Having found the final image in Todelmer, I just can't get the Bahro to accept my artistic rendering of it. I've even tried doing the "pac-man" sign mentioned elsewhere, but to no success. Can someone give me hints on how to draw this properly, or even some savegame hack that'll activate it on the pedestal.

I find that the level of artistic ability required is the single greatest disincentive ever to replay this game. "Endless redrawing" is the new "pixel-hunting". Frequently I've redrawn shapes semi-systematically, each time moving a little to the left, or enlarging the whole thing a little etc. Now it's been a while since I studied image processing, but isn't making a image-detection algorithm work more-or-less invariant under translation and dilation (and rotation?) one of the easier things to do? It would probably sort out most of my slate issues.

And does anyone else find their pointer lags about 1/2 second behind their mouse movements? With that and the jerkiness of the pointer (I use Classic Plus) I had real difficulty working those pedestal controls during the sandstorm. Even with the mouse sensitivity turned right down, it was near-impossible to get the pointer over the right lever or button, and it would jerkily leap all over the screen.

(My setup is Win2K+SP4, 512MB RAM, AMD Athlon 1GHz, nVidia GeForce2 (64MB).)

Thanks

Update: after very carefully noting the proportions of the circles w.r.t. to the width of the "bite" taken out of the bottom of the slate, the Bahro finally recognised it... as a snake. It shrieked at shied away.

I can accept (with mounting impatience) that my drawing evidently doesn't look quite enough like the correct symbol, but a snake? It couldn't look less like a snake if it tried...

The gap between concept and execution for using the slate puts me in mind of the text engine in Starship Titanic: a nice idea that in practice just clogs up the whole game.

Hi jperks,

Sorry about your slate problem. But remember that snake, you might need it later...
But if you still need help with the todelmer symbol i can give you a few tips.

1. Try drawing it from different directions. Start from the bottom and go up, or start from the top and go down.

2. Draw the simplest parts first. If there are two parallel lines, then do them first. If there are circles that are aligned then do them, etc..

3. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep on recentering. Something that helped me a great deal was going back to where the symbol was written down and carefully noting the figure in relation to the edges of the slate. This helped me a great deal.

4. Go to an earlier saved game and try drawing it then. I don't know if this is a bug or somethig, but i found that when i was playing, the Bahro simply wouldn't accept anything. When I reloaded an earlier game and redrew the symbol exactly as i did before, the Bahro accepted it.

5. GO CRAZY!!!!
When nothing worked for me, i randomely drew stuff and suddenly found myself at the keep; game over. This probably isn't the best option, but if you have absolutely no drawing skills, like me , then this could be your only shot.

I hope this helps you. GOOD LUCK!

First, regarding the final pedestal symbol for Todelmer, make sure you're drawing it at the correct orientation, because the symbol as seen through the telescope is at an angle. You'll need to mimic not just the symbol as you see it, but rotate it to match the correct orientation on the pedestal. Also try drawing the symbol larger or smaller... sometimes it's not just the shape but the size of the shape that matters.

Second, regarding Laki'ahn, that's probably the most graphics-intensive Age in the game. I'd suggest making sure you shut down any other applications before playing the game, including Norton AntiVirus, and if necessary, lower your graphics settings. With only a GeForce 2, your video card is going to be strained pretty far if you have a lot of the fancier options enabled. If you haven't already, try turning off shadows and dynamic reflections, and drop anisotropic filtering to zero (far left) on the slider.

ARGGGG! I'm having similiar problems! I can't get to the second pedistal because I've only gotten the Bahro to even come LOOK at my slate one time! I have drawn the symbol at least 100 times, different sizes, widths etc. I just don't know what else I can do! I've quit and come back, I've saved, restored. I've even gone back to the linking island and tried drawing something there -no luck. Sigh - I'm about to uninstall the game and let it sit on the shelf.

OK, elsewhere I found a comment that said "you have to set the slate down somewhere where you can be at least two clicks away". I was only going one click away. As soon as I started moving two clicks away from the dropped slate, the Bahro appeared, and my <lame> drawings were accepted. THANK the Gods! I was just about at the end of my rope!
This "two click away" hint really should be 'sticky' at the top. Certainly would have save me a lot of head banging!

I seem to be having problems with drawing and as LEOMAG said, I went crazy and just drew stuff. Next thing I was at the keep too.

But reading about "how tricky it is to draw" (I'm taking it you are talking about the symbol to get to the keep?) It couldn't be easier.

And strangely enough, my rendition of it was quite lacking some detail which I would of thought would be "important" in the accuracy.

But thanks for the read.


I am now taking it that I have to put "entire blocks of symbols" on the slate - like 3 of them - to get things working.

Ok, so can I do all this just before the first set of steps out of the bubble to save me running back and forth from the roof top? It is a long way to go to see if the Bahro accepted my effort.

You only need the one symbol that you need to move on. You can drop the slate near the bubble, but not in the bubble. You don't need to keep running up to the roof.