Ultima VII

- On BG and SI, inventory management is a bitch, so get lets of bags inside your backpack and use them to manage it a bit better.

- Also, having to constantly buy food for your companions is a bitch. The cheapest deal is dried meat from Britannia.

- With these games, the secret is to try to talk to everyone and see what you can find out. Usually someone has a hint about what you're meant to do next.

- Oh, and one more important thing (especially in SI) - if you click on anything, it tells you its name. Most walls are called "wall". Secret, openable (either by double-clicking or by using a hidden switch) walls are called "Wall". This is vital to completing the game in many situations.

- Lastly, if you are deciding to have an inventory cleanout and there is even the remotest chance that an item you have may be useful later on, have a designated area with chests or barrels that you store everything you drop. Don't drop them on the ground!! Put them in containers so you know exactly where they are and so the game's memory manager doesn't decide to delete them.

- Finish up everything that you can before confronting the guy that you've been chasing for half the game. This means do all your quests, training, purchases, etc

- Don't wear gwani cloaks (I don't think doing so will break the plot, but just to be safe)

- When you're collecting special waters, it'll save you time if you get two buckets of each type (some will go unused: I forget which ones you need extras for)

- Do not double-click any pillars within the Silver Seed expansion (this bug might be fixed in Exult, anyway)

- Go to Silver Seed as early as possible and at least talk to everyone in the command post until you get the key ring. Again, you'll have to die at least once in order to even get the ability to enter Silver Seed, so let some wolves kill you or something

- And (in Black Gate) use a barrel instead of backpack when you're strong enough. You'll know when you're strong enough.

- Also learn your shortcut keys. "Ctrl + F" is food, and in Exult "Ctrl + K" will always choose the right key for a lock.

- This is cheating, but in the opening town, grab all the crates you can and make yourself a ladder onto the roof of (I think) the blacksmith's shop. You'll be put into a room with all the best items and every quest item in the game.

- Go south once you can leave the first town and search around a little, you'll find a nice magic item hidden in a tree or something. Look for like a single pixel of magical sparkle.

- East of Britain near the field with the spaceship (A reference to the Wing Commander series) you can bust into a shack and acquire a hoe with a red head. This is a sweet weapon.

- There's a magic carpet you can get very early on, but it kind of breaks the game (You can literally skip 8/10 of it by flying into a certain compound you have to work half the game to gain access to.

- Moving things around in someone else's container is considered stealing. Steal too much and some party members will leave for good and you can't get them back.

- When you get to Britain, notice all the gold reserves guarded and locked up? Wait for the bank manager to leave at night. Follow her home, and kill her in her bed. Loot the keys from her body, then go loot the bank. Now drop her body in front of Lord British and ask for a rez. She'll go back to work like nothing happened, and exchange all those gold bars and nuggets for you!

- On the pirate island there's a way to make infinite gold through gambling. It's something like 1 in 6 rats will win a race, and you put money on the number you like, but you get back more money from winning than it costs to cover all the numbers.

- To translate the Gargoyle language you need to travel through a nasty dungeon. You can get to their town by moongate, but only in the dungeon will you find the gargoyle-english dictionary. It's in one of the last dungeon rooms. Moongate to the town and go in the back way!

- That's all I can remember right now, I'm recalling crap from like 1990. Use the Exult engine to play the game, and don't neglect the expansion pack, I think you can get the ring of infinite reagents in there as well as a cool sword with a living demon bound to it. It's a jet black claymore.

The Black Gate

- Use a walkthrough/guide to help you find the following before doing anything else: 1. Spellbook 2. Magic carpet 3. Your core companions (Iolo, Dupre, Shamino). Also keep Spark. 4. Forge of Virtue

- Your character will have to die at least once to move the plot. Go let some dragons kill you or something, just make sure your companions don't die.

- From there just see where the game takes you. Don't go around killing random people because it could be easy to break the plot. Don't throw away items that seem "important" (Rudyom's Wand, the Prisms).

- Different trainers give different stats, so use game hints or a guide to figure out which ones you'd prefer your companions to be strong in.

- If you walk into a portal and all your companions disappear, load the game and politely ask them to leave, so they can rejoin when you're done with that portal.

- Don't let your companions carry important items, because sometimes they'll randomly drop all their shit and lose it forever.

- Bake lots of bread. Pick up the Hoe of Destruction (go fishing for the key). Cast Armageddon (but don't save). Use the Black Sword on Lord British (but don't save).