OK, you saw this golden oldie and couldn't resist downloading it or it came bundled and you are lured with the thought of playing in sequence all the games from 6 to 8 with the same party. You might have come here before playing, or maybe you started and are very frustrated. In either case, hopefully my little tidbits of information will help you have a better experience and the realism to work within the constraints of the game.

Other guides have a great deal of information and I strongly recommend you have a read of them to build up a full picture of what to do. While there will be some overlap, I will present information that is missing or glossed over or may even contradict others. These are my experiences in playing the game. There are technical steps as well - I am not here to assist with coding, but you do need some basic editing and knowledge to make the game as enjoyable as it can be. If you find yourself stuck, reach out to friend with IT skills- they can also help with other old games as well!

I have written this guide from the perspective of changes to settings, build your characters and game play. While some aspects may be considered cheats from a pure original experience, I see them as QOL improvements. There are no walk-throughs, the other guides have that well covered. You can of course jump between sections as you like, but it is worth glancing at each, as they all have useful bits about the game, and some areas contain information about other aspects. It is a complex game, and a linear guide cannot hope to keep it as simple as I would like.

Enjoy, and I hope this guide proves useful.

One thing that should be obvious but tends to get overlooked is that this is an OLD game - old in function (DOS), old in mechanics, old in visuals, old in sound and old in style. If you are not willing to work through / with that, give up now and move on to a more modern game. For those willing to persist it is an oddly rewarding feeling of bringing an ancient manuscript back to life.

To allow the game to run in a modern system, dosbox is used for the environment. If you have used the generic install location, for most of you the location of Wizardry will be (in a Windows system):
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Wizardry6

If you have created a Steam storage drive and installed or moved it to that location, you already know where that should be. You can also locate it by going to your game and checking the location settings - plenty of help on the forums about that side if things 😊.

The reason this is important is for two reasons:

• Locating some key manuals and bonus content, and
  
• If you want to mod the game like automapping or fix level 7 spell bugs.

Quick note - if you do not see file extensions (like "manual.pdf"), don't worry - ignore the part from the full-stop (period) onwards - so you will see "manual".

Let's start with the easy (and critical!) stuff - the manuals. If you navigate to your Wizardry6 folder, straight off you should see Manual.pdf. It is a photocopy of the original manual from the boxed game and while not the best scan, gives you some core information. Now - I mentioned the game was old, right? So that means there is no fancy in-game tutorial, no 'how to'... you WILL need to read the manual to understand what you see on the screen and what some of the icons and various layouts mean/show you.

While at your Wizardry6 folder, you should also see a folder called "Bonus Content". This area has items like "Wizardry 6 - Magic Word Icon List.pdf" and the official hint guide - "Wizardry 6 - Cluebook.pdf". When you have created the characters you want for your party (or you just want to leap in with the pre-generated ones), you will be presented the MagicWord to enter (old game, old authentication methods). You can just hit enter - you do not actually have to enter in a magic word.

For those who wish to (for nostalgic purposes, naturally), the scan of this is even worse than the manual, so be prepared to zoom in, squint and try and match the symbols to the screen, and then to the word you need to type into the screen:


So in this case you would need to enter in AIR POCKET. You will not know if you got it wrong however as the game will let you in anyways 😁

There is also a collection of MP3's you can play to overcome the non-atmospheric sounds while playing the game. While in the neighbourhood, now is a good time to either copy or move this content to another location for easier access, or make shortcuts.

The Clue book is very useful unless you want to work out each item's stats on your own - even in D&D world we have manuals for that, so hardly cheating by today's standard and a QOL aspect (jump down to page 82/79):

Be warned the clue book does have full game reveals, so read carefully to bypass those areas if you want an 'original' experience. For me, I do no like that much pain 😂

Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge was written just as mice were starting to be used in Windows land. A lot of actions need the mouse but the rest use the keyboard - particularly the arrow and Enter keys. This is well before the days WASD became standard. I have not found a way to make the keyboard mapper work yet, but once I do I will update this section!

This section is about the Config file and modding. You can skip it, but I would not recommend that, would I 😊

While you can play the game without making changes, even in the 90's we had to change things to make the game work the way we wanted. Modding in particular means you are going to have to get dirty and under the hood, so to speak. While I and the rest of the community would love to help every person in every circumstance, we cannot - you either know or experiment and learn this stuff, or you call in a friend.

At this point I will refer to some excellent mods:
Wizardry 6 Auto map mod + Steam integration
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=528034096

Bugs with 7level spells
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/245410/discussions/0/558746745914260849/

The bugs link is a direct download of a Zip file. I had to do it 'outside' Steam for the zip file to download (just copy the link and paste it into your browser).

Please note that the following information is from a Windows system, but should apply equally to a Steam deck or Apple.

Now, back to our old friend, the location of the game (Windows):
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Wizardry6

Did I say you might want to shortcut link to it? No?? OK - you will want to shortcut link to it. Two key folders here are BANE and dosbox_windows. You may want to just copy them to another location - if you stuff up, you can copy the relevant files back and no harm was done...

BANE is the game itself - this is where the savegame and other files are located (if you do the bug fix).

dosbox_windows is where you can change configuration settings and add the automap mod.

While this would normally be in another section, I mention it here as we are discussing the file structure. The game allows you to change where you save to - by default, it is the BANE directory, and is a file called SAVEGAME.DBS

You only get 1 (yes, one!) active save file. Every time you save, it replaces the previous one. Every time you want to restore or continue, it reads from that one. You have few options:

• Make manual copies of the file.
  
• Make some sub-directories.
  
• Live with it.

You can actually copy the savegame file while you are playing the game - it does not write to it until you actually choose the save options. You may want to do this at major milestones (like when all your characters have reached certain levels or after big moments).

You can also make some sub-directories like SG1, SG2, etc and change your save game location to them (note - do not exceed 8 characters for the folder name, have spaces, etc. - old school, old rules!):

In the Game Configuration section, you change from a blank savegame drive (the default), to your newly created save folders:
.\SG1\


If you want to go back to the main BANE folder, just delete everything and leave Savegame drive blank. The option of using sub-folder(s) along with copying means you really can have as many backups as you want! Sting in the tail though - you need to rename them or remember what they were, or you may be going through various copies to get the one you wanted...

If you need to replace the existing SAVEGAME.DBS, delete or rename it, then rename your copy to SAVEGAME.DBS
So my copied file that I called "SAVEGAME - all3rdlvl.DBS" at the time will convert back to SAVEGAME.DBS - if I felt I had to go back and do something critical that I missed. Naturally, you will also have to re-do any areas or activities along the way. In practice if you regularly save after every combat, open door - after everything, really, you may only need a few major save points. At level 5 I shudder to go back to level 3 characters 😱

The key config file is dosbox_wizardry6.conf in the dosbox folder. If you want to experiment with various options, you will get to know it well. Make a copy before you do significant changes and you will be good - mostly. Important note, do not do any changes while Wizardry is running... The planet will not blow up, but, not good.

Side Note on editors. The reason you will see references to Notepad++ or other such software is that Windows Notepad (or others) can introduce format or ASCII changes that the program may not recognise. For Wizardry 6 I just used the native Windows 10 Notepad with the config file and have had no issues.

Opening the file in a text editor is confronting the first time, but there is logic in the madness

So, any line that starts with a # symbol are ignored - and there are a lot of hashed lines! They are there to guide you and give you information on changes you can make or try.

You will also notice the square bracketed lines, eg [sdl]
They are section markers or headers that keep the same content together - you will not change them, but they are useful to know / guideposts, and NEED to be included in any updates you copy in - like the automap one. DO NOT edit them or move a line item from one section into another - that will break things! You are dealing with computer code, and computers do NOT like things out of place or misspelled.

Scrolling down you start to see the things you may want to change:
windowtitle=Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=true
fullresolution=desktop
windowresolution=1280x1024
output=opengl
autolock=true

Those hashed lines before you reached this area - they gave you the possible values you could use, or what they control. This is where it can get mucky - but like I mentioned previously, make a copy of the file before you make changes. You can then go back and reverse the settings as they were, or replace the whole file from your backup. It will be a good habit to learn for the game - save often, at every chance!

One last item. When you unzip the automap or bug mods, they have readme.txt files in them. it is worth reading them, as they can advise you about settings that need to change, or MAY need to be changed. Any time you see a .txt file it is worth having a quick glance - amazing nuggets of information can be had 🥇

I will stop here as it is a rabbit hole of settings and choices, so now you are swimming in deeper waters - but to the bold and experimental go a more satisfying game experience. It will not bring Wizardry 6 up to today's standards, but does make for the best game it can be - without a re-write 😁

After the title screen, you have the basic pre-entry screen you will see every time you fire up the game. If you have not read other guides yet, I would recommend starting with this one:

Quick Start Guide for Wizadry 6
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3168593437

Before you start selecting characters or even generating them, if you have not read the guides or manual on character creation, do so now! You will likely find that you have to bounce around a few guides to get a full overview of how to extract the best from this game.

Once you have an idea of the types of characters you want to create, here are some useful things to know:

• You have a maximum of 16 character slots.
  
• Getting any Bonus points above 18 is RARE - if you get one of those, save that character!
  
• The game is 90's sexist, so apart from creating a Valkyrie, you are better going for males (if you are trying to make a power team). Note you will not see any difference in play, so just use a female portrait, or vice-versa.

The pre-generated characters are nothing special, you can delete them to free up slots. Be prepared to do a lot of no save's and start the process over - panning for gold takes time. Over 3 days of 20 - 40 min sessions (maybe 4 to 5 hours total), I only had one character get 22 Bonus points. 18 seems to be the normal 'high' standard - but even they were rare.

A quick note about this aspect - in true RPG fashion, you can multiclass (turn your Priest into a Fighter at any point), or choose complex professions at the start (with a high enough Bonus roll).

Pure or Fundamental Professions: Fighter, Mage, Priest, Thief, Alchemist, Psionic (Ranger and Bard could also arguably be treated as pure professions).
Complex Professions - all the rest 🤣

For 'pure' characters, you will get more skill points to spend as you like. Maybe it was my bad luck, but the more Bonus Points you luck up, it seems you get less skill points to spend later, especially for complex professions. This can be a factor if you want to be able to pick locks from the start - the pure Thief class allows you to spend more points in the key Skulduggery skill, while my Ninja had a paltry 5 skill points to spend in total. You can convert any character to another profession (assuming you meet the base stat requirements), so your Thief can switch to be a Ranger (or vice versa), but pro's and con's each way. I say create the characters you want, but be aware of the skill curve hit when you start playing. The Clue book and other guides have more information in this area.

Most skills will go up as you use them, but you need a certain 'base' amount to succeed from the get-go. Do not bother putting any points in Weaponry, as you fight they go up fast enough.

For picking open doors and chests reliably, you need at least 15 to 20 skill points in Skulduggery. I have noticed that the game is so 'fast' in the default dos-box that it was pure luck in me hitting the enter key as all the tumblers turned green using the default dos-box game speed. You can decrease the CPU cycles by using Ctrl+F11 to drop them down (I had to slow it down to about 300). It is still luck to get all green, but the odds are better 😀 Use Ctrl+F12 to get the cycles back up for moving around and combat. I feel the original game had more pause on each 'tumble' (systems were a LOT less powerful back then!), so you had better chances of hitting green across the board. You can quit and restart (you did remember to save before you tried?), but the less you want to do that, the more you want to spend to get Skulduggery up from the start. If you do not have the points to get it there, just try while playing - trying actually increases the skill as well. You will end up with a lot of jammed doors that need a key or knock knock spell to open, but my poor Ninja is getting there - slowly.

Oratory and the equivalent magic skill will go up as they are used - but again, you need a minimum of 10 points in each per level before they become 'reliable' in using them - otherwise you get a lot of miscast or fizzled spells. This is per level of the spell - so even if you cast 1st level with a 2nd level boost - you better have 20 points in Oratory! 3rd level 30 points - you get the picture 😁

Alchemy does not use Oratory, but does not go up on use - you DO have to put spell points into it.

One note when starting until you reach at least level 4-5 across your characters - do EVERYTHING - try to hide, always cast spells when you can like Bless and Direction (even if you use automap), rest and repeat. You need to work all the areas each character has to get the skills up high enough to be reliable. If you do not use your characters skills, you actually have less skill points awarded when they level up for you to spend where you want. During combat I was having spell casters cast - even if they did not need to, just to get the skill points up.

Scouting is another skill that does not go up on it's own, so you must put points into it deliberately. Having said that, specialise your characters and only have one of them go up in particular areas - spells later in the game negate some aspects, and if you use the guides, you will know where and what to search for anyways.

Each time your character levels up in the game you should get some skill points to spend (if you have been working them). Early decisions can be modified, but you will really want to minimise having to catch up if you decide another character should use that skill.

OK, you have made your characters and you are ready to plunge in! Woot!

When you see the Magic Code, just hit enter - that old security check no longer works.

The other guides are excellent, please read them. Other sections in this guide also touch on game play, so worth a read, even if you do not want to make any changes.

Hitting enter if you try to equip weapons and armour to your characters will choose the default of none - use the mouse to choose 😒. You also have to go through the entire equip sequence, even if you are only wanting one item changed. You cannot trade or sell an equipped item and you can only equip items from your main storage area space, not your swag. You do not need to equip potions, they can be used from the main storage area while in a fight (USE option).

Your characters are naked when you start a new game - just sayin' 😉

You will generally always encounter monsters when going through doors into rooms for the first time. You will get random encounters in the halls and large areas, but my experience in the entry area is that they are sporadic. Even resting on the main floor hardly generated any encounters. They also tend to be (but not always!) less intense - one to two monsters, one to two groups of them. The room encounters are definitely higher level. You may have read about not venturing to the lower or upper levels until your characters are at least level 3. If you are unable to open the rooms at the entry level because the skill of the lock picker (poor, poor Ninja!) is not good enough and you have jammed them, you can venture downstairs at level 2 - just stick to the hallways. Be careful about going upstairs, they are harder encounters. I recommend at least a few of your characters are level 3 before exploring those areas. Saving after every successful battle is critical.

Keys are one-shot use - you open a door, the key is used! Do not sell your keys until you are sure you do not need them anymore. If you have left a lot of jammed doors due to trying to get Skulduggery up, you will want to ensure you use them wisely, saving them for important rooms. Of course you will only know what they are if you use the walk-throughs or clue book...

While you do get keys from encounters, it is not common. Note that once you get the knock knock spell you can start to open doors - but at 2+ the base cost. I have not found anything that opens with knock casting it at the base level one. Even on the ground floor I had to cast it at level 2, downstairs doors needed pumping up to level 3. So it can be used, but keys are better. If you are not sure, save before you cast - you may have had the points, but not after the lower level attempt that did not succeed...This leads to...

Spells cost points to cast, and you have a base amount. As characters level up their points will increase but you will notice they will not necessarily recoup or gain them all back - even after a full rest. This is tied to the Vitality and Stamina of the character. They will gain them back over time. Some spheres seem to be faster than others (Fire vs Earth, for example). This can mean a lot of aimless wandering around while you wait for the points to regenerate in the skill you want to use... like knock knock so you can cast it at level 3 or higher.

The last area I will cover is your characters storage and swag. Each character can have 10 items in their main inventory screen, 12 in their swag. Anything they buy, pick up or are traded to goes to main storage first, then into the swag. You can only trade an item to another character from the main area, not the swag. This can be a pain as you need to add something to the swag so you can move the item you want to trade to the main area. If you have filled both your main and swag areas, you are stuck - so always leave a spare slot free in the main area if you can, and definitely in their swag. Fortunately Queequeg will allow you to sell from your swag - phew!

Note that to use an item in battle it has to be in your main area. You can pull it from your swag, but you have to have space in the main area - so you may need to store something in the swag to pull it out - and that drops your armour class plus chews up stamina.

While there is so much more that could be written, this wraps up my guide. May you enjoy your adventures in Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge 🍻