Thief II complete walkthrough — General Information

Version 1.1 ©Alex Fung, April 2003.
Up-to-date version available at my Games page and at The Spoiler Centre.

The Spoiler Centre has exclusive rights for this guide: do not copy or replicate this guide to any other site.

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General

Version History

1.1Jun 2002
  • Additional information on bots and frog beasts.
1.0Jun 2002
  • Release as a seperated document from the main document.
  • Notes added on user interface.
0.2Apr 2002
  • Revised release, with all AIs, still without any missions.
0.1Oct 2001
  • Initial release, without any missions.

About the Guide

About this page

Since June 2002, this “general” part of the guide become a separate web page. It has its own version number, starting with 1.0, like all the mission pages.

Author

The walkthrough of most missions are co-authored by Michele L. Worley and Alex Fung. Michele wrote the content and I (Alex) marked it up. Michele likes to get all the loots with minimal violence, minimal evidence. This way to play the game is usually much more difficult than my brute force knock-them-all. However, I’ll frequently point out ways to get rid of AIs so that you can have a good look at the place.

Besides Michele, Dafydd ab Hugh, also assisted in the preparation and checking of many missions. He play-tested the walkthrough and added information on how to knockout people (unlike Michele, he loves to use the Blackjack) and for excursions. Dafydd ab Hugh is a science-fiction writer.

You dont know Dafydd ab Hugh? Have a look at two of his biographies at Dragon*Con and Fantasic Fiction. Look at some of the books he wrote.

Still later, Odyseeos prepared quite some material for me. We explored many interesting ideas, experimented with ways to handle various AIs, and pieced together the subplots and stories behind the mission.

User Interface

The user interface is undergoing total rewrite. It is anticipated to have big changes. Please read this document from time to time to find out.

Offline reading

This guide is written in HTML 4.0 with dHTML, dHTML behavior, XML/XSLT, CSS, and javascript, with JPG and GIF pictures. The minimum requirement is IE5.0, although some features are only available in IE5.5. I have not yet worked out how to read the document offline.

Note that you cannot copy the guide to other sites. The Spoiler Centre has exclusive rights of this guide. This guide can only be hosted on my personal web site and The Spoiler Centre. Usually, I first update my site, and when things are stable (lots of fixes are found after pages are posted), they are updated to The Spoilder Centre.

Browser Compatibility

The guide is written to make use of the advanced features of IE5+ browsers. IE5.5 or above renders faster, and shows better Tooltips. Follow this link to see what exactly are used.

XML is a core part of the Thief II walkthrough. The performance is much faster if you install the latest XML parsers (the one that came with IE6 is rather old by now). You may also test the presence of your XML parser here.

If you are still using an old version, get IE now!

Difficulty Levels

This is an all level walkthrough.

Like Thief, Thief II has three difficult levels: Normal, Hard, and Expert. At harder levels, you have a longer list of mission objectives, and higher loot values to achieve. You usually cannot kill unarmed human in Hard Difficulty, or any human in Expert Difficulty.

At lower difficulty, you have in general more powerup items to pick up. Note also that the location of some loots are different at different difficulty levels. Finally, the number of pockets to pick may vary with difficulty level as well.

Besides pointing out where players at different Difficulty Levels will see different things, at times you need to take different paths according to the Difficulty Level at which you are playing. Choose the level at the beginning of the walkthrough (if such a selection box is present) and the walkthrough will be adjusted accordingly.

Game Versions

This is basically a walkthrough for version 1.18 (the patched game). When appropriate, the walkthrough will dynamically reflect the differences when playing in the unpatched game (version 1.07). Just choose the game version at the top of the walkthrough.

Excursions

I am nosier than other writers, so I may lead you to places that has no purpose in the game (that is, nothing to collect or achieve) just for sight seeing. These routes are marked as excursions in the walkthrough and you can easily skip over them in case you do not want to go there.

Thief Dark Project and Thief Gold

Being a Thief II (T2) player, I suppose you have probably completed Thief Dark Project (TDP) and/or Thief Gold (TG). If something is already learnt or known in TDP/TG, I won’t cover them at length again.

Mission Numbering

After the confusion on TDP mission numbering, I decided to avoid any explicit mentioning of mission numbers in the T2 walkthrough. All missions are referred to by name. However, if you really look at the name of the HTML file, you would notice that I am actually using the internal mission numbers for name of the pages. T2 uses even more esoteric numbering than TG. Looking at them possibly reveals some development history.

Starting with mission 1, soon I find that mission 3 doesn’t exist. Soon after the little jump from 2 [Shipping… and Receiving] to 4 [Framed], is another jump from 7 [First City Bank and Trust] to 9 [Blackmail] skipping mission 8 (incidentally T1 also skipped over mission 8). All the more strange is that, after mission 9 [Blackmail] it goes back to mission 8 [Trace the Courier]. So it seems that LGS initially skipped over 8 as before (a bad number?), but later decided to split up mission 9 [Blackmail] into two missions, and was forced to use the number 8. Up to this point, the missions go: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 8.

Mission 8 [Trace the Courier] is followed by 10 and 11, but then start jumping again: 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 12, 13, 16 (end). So it seems LGS decided to swap 12/13 with 14/15 at a late stage. When you find the easter egg the walkthrough of the last mission, the quote file included some conversation between the developers about this anomaly. So much about numbers.

Game Play and Tips

AI Types

Animals

Human. Starting from the first mission, you see them frequently. Unlike T1, they are now alert to picking and opening of doors, although it seems they seldom notice that doors remained mysteriously opened.

The standard weapon against them is, of course, the Blackjack. However, a few mission explicitly forbid Garrett from using the Blackjack.

There are several new subtypes of Human:
  • Mechanists. Some are new recruits, and some are former Hammerites.
  • Pagans. This includes men, women, and children.

Several types of guards are now immune to the Blackjack. If you knock them, you hear a loud “dong” sound, and he is unharmed but alerted. All of them are visibly different from the knockable guards, but sometimes you have to look hard to tell the difference. While you cannot knock down these guys, you can sort of disable them. The method is not without danger, though. When they are alert (or else your arrow would kill them), shoot at them two Broadhead Arrows. Then go Blackjack him. This should weaken him substantially, and he usually runs away from you like a frightened Burrick.

Some of the guards and Mechanists are even immune to Gas Arrows and Gas Mines.

Bow Guards are named Bowman and Female Archer in LGS. I prefer Bow Guards to align with the Sword Guards.

T2 introduced a new idea with Bow Guards: you can pick the Broadhead Arrows from the quiver behind some (but not all) Bow Guards. Incidentally, every pickable Bow Guard has exactly 3 Broadhead Arrows for you; no more, no less. You can use the picked Broadhead Arrows as regular arrows; but the Bow Guard retains their ability to shoot at you.

Undeads

There are much less undeads in T2 than in T1. If you are careful, you would note that you can’t assign any key to Holy Water Vial — because there isn’t any. The mission has only a few Zombies, and so you have no need for Holy Water. Zombies now comes in two new flavors: Female Zombies and Fresh Zombies. Both or more good looking than the old one. You can meet the first Zombie in an easter egg in , but the first official encounter is much later, in .

The strange thing about Hammer Haunts, first appearing in , is that they now really carry hammers (in T1, they carry swords). According to Thief Deadly Shadows, Hammer Haunts are dead Hammerites whose tomb has been desecrated. They are now easier to kill than in TDP: all you need to do is to give them a backstab of your Sword. Or you can use two Flash Bombs or a Land Mine. Do not use the Blackjack on them: it won’t work. Incidentally, you have lost your Constantine’s Sword, and now your Sword shines in dark like your original one.

There are several types of AIs in T2 that looks like the Apparitions of TDP

  • First appearing in , Head Librarian Giles is the only true Apparition. Other than being translucent, he is dressed like common human beings. He is hostile to you.
  • First appearing in  are the Phantoms. Many Phantoms are popularly referred to as Ghosts. Like the Ghosts in System Shock 2, they frequently tell the story of their life time. All Phantoms are incorporeal: you can walk right through them. They will not harm you, and many do not even notice your presence. They come in all sort of looks, including that of Hammer Haunts and opaque human beings.
  • Finally we go back to Hammer Haunts. Besides the two regular Hammer Haunts in , there are also two translucent Hammer Haunts. The first one appears in . Since he has the skull face of a Hammer Haunt, you know better than to befriend him. Captain William Markham in  is more troublesome. You will think he is a Ghost, until he killed you.

Beasts

Ape Beasts

First appearance: . The Ape Beasts of T1 simply hit you with their bare hands. Now in T2, they evolved a bit. Some Ape Beasts carry blowpipes, so they have a ranged attack.

Eyeball Plants

First appearance: . The Pagan equivalent of the Mechanists’ Watchers. Each plant is about a meter tall, and topped with a giant human eye. They are always blue-eyed, but do not appear to suffer from night blindness, unfortunately.

Will o' the wisps

First appearance: . Strictly speaking, these are not AIs, but magical lights. A Will o' the wisp is a fist-sized ball of light that flies along about 2 meters from the ground, illuminating the immediate area. They cannot be deactivated or deflected.

Tree Beasts

First appearance: . Giant tree-shaped monsters (about 3 meters tall). A treebeast can be killed with a fire arrow, but the noise will attract every other treebeast in the area. While dormant, they are difficult to distinguish from ordinary small trees, which can be very disturbing if you find out that you’ve just walked past or through a crowd of them without noticing.

If they’re alert, they begin moving with a sound like the popping and creaking of a falling tree’s branches. When searching, they make grunting noises like hogs. Walking, the weight of a treebeast gives its footsteps the sound of a dinosaur’s (as in the film Jurassic Park).

I have never hung around an awakened treebeast long enough to find out how it killed me. Waking one up is an excellent reason to relocate.

Robots

All Robots are made from metal and are heavily armored. In general, they can be destroyed with Fire Arrow or Land Mine.

Besides the general description below, there will be more information about combats with them in the final mission, .

Watchers

First appearance: . Watchers are not unlike Security Cameras. It is a metal head mounted on the wall or ceiling. The head wears a blue monocole, and has a monitor light on the back showing its alert status. If a Watcher noticed you, the monitor light turns yellow and it stops rotating (ie it keeps facing you). If the monitor light turns red, the Watcher triggers alarm to alert guards nearby (if there is nobody in the vicinity, Watchers are pretty harmless). Like all other AIs, Watchers calm down after arousal after a little time.

Like the security cameras in System Shock 2, Watchers are noisy. You can hardly ever miss their presence. On the other hand, they are very hard to destroy. You need to use Fire Arrows to blast them, making a loud noise yourself.

Like most robots, Watchers are completely deaf. They do not see unconscious (or dead) bodies, nor projectiles.

Check out the angle they are sweeping — most of them cover somewhat less than a 180° arc. Its blind spots are directly beneath it, and behind it. However, once a Watcher have seen you, it may be able to turn full 360° to track you.

Some Watchers can be switched off. The switch can be next to it, or far away (usually connected by visible cables).

Sentries

First appearance: . A Sentry looks like a large bronze head. A face mask flips open to reveal a ranged weapon. Characters in the game refer to them as “Metal Faces”.

They fall into three types: Cannon Sentry, Bolt Sentry and Sawblade Sentry. Cannon Sentries shoot cannonballs, Bolt Sentries shoot bolts and Sawblade Sentries shoot Sawblades (not unlike the ninja weapons). Most of the time, you meet Cannon Sentries only. Anyway, it is not easy to tell who is who until they start shooting at you, and it doesn’t matter a lot which particular weapon ended your life.

Sentries are also called Turrets (LGS is never consistent with names). Perhaps the bronze head is a Sentry, while the weapon inside is a Turret

Sentries consume much more power when their sensors are turned on. So, they are usually teamed up with one or more Watchers, and are configured so that their own sense of sight is switched off. When a Watcher saw you, the connected Sentries will flip open their face masks. If the face mask is open, a Sentry can see you and target you on its own.

Sentries are often floor- or ground- mounted, but some are placed behind concealed panels in walls. They can be turned off, but otherwise cannot be disabled. They can be destroyed by Fire Arrows or Land Mines. Haunts will try to attack a Sentry if they have a chance, but the Haunt’s hammer cannot damage the Sentry’s armor.

Worker Bots

First appearance: . Worker Bots are small, unarmed robots (about a meter high). They are predominantly gold-coloured, and have roughly the same shape as Combat Bots, except that both arms end in grippers. They can hear and speak, but they normally do not see anything. Look at their big eye. Normally it is dull green, and vision is off. If you arouse a Worker Bot (via noise or contact), its eye turns bright green and it can start watching. Nost of the time they do nothing to your presense (or just start talking); but at times they in turn arouse the Combat Bots. Basically Worker Bots behave like the unarmed servants.

Worker Bots can see and hear, as well as speak. The body contains a wax-cylinder device to play back pre-recorded words. Since the cylinder must advance and skip randomly through the recordings to compose relevant sentences, the quality of a robot’s “conversation” is choppy.

As with all Mechanist robots that can speak, the voice of a Worker Bot is actually a recording of Karras’ voice. Karras actually sat down and dictated every word of that nonsense…

From the mission, you will learn that Worker Bot can be deactivated by a Water Arrow shot into the steam boiler at the rear of the robot. Since they twist their waist when they walk, it is not easy to aim at the boiler.

After you deactivated a Worker Bot, it will stand there. Rather inconvenient, for everybody passing by will see him. You can smash it to pieces with about 8 blows of your Sword or Blackjack. Smashing it is noisy, but nobody else seems to hear it. When it falls apart, its remains drop onto the floor, and this sound however will alert the other guards and bots.

Most of the debris will disappear after a short while. I don’t have the patience to test, but it seems that if you stand still watching the debris, it will not go away; but if you walk away, they disappear very soon. A big round part remains. You can pick up, and it is called the corpse. Like human bodies, you should carry it out of the way and hide it properly.

Combat Bots

First appearance: (not counting the one in , which is not yet activated). Combat Bots are large, armed robots (about 2 meters in height). They are predominantly steel-coloured, and have roughly the same shape as worker bots, except that the right arm of a Combat Bot is actually a cannon. They take perfect aims. Like the Archers, the cannon ball leaves the Turret and then flies straight towards you. You either run away before he fires, and evades afterwards — evasion before firing is useless.

Like Worker Bots, you will learn from the mission that Combat Bot can be deactivated by 2 Water Arrows shot into the steam boiler at the rear of the robot. At the first Water Arrow, it stops walking; the second finishes it off. If however you pause too long after the first hit, it will wake up and move away unharmed.

Like Worker Bots, you can smash a deactivated Combat Bot and hide the corpse.

Spider Bots

First appearance: . These ugly 4-legged Spiders are small (about 1/3 meter tall) but fast robots, shaped like rusty spiders with bronze human heads. They seem to be in the experimental stages, since they are not found outside Mechanist research centers (K-D and Soulforge only).

Spider Bots, when alerted, seems to be able to find Garrett in the dark. Otherwise, they are short-sighted: you can usually safely walk in front of a Spider Bot if it is more than 4 meters away.

Spider Bots attack by shooting Sawblades at you. Unlike the Combat Bots, their aiming is lousy. Usually, in the dark, they will bump up against you, back off, take aim, and fire. You are in danger only if you stand still — as soon as you run, they nearly always miss. Also, they prefer to shoot from a distance. If they bump into you, they always step back before shooting, giving you time to run away.

Spider Bots have a steam boiler at the rear which can be deactivated with two shots. It has a dull color, instead of the bright red for Worker Bots and Combat Bots.

Mechanical Cherub

First appearance: . They are child-sized invincible robots, apparently in experimental stage because they are not found outside Mechanist research centers (Angel Watch and Soulforge only). He is widely known as Golden Boy. Look closely and you can see the tiny wings on his back.

Every known weapon has been tried on these creatures, with no effect at all. Fortunately, they are unarmed and do not alert other AIs.

Equipment

A few new items.

The Scouting Orb allows you to see round corners, but the catch is you have to throw the Orb at the right place. Once engaged, you can turn around 360° to see what the Orb can see. It is fun to see Garette himself from the Orb. In one of the Easter Eggs, the developers also considered using it to look at characters from a good angle. In our world, a similar device is available: the Remington Eye Ball R1.

Both Scouting Orbs and Flash Bombs are grey balls, so I often have difficulty distinguishing between them. A Scouting Orb has a thin yellow/black band around the middle, with a green translucent lens on one of the sides. A Flash Bomb has a large oval shape on both sides. The oval shape is dark grey, with a black circulr border. Near the oval is a red dot, which you can hardly miss.

You have two new potions. Instead of coming in small vials, the container looks like a baloon. Invisibility Potion (green) is the ultimate gift for thieves, turning yourself inivsible for a short time. Your visibility gem will turn completely dark, confirming you of the status. The problem is, the duration is really short (less than 10 seconds). After the time, you hear a strange noise and become visible again.

Slow-fall Potion (blue) is a new toy, for Garrett is climbing roof tops too often. After you drink it, then for a few seconds you fall slowly. If you need to drop from great heights (eg third floor), you should drink the potion in mid air, not before the jump. Also, notice that Slow-fall Potion slows down every of your motion. You fall slower, jump higher, but also run slower.

Flash Mine combines the flashing result of Flash Bombs and the triggering mode of Land Mines. While you still have the good old Gas Mine and Land Mine, you would be surprised to find that the Land Mine cannot be assigned to any keyboard keys (you can do the assignement, but it will not work).

Vine Arrows are just a new kind of Rope Arrows. The behavior is the same.

Broadhead Arrows are just like before, but now you have a new source for them. Some archers carry Broadhead Arrows in the quivers on their back, and you can pick the arrows from them. You get three Broadhead Arrows from their quiver, and these are counted as picks.

Frogbeast Egg are cute. You can toss the egg to the floor, and a Frogbeast will hatch. It will run into the nearest life form, or leap around until it finds one. Do not toss a Frogbeast Egg if you are the only target!

Incidentally, Frogbeasts can bring down human and worker bots. For human, it is counted as a knockout, not a kill. Therefore, you can use it even when the mission objective does not allow murders. Worker bots killed by Frogbeasts are not counted in the end-mission statistics at all.

Food! In T2, you sometimes gain health from eating normal foodstuff (apple, cheese, etc). However, the effect is random (1/4 chance), and does not always heal.

As for old items, the Land Mines are a bit annoying. The associated key stops functionning whenever you have Flash Mines in your inventory (the key will switch to Flash Mines instead of Land Mines). Association works for Flash Mines and Gas Mines, but not the regular Land Mines.

An interesting old item is your Compass. You can rely it to point somewhat to the North, but like real compasses, it does not point exactly to the North! Odyseeos discovered that when you are facing due North, the compass needle will be pointing about 12 degrees East of North — in other words, the needle is twisted clockwise by about 12 degrees. In technical terms, the variation is 12 degrees East, meaning the the Magnetic North (direction to which compass needles point) is 12 degrees to the East of the True North (direction to whcih longitudes are pointing). It is about the correct value for Eastern Europe, where the Thief saga takes place. Read more about Magnetic North versus True North at About.com and this Geocities site.

Similar to TDP/TG, very often you see only one item; but when you pick it up, your inventory receives multiple copies of them. In the guide, such items will be described using terms like the followings:

  • A bundle of 3 Broadhead Arrows
  • A crystal of 2 Water Arrows
  • A conglomerate of 10 Flares

Option Setting

Since T2 has a few new inventory items, some of the key bindings are changed. Reviewed it before starting the game.

The “creep” key will let you move very slowly (slower than walk). The zoom in/out keys let you use the zoom lens of the mechanical eye, but it is not available if your active weapon is an arrow.

In T2, there is a new night sky. If you choose the new sky (from video options, “Sky Detail: High”), you can see a high resoluation, realistic sky. Well depending on your video card. My Geforce shows the moon and cloud, but not the stars. I heard that TNT shows the moon and the stars, but not the cloud. Anyway, it is better than the ”old sky“, which looks like a kindergarten drawing.

T2 now supports up to 1280x1024, but the maximum texture depth is still 16 bits (good enough for the dark environments) You should also turn on fogging and weather if that doesn’t slow down your game.

Incidentally, the stars are actual star patterns of the night sky. But they never moves, so you see the same stars in every nigh mission. The moon is an accurate picture of the moon, but if you check your compass, you find out that it is oriented incorrectly. Anyway, they are just pictures in the sky. There is also a moving cloud cover under the starry sky. Whether you see all of them (moon, star and cloud) depends on your graphics card. My Geforce 2 shows moon and cloud without the stars. I heard that TNT shows moon and star without the clouds.

An option I have been looking forward to when I was playing Thief Gold: “attach ladders”. When set to “jump”, the game behaves as in Thief Gold. You need to jump to grab on to a ladder. When set to “touch”, you hold on the ladder as soon as you touch it. Just look up and you have started climbing (if you continue to press the forward key). The drawback is, you can easily got stick to ladders when moving near them. For some ladders, you need to jump to disengage from them, often making loud noises.

An important option is “auto equip”. Remember to turn it to “yes”. When it is active, the item you pick up will be activated. If it is an inventory item, it will appear on the bottom right hand side of the screen, like in T1. If you turned the option off, you would never know what you picked up (especially when you open a Foot Locker). Unfortunately, turning it on has its drawbacks. Suppose you are carrying your Blackjack following an archer. If you pick his arrows, then your weapon switches to Broadhead Arrows automatically. Then you need to quickly swap weapons and raise your arm a second time.

Mission Statistics

Before soon, you would find out that the game is more often than not wrong about the mission statistics. It is counting your achievements correctly, but the maximum values in many missions are wrong.

Since many missions behave differently under different Difficulty Levels, the values of the maximum loot count, pick count and secrets count are not computed until you start the mission. The game engine has a few incorrect believes about the mission files, and made some consistent errors in counting things. In some missions, I will try to explain the discrepany if I can guess what the systematic errors involved are. For many missions, it is completely beyond me. Therefore, dont be frustrated when you cannot reach the maximum displayed at the debriefing screen. Instead you should rely on the maximum values of the statistics shown by my walkthrough.

Game Guides

Reader Alastair Gebbie has an unhappy incident with Thief II game guides. He bought a book called “Thief II: Primas Official Strategy Guide” from Prima Games. It has the logo of Eidos and Looking Glass, and is called Official Guide. On the front cover the book says “loot locations revealed” leading him to believe it was a complete loot walkthrough. On the back cover it also says “all mission secretes revealed”.

To his utter disappointment, not all loots are listed, and he found secrets not mentioned in the guide. When I go to Prima Games online, I found that they say “Information on getting all the necessary loot”. I suppose “necessary” means the book only list enough loots for you to fulfil the mission objectives. And for the secrets, it says “Secrets for every mission”, no more mentioning of “all”. I haven’t seen the book myself, but from what we can see and learn, it obviously is not a guide comparable to the depth of my walkthrough. So beware when spending money on game guides.

Thief II Useful links

Developer: Looking Glass Studios, out of business.

Publisher: Eidos

Game review available at Adrenaline Vault

Publisher technical support links: Eidos Thief 2 support on may common hardware problems.

Before you play any game, look around to locate relevant patches. The v1.18 patch solves lots of problems. Do not play T2 without the patch.

While the v1.18 patch fixes lots of bugs, it introduced a new one. In the first mission (), two of the coins are no longer accessible after the patch. Therefore your loot ends up with less than maximum. To fix the problem, use this patch of mine.

My games pages available at My Home. Look under My Favorite Games.

Eidos has also released a new bundle called Thief Platinum Collection with TDP and T2 (not TG). If you want to buy Thief Gold, contact me directly.

Thief 3 was released in May 2004: Thief Deadly Shadows. It was developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos. Ion Storm closed down in February 2005.


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