I have played this game about ten times since 1983, it is my all time favorite game. This version here on GOG does not play correctly as I see it. Monsters are not generating often enough. I know the game well and I know ways to loot and stay alive but in the past this game has always been pretty vicious about generating monsters in Sosaria. Now the exact opposite exists, at least for me. I tried all the different versions available, no difference. I tried not using horse travel, no help. I got to 15th level but it was rather weird how I did it. I have only seen one ship, I took it to Ambrosia quickly and got my cleric up 15 magic points so I could escape dungeons quickly (sequitu cast). That ship got destroyed by the crazy fast whirlpool and I haven't seen a ship since. I have all marks, I have a lot of gold, I just need a ship to appear to return to Ambrosia. I finally gave up waiting and deleted the game, in order to try other versions. But they all have the same anemic rate of monster/ship generation. What is wrong, does anyone have an idea? I am just playing the CGA version with no music.

This is normal for the DOS version of the game, although there've been enough complaints for the upgrade mod to include an option that changes the encounter rate.

If you just want a ship, get the one in Castle Britannia, allow one party member (but not your entire party) to die while on board the ship, then reset the game; the game autosaves when a character dies, and for whatever reason, it saves that you are on the ship when you return to the world map. (I recommend creating an extra throwaway character who you don't intend to revive for this purpose; it's easier to die when you only have 150 HP.)

Note that, while other (non-DOS) versions might not have this issue, they have other issues, like the Commodore 64 version being slow, and the Amiga version having a broken RNG.

Hi,

thanks for responding, I must admit I didn't think I'd get any responses to such an old game, much less a response within 24 hours, so thank you very much for that. So somebody at OSI decided all the complaints about getting started in the game warranted changing the encounter rate for the DOS version. Well, that's a drag. Once you know the game, the encounters are fun. I'll have to try the ship trick, I'm not postive I understand it but I'll try it and see what questions I have. The other question - what is a broken RNG? Random number generator? Have you ever tried the Lairware version of U3 for Mac? I know an old imac I can get for $30, I'm thinking of getting it just to try that version. Again, thanks for the quick and thorough response! Bob

I don't know if it's an intentional change; it could just be a mistake in the port. Software has bugs, and video games are no exception.

(In fact, so many classic CRPGs have a bunch of bugs in their coding; the only early CRPG series I can think of that's relatively bug free is Dragon Quest.) Yes, random number generator. Specifically, the RNG in the Amiga version seems really streaky.

For example, certain spells are supposed to have a 75% chance separate per enemy, of working on each enemy. In the Amiga version, I would see the spell work on all enemies far more often than it should, and it would sometimes fail to work on any (which, against 8 enemies, should have only a 1/(4 ^ 8), or1/65536, chance of happening).

Also, the Amiga version has some other quirks:
* You can't turn the sound completely off.
* Poison is slow (as in, having a poisoned character slows the game down).
* Rangers get MP and MP regen like Druids (but with the roles of INT and WIS swapped).
* Characters further down the lineup have lower accuracy.

Speaking of RNG, the NES version, which is significantly different from all other versions (except the MSX cartridge version), has an exploitable RNG. It seems normal when playing (except that the 0 MP spells can be manipulated to never fail by carefully observing animations and timing the cast), but speedrunners have figured out how to manipulate the RNG to save lots of time (for example, by making a ship appear in the Isle of Fire, and making there be only one pirate aboard).

I can remember playing ultima III on the color computer back in the 80's. One thing I clearly remember is that it took forever to get a ship. That was the DOS version of the game.

Maybe it might help if I break it down for you a bit.
* There is always a ship in the castle. It takes a key to get to it IIRC, but it's always there. Wouldn't it be nice if you could somehow take that ship outside of the castle?
* You can only (manually) save if you are on the world map. The game is not built to handle saving in towns or dungeons, so after loading a save, you will always be on the world map.
* The game automatically saves whenever a party member dies; this happens even if you are in a town (like the castle) or a dungeon. Loading such a save will put you on the world map. right on the town or dungeon where the death happened, but everything that happened (including the death) is saved. (This can be used to save a mark obtained from a dungeon without having to make it out, for example, or to save the treasure you stole from that one town (but watch out for resurrection fees, if you go that route).)
* When the game saves, the game saves whether you are on a ship at the time, so that you can save in the ocean and not be stranded.
* If you attack somebody in town (this includes firing your ship's cannons), the guards will come after you. (Lord British might also attack, and while he's invincible in combat, that's not a problem for what we're trying to do here.)
* It is possible to get into a battle while onboard the ship.

Does this help?

Thanks, it worked perfectly! I wonder how long this has been known, I never heard about it back in the 1980s. The main thing back then was killing Lord British by firing at him with the ship.

Thanks again, I appreciate you taking the time.

You're welcome.

I remember reading about this trick existing in the Apple 2 version; it's not until relatively recently that another user here mentioned this working on the DOS version.

(One thing to note: If you use the fan Upgrade mod, there is an option to disable the auto-save; note that this trick requires that the auto-save be enabled in order to work.)

As for the Lord British thing, there's a reason I was careful to say that he's invincible *in battle*, as Richard Gariott forgot to implement this immunity outside of battle. (From what I have read, once in Ultima Online he forgot to make Lord British invincible, and someone actually killed Lord British in-game at that point.)

I really do enjoy discussing many of these ancient CRPGs.

Yeah, me too, I'm sure they look laughable to people playing today's rpgs, but they broke ground and are still highly playable IMHO.