Mods and New Beginning

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Hiiyaaa folks! I've recently found my old cd's of Baldur's gate 2 and since there aren't any decent games out there at the moment (my opinion) I decided to make a new playthrough with human, blade. So my question is, is there any "must have" mods i would like to use for making my game experience better ? Any suggestion is appreciated.

 

That depends. How familiar are you with the game, and how true to the original do you want to keep your modded game?

 

Well, I wouldn't consider myself a newbie, but far from being great. I know that I don't mind any new content, unless it doesn't makes my toons all too powerfull. Mostly the game should stay as much as possible to original.

 

If you want extra challenge, Ascension+Sword Coast Strategems II are very good mods, that totally revamp enemy scripts so that they behave super intelligently, almost as if battling against a living opponent. SCS II is very customisable, you don't need to install all components all at once, it may be too tough for you. Turnabout mod is a must-to have add-on if you have Ascension installed.

Wheels of Prophecy is a must to have for ToB, it revitalises otherwise boring and linear storyline of ToB.

There are some good additional quest mods too. Tower of Deception, Dungeon Crawlers, Colors of Infinity mods (Tales of the Deep Gardens, Innershade, The White Queen) these add very good quality, exciting and interesting quests/new areas.

Atweaks and rogues rebelancing are honorable mentions, while not as essential as others, bring much freshness, cool and fun content to the game.

New NPCs Give a fresh feeling to the old game too, and there are tons of NPC mods for BG2. Go for the best and most popular ones with most content, be it quest and/or romances. Kelsey, Kivan, Xan, Nathaniel, Faren, I tried those and liked them.

Be sure to install the official patch, then G3 fixpack before starting to mod your game! BG2 tweaks mod also offer nice tweaks for the gameplay, should be installed last. Oh, and 1PP animations mod bring a luxurous upgrade to the overall look and graphics of the game, it is a must to have.

Always finish your modding with a Biffing mod, like 'generalised biffing' etc. found on Spellhold studios. It compresses the mod files you added to the game so the game does not lag and runs smooth as you please. Once 'biff'ed do not add or remove other mods or you can corrupt your game.

 

Silverstar covered most things. If you want to add some other difficult encounters try some of the Tactics mod's components - beware - some people find some of them cheesy, and most of the components are incompatible with SCSII. The full list of the compatible parts is on the SCSII readme, and I warn you to stick to only those if you want both mods at the same time! Improved Ilyich, Kuroisan, Red Badge and especially The Ritual are all truly awesome parts of Tactics, not too overpowered but still very tricky, requiring some careful thought to complete.

I also love Weimer's Item Upgrade mod, I think the upgraded items from it are pretty well balanced and interesting, at least in a tactically modded game (with SCSII and Tactics, primarily).

I really like Oversight, Song and Silence, Sword and Fist and Divine Remix: mods that bring all the various classes and kits more in line with each other in terms of power, and add some more well-thought-out kits. Wizard Slayer Rebalancing is another great little rebalancer: I'm playing a Half-Orc (rebalanced) WS/T on my current BGT playthrough, and the guy truly kicks ass!

There are also plenty of tweak mods: G3, Ding0 and The Bigg offer probably the best updated and compatible of them.

As a rough guide to installing these in a compatible order:
Vanilla installation (SoA and ToB)
Patch
G3 Fixpack
Ascension

Then use this, it's a pretty extensively tested installation order for mega-modding (for Baldur's Gate Trilogy, specifically, but the exact same order should apply for BG2 or even BG Tutu).

Happy modding! Any queries, just ask; the above guide was written by a native German speaker, so his English isn't always fully understandable. Through trial and error I've worked out how to do such mega-installations using that guide, so I'd be happy to pass on what info I've worked out. N.B. it's important to avoid BGT-only mods such as Big Picture.

EDIT: I have no idea how I forgot these two, as they're pretty much a core part of my Baldur's Gate: Unfinished Business and Virtue.

 

Thank you. Started downloading, testing and trying not to loose patience.
Soone, Zevran is going to wake up in a cell with new adventures ahead of him.

---------- Added 20 hours, 15 minutes and 40 seconds later... ----------

Emmm, I've got a question. How can i be sure that mods are working? New quest, visual do, bu about ascension ? It doesn't feels game has become harder. More like the oposite.

 

Ascension will only affect the end-game of Throne of Bhaal, and the main bosses.

 

A quick question. I got my hand ob BG1+TotSC and downloaded a BGT mod. I'm using BG1npc mod as well (I tried without it and i got a little bored with all that silence), but there is somekind of a bug. For example, when finish Candlekeep (dunno why, but I love that place!!) and Imoen joins party, she leaves, as if I told her to do so. I didn't bother with it and moved on. When I met Jaheira and Khalid, same thing happens and just can't keep tehm in my group. Strangely enough, this problem doesn't occurs when I pick Xan and Montarion. Tried to google this problem, can't find anything.

 

I've never heard of anything like this bug.

Can you list all the mods you are using, and describe in detail the process by which the NPC joins and then leaves the party? Normally for an NPC to leave the party it's either player-initiated (using "Reform Party" from the Records screen) or there's a dialogue that immediately precedes the NPC leaving (e.g. due to alignment clashing with your reputation, or delaying too much on completing their personal quest; the NPC lets you know the reason they're leaving). Does your problem follow the latter format?

Also have you tried creating a new copy of the NPC in question using the CLUAConsole, speaking to them and letting them join the party again? If so, is the outcome the same?

 

I've got bg1+TotSC, bg2 tob, bg2fixpack v9, bgt, 1ppv4.1, bg1npc mod, unfinished business, virtue, weimer item upgrade v38, ascension v1.4.24, song and silence, sword and fist, divine remix, wheels of prophecy, atweak v382 and big biff afterwards. Everything installed in named order. Tried to spawn npc with console, same thing happens. Npcs join party and a few seconds after leave oarty by initiating dialog in which they ask whether im sure if i want to leave them. Whatever i say, doesnt helps. I tried to reinstall everything, step by step and testing my game. Im not after which mod i stopped doing it, but eventually the result is what it is. I cant understand which mod does it. Im not sure which one can interfere with npcs, couse they dont leave in their own, but lika reformed my party and dismissed them

 

It looks like the problem was coused by virtue, i noticed that it installs with a error. Without it, game works properly, for now at least

 

Okay, so the order you listed those is pretty iffy. I tried to make it clear above that Ascension needs to come immediately after BG2 ToB + Patch + G3 Fixpack. This is because it overwrites certain files rather than patching them. The rest of the mods are well-updated and will patch rather than overwrite files (though there can still be problems). Here's my suggested installation order:
1. BG1 + TotSC + Official TotSC patch
2. In a separate folder, BG2 + ToB + Official ToB patch + G3 Fixpack; make sure to name the installation folder "BGII - SoA" (obviously without the "s)
3. BGT
4. Ascension
5. Unfinished Business
6. Wheels of Prophecy
7. IU
8. BG1 NPC mod
9. Song & Silence
10. Sword & Fist
11. Divine Remix
12. Virtue
13. atweaks
14. 1PP
15. Big Biff

The rough order for EVERY mega-mod installation is:
Vanilla
Patch
Fixpack
Ascension
Quests/added content
NPCs
Rule changes
Tweaks
GUI/appearance changes
Biff

Within each of those categories, the later each mod has been updated, the later in the install list it should be.

You'll also find some mods have components that might come in an earlier or later category; stick to the categories above, install that component in the category it should be, and install the rest of the mod in its main category.

Finally, if two mods overlap on some aspect of the game, there's a good chance they will be incompatible. In the few cases that the mods are compatible (this should be made clear in a readme of one or both mods), the latest one installed will be the one whose changes will be seen ingame.

Keep trying, don't give up, and eventually you'll have a working modded game!

EDIT: Of course, the list of categories above applies ONLY to mods that use WeiDU. (Generally unless you go digging in some very old archives you won't find any non-WeiDU mods, though.) If you really want to install a non-WeiDU mod, keep it at just ONE non-WeiDU, and install it straight after the patch and fixpack. As with Ascension, they will overwrite files rather than patch them.