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Contents
About The Savage Empire
The Savage Empire is the first installment in the Worlds of Ultima series, a prequel to Martian Dreams. It uses the same engine as Ultima 6, but with new graphics and increased interactivity. For the first time in Ultima, you can be resourceful and create things from what nature provides. You will also enjoy in-game cutscenes that play part-way through the game, not just in the intro and endgame.
The plot
A whole lab containing the Avatar and a couple of modern-day friends is swallowed by a black moongate when an experiment on the moonstone he got from Britannia goes horribly wrong. The group ends up in a primitive jungle, and befriends Aiela, princess of the Kurak tribe.
Darden the Huge, Aiela's hated suitor and prince of the Urali tribe, defeats the Avatar, scatters his friends and captures Aiela. The Avatar is nursed and aided by Intanya, shaman of the Kurak tribe.
It is up to the Avatar to find his friends, rescue Aiela and, ultimately, unite the warring tribes against a common foe - the vicious Myrmidex intent on destroying the surface dwellers as they destroyed their former masters, the Kotl.
You can read other accounts of the Savage Empire plot at:
- The Lay of the Land, part of The Other Codex, which has a section about the history of Eodon.
- The Savage Empire article at Wikipedia.
- The GameFAQs review by Somber Fox, which has a section about the story.
This guide
The following is a site map for this Savage Empire Guide:
- Main
- Walkthrough
- Manual's introduction
- In-game introduction
- Character creation
- Cutscene 1: Aiela's Rescue
- Cutscene 2: The Beam
- Cutscene 3: The End of the Kotl City
- Cutscene 4: The Calling
- Cutscene 5: Victory
- Endgame 1 (You love Aiela)
- Endgame 2 (You love Tristia)
- Endgame 3 (You love neither)
- Maps & Places
- Travel
- Items
- Landscape
- Bestiary
- Companions
- People
- Dialogue
- Magic
- Fun
- MDHack
- Alt Codes: Info and List [TXT]
- Character List [TXT]
- Opinions
- Credits
Documentation
The Savage Empire manual can be found:
- Here (high-quality PDF) at replacementdocs
- Here (text file) at Quill Dragon's Lair
The list of copy protection questions and answers can be found:
- Among my Ultima copy protection questions and answers
- At the end of the Savage Empire manual at Quill Dragon's Lair
- At the end of Alicia Belliveau's walkthrough (which can be found at all the locations listed in my other walkthroughs section)
Pictures
There is a Savage Empire screenshot gallery at The Ultima Legend.
You will also find several pictures throughout this guide.
Music
You can download the Savage Empire music from:
- The Bard's Library, part of Mysterious Sosaria.
- The SE downloads page at The Ultima Legend.
Utilities
There are very few utilities relevant to The Savage Empire. These include:
- MDHack, which can be used to turn on the Alt cheats (see the Cheating section).
- Nuvie, which can read the game files and is planned to support The Savage Empire eventually but currently doesn't support it as well as it supports Ultima 6.
- u6like, a map viewer for U6, SE and MD. The files were never released, but you can see some of the maps it generated on the website.
- Ultimatrix, a map viewer for U1-6, SE and MD.
- DOSBOX, a DOS emulator you can use if The Savage Empire doesn't run on your operating system or if sound or music doesn't work.
- pu6e, a world editor for U6, SE and MD.
- The Universal Game Editor, a tool allowing you to boost your party member stats in all games except Ascension.
Acknowledgements
To give proper credit where credit is due:
- The Savage Empire Introduction was taken from the Savage Empire manual and remains property of Origin Systems, Inc.
- The Savage Empire Cheats were taken from a Cheatbook Database which came with a PCFormat magazine, whose author's name I cannot find.
- I can't remember who told me about the 'Eohippus' easter egg, so I'll at least admit it wasn't my idea. Whoever told me about it should contact me to get proper credit.
- Thanks goes to Natreg Dragon who informed me that Ugyuk is a potential companion, pointed out the existence of a high-quality PDF manual (see documentation section above), and told me about the second wisp near the Urali village.
- Thanks to Kenn Rice for allowing me to use his Savage Empire maps.
- The tileset was taken from the u6like site, with the permission of Bartlomiej Melnicki, its author. It was useful in obtaining a lot of the tile graphics that appear on this site.
- Another tileset extracted by Pieter Luteijn was also very useful.
- The easter egg about the three stooges is from Wikipedia's page about The Savage Empire.
- The item creation cheat is from Paulon Dragon's Savage Empire cheats [TXT] file.
- Thanks to Pieter Luteijn for providing the Savage Empire font [TXT].
