Introduction – Curse of the Azure Bonds

This walkthrough is based on version 1.3 of Curse of the Azure Bonds (the version included in the Forgotten Realms Archives).

Gameplay Tips

New in Curse of the Azure Bonds is the “fix” command. It causes your characters to cast and then re-memorize their healing spells, and it makes Curse of the Azure Bonds far friendlier to play than Pool of Radiance.

If a character has a score of at least 16 in all of its prime requisites (such as strength for fighters), then the character will earn 10% extra experience.

Trolls are able to regenerate during combat. That is, after they’ve been “killed,” a few turns later they’ll re-appear and start fighting again. To prevent this, either kill the remaining creatures quickly, or have a character stand where the troll died.

Not far into the game, you’ll encounter creatures who can only be hit by magical weapons. So hang onto all magical weapons that you find early in the game.

Slings and staff slings are ranged weapons that don’t require ammunition. They’re useful for all classes for when you need to disrupt spellcasters that you can’t reach with your melee fighters.

You won’t be able to rest in the final area of the game. So be sure to save some wands and healing potions for when you arrive there.

Troubleshooting

The install.bat file that came with our version of Curse of the Azure Bonds didn’t really work. That’s because it requires you to change your current directory to the CURSE directory (which is more of a DOS concept than Windows concept). Fortunately, the install procedure is very simple. You just need to copy all of the CURSE files from the CD into the CURSE directory on your hard drive, and you can do that from the edit menu:

1. Open the CURSE directory on the CD,
2. Click on edit->select all,
3. Click on edit->copy,
4. Open the CURSE directory on your hard drive, and
5. Click on edit->paste.

Now you should be able to play using start.exe in the CURSE directory of your hard drive.

Curse of the Azure Bonds is almost entirely a turn-based game, and so it can be played on modern computers. However, if you don’t want battles to zip by so fast that it’s hard to tell what just happened, you should consider a program like DOSBox, which not only emulates an X86 computer, but which also allows you to play the game in a window.