(Sorry for the lack of updates... I had to finish my PhD and find a job. Am now a researcher in Bologna University, Italy.) James Davies sent confirmation and a picture of a holy creature.
(A german translation of the creature training guide is now available.) Es gibt eine neue deutsche Website mit Namen www.createworlds.com. Cyrik hat eine deutsche Übersetzung des Kreaturen Trainings gemacht. Vielleicht möchte jemand die Tips und Tricks übersetzen? (A french translation of the hints and tips page is now available.) En francais, le website www.bwfusion.com a une traduction des astuces et conseils de jeu. Peut-être que quelqu'un voudrait traduire les conseils d'instruction de créature? (Sorry! I don't know enough Italian or Spanish or any other languages.)
With advice from Samuel Kite, the forestry section has been rewritten. In particular, forests are the key to success. There's a set of instructions on how to quickly create forests, and how to train your creature to create forests. Also hints on the growth of trees and how to replant the ancient forests and use forest miracles effectively. How to encourage seedlings. The connection between forests and fireflies. Landscaping with black trees. From Faithful, a note on the effect of excessive punishment. Also, notes on deceit and learning by percentages and encourage the basic behaviour first and punishment affecting multiple beliefs and teaching a general action in multiple situations and teaching on the correct object rather than on some training dummy and spells taking lots of energy. Advice on types of mushrooms from Binro. Matt Krieger suggests training your creature to sacrifice dead villagers, and offers instructions on teaching your creature to throw back fireballs at the enemy, which is a very impressive compound action! Patchel and Da Mynci have some advice on how the creature learns by watching. Michiel Soenen explains how to teach your creature to impress villagers. I read about a terrible warrior named Burn, but don't know who's he is. Ian Bush reports that his creature eats trees, rocks and miracles. Tarogstar has comments on maximum prayer power.
Here are some links to interesting external sites. Hythia has walkthroughs for the first three lands. Here are some maps in case you still can't find the locations of the singing stones or of the missing sheep. (The first map is by Coren; the second was scanned in from PC-Game by Tobias Küster). Also see The Black&White Guide. And finally, Happy Birthday to my brother Marcus who turns 21 today!
A single act of punishment will affect multiple beliefs, say Cauchy, DeepO and Richard Evans (who programmed the creature AI). Advice on making your creature stronger from Babylondrifter, Dios, LegionXS and Quicksilver, and also some advice on making him grow more quickly from Rowek. A note on learning by observation from Richard Evans and BloodySmurf. Also his comments led to changes on desires and beliefs. Advice to chill out on good and evil from FrogInABlender. A funny example of differentiated opinion from Veovis05, and notes from Phong. Some additions to notes on praise and punishment. Tips on training your creature to sleep at night from Kuroshio and DeepO. Give your creature the right amount of attention: not too much says DeepO; not to little says Merkuri. Teach him to express his emotions by petting him after he cries, says Merkuri. If your creature is not greedy you can leave him eating unsupervised. Eat trippy mushrooms suggests Phong! Binro's creature has learned deceit. Some clarifications on teaching with miracle bubbles from Lios. How to encourage curiosity by Cainna. A note on desired fat levels. Kuroshio advises not to praise excessively. Perhaps some foods are ritually unclean?
Phong notes that greater belief makes villagers less lazy. Observations on skeletons from Xaa, Gaswell, Gamefreek, Atrixwhite and Karl H. Advice on artefacts from Kingbane, Raingod, Mighty Turtle Head, Robman325 and Phong. Coren says to send level-seven scaffolds through the vortex. Robman325 says to decorate your worship site. Clarification on teaching your creature to use teleports from Absolute. Notes on what the villagers will build by themselves, even without a craftsman disciple, from Fred Russell. Merkuri says that you need enough 1-scaffold houses before building more 2-scaffold houses. Notes on herds from Phizuol and PieAreSquared. Clarification on the desire to expand from Ollie of Lionhead. Formula for maximum prayer power from Sofus Bach.
Thanks to Joel Harrison for notes on lazy villagers, villagers building for themselves and artefacts. Thanks to Sean Childs for advice on strength through playfulness. A note on fireflies from Topegole. A note on music. More advice on artefacts and forest creation from Julian Midgeley, and also the question of what sort of multi-step actions a creature can learn. Some advice on body fat from Babylondrifter, Anrkey and Arnulf Guenther Jr. Some fun things to do with the dead. Some tips on teleports from Ollie.
Added some combat tips from Chris Deschamps. Thanks to Sean Childs for corrections about teaching with one-shots and scaffolds. From Mystic1999 come tips on watering, herds and pyromania. A small note about grabbing fireballs. Matt K provided suggestions on how to cure a too-kind creature. SoulMuncha talked about positive reinforcement. I created this "updates" page (which you're currently reading) at Cyrik's suggestion. Who knows... I might even get regular visitors!
Added a lot of tips on psychology of punishment and reward. Thanks especially to Samuel Kite. And lots of other changes here and there.
I've created these two play guides to help people get more fun out of Black&White. When the game first came out lots of people complained that it had too much micro-management, and that their creature was impossible to train, and that the game hadn't been play-tested enough. I know from my time beta-testing at Lionhead that nothing can be further from the truth: the game has been play-tested into the ground. If people weren't finding the game fun, then that must be because they didn't "get" how it works. Hopefully these guides will help change that. I'm actually a fraud — I'm still on Easter vacation with my family, away from my gaming computer, and haven't even bought the game yet. All the advice on these pages comes from posts made by other people to the discussion groups, and emails people have sent me, and from my own experience beta-testing and speaking with the people at Lionhead. All errors in the pages are my own fault. If you have any comments, advice, suggestions or complaints, please email me.