About three or four years ago I discovered mods for Baldur's Gate, but was very timorous about installing them. But I tried a few NPC (non-player character) mods on an install of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and really, really, liked them. Then that hard drive died the death, and I found some other great games, and left Baldur's Gate alone for a long time.
Recently I decided I would like to play through the whole Baldur's Gate trilogy, with as many mods installed as I thought looked interesting and wouldn't break each other or the game.
I'm currently in the middle of Baldur's Gate I + Tales of the Sword Coast (details on what I'm running below), and I wanted to salute the Sword Coast Stratagems Mod and the Hard Times Mod.
Overview of the Mods:
Sword Coast Stratagems: this mod is a large collection of smaller tweaks for combat and spellcasting, plus a complete overhaul of the combat AI to make opponents smarter, fairer, and more interesting. By no means the only tactical mod available. Can be installed entire, or choose Y/N on installing each component.
Hard Times: I read the description and said I had to have this one. The Sword Coast is supposed to be having an iron crisis when Baldur's Gate I starts. Yet none of the original game reflects this: weapons are cheap and have a low breakage rate; opponents drop lots and lots of loot, much of it magical, inn prices are dirt cheap, etc. The Hard Times mod makes the Sword Coast economy much more like the storyline, making you work much harder at the start of a game. Also adds a boss-type encounter in the Ulcaster ruins.
As always, for more questions read the readme.
What I like, based on a partially completed game:
Most of my shameless exploitation of the original combat AI's weaknesses no longer work. The single biggest one: with Sword Coast Stratagems it is almost impossible to lure one or two enemies out of the fog of war without activating the rest. Result: with Sword Coast Stratagems you get to fight the entire bandit camp at once, including the leaders from inside the main lodge. The amount of time I just spent figuring out how to survive this inspired me to give this mod a shout-out.
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| Screen text: "Sound the alarm!" |
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| This is about 2/3 of the opponents who show up for the bandit camp fight. One is a wizard, about nine have specialty arrows (poison, ice), and one has excellent armor and potions. Not my actual winning combat distribution or tactics, just getting a screenshot. |
This feature is well-programmed and not indiscriminate: in places like Larswood, where you would not expect different groups of opponents to be within call of each other or working together, you only get the opponents in each group, unless you run into more while trying to run away.
Second biggest feature: enemy spellcasters are smart. They use their spells almost as well as you do. While looking for Shandalar's cloak, I cast protection from magic on one party member and sent her out to duel with some cranky mages. The mages cast one or two standard offensive spells like magic missiles and such, and when these didn't work, cast monster summonings and/or ran away/went after other party members.
Third, wolves and wild dogs no longer attack on sight. Like bears, if you leave them alone, they'll return the favor. Carrion crawlers are supposed to be a little harder, according to the readme, but I found them to still be nice pushovers to arrows from a distance.
The original Baldur's Gate I has so many short swords +1 you end up selling them at a discount. No more of that, with the Hard Times mod! In fact, I have so far found only two magic swords, one fine quality dagger, and one fine quality halberd. Storekeepers don't pay any more for loot, but their prices are much higher, and most stores no longer stock all the nice magical weapons and potions that used to proliferate. This really affects my current game as I'm playing a mage-heavy party and most spell scrolls for level 3 and up are only showing up as boss loot. I can't wait to open up the city area of Baldur's Gate and go shopping in Sorcerous Sundries!
What I don't like: *crickets*
Glitches: Very occasionally opponents will stop responding and just stand there, or do something self destructive. Mulahey in the Nashkel mines just stood there, and one of the two modded Ulcaster bosses self-destructed casting fireballs close range at the skeleton I'd sent in to feel him out. There have been two or three other random low-level creatures that seem to get "stuck". I don't know if this is from a mod, or from mods interacting, or just randomness. Hasn't happened enough to bother me.
Game will crash more than rarely, but not often. (I will try to start paying attention so as to have actual data.) Opens fine when I restart it. Doesn't require a computer restart, although remembering to do a restart when things start getting laggy, or about once a week anyway, seems to help.
As always, save, save often, and keep copies of your save files in a different location in case they get corrupted.
What I'm Running:
Windows 7 Professional, 64 bit, not allowed to update anything without my specific permission
Nvidia graphics card, whatever drivers came with the card (I will update when there's a problem, not before)
Baldur's Gate I + Tales of the Sword Coast
Baldur's Gate II Shadows of Amn + Throne of Bhaal + Official BGII Throne of Bhaal patch
I had to install the original games in safe mode. Once they were installed I could just tell my firewall to shut up about the mod installs.
Baldur's Gate EasyTuTu: this is a platform to use all the great things about BGII in BGI, nicely packaged with all needed components and an installer. I highly recommend it. I had to set this to run in administrator mode to get the game to actually play.
Widescreen Mod
Baldur's Gate I Unfinished Business
Gibberlings NPC Project: this mod is the reason I learned about EasyTutu and mods to start with. It is a must if you love NPC interactions and dialog.
Sword Coast Stratagems
Hard Times
Sirine's Call
Gray Clan
Finch NPC
Indira NPC
Xan BG1 Friendship
Happy gaming!
*with apologies to those who play neutral or evil alignments
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