Do NOT leave the castle on your quest until you have found the automap. It is rather ... useful.

I didn't even know it was possible to miss the automap!

Here is another tip: use more than one save slot. I remember at least one point of no return, so cycle your saves just in case.

Generally the game is good at making sure you can't screw yourself.

The Compass and Lantern are also missable if you don't do the following:
Lantern: explore the Thug's Cave in the Northland Forest
Compass: knock on the right door in the tavern where you recruit Timothy

One very important tip: Do not dispel the second "Scotia's Barrier" you come across until you have been to the white tower and gotten the "Crucible of Faith".

Why, you ask?

Because destroying the barrier first will use up a "Vaelan's cube" which is really useful in defeating the ghosts in the tower. Fighting the ghosts without the cube is possible with emerald blades, but it is REALLY hard, so just save yourself the trouble and go to the tower first.

Always keep a bow or crossbow in Baccatas second hand. This will level up his rogue skill, enabling him to pick the difficult chests in castle Cimmeria.

Keyboard shortcuts:
F1-F3: character 1-3 attacks
/ (forward slash on american keyboards, next to the right shift): cycle through spells
R: rest party

And the most important shortcut of all:
Rightclick on the inventory arrows scrolls your inventory by a whole "page". This saves so much unnecessary clicking!

I've found it's nice to keep a rock handy for throwing at enemies while your attacks are on cooldown. You can keep picking the rock up and throwing it as much as you like. This also gives you experience toward your rogue skill which is important to have for picking locks.

The rock can also be used for holding down pressure plates if the need arises. Sometimes you'll need more than one. At least I'm pretty sure about that.

Thank you :). I was hoping there was something to save me clicking all over the place, but I didn't see these mentioned in the manual.

Regarding the lantern, you can find one in the Draracle cave fairly early on if you don't go to the thug cave.

Thanks, these tips have all bee really useful. I've just got the blonde guy from the pub but the enemies in that area are killing us pretty easily. If I get just one or two orcs it's fine, but I tend to get swamped by loads at once - and then there's that big crocodile thing. Is there some kind of method to "pull" enemies, like in a more action RPG sense, or some method of fighting them that I'm just missing? I'm even doing that stone-throwing thing in between proper attacks.

Use the "hit and run" tactics. Hit the enemy, then back off quickly before the enemy has a chance to retaliate, then close in for a for a new hit.

If the enemy has no long range attack, just keep on backing off while shooting with arrows.

Different kinds of enemies are also vulnerable to different kinds of weapons/magic, so experiment! If you meet enemies that seem invulrerable (and eventually you will!), you can be sure it's vulnerable only to a certain type of attack.

BTW, not all rocks are as good. A granite (I think it was granite but I'm not sure) rock does a bit more damage than a regular rock. Rocks don't hit hard, but you can keep on spamming it while waiting for the attack cooldowns, so it's a good tactic.

Another thing you can do if you find yourself getting constantly surrounded is back yourself into a corner so that they can only attack you from the front. That way, you only have to deal with a couple enemies at a time and if they get all bunched up, you can do some serious damage with magic!

Speaking of using magic on large groups of enemies, if you get your hands on a wand of fireballs you can make your magic level skyrocket at lower levels if you catch a good number! My Michael was at magic level 1 and it was going up agonizingly slow until I used it and gained nearly two levels from one use! By the time my wand ran out of charges, his magic went from level 1 to level 4 and the difference was massive!

Can you help me on this topic:
I wonder wich weapons are worth keeping.
The inventory is quite small and mine almost full with "named" weapons.
Is it ok to just keep the strongest weapons, or should one keep a pair of this and that? (I can remember from 15 years ago to keep the "smaragd swords")

Greetings

This site has some items tables:
http://www.ethereallore.envy.nu/1stats.html

This game has a surprising amount of really crappy "named" weapons that sound impressive but are much weaker than what you are currently using. And even if they do have a special effect (which most don't), it rarely makes up for the loss in might. Just drop or sell anything that has less might and you'll do just fine.

Exceptions that could be useful:
-One or two weapons have a "right click on portrait" use, so always try that before selling the weapon.
-The crossbow Valkyrie is one of the best weapons in the game and always hits.
-Keep the two emerald blades.
-The Axe "Dominance" has a 5% Chance to kill any enemy , but it seemed to happen much more rarely to me
-The Great Axe "Master" increases the Rogue Level

Don't play through a fair chunk of the game in great difficulty before realising Baccata can hold two weapons.

Which is what I've been doing all day even though I played through this game a couple of years ago.

Edit: Also, I missed the automap.

Also get all rocks and sticks, when you get into the swamp, theres a frog face, you need to use frozen spell so you can step on the quicksand (careful, insta kill), put one rock into the frogs mouth, hit its nose and.... its worth about 100 crowns each one!!! You can also try other objects.
If you know some partner will leave you, right before it happens take all his/her stuff.
When you get poisoned, go to a calm place, rest until the character dies, then have other character use heal spell and rest again.
Last, do not buy anything in the swamp area until you own their respect (half price).

NEVER use a Valean's cube on the portrait!

Always put it into weapon slots (in hands). Within a few minutes of white tower 3rd level you'll have tons of cubes.

Just remember never to actviate the cube with loot on the mouse cursor.

With this tip, if i remember correctly, you should be also able to dispel the second scotia barrier before completing the tower - but I might be wrong, so check that after the second barrier using the cube in hand you still have a cube.

How do you turn off the lantern? Left click shows oil level, right click does nothing.
I wanna save some oil.
Thanks!