teardrop potions work like a torch to highlight treasures, though they won't reveal buried treasure. Very useful until you obtain a torch. The potion effect does not expire until you leave the map. - Blue potions (wisdom) grant experience. In general it's 100 xp less than the concentration, but more concentrated potions seem to give a slightly better value. A concentration 15 potion will give you 1400 XP. It will also cause a lot of damage, but this damage does NOT stack, so you can drink several in a row and not die. The strength loss is temporary. Points from any level up will not be available until the potion wears off. - Antidote potions can and should be combined to create high concentration potions that you can slowly use. The potion does not vanish unless the entire concentration is used to cure that character. -------------------- - While being held (equipped) a bow or crossbow can give you magic bonuses even when it isn't being used. ....................Everything else - Dropping an item below your inventory belt will cause the item to reappear at the start of your inventory. This is convenient for moving health potions and antidote to an easy to click location. - You can double click on something, like a person you wish to speak to, and cause you're character to run to that location to perform the task. - There is an option to ask party members for advice when speaking to them. Sometimes the advice is very clear and valuable, and it varies depending on who you ask. If your having trouble solving something, ask everyone in your party. - You can train characters, 1 at a time, in a town with a trainer by moving them to the light combat circles. Either one will work, and you can be in combat or peace mode. You will train for a while, until a partner leaves, but eventually another will arrive. You will gain an average of 2 xp per minute...this should only be used to level up characters who need less than 30 xp to level up. - When training, if your partner leaves, sometimes you can cause them to return quickly by having your hero speak to them. Trying starting to speak to them (to get their "attention"), but click on the ground before you actually reach them (no conversation). Doing this several times will "jerk" the villager and sometimes change what they intend to do. Each time you do this wait a moment to see if they start walking back to the training area. Normally they will return to help train your party member faster within 4-5 attempts of these aborted conversations. - The large map in the game is meaningless (the one in the lower left corner shown while you are traveling) - You cannot uncover locations in the game by moving around, and there is nothing at the different map locations that aren't marked with villages or other structures. - It may be necessary to talk to people more than once for additional quest information...even if you've just spoken to them. - Vendor objects stay with the house. I.E. if you tell a healer to join your party and then tell someone else to stay and be a healer, the potions available for sale stay the same. - If you drop a merchant delivery load, such as during a combat due to an accidental click (not that it's ever happened to me...), and are unable to pick it up again for delivery, the merchants won't speak to you again....reload the game. - ENEMIES IN THE GAME DO NOT HEAL. V. Advice ================================================================================ ====================================== - Check the game options and look at the short and long descriptions area. clicking on these changes the colors used in the game to give you messages. Green is easy to read... - Note the options has a difficulty slider... - Since enemies don't heal, you can wear down opponents by letting your party fight with your hero at the edge of the screen. When someone is badly hurt, the hero can exit. You can use a healing skill at your leisure, and return at any time, and find the enemies are weaker. - Here is a neat trick. To help keep your inventory sorted, try using a particular item, like an empty potion, to act as a kind of "spacer". You can use that to sort your belt out and know at a glance if you intend to keep certain items or sell them, if some items cannot be used, etc. - Don't attack villages and don't kill anyone you don't have to - Early on, your fighting skill is horrible and you need antidote to safely fight worms and some spiders. Best to finish several early quests and not worry about combat until your level 3 or 4, at least. This won't actually take very long. In the meantime run away a lot. - Fighting in the early game is very difficult because enemies will swarm around you, sometimes hitting so often that you don't get to attack. A pipe or whistle is invaluable, but even better is having your own large party. When you can swarm over THEM, suddenly, you won't be the one running away anymore. I recommend not fighting anything in the game until you have at least 3 party members. - Use the spacebar if your running away in combat to switch to peace mode. While in peace mode you run faster. - If your loaded down with a merchant load and need to move faster to escape someone, trying double clicking repeatedly. This will cause your character to "twitch" a little and help them move faster. - Increase your healing ability to at least 40 before you start fighting. Use healing in combat, preferably with at least 2 characters, to keep your party safe. Keep the healing delay in mind when fighting multiple groups one after another. - Set your characters on potion use of <50 NOT <75, and only do that later in the game. Initially I would use healing potions manually and rarely. You need to practice using your healing skill as much as possible. - Use a shield and sword. The armor bonus is considerable and swords have much higher durability. Also, especially early on, when you get hit you can lose your attack, so having a shield available has an extra benefit. If you want to switch to a high damage 2 handed weapon or 2 weapon configuration later, do this with your hero only. Other characters don't have the available skill points to switch skills. Non shield configurations are less dangerous later with a larger party, so you don't get surrounded easily. - Late in the game you will be surprised how quickly you can go through arrows, bolts, and healing potions...very surprised. You cannot have too many healing potions. With a large party you will need to set each character to automatically take a potion when their health reaches 50 - that means you should not give anyone health potions with a concentration of less than 3.00 or more than 5.00. Health potions with higher concentrations that you may find should be used to create other potion types. - Complete quests in villages as soon as possible to gain control of the village. This will open up characters you can use as well as start gaining tribute, which is an invaluable source of money early. - Tribute takes time to accumulate so don't neglect the merchant delivery quests until late in the game. There are lots of special items to buy in the game, and in general, you cannot have too much money. If your short, don't panic, merchants normally keep items in their stock for a brief period. You can exit town and return to find the same items for sale, if your not gone for too long. - The importance of good armor cannot be overstated. Use your rings and magic items to help characters use new armor and weapons as early as possible. Once you are wearing something, removing the rings, etc. that helped you meet the requirements is allowed. Keeping a low requirement helmet, bow, and shield available with rings is a potentially valuable tactic for meeting strength and vitality requirements. - Increase your charisma and vitality by at least 3 points every level, for your hero only. Spend the rest on alternately increasing your ability scores, and then increasing your skills whenever you can. - Don't save your Copper Mirrors for a rainy day. 
- Buy every iron arrow and crossbow bolt you can and store them until your
archery skills are above 50 for several characters.  Weaker arrows or bolts
should be sold.  Watch out for pre-poisoned arrows and bolts you may find, you
may be losing experience without realizing it.

- Pipe/Whistle use - get one of these very early, save up to for it if you must.
If you're in trouble in a fight, start right-clicking as fast as you can and
keep it up until the creatures are all dead.  You should move the pipe to an
early location in your inventory.

- Olga...talk to her while she is down...

- The toy...don't assume it's in the village or in some obvious location

- Some map exit locations and some items are hard to spot with the inventory bar
active.  Try turning it off and slowly examine the edges of a map.  Several
locations have addition places you can and need to go but are difficult to see
at first glance.

- Mortal strike is the best skill in the game, for everyone, hero included.  I
recommend giving everyone 15-30 points in it.

- Arrows and bolts are heavy and ineffective.  I recommend against using unless
you absolutely must, and set each character to prohibit weapon changes.  Only
switch to ranged weapons manually and only before a ranged fight, such as before
sailing.  Note that you cannot mass-switch your weapons.

- Pirates do not always carry maps, if they do, it's on a body.

- To land the ship you must sail into (on top of) a village and then click on
it.

- Once your character reaches 100 magic, in the middle or late game, use all of
your runes on your hero's armor, rings, necklaces, and lastly weapons and
shield, preferably with the equipment you intend to keep for the rest of the
game.  After the hero use the runes for your other characters, first with rings
and necklaces.

- If your going to spend time training a character, do it in either Lower Camp
or Blackwood.  People train there more often.

- If you want to injure yourself to practice healing, badly mixed potions or
wisdom potions might work...  Also, when poisoned, think carefully about whether
or not you want to cure the poison before the character's health drops far
enough to help another healer practice their craft.

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Credits
 - There are no credits in the game, it's a fantasy RPG, they use gold.  You
should probably reread the FAQ.


Author : William Singer
wrsinger2003 @yahoo.com.

Special thanks to Kiya, without whom this FAQ would not exist.  Comments,
opinions, and errors are my responsibility alone.