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. Ignore the oracle, the cleric shop and the wizard shop, for the time being.

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

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 for the time being.

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. As soon as one of your six attributes reaches 96, stop the body-building. Statistically, all other attributes should be at least 70. If one attribute gets past 99, it will reset to 0. Accept the fact that your character is not supposed to have all attributes equal to 99.

Gathering information
There is no point in purchasing many 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.

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. 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!

If the Stranger is a cleric or a wizard, she can easily defeat guards by casting either the "6-Prayer" or the "9-Kill" spells.

You will also need:
 * 3 keys to access the airport in New San Antonio, so to get a plane.
 * 4 keys to access the vault in each of Lord British's castles, so to get 16 weapons and 16 armors.
 * 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.

Use a key to open the prison door. Find Sentri in one of the cells and offer him 500 GP. Hint: he's the only character that does not move around.

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.

OPTIONAL: tower in Africa


If you don't want to spend your money on weapons and armors, you may decide to visit this dungeon.

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.