If Deus Ex made you want to break into pharmaceutical companies, this game will have you looking strangely at that low fence behind the supermarket.
This was all done with 1.07, the Sold Out edition.
Running Interference
The first mission is totally out-of-character, but rather entertaining. Basso the Boxman, who I accidentally killed in the last game, has returned from the grave, decided to go straight and run off with a fair maiden, whom you have to rescue for him.Basso is very good with locks, but not so good at wiping out the opposition (is ANYONE as good as you?) to clear a path to his girlfriend.
This is your goal. The complication is that you're not allowed to kill any guards since it will upset his Significant Other. Curiously, you're allowed to knock out as many guards as you see fit: a trail of beaten-up unconscious bodies lying everywhere is somehow less disturbing to her than a single 'disappeared' guard. Indeed: on the maximum difficulty level, cracking at least 8 skulls is mandatory!
And no, throwing the corpses into the furnace and telling her that they've gone home isn't a viable option. Robin Hood never had problems like that..
This guard is actually unconscious and can be picked up and carried.
He sinks into the ground when you drop him, though.
Silent Running
The basic idea is that you have to clear a path to Basso's girl, and then 'run the program' by whistling to him using a bird-call from close quarters.The bird-call itself is a lot of fun; run around the building clicking frantically on the bird-call everywhere you go. Only Basso is capable of hearing the device, so you can actually knock guards out from behind in a flurry of demented birdsong (just as long as they don't hear your feet).
I would happily have run amok with the bird-call on every subsequent level (and a duck-call would have been even better: see episode 5 of 'Dr Who: Invasion of Time') but unfortunately Basso wisely confiscates the device following the end of the mission.
Returning to Basso, you have to be more-or-less outside his hut for him to hear. Whistling during a heated battle in the garden won't work (though it might if you unlock the gate first!). You also have to follow Basso or he will chicken out and go back into the hut.
Running Intraference
It is tempting to immediately give Basso the call, but he will swiftly be cut down, thus killing you too.
One of the key problems is the guardroom, which is illuminated. The guards
will see you (or Basso) and come out in force. The suggested tactic is
to extinguish the lights with a water-arrow thus allowing you and Basso
to sneak past.
Alternatively, if you sneak upstairs and around, you can then go down the
other set of stairs in the ballroom, creep into the guardroom and break
head since the light won't matter if no-one is awake to see it.
This approach causes Garrett to have a hissy-fit everytime he approaches
the torches, though.
Tesla would be so proud!
The Screaming Trees
The Battle of the Garden is another source of high entertainment.The entrance is upstairs, since you enter the house via the basement.
You'll have to have KO'd at least one upstairs guard in order to get the key to the garden. Just through the doors are two archers, who can easily be incapacitated with a blow to the back of each head. That should leave one archer circling the trees.
Throw one of the other guards down and he will go into a frenzy. Run
into the garden, and get a tree between you and the archer.
Get close together, so that the archer is exactly opposite the tree, and
his arrows will get stuck in the branches. This makes a brilliant holding
pattern since the archer doesn't KNOW he's missing you and stays there
frantically attacking the tree, with the words "this is just like picking
off baby burricks".
"This is just like picking off baby burricks!"
Furthermore, his arrows get stuck in the tree, and you can pick them up
(through the tree!).
I've managed to gather 480 arrows through this method, by leaving the
game running unattended for about 30 minutes. Incidentally, with more
than about 100 arrows stuck in the tree, the game was running out of visplanes
and the tree (and archer) had disappeared by the time I came back.
Look ma, no trees! (No archer, either.)
Ruining Interference
When the entire household is lying with a lump on the back of their heads, it's time to fetch Boxo the Bassman. If you have burgled the workshop including the secret cupboard, you should have around three flash-bombs, and much fun can be had with these later.When Basso finally reaches the door to his beloved, he stands there and unlocks the door with his gibbon-powers. If you then run inside and grab the red key from the table, you can lock the door again, leaving yourself locked in and alone with Basso's girl. Fearing for her virtue, Basso will frantically scrabble at the door and try to unlock it again (unsuccessfully!).
Hitting either Basso or the girl with your club is considered bad form and the game will end, even though you could carry their limp bodies out of the house.
If you throw a flash bomb inside the girl's chamber, it will detonate blinding both her and Basso. This is amusing to you, but the game doesn't like it one bit and starts to panic. Basso and Jenivere will now both be doing Zombie impressions, and everything starts to come apart.
Distracted at the critical moment of their reunion, Basso and Jenivere are
now totally confused and just stand there like lemons.
Basso comes out of it first, but doesn't pick up from where they left
off because the flash bomb has re-flashed his brain.
Not bird-call, club nor broadband arrow is sufficient to bring either one back.
If you close the door again, Basso will start to unlock it, sometimes
giving Garrett a strange look as if to say "What the hell did you do that for?".
Opening the door doesn't avail him any and he will even begin to pick the
lock when the door is open. Time to reload I think.
Running Into Fearance
If you wait until Jenivere and the Bassman are actually on the move (Basso says 'Sssh!', not knowing that all the guards are unconscious) and running through the corridors, you can split the two of them up by using a flashbomb later.
If you find it amusing, you can then run out of the building following
Jenivere and club her from behind as soon as your mission is complete.
(Running her through with the sword will violate the 'No Killing'
directive and cost you the mission).
Over the wall we go
There are loads and loads of crates in the basement. What can we do with them, we wonders? Aye, we wonders..
Over the wall we go..
The Wharehouse
This has to be one of my favourite missions. It's almost completely free-form and tremendous fun.
In the beginning
There is a Hammerite in the forecourt, one of two that I know of throughout the game. Don't kill or beat him up, because the Hammers are much more fun alive than they are dead or unconscious.
First, smash open the doors so you can get into the building. If you go
through, there is a bowman on the other side of the door. If you can stun
him (No disassemble.. he is a latent Pagan), lay the body at the bottom of
the stairs and hide in the shadows.
This will totally freak out the peasants and set the guards off on a merry chase.
IDM: Look out. There's a bowman behind that door. JPM: No! There's two bowmans!The guards are much more vocal than in the original, and they can be far more emotive as well. They never usually twig what's going on though.. as the corpses pile up, they keep saying "The thief's killed again!" and things like that, so often assuming they're up against a thief, not a raging psychopath.
Leave a trail of stunned guards lying around, and you can have some serious entertainment. The big vat by the waste chute is a good place to lurk as there are lots of guards in the vicinity to upset with a few bodies, and you can dive into the vat as soon as they get dangerous.
Finally, you can climb up onto the side of the vat and scramble up the ladder to the catwalks when it's time to make a getaway.
"WHO'S DONE THIS???"
If this doesn't work and you end up giving them a blow over the head, shoving them down the stairs can sometimes cause them to shout 'Careful, you lout!' or something similar. Don't do it too many times if you want them alive, though.
In a similar vein, unconscious female guards will sometimes taunt you as they too are flung from on high, or protected from the Terrible Secret Of Space.
Spiders from Mars
When all other resistance has been neutralised, go aboard Captain Davidson's ship, carrying one of the now-dead guards. This will elicit fun responses from the pirate, such as 'Hehehe.. That ain't loot you're carrying!'. Then jump off the gangplank to avoid your present death.I have noticed that when the pirate is critically injured he goes into a freaky behavioural loop, constantly running up to the bridge and jumping off of it. Whether this is easy to reproduce, I do not know.
When you open the wardrobe-thing on the deck, two spiders will emerge and
try to eat you.
Dispose of the spiders by leading them off the boat and on to the shore.
Then walk into the sea. The spiders will follow you, and then spontaneously
wave their legs in the air.
You may also be able to persuade the spiders in Merrill's spidersteak
factory to partake of a similar misadventure. Though they are reluctant to leave the premises on foot, their attack includes a jumping phase and
this can be used to make them land outside the boundary of the factory.
Captain Blackheart and his Magic Band
In Blackheart's unit, we find some weird victorian recording studio, based around some kind of steampunk Tascam 388, an 8-channel console with integrated 1/4" 8-track master recorder.
Theoretically you wouldn't bother stealing his master tapes, since Garrett
would be able to live for a year after pawning the Neumann U87 microphones.
Unfortunately the bastard knows this and took the mikes away with him.
So, you'll have to work the safe. Inside you'll find his current piece,
recorded on to a wax-coated toilet roll.
In The End
IDM: Shouldn't you be hiding that body? JPM: I don't know. What does 'hiding' mean? IDM: It's when you cut off his hide as a trophy. JPM: Oh, I see! Like peeling an orange! (Bizarrely, Ian and I had almost exactly the same conversation while playing Thief 1. But I didn't notice the duplicate for nearly a month. I must be getting old..)
Humans have gone down stairs - our mission is complete
Framed
Buy as many health potions as you can; they will come in very handy.When the mission begins, do over the pub opposite the building, before entering via the power substation. Is far as I'm aware this is the only way into the complex.
Once in the sewers, though, there are at least three different ways of getting into the building proper. Two secret passages, and also the well which can be climbed using a rope arrow. The well is recommended since it makes a very handy bolt-hole when you're on the lam from a dozen furious guards. (and you can then sneak back into the building via one of the other secrets)
I love the sound of breaking glass
When they arrive, dance away into the shadows. It is also worthwhile going into the records room earlier, and opening the secret passage into the main offices: since your pursuers won't be able to follow you into the office, it is another good escape route.
When he's gone, unlock the front gate and turn off the alarm systems. Then
walk through the door behind the desk into the incident room, where the chief
constable is interviewing Lady Rumsford.
Listen for a bit as she tells the constable how you and Basso kidnapped her
maidservant, stripped the manor clean, perforated her ornamental trees, left
her entire security team in a state of concussion and raped her cat.
Now smash the glass window. This will cause the Lady to tell the chief constable point blank that he isn't doing his job properly and that there's an intruder. Hit her on the head with your club.
Note that with the Mechanist and Lady Rumsford down, you now have three remaining 'kills' before the world ends.
Bodies, and what to do with them
If possible, lay Lady Rumsford on a slab in the morgue, so she'll have a nice surprise when she wakes up. Leave the Mechanist somewhere well-lit on one of the guard routes so they find him quickly and go ballistic. If you kill any guards, it is only fitting that you leave their corpses in the Homocide room, where they belong.As you have probably guessed, we're doing a somewhat half-hearted job here. It doesn't matter one iota whether the framing is successful or not, since you're never going to get paid anyway, so you may as well make the most of it. On that note, it is possible to plant the evidence in Hagen's room in full view of half a dozen angry guards, without the game caring a whit.
Upstairs, there is a small task to do before we can spread a little
chaos happiness stuff up there too. Smash down the door leading to
the evidence chambers, and locate the secret exit in one of the book rooms.
This leads back down to the first-floor offices.
Upstairs
As you walk around upstairs, slash the Watch banners with your sword. If the guards try to abort this, ignore them for as long as possible (walking sideways and slashing in the air seems to work wonders). Since you only have three remaining 'kills', it's probably most sensible to KO one or two of the archers as they are by far the most dangerous.
When the attention of the guards becomes too much, you can leave via the
evidence chamber, or the fireplace in Truart's office.
If you start to run low on health potions, there are two to be had in the
barracks locker room.
Once everything has been done, you can either prance out the front door, or go back down the drain (even though Garrett won't be able to get back out again.)
Bamush!
This is pretty simple. First you have to make your way home, and then you have to make your way out of the town entirely. If you hate this mission you can do it all as quickly as possible to get it over with. Otherwise, you can attempt to Own the city, by taking on the guards.Hitting guards on the back of the head is easiest, if you can catch them unawares, since they will instantly keel over. Killing them takes somewhat more time and effort.
If you truly despise the guards, you can throw their unconscious bodies into the river and thereby make them Not. I personally have a vendetta 'gainst archers and will oft consign them to the deeps.
Ration your health. Garrett has two health potions in his secret room, and if necessary you can burgle the grocers; consuming the food within will replenish you by at least 5 shields (in Normal mode).
Hunt down the guards. Pincusion them through the gates. Try and collect
the stiffs and array them decoratively in the marketplace.
When the marketplace finally looks like the restaurant at the end of 'Kill Bill',
it's time to leave.
The Heresiarch's Seminary
Your mission is to find the room where Karras (alias 'Droopy') is hosting his seminary, a kind of evil genius workshop to which Sheriff Truart has been invited.Interestingly you haven't been invited, evil and genius though you are. So you have to make do with listening at the door, while Karras evapourates a few ne'er-do-wells.
Minutes of the seminar (and the screams of pain) have been recorded on Karras' phonograph, so that they can, if they need to, play back the recording to the Baron and have Trumann hanged for his crimes, along with Karras. Perhaps they haven't really thought it through properly...
Either way, Garrett decides he wants to steal the recording, so you have to borrow the key and have a copy cut. To facilitate this, Garrett takes a wax print using the Mechanists's own replication equipment. Then you have to steal 800 quid from the Mechanists and leave.
Fun things to do include finding the secret lab where they make Servants out of corpses, exploring the tombs and getting diced up by angry ghosts, and breaking out of the level.
The Heresiarch's Cemetery
There are two ways to break out. The most straightforward way is to stack up a pile of crates (there's easily enough to do that!). There is a forcefield around most of the edge of the level to prevent this, but it is missing around the entrance, so you can climb up there, into the outer wastelands.
The wastelands
Unless you've managed to pop some crates over the wall, your journey to the wasteland will probably be a one-way trip. So don't save!Finally, once you've rounded up sufficient loot, and killed or beaten up all the Mechanists, you can throw the wax mould away in the final seconds before the mission ends. The game isn't stupid enough to let you leave without the wax imprint on your person, but once you are leaving, you can chuck it into the drain and still win.
The Bastard Bastard Bank
"We're the waste-of-our-time-you-worthless-bastard bastard bastard bank!" - Alas, Smith & Jones
The bank mission can be long and complex or short and sweet.
In this mission, you will learn how to slaughter guards mercilessly,
and cause the security robots to destroy themselves by standing on the left
hand side of a doorway so that they fire into the wall and blow themselves up.
You will also discover that Garrett doesn't need to enter the records hall and
can discover the right strongbox by himself, and that you can pick up dead
rats from the basement and throw them across the room (confusing the guards).
But I'm not going to show you that. Instead...
New Adventures In Pottery
For this mission, ensure that you have at least 900 quid from the Mechanist Temple, and spent it ALL on fire-arrows.If you can afford to, also buy some more mines if you can, but make damn sure you get ALL the fire-arrows you can lay your sticky little paws on.
Enter the bank via the north route and break down the door. Evade the security cameras by running left as fast as your legs can carry you so that you get through the portcullis before it closes. (This technique is useful when you come to play the bank mission properly, too)
From here, make your way to the guard room, destroying the two large security robots and any nearby guards. We want to avoid any disturbances. Do not, I repeat, NOT, use any of the fire-arrows for this purpose!
The watcher that controls the portcullis is useful for this kind of privacy, since it will see you nearly 100% of the time and keep the portcullis shut, thereby blocking one of the two entrances (unless the guards warp through the bars like in Terminator 2. This can happen..)
The reason we are standing in the guard-room is because it has a high ceiling and four large items of pottery. We are here to make that pottery dance.
The screenshots I have taken cannot possibly do this justice. Like the Matrix, you have to see it for yourself.Now. Consider the pot: they are very good pots. You can even see inside them, unlike the pots in most other games. While they appear to be made from china-clay, I suspect they are made from a wafer-thin titanium alloy or a form of scrith, since they are both feather-light and apparently indestructable.
Garrett cowers behind a pot.. seconds later the pot is struck by a missile and embeds itself into the furthest wall.
Once the room has been cleared of any who might try to abort the experiments, go to the darker corner of the room and gently nuzzle one of the ming vases into centre of the well-lit area.
Now, using a fire-arrow, take aim at the base of the pot and..
The pot is now travelling through the air at a truly devastating speed.
I only managed to get this screenshot because the pot bounced off the wall
and is spinning very rapidly.
If your aim was true it should have gone straight upwards. I have managed
to get them nearly to the ceiling by doing this, but it is extremely hard
to do and even harder to screenshot.
Note that the pots are so light, that the force of the explosion has knocked over the other pot on the right-hand side of the room. If you are doing battle with a security robot in the guard-room, one of their bombs will cause all the pots in the room to leap about six inches in the air.
The other, green pots are more difficult to move away from the wall. If however, we shoot them broadside, like so:
..the pot will travel across the room at about mach 6, bounce off several walls and stack itself
on top of the other pot, still spinning at around 14000 RPM.
This is no lie.. I have seen one spinning pot strobe against the display refresh
four times! 60Hz * 4 = 240 revs per second, * 60 = 14400 RPM..)
Green pot on one of the gantries
..when you run out of fire-arrows, you can also use mines. They seem to
have an even higher explosive yield, but they need a direct hit with a broadband arrow.
There are three mines in the room West of the lobby, on the first floor.
It's a good job the pots can't hurt you. I've found myself ducking on numerous occasions to avoid being decapitated by a giant vase flying towards me at supersonic velocity.
Part pot, part security robot. One of Karras' failed experiments.
How high can you get your pots, children?
This is my highest recorded single jump..
This is my highest recorded pot, using two jumps.
It is also worth knowing that you can move the pots around using broadband arrows. You can even get them to spin a few times if you're lucky, but a real pro will use explosives of some kind. Broadband arrows are useful for quickly jockeying the pots into position, though.
I wish
Sheriff Truant
Basically, your mission is to break into the Sheriff's home after a particularly wild party and confront him with the recording. If you check the inventory, you'll notice that Garrett has actually forgotten to bring the recorder with him. Ooops.Anyway, I'm sure it will sort itself out. First you need to get in. One method involves killing the guard outside, and showing it to some of the servants (who live in the houses outside). This will freak them out and they will claw desperately at the gate to be let in. Eventually one of the guards WILL open the door and then you can make a run for it.
Alternatively, you can simply pick the locks on the tower - I didn't like
picking locks because it involved a lot of left-clicking on the mouse -
yes, two whole games and I didn't notice you could just hold the mouse button down!
The gate automation can be shut down with one of the power consoles, but
this also cuts the power to the street lighting.
Once inside, your holy mission is to slay (or club) many guards, and take their bodies with you. By the chapel, and in several other locations, you will find guests lying in a drunken stupor. If you lay one next to the sleeping victim and make a noise, they will wake up, see the body and go totally spare.
The drunk and his new buddy
If you come across people still awake, just push your way past them bearing a dead guard.. I never tire of that reaction.
Slay or incapacitate all the guards you come across, including the guards
on top of some of the walls. You can in fact drop their bodies over the
wall, which sometimes makes a fun surprise for the guards the other side.
Another good one is to lay the body just outside the door, and then open
it while diving into the shadows. That usually gives the guards pause for
thought.
Once all the outside guards have been dealt with, move into the building, picking off the guards layer by layer. Although most of the guards can now deal with your 'table technology' (which foxed the Hammers in Thief I) they still don't like water, and jumping into rivers, ponds, swimming pools or even baths will generally throw them off your scent.
The guards see you having a bath and run away
I've discovered that you can actually break the small vases which have
no other apparent use. You need to throw them really high, say from
the top of the stairwell in the entrance dome, about twice. Then you
hear a satisfying crash and the vase is gone.
Plates won't do this, though. But, if you take some of the plates from
the dining hall (the ones that aren't loot) you can throw them and they will always
land on their edges.
"..and if any are still left whole, send them down the hall to roll.."
The big twist comes as you approach the bedrooms and you hear the guards panicking because of the murder of their boss. You have to hear those golden words from the guard's lips, or it will be all for naught.
If one of the highly-disturbed guests runs upstairs shouting "I saw.. a BODY!", the guards don't manage to tell you of this crucial fact, and you burst into the bedroom, yelling "DEATH TO THE SHERIFF.. Oh." as you find that he's already dead.
If this does happen, you're screwed. Finding Mosely's keyring won't help because Garrett still thinks he has to play the recording to the Sheriff's corpse. And you can't even do that because Garrett forgot to bring the goddamned cylinder recording with him. I even took the Sheriff back out to the gate, but because Garrett hasn't blackmailed the late Sheriff, one of the vital mission objectives remains outstanding and it's impossible to make him snap out of it. You have to reload.
Assuming all works fine, you may as well bring the Sheriff with you anyway.
I have noticed that a dozy woman in a red dress often goes into a state of
paralysis outside the Sheriff's bedroom, and stands there like a lemon, with
a silly expression on her face. It's kind of amusing to knock her on the head.
If you have some spare fire-arrows left over, shoot these at the banners around the front entrance to his estate.. the pieces will fly around further and faster than the have any right to.
Here we see the results of Karras' experiments with cyborg technology - part man, part console.
The Courier
Follow Mosely as per usual. When she drops the letter, give her a quick blow on the head.This will present operational difficulties - if the Pagan sees her body he will totally freak and the mission is failed.
Likewise, the discovery of her body by the guards will turn them 'gainst you. This is no big deal unless the Pagan sees you and the guards fighting.. he will go very still and you'll fail the mission again.
You have about two minutes to not only kill the guards and throw their bodies
into the river, but also hide Mosely somewhere in the shadows.
If the Pagan sees one of the guards lying dead, he will say something like
"Returns you to the Earths.." in a sad voice, and that will be it for you.
Finally, the Pagan instinctively knows that you are after him, and will also kill the mission if he sees you even on his way to the marketplace. Bear this in mind if you have to jump into the river to avoid the archer.
IDM: Garrett just CAN'T be a 'Master Thief'.. he's hopeless. Just when he's strolling down the street, the guards immediately spot him and shout "Look! There's a THIEF!!!". It's like he's got to be wandering around with a huge sign around his neck that says "I AM A THIEF!!" And they don't even care about the Pagan! He's walking around in rags and he's barefoot, he's obviously a Pagan and they're supposed to arrest him and they just don't care.. and then they see you and they go mental!Once the Pagan has read the letter (and he knows if the letter has been moved from its original place, so make sure you drop it in exactly the same spot after reading it!), pick up Mosely, and follow the Pagan into the graveyard. This makes life 'interesting' when your paths cross that of the guards, as the sight of Mosely in her present condition will make them very unhappy.
Carnage at the marketplace
Follow the pagan down through the portal. If you're really good you can both get into it at the same time. If you club the Pagan though, the portal won't work and you get to see inside it shortly before the mission fails.
Alternatively, Ian tells me that once the Pagan has gone through the portal, you can wander around the city to your heart's content, killing guards, picking pockets and generally being a menace to society.
Rush perform 'Dreamline' at their gig in the Maw of Chaos
There isn't much to do in the woodsie forest. Don't kill any of the apesies, they are fun. You may if you wish kill the nasty tree-people in the last segment.
Are you going to the Boston Tea Party?
The actual Party mission can't really be bent or broken in any serious manner, but there are a lot of things that can be done in the surrounding world.
There is, of course, the rivalry between Lord Willie's guards and the Lady
Van Vernon's guards, which is amusing to listen to, but ends in bloodshed. Note
that if there are any surviving guards they will now be on a hair-trigger
and kill you as soon as look at you. Or, if you draw your bow while the
parley is in progress, the conflict will begin ahead of schedule.
Alternatively, if you climb up onto Lord Willie's tower and club the two
blue guards, the red ones will stand there immobile and mutter to themselves.
If possible, take a an unconscious (or dead) guard with you.. if you decide to burgle other buildings (and in any case you will almost certainly have to enter people's houses just to get to Angelwatch) you can leave them a nice little cat-present of an injured guard for them to kill.
Satan's Cooking-pot
Long, long ago, back in the mists of time, an unknown being created a magical artifact of tremendous power, known to the Keepers as "Satan's cooking-pot". Garrett knows about this from his time as a Keeper novice, and he also knows that it has been entrusted to a young serving-girl somewhere in the city.Round near the industrial sector, there is a chimney which you can drop down like Father Christmas, but backwards, since you're taking the presents away. Make sure you douse the fireplace first.
"Ho, Ho, Ho! Gimme all the money!"
Firstly, you have to carry the pot with both hands. This means you cannot draw sword or defend yourself in any way. Just as important, you can only drop the pot once and you will not be able to pick it back up afterwards.
Once the pot is placed (using 'R' to throw) it will float in mid-air and nothing can move it. You can mantle on top of it (assuming the pot is placed relatively flat), so you can use it as a stepping-stone to leap over otherwise impossible chasms.
You can also use it as an aerobrake when falling, although this is dangerous, since Garrett will slam into the cooking-pot at full speed, usually creaming him. You could use it to turn a single killing-fall into two maiming falls, and thereby reach ground-level. But remember, it will only work once.
What goes up, doesn't come down
Money - that's what I want
You can fulfill your loot quota almost instantly just by robbing the jeweller's safe and taking the diamonds. The building is protected by a swordsman and an archer.The swordsman has the key to the main office (although I guess you could pick it). If you feel that the archer should die 'neath righteous punishment, you can knock him out and then throw his unconscious body onto the streets far below (head first).
The house with the three skylights is fun as well, you can drop your dead guard onto the skylight and then smash it with an arrow, causing the stiff to plop onto the folks below - this gets them very excited. Cue your own entrance.
It's always fun to walk into the ladies' apartment carrying the guard. After all, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing wrong.
"IT'S BEEN VANDALISED!"
So, you've got in, via the service shafts. I suggest making for Level 2, which I think is level that the service hatch is on, anyway.
First thing to do is dispatch the Mechanists on L2, and deactivate the
security robot. Once L2 is safe, take the lift down to L1, carrying the
dead guard from Lord Willie's keep, or a replacement (Mechanist) body.
Dump the body on the floor where the robot will see it, and run up the
diagonal girders as it comes to investigate you. Amazingly, the machine
is able to follow you. Crawl under the horizontal girder.. this will
block the robot, but it will still try to shoot you.
People will act very strangely if you hide and throw the wreckage into
their field of vision: Mechanists will treat it as murder, even though
they are only crude automata with wax-cylinder voices.
The nobles are either sarcastic or mildly concerned at the vandalism,
depending on their gender. Guards will always assume it's their automation
that has been destroyed, and will yell "IT'S BEEN VANDALISED!" instead of
"How did that get in here?" since most premises don't have any automation.
If you run around clutching the 'corpse', even the nobles and guards will get confused and sometimes say you're a murderer. The guests also have a propensity to assume that corpses are always male, so if one of the women has got stuck in the larder again and you had to smack her on the head to get past, the witnesses will keep saying "You've killed him!". Perhaps they're still talking about the Sheriff..
Garrett upsets the guests again
Rise of the Robots
Alternatively, if you have some Trotsky in you, you can 'vandalise' the entire Mechanist army and leave the security robot intact. Then, you can annoy the guests and herd them down into the Chapel, where the robot will embark on a killing spree, slaughtering all the guests (the city's most prominent nobles) in order to try and nail one man (and leaving the city open for the workers's revolution!)
Don't mess with the Angels
If you are fleet of foot, it is possible to climb around the outside of the tower to the angel on the north side, by leaving through the open window on level 4. You'll come across a wedge intended to prevent your crossing, but I managed to jump over it (takes a little practice).
The angel is very strange indeed: if you try to jump onto the angel's wings,
you'll fall straight through them and make a funny pattern on the street below.
On the other hand, if you make your way to the plinth, there's a drop of about
6 foot which Garrett should be able to drop down onto, but he can't, because
the plinth is made from antimatter or something similar which instantly
and totally destroys Garrett before he can even cry out.
Climbing up to this plinth, I found that this angel isn't solid either (although I was more careful this time and managed not to splatter myself).
If you jump across to the other side of the plinth, you can work your way around, but the ledge ends abruptly and you can't crawl around the south side. By this time, my curiosity was greatly aroused and I wanted to try and get to the west side of the building, which, due to some kind of geographical protection fault, I believed to contain the front door.
Things Never Seen
Using some health potions, I managed to jump Garrett down onto the roof of a nearby building, and there saw sights that the Builder had not intended to be seen.Taking a hit from some Speed I found inside the building, I was able to jump onto the roof of another building, and I discovered a neat train of buildings, working their way around the map to the northern side.
Oops, run out of visplanes again..
Breaking and Leaving
I found myself on a building sufficiently close to the ground that I could drop Garrett to street-level losing only a handful of health points, and I strode up to the doors. I could hear the Mechanist guard on the other side, who I fortunately hadn't killed this time round. I began banging on the door with my sword, in the hopes that he would unlock it and let me in.Instead, I discovered that the Mechanists had made one fatal flaw in the design of Angelwatch: although the front door appears to be metal, it is in fact made from the hated WOOD, and can be smashed down.
Also, the area immediately outside Angelwatch is made from some weird material that inhibits noise. If you smash open the door while the Mechanist guard is still alive and whole, you can engage him in a bizarre, silent battle like something out of 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
Street Party
The game generally imposes a ban on travel, and, as a rule, if you manage to get yourself down onto street level, the game will end.I have managed to do this successfully.
First thing is to get down, without killing yourself or letting anyone see thee. Near the 'industrial zone', where Lord and Lady Rothchild are debating their apparent exclusion from Karras' party, there is a building that has a wooden fascia. It is, indeed, the Rothchild's building.
If you shoot two vine-arrows into the fascia, one high and one low, you can descend down the first one and then down the second one until you are almost at the floor. I was able to drop down onto the streetlamp below and walked away unscathed.
For clarity's sake, I have enhanced the two vine-arrows that I used
to make a safe and painless descent.
From this, I deduce that Garrett is only expelled from the game if he is walking on forbidden territory AND another human (or a robot) spots him. The simple solution: get rid of all the people.
There are a number of people (and robots) scurrying around. If you lurk and then hit people from behind, they will trouble you no more. Stack the bodies in a far-away dark corner.. I don't know what the results of a body discovery will be in this place, and I don't want to find out!
You probably recognise this, although you normally see it from above.
Blasphemy and That-Which-Fitted-Not-Elsewhere
On level 5, there is a statue of the Master Builder.If you poke Him in the eye, He will reward you for this blasphemous act of desecration with a few goodies, including a mine, a gas arrow and also some Speed.
Anyway, your basic task is to kill or beat up all the mechanists, thus
rendering the building safe for you to poke around and loot at your leisure.
I make it a rule not to attack any of the guests unless they become jammed
in a doorway, or call me a lout. In both cases, the penalty is a blow on
the head with a club, and a fine of all-yer-money.
A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
Lighthouses might house the key,
But can I reach the door?
In Deus Ex, I was able to handle most of the plot twists until the Illuminati - at that point, the suspension of disbelief began to crack. The Cetus Amicus did this for Thief 2, and as for the Lost City.. well!Suggestions:
- Open the window that looks down on the ship: don't bother going down the passage as it is guarded. Jump out the window and into the bay: much safer.
- Kill the bloke patrolling the top of the ship, and take his body down
into the sea.
If you dump him on the cockpit window, his head will poke through. Not only will this upset the ship's pilots, but if you enter the bridge, you can also pull the body through the glass from the other side. - You can swim 'neath most of the wooden walkways: this can help avoid perforation.
- Knock out as many guards as you can and throw their bodies onto the lower deck. Chuck them downstairs just outside the bridge.. the Mechanists inside probably won't be able to open the door after that.
The not-very-Lost City
First of all, you get a load of babble from the Mechanists about how to find Cavador. Don't bother listening to this, you can just wander around the city until you bump into him.
You can either wait for the band to depart, assail them, or, just ignore
them completely and climb through the windows on the right-hand side.
This will annoy them, of course, but it will result in a fun chase through
the base camp.
You know by now that Karras has decided to build a sealed chamber to
protect him 'gainst death. Garrett could do with one of those too,
and I know just the thing.
Go into either the left or right-hand machine rooms: each one has a boiler
that you can open and gain yourself two fire-arrows thereby. But its
usefulness is not limited to that. If you put out the flames with a
water-arrow, you can then climb inside the boiler and shut the door behind you.
Garrett's Protective Chamber
This is the perfect way to deal with the Mechanists. Beat one of them up, and when the others get too frisky, run back into your little hidey-hole and shut the door on them. Wait for a bit until the angry Mechanists have got bored and gone away, and then creep back out of the boiler to claim another victim.
Garrett's Chamber protects him 'gainst the Righteous
Talking of victims, it's a good idea to take the body and throw it down from the galley in a triumphant gesture; the remaining Mechanists will come to assail you with vigour.
It may come to pass that the last living mechanist is the crossbow woman.. she likes to stand guard outside. If this happens, I suggest that you throw one of her departed brethren down the stairs. As she goes to investigate it, you can silently drop down past the columns, sneak around with your sword raised, and smite her from behind.
There's also another one of those wooden metal doors - the Mechanists
seem to have been engaging on some kind of cost-cutting exercise.
Contrarywise, at the dig site, there are several wooden signs that
are actually made from metal.
Find Cavador and hit him on the head. You can also use a gas arrow upon him. It won't affect him personally, owing to the gas-mask, but it will send all his bodyguards to sleep, which is greatly useful.
When you have him, make your way to the exit, where you will see a very odd sight, the sky - even though the lost city is about half a mile underground.
Rolling the Joint
This one is nasty, especially the first time you play it, or if you play it on the harder difficulty levels. Unlike virtually all the other missions in this game and Thief 1, which can be played in the same basic manner as Doom or Quake, this mission has to be sneaksied.You must enter the house, work out how to get to the top floor, and then leave, without being seen by, or molesting any of the guards in any way.
Fortunately, if you've already played the level successfully, you know exactly what to do and where to go, so you don't need to spend hours or days trudging hopelessly around the manor.
The most interesting part is getting outside, because the game won't let you leave the way you came in. Doing a runner is bad too: you can't just break one of the upstairs windows and flee because the game will punish you.
When I first played it, I discovered some bizarre event where someone saw me even though they didn't, and in a tense and exciting finale, I drew the guards away from the front door using a series of traps and noisemaker arrows, so that I could creep back round and flee through the front door.
This time, we're going to use a far more direct approach. First, do whatever needs to be done.. sort out the clock and open the secret stairwell. If you chose a higher difficulty level, no technical support is available.
Now, make your way around to the front entrance. There's an upper galley, I believe this is where you found the cuckoo. Go up onto the north part of the upper balcony. If you disturb the guard below, wait until he calms down before proceeding.
Now, shoot a vine arrow into the ceiling like so:
View from the balcony
..when the guard has calmed down, save, because the next bit must be done in
a rush.
Jump onto the vine, jump again onto the ledge where the windows are, and
smash one of them noisily with your sword. This will cause all the guards
in the area to go "Uh!".
Jump out the window, and run quickly, so the mission
ends before the game can decide that you've been Bad.
View from the windowledge
As of Nov. 2012 I should probably mention a couple of other interesting finds. For one, the Frogbeasts are remarkably useful and you should buy as many as you possibly can.
While Garrett is forbidden from killing, throwing a pair of frogbeast eggs through the doorway in front of a patrolling guard will result in his swift and messy demise. The game will write it off as an accident, so as long as you are able to dump the body somewhere quiet, you can continue on your merry way.
On my latest playthrough (Late 2012) I was able to purchase 11 beasts and this helped thin out the guard patrols significantly, allowing Garrett to comb the mansion for loot - mostly in the form of loose change that Lord Gervaisius has dropped down the back of the sofa, some 2000 gold coins in all.
Masques
Pent up anger.. no restraints.. kill all who get in the way..Jump out of window into streets when done, have to go back in via front door in order to complete mission..
Try to kill many guards using only security systems.. guard hits by bomb will soon die..
-- Collected ramblings of the Smith-In-Exile
"Guard hits by bomb will soon die.."
Sabotage at SourceForge
So, it seems that Karras has decided to annihilate the entire city using his weird rust-gas, in yet another of his splendidly ill-thought-out plans.
For instance, what is he going to power the Builder's Children with?
All fuels and lubricants are made from organic substances, which the
rust gas will destroy in a chain reaction. The only real exception is
a nuclear power source, but the Mechanists haven't discovered that yet. Fortunately.
And what is Karras himself planning to eat once his food stores run out?
It seems to be impossible to get into Karras' chamber, although it looks like it might be possible to KO him using a gas-mine. He would have to be standing just in front of the door, and I haven't had the patience to try it extensively, but the little clouds of gas do go through the door.
Over the PA system, Karras continues to prattle away at you, offering taunts, threats and slices of his own egocentric doctrine. As time goes by, his speeches become increasingly erratic - at one point he breaks down completely and lists all his triumphs in a sobbing voice. Finally, he will tell Garrett to lie down and die, or go and build a house.
What you must do is construct a plugin for the signalling device. The plans to do this are, conveniently enough, in the plans room. Find the plans for the signalling device and ist component parts. Read ONLY these plans, or some of the other plans to build useful kit like mines. There is a parchment on the table - do NOT read this yet!
Fun with robots
One of the rooms in the depths of the Cathedral contains what appears to be a steam-driven mainframe. Perhaps this is what makes the watchers work; although the entire mainframe would only be powerful enough to process one watcher's input, and probably not in realtime.
The billion-gold-coin brain
The best approach is to go into the room and annoy the robots. Then run away, leading the robots towards the lift in the vat room. I'm assuming you've already removed the robot by the lift, or things will get very complicated. Take the lift up, and then keep raising it and lowering it until you crush one or two of the robots with it, as is done in System Shock 2.
With health and safety issues like this, it's no wonder Karras has gone into hiding.
Fun with frogbeasts
I don't much like the frogbeasts, chiefly because they were such a nuisance back in Thief I, but also because they don't seem to be much use as weapons in this game. So I decided to try and find something good to do with them.
Firstly, the frogbeasts are very good at dousing flames. If you
throw the eggs at a torch on the wall, the act of hatching will
douse the flame. This can be handy.
In other situations, such as one of the boiler rooms, the flames on the floor will be extinguished
themselves if the frogbeast steps on them and explodes.
But most of all, I've had fun disposing of the frogbeasts. Of primary interest is the workshops, which contain a vat of molten iron, a press, a blast furnace and several other things.
First the press:
And the blast furnace:
I also tried throwing the frogbeast eggs into the vat of molten iron, but amazingly the frogs survive and sit happily in the iron, not in the least bit vapourised.. unlike me (I had to dive into the stuff to see this. Scouting orbs do melt!).
Fun with vine arrows
While playing around with the vine arrows, I discovered something rather interesting. If you shoot the vine arrow straight into the ground (into a compatible surface, such as a grill or the hi-grip tiles), it just stands there, a rather stupid-looking blob.
This is difficult to photograph, of course; you'll have to try it yourself to get the full effect.
Once upon a time, the end.
As I mentioned earlier, Garrett does not need to read the guidance beacon manual in order to build the recall module and pull the 5 levers, but he does need to read it in order to win.
So, when everything else is done, go back to the plans room and pick up
the parchment. Go back to the main entrance, read the plans and walk out.
Garrett will say 'Now I've got a REAL plan!' and promptly runs away from the Cathedral.
When I was newly-forged, Karras took me away from the foundry-mother and said: "I do not know. Wretched creature! Please be warned.. a misguided soul.."
Epilogue
And Garrett did answer, saying: "I have built for Thee a signalling device,
strong, and good, and I didst use it to stop Thy lunatic priest Karras, who
thought that he was Thee, from destroying all Thy works in his madness.
And I have also built for mine own self, many stairways from crates and the
like, that I could escape from the mazes that Thou didst build, and see
what was outside.
And, may it please Thee, I have built up a collection
of fine books (though I didst have to leave that behind when the fuzz did
come for me). Dost that count?"
And the Builder did furrow His brow and spake again, saying "Garrett, thou didst live a life of great villany and sin. Thou didst slay many of My faithful, and many more of My children who were not among the Faithful. Thou didst also steal many goodies from My Churches. But thou hast also saved the world on at least two occasions, and laid to rest some of My faithful that thou didst not slay.
So I tell thee what I shalt do. I shalt give to thee a slum dwelling in one of the least reputable parts of Heaven, and there shalt thou dwell forever."
And Garrett did praise the Builder for His wisdom and justice.
-- From the Prophetic Writings of Keeper Zalanthius (expurgatory index)
Made with Microsoft Edit and Midnight Commander!