Cigam on 13/5/2022 at 16:56
I think they are meant to be ape-men. I suspect TTLG changed their skin for Thief II because they realised that people were mistaking them for rat-men, and so re-skinned them to make them more blatantly ape-like.
I would also suspect that they were ape-men in human form in The Sword. Or maybe these were humans, and ape-beasts later took over guard duty after the original human guards left. Just my opinion as there is no evidence I am aware of of Constantine converting humans to maw-creatures.
downwinder on 13/5/2022 at 18:13
i always though they were creatures first and they used magic to look like people? but usually the further in a level you got ,they i guess would feel safe to be there true form?
i am going to reload sword to see if i was wrong about ratmen
Kangra on 17/5/2022 at 04:39
8. The Mages' Tower
TKO: + Difficulty: *
KO: 69
Loot: 2812
Pickpockets: 20/22
Locks Picked: 5
Time Taken: 1:56:39
Bodies Discovered: 0
This is probably the most straightforward, and easiest TKO to achieve of any mission. It's just a bit sprawling and takes a while to complete. There are no tricky takedowns, since almost all enemies are moving around and there is a lot of darkness. About the only difficulty is in dealing with so many guards and intersecting patrol paths. Some minor planning is occasionally needed to figure out where (and when) to drop the enemies.
The outside grounds were easy to work on, as they are mostly in full darkness. Each quadrant has two mages on patrol, and there are several guards that move in and out of the side stairways and around the grounds. Since many of the normal guards do not spawn (or start patrolling) until you get close or enter the stairwells, I had to figure out their paths before knocking anyone out. I also found that they can de-spawn when you cross to the other side of the map; I activated one patrol and then waited a long time on the far end of its patrol before realizing I needed to go back to get it going again. There are just two stationary guards that patrols pass by, near the back connecting passage, and those I handled safely after everyone else outside was down.
The central tower interior presented only a minor challenge. Triggering conversations cleared all situations where two enemies faced each other. The spacious front entrance and the rooms behind it were the hardest to deal with due to the overlapping enemy paths. I tried to catch as many enemies as possible on the dark, wide ramps in the main entrance hall, since bodies there are not spotted by anyone passing by. The library was no great trouble, as it also has many patches of darkness. The third level of the tower has a trio of guards on patrol which I took out one by one in separate rooms.
In the mage towers themselves, the enemies are generally well-separated and presented little difficulty. The air tower has two guards on very noisy floors, but I found a dark spot and just waited for them to pass by. In the fire tower, the floors are also noisy, and additionally the dark corners were kind of tricky to find. The single gas arrow (available from the air tower) makes getting through a bit easier, but it's entirely possible to complete the fire tower without it.
The two guards that patrol outside of each tower on the upper level were generally no problem. There isn't a whole lot of darkness in this area but there are good hiding spots. In the final treasure room, the floor is noisy, but both of the patrols passed by close enough to the carpet strip that I knocked out them from a silent and reasonably dark position.
I realized only at the end that I could have done this with one fewer lockpick, since it's only necessary to enter the upper part of the central stairs from one side, and exit out through the towers to get back to ground level. All other doors can be opened and re-locked with keys or switches. The 'elemental' keys can't be returned, but I don't see that as a bust. No additional equipment is required and no evidence needs to be left behind, making for a very clean TKO.
downwinder on 18/5/2022 at 01:40
lets be honest the mage tower level was a disappointment in my view,it could have been so much better very empty like the other 3 extra levels
Cigam on 18/5/2022 at 06:05
Just a small point, but I think the AI freezes rather than de-spawns, if you move too far away. If you could see through the intervening walls, they would still be there, but frozen like stattues.
I actually think Mages Towers is a great mission, and the mages themselves are great. Not so much the towers themselves though - which come across as if they are just a skeleton first draft of a layout for the towers, that they intended to flesh out into fully-formed areas later (but they never got around to) - but everything else is very good IMO.
downwinder on 18/5/2022 at 18:29
i will agree with cigam the mages themselves were a great addition to series,and thieves guild was probably most polished out of the 3 missions
Kangra on 18/5/2022 at 21:35
Yeah, I really like the ideas of the mages, but the outside towers do feel a bit lacking in content. Like the puzzles could have had a little bit more to them. It's strange that relatively-fit-but-not-a-superhero Garrett can swim through the water tower without even needing a breath potion, when that's supposed to be something that nobody but the water mages can do.
Quote Posted by Cigam
Next thing on the list to confirm, as I forgot when I last played, is something I heard about every doorway having a line of perfect shadow at some point as you cross the threshold.
This is definitely the case. It shows up at any boundary between 'rooms', but is most noticeable in doorways. For example, I was trying to see how close you can get to Raoul in the caverns, and as you cross the threshold that triggers his conversation, you hit that full-darkness line, so he must be able to see fish in the dark. I avoid using it unless the space itself is already mostly dark.
Cigam on 19/5/2022 at 05:13
I tested it in T2M1, and couldn't find the line in the door Basso has opened, and one or two others. But there were plenty of doorways that did have a shadow line. Or perhaps the one or two that seemed to not have one, well maybe I was just missing it due to it being a pixel-width for those thresholds? The line was certainly blatant in most doorways however.
As for TKO, what happens when you have infinitely-spawning enemies? As in The Maw Of Chaos?
Kangra on 20/5/2022 at 17:09
Yeah, poor phrasing on my part - I don't think you can find the line at every boundary, but it can show up anywhere. I would guess it's something due to FP math errors on the position of some rooms on the map.
I was thinking about what to do with the Maw. It will probably be a bust. What I'm hoping to manage is at least get through knocking out anyone that is accessible, and still not having bodies found. I think that only works if I move fast enough that the AI freezes before spawned enemies reach a body. I'm not even certain that's possible.
Kangra on 20/5/2022 at 22:30
9. The Lost City
TKO: + Difficulty: **
KO: 12
Loot: 3205
Pickpockets: 0
Locks Picked: 0
Time Taken: 1:19:36
Bodies Discovered: 0
Quite a low number of knockouts, and the number is only a bit higher than the minimum since I knocked out several burricks along the way. While the number of takedowns is low, several involve tricky moves, so the overall difficulty is set to two stars.
Getting past the upper part of the cave (with the spiders) is not too hard. The spiders on the downward side of the river cannot be avoided silently without using crate tricks, but I can tolerate alerting them as long as it happens all at once, and they don't end up killing themselves or dealing damage. I just had to rush past them fast enough that they did not end up following me all the way down to the city. It might be feasible to use a fire arrow as a distraction, though I'm not sure what the angle would be to draw them off on the descent. Coming back I was able to fire one into the alternate passage and send the spiders hunting in that direction, but it was hardly necessary given how close that spot is to the end of the mission.
The first location (the library) has one of the toughest burrick-based challenges I've encountered. While the burricks can be knocked out with no trouble, they inevitably make a roar that draws in more from a distance, and that leads to unwanted body discoveries. That's where the challenge comes from. I skipped knocking out the burricks on the upper levels, since it's easy enough to sneak around them. On the bottom level, however, other means are needed. There are four burricks, all guarding the route to a room where several pieces of loot can be found, and those burricks can't all be hit at once.
Only one burrick patrols the section; it circles about halfway into the central hall, and then down the long hall to where the loot is. In the middle of its route, it passes by three stationary burricks. Two of them are in a natural cavern behind a broken wall, and one is tucked into a room opposite.
These rooms have motion-sensing lights that make it impossible to walk through them while staying in darkness. I tried a few methods, and ultimately was unable to do it without resorting to gas arrows (I had bought the ones on the loadout screen since I knew they'd be required for some areas).
To clear this floor, I started by knocking out the patrolling one in the central room right after it made its turn on its route. This caused enough noise to alert at least the one hiding in the room on the other side of the wall. That burrick hunted to the entrance of the central hall but did not come in (it took some work to take down the patroller at a spot where this happens). Once things settled down, I dashed across the room in front of the stationary burricks. That also triggered a Level 2 alert. I ran down and hid at the entrance to the loot room, out of range of the motion-sensing light within it. The burricks came down almost to the very end of the passage before turning around and heading back (this took a while, since they tended to get stuck trying to turn). Once I grabbed the loot and the burricks were back in their home spots, I returned to where I could just spot the two in the rear cavern. Rushing by was not an option this time, since they would follow me far enough that they would discover the knocked-out body of their comrade. It required two gas arrows -- I shot the first directly between the two on the left, and then I turned quickly and fired the second at the last burrick. They all went down together and the coast was clear.
Most of the rest of the time moving about the city involved simply avoiding the fire elementals. I treat them as non-sentient, but since they tend to shoot dangerous fireballs (and can be led into fights with burricks if one is not careful), I made sure not to alert any of them anyway. I also knocked out another burrick not far from the library, because it made passing through that area to exit somewhat easier.
The only humans to deal with are the mages. Some are just on their own and easily dealt with, but a few bear mentioning. Near the entrance to the tomb, two of them stand off near the back of the cavern, and cannot be approached. Not only that, one is an air mage and thus immune to gas arrows, a fact I found out the hard way. It took some doing, but I was able to fire off a slow gas arrow at the one, and then run up while switching to the blackjack to bonk the air mage before he could react.
Inside the tomb, another two stand facing each other and there's no way to pull off a similar trick with gas (it takes far too long to switch weapons). I put out one of the braziers to lend more darkness, and was able to knock them out in quick succession after sneaking into the room.
The last tricky spot was near the arena bridge controls. The mage posted at the lever control does not move, and another one walks close by on his route. I got the patrolling one far enough away from the stationary one, and then used another gas arrow to take him down. There's also a fire mage knee-deep in lava that has to be drawn out using a L2 alert, as knocking him out with gas would cause him to drown in the lava.
All in all, not a lot of work to do, but the few challenges it did present were at least interesting, and while it's not a perfect run, it's within the requirements to make it a proper TKO.
