Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress/1990 A.D.

Lord British's castle
The Time Gate in 1423 B.C. in Europe is connected two-ways to the Time Gate in 1990 A.D. in Great Britain.

If in 1423 B.C. you get low on health points before you could board a pirate ship, then you can travel to 1990 A.D. to Lord British Castle.

Offering gold to Lord British is the only way to raise and/or restore Health Points.

The Stranger will get 300 HP for each 50 GC she pays, if her current HP are less than 5000. Beyond that, she will get less HP. You need at least 850 GC to reach 5000 HP, and more than twice to reach 9900 HP. Still, you will lose HP fighting the enemies, therefore the above are just lower estimates. 5000 HP is way more than enough early in the game.

In the nearby village of Port Bonifice, you can restock your food supply. For the time being, you can ignore the oracle, the cleric shop and the wizard shop.

New San Antonio
Once you have at least 1 blue tassle, 1200 Gold coins, 1000 food rations and 1000 health points, you can leave 1423 B.C. for good.

In New San Antonio you can raise the six attributes, but you can neither buy food nor restore health points. Food and healing are found in Great Britain. As soon as you have one (or more) blue tassles and you spot a pirate ship in 1990 A.D., you can freely travel between Lord British Castle and New San Antonio across the Atlantic Ocean.

Back and forth in 1990 A.D.
Anyway, before entering New San Antonio, you should look for a ship (blue tassles, 1000 food supplies and 1000 HP are for this). If you run low on food or HP before you can conquer a pirate ship, you should better get back to 1423 B.C.

Body-building in Hotel California
Hints so far:
 * The Chaste Nubile Nymph in 1423 B.C. in Le Jester said: Visit the Hotel California!

In each town, village and castle there are 4 or 5 characters with unique text. In New San Antonio, three of them are unreachable right now.

Offering gold to the clerk is the only way to raise the attributes.

Visit the Hotel California after you collected at least 1200 GP. [O]ffer the clerk 100 GP at a time, then repeat without moving until you gave him all your gold. Every time the clerk says "Alakazam", he will upgrade a different attribute in order (if the Stranger doesn't move between the offers) by 4 units; this way, there is a good chance that each attribute will be upgraded once every six consecutive upgrades.

All in all, you need about 20000 GC to raise all your attributes until one gets to 96. Since a defeated enemy gives on average 10 GC (and 2 Exp), you have to defeat about 2000 enemies.

Always offer 100 GP at a time to the clerk. You must stop the body-building as soon as one of these conditions is verified: Statistically, all other attributes should be at least 70. Accept the fact that your character is not supposed to have all attributes equal to 99.
 * one of your six attributes reaches 96 (96-97-98-99); if one attribute gets past 99, it will reset to 0.
 * the sum of charisma and intelligence reaches 156 (156-157-158-159); if the sum gets past 160, all shop prices will skyrocket.

If at any time you collect more than 90 torches or 90 tools, you should better use some in Minax's tower. There, you can easily obtain some weapons for free.

When the sum of Charisma and Intelligence reaches 86, all shopkeepers will offer yoy a 62% discount. It is the right time to purchase a power armor for "just" 1508 G. It is actually required to clear the game, and it cannot be obtained in any other way.

There is no point in purchasing intermediate weapons and armors, for this reason: nothing can be sold in Ultima 2. Therefore let's just save money for the most expensive weapon and armor, i.e. the Quickblade and the power armor. Furthermore, some free weapons (and armors) can be found in dungeons.

Gathering information
As soon as you finished upgrading your character, you can spend some money at the local pub, Swashbucklers Pub & Pizza (alternatively, at Pub De Varg in Linda in 1423 B.C.). Spend about 100 G and give tips ranging from 0G to 9G, until the barkeep tells you all the different hints. The hints are in three groups: (1) flavor text; (2) items carried by fighters, guards and mages; (3) items used for ships, airplanes and rockets.

The keys and the airplane
The next thing to do is to get an airplane. The airport it is beyond a series of locked doors. Unfortunately, the keys are the only items that are not obtained from thieves.

Go to the Swashbucklers Pub & Pizza, and give 3G and 8G tips to the barkeep. In return, he will give you three hints about keys and airplanes.

In order to get keys, you have to defeat a guard. They are the toughest opponents in the game, therefore make sure you purchase the best armor and get a good weapon.

Each defeated guard grants you two keys. You may want to fight a small number of guards at a time, and make sure you are close to the town gates for a quick escape!

In every town there is an "amusing" guard (the game says so...) that doesn't reply when the Stranger tries to transact. That one guard is invincible and deals far more damage that normal, "serious" guards. Therefore, when you fight guards to collect keys, make sure you are between the "amusing" guard and the town exit. These are the locations of the "funny" guards in 1990 A.D.:
 * Lord British Castle: one of the two guards at the castle gate;
 * New San Antonio: the nearest guard to the only town exit;
 * Port Bonifice: one of the two guards near the fountain in the town center.

Subsequently, the best place where you can fight guards is Port Bonifice.

How many key will you need?
 * 7 keys to talk to the five characters that are in locked rooms in 1990 A.D.
 * 4 keys to access the vaults in the two Lord British's castles, but you will get just low-level armors and weapons.
 * 3 keys to access the airport in New San Antonio, so to get a plane.
 * 1 (or more) keys to access the harbor and the spaceport in Pirates Harbour, so to get 6 weapons, 6 armors and a space rocket.
 * Up to 20 keys for the settlements scattered in the solar system.

The list above sums up to a total of 33 keys, so you will need to defeat at least 17 guards. There are 65 locked rooms in the game, therefore you might decide to defeat 33 guards, for the sake of 100% completion.

OPTIONAL: the Quickblade

 * In 1990 AD, in New San Antonio, Santre the Swashbuckler warns: Beware, I've a quick blade!

The above line is the only clue about it, but you can offer 500 gold coins to Sentri/Santre and purchase the Quickblade. The quickblade is the strongest weapon in the game, but its price is very high regardless of charisma and intelligence. Actually, it is not required to clear the game.

Before trying the prison, make sure you have some strange coins to negate time. Use a key to open the prison door. Fight the guard and enter. Find Sentri in one of the cells and offer him 500 GP. Hint: he's the only character that does not move around. Before you move out, [N]egate time, so that the guards will not block your escapre route.

OPTIONAL: tower in Africa


If you're playing the FM-Towns port of Ultima 2, you need to visit at least one tower or dungeon and collect at least 20 tri-lithiums. Also, in any port, you may decide to visit this dungeon if you don't want to spend your money on weapons, or if you want to use some torches and tools.

Dungeon-crawling is easier if the Stranger is a cleric, it is just expensive if she is a wizard, while it is hardest if she is a fighter or a thief.

Getting ready:
 * Any class: make sure you have a good stock of tools; enemy thieves and fighters drop them.
 * Cleric: purchase a stock of Light spells and a few Surface spells.
 * Wizard: purchase a stock of Light and Ladder-Down spells.
 * Fighter and Thief: make sure you have LOTS of torches and tools, because these classes cannot cast "Light" spells, nor they can escape using "Surface" or "Ladder Down" spells; enemy thieves and fighters drop torches and tools.

Weapons upgrade

 * Floor 0: you start in the dead-end of a corridor; actually, there are three (hidden) doors around you. Face the wall, walk into it, then fllow it to the left. The rope upstairs is just there. There are no chests on this floor.
 * Floor 1: this floor is the richest in the tower, with 12 gold chests; leave the rope in any direction (the floor is symmetric), and walk out of any door; there are hidden doors in all the corners of the corridor, and small rooms with 4 chests; one of the small rooms has two more hidden doors, and you can get 8 chests in the passage beyond them.
 * Floor 2: you start in a room with three doors: take the one to the right; continue straight, then turn right again past another door; now walk into the wall through a hidden door, and past it walk left into the wall again; this hidden passage holds four chests, two of wich contain a weapon.

Keep visiting the tower until you get a light sword (weapon n.7).

Tri-lithium stock
The tower is actually rather linear.
 * Floors 0 to 3: just climb the rope.
 * Floor 3: follow the winding corridor and ignore the doors; a Cleric can actually cast two "Passwall" spells for a shortcut: cast the spell to your side, next to the rope, pass the wall and cast it again to the same side.
 * Floors 3 to 9: just climb the rope.
 * Floor 9: this floor has a high level of symmetry, but it is actually easy and small; there are no chests, just a rope upwards.
 * Floors 9 to 12: just climb up the rope
 * Floors 12-11: follow the corridor and climb the rope downwards; back on floor 11, follow the corridor and climb the rope upwards.
 * Floor 12 to 15: climb ropes and follow corridors; you cannot get wrong.
 * Floor 15: there are two hidden doors behind the rope; you can collect 31 tri-lithiums here.

Forks: on floor 7 there is a second rope that leads to a room with 25 chests; on floor 11, if you get to the end of the corridor, a rope down leads to a room with 5 chests.

Next time travel
Let's go by exclusion:
 * 1) The Time Gate in South America is in the middle of the jungle, and it cannot be accessed by plane;
 * 2) The Time Gate in Great Britain brings back in 1423 B.C., that you explored thoroughly already;
 * 3) The Time Gate in Australia leads to the Time of Legends, that is obviously the last time age you want to visit
 * 4) The only one left is the Time Gate in Greenland, that leads to Pangea age: let's drive into it with the plane!