Co8 New Content: Hickory Branch

I am playing ToEE 7.3.0NC on the GOG version. I have also come across the Herdsman, his son and a Hommlet village boy in Lord Hungous' cave after leaving HB and then returning. I keep trying to keep the 3 of them alive during the melee, fail, and then get the Butcher of Hommlet rep. Is there anything I can do about this, aside from starting from a much earlier save and testing it out?

 

So I tried to get clever, prepped a bunch of web & sleep spells, intending on knocking out the villagers before dealing with the orcs. I arrived at the cave blockage to find it back in place after my initial attack on it. It is now "dead" at -10 hp, and I cannot attack it to get to the cave entrance. Anyone know a workaround (or solution!) for this situation?

 

You should be able to click on the door behind the block...

At least I can in my games.

 

Thanks Licker. I gave it a try and it it worked.

Gonna try putting the villagers to sleep and see if I can still win the fight. It certainly adds a level of complexity. Laszlo just stands there, does nothing, and is not targeted by the orcs. The two boys read as red circle enemies for the purposes of targeting my own area spells. The village boys also attack my party, but are in turn attacked by the orcs, so I'm trying to defend the boys, avoid cleaving them unintentionly and still deal with Hungous's horde. It's actually a fun challenge, but I'm sure I should probably just revert to an earlier save....

 

Well, the sleep spell worked on the village boys. But....It turned Elmo against my party, and the Hungous + all lieutenants + Elmo fight was not one my 4 lvl 6 party members were going to win. In addition, both times I tried this tactic I CTD'ed. So I have deleted all of my HB saves and I'm going to try w/o Elmo in the party and see what happens...

 

If you're careful, you can off the lieutenants one (or two) at a time before you see Hunguous. That makes for a much easier fight at the end. You can also attack him before clearing the rest of the map.

 

Do you have to leave and go back to HB to get the villagers to appear there or do you need to do some other stuff before going there?

I played through 7.3.3 and eventhough there were changes here and there but i never saw any hommletguys at HB

 

I deleted all of my HB saves, dropped Elmo from my party and re-did HB. When I went back to the cave, after leavning, the villagers were gone and there were no other scripting issues.

I think I am at a good point to download 7.3.3 and try my game from there.....

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

 

BTW, as an additional note, when I did have the villagers in the HB cave, I also had an issue with the HB location map, at a certain point my party would clear areas, but the location map remained black. Otherwise, it did not affect gameplay....

 

Ok, i thought i was missing out on some sidequest.

 

Yes it has.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't mention it, or even notice it. It's a good thing you know EXACTLY what to ask us.

 

Yes, but that is ok imo.

 

yes it has been