SPQR: The Empire’s Darkest Hour Walkthrough
NOVEMBER
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Just Hints
Restarting the Navitor: See Cornelius’s sketch and go from Spring to
Winter.
The puzzle: Rebuild, and add your own touch.
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Spoilers
1. Restart the Navitor.
On Kal. Nov., it becomes Winter. This one is complex; there’s a sketch
of part of it in one of Cornelius’s scrolls. Again, at the double doors,
get the note with the number code (41); go to the Hiems table at the left
of the Navitor, enter XLI, get the piece, attach it next to the similar
piece on the right of the machine, run the machine, and pull the knob.
Then go through the Ver door to find the Hiems door at the left and the
final machine. Each of the three levers has three positions; the big one
on the left (marked A in Cornelius’s drawing) goes from left to right,
I II III; the next (B and C) go from down to up, I II III. Put A at II,
B at III, and C at II. Then press the button (D) and WORK QUICKLY: B at
II, C at III, B at I, A at I. If the machine dies down before you complete
the second sequence, just start over. When it’s running, go back to the
Navitor.
2. Gordian’s Temple/Arch (a.d. XVI Kal. Dec.)
You’ll see references in the scrolls and Acta to the building and destruction
of Gordian’s temple. Go to the building site (south of Saturn, near where
you entered the Tiber area). You’ll see a toppled arch and a crane with
a lever. Rebuild the archway by clicking on a piece to get the crane to
pick it up, rotating the piece with the lever, and clicking on where you
want it to go. Start with a rectangle at the bottom left space, a square
at the bottom right, a rectangle to the left, a square to the left, a rectangle
to the left, a rectangle with a curve on its right side to the left, and
a rectangle with a curve on its left side to the right. Then get the big
wooden arch piece, rotate so that the straight side is on the bottom, and
put the piece on the top. Then add the small arch piece, rotate it, and
place on the right side; click on your arch piece and put it on top. Then
add the small curved pieces and, finally, the keystone. When it transforms
into a completed archway, click on the top of it to go through into the
building site. Among the rubble, find the axe, a wooden soldier, and a
scroll. You’ll notice when you look up that a wall has opened just beyond
this area; this is the Elements Door, but don’t try to solve that one until
you’ve completed December‘s puzzle and are
ready to proceed to the endgame.
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DECEMBER
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Just Hints
On top of old Severus, all covered with clues . . .
The glittering monument has got your number.
You can run rings around Saturn.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Be forceful with the statue — if you choose.
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Spoilers
Temple of Saturn (a.d. IV Id. Dec.)
You’re in the home stretch now. You’ll see references in the scrolls
and Acta to the robbery of gold from the Aerarium. But you won’t be using
the same entrance as you did for the weights puzzle in May.
Go underneath the stairs of the Temple of Saturn and click on the vault
door there. The combination is CLXV. (Clue: go to the top of the Arch of
Severus using the stairs at the end of the Lacus Curtius tunnels, only
when you get out, turn around again and you’ll see a staircase going up.
At the top, you’ll see a gold circle and batons, as well as graffiti saying
"Cumae." Cumae was conquered in the year CLXV, as you’ll see
from the inscription on the Golden Milestone near the Aerarium vault door.)
Go to the planetary map and get the ring of Saturn. Go out and up Saturn’s
front stairs. Click on the ring; it reappears on the doors, which open
when you click on them. To the left is an anagram/palindrome puzzle. Solve
it by picking up each letter and running it over the board until it magically
appears in several places. Or, enter, from top to bottom (or left to right),
ROTAS, OPERA, TENET, AREPO, SATOR. Go to the statue; what you do now will
determine the ending of the game:
1. Ignore the statue and proceed to ENDGAME.
(I prefer the ending that results from this one.)
2. Click on the panel beneath the statue to open it slightly, then click
on your axe to get it out and click on the axe again to break the panel
open. Get the wooden soldier, bone, and scroll. Proceed to ENDGAME.
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ENDGAME
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Just Hints
Brave the elements.
Not all woods are created equal. (See Gordian’s notebook.)
Go out with a bang, but don’t give up!
Who left the most toys?
If I were Calamitus, I’d enjoy Winter, where:
I could be rather cutting,
OR
the shinbone’s connected to the . . .
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Spoilers
Must be completed before Kal. Jan.!
1. Identify the Suspect.
To help identify your suspect, the final scrolls of all five characters
will open simultaneously at some point during Saturnalia (after Id. Dec.).
Each describes what he/she would do if he/she were the Calamitus and how
to stop him/her. Check to make sure you have all the items they mention:
the axe (Lucius — but if you used the axe in Saturn, make sure you at
least have the bone), the Regia tunnel key (Verania), the "water key"
(Xanthus), the vial (Sibyl), and the counterweight (Gordian). Then look
at the bottom shelf of your storage area; here are all the soldiers and
horses etc. that you haven’t had any apparent use for. But each different
item is a symbol for each character, and Cornelius said in one of his scrolls
that the person associated with the greatest number of crimes must be the
Calamitus. The soldiers stand for Lucius (on his desk in the Wineshop),
the acorns for Verania (on her desk in the House of the Vestal Virgins),
the horses for Xanthus (on his table in the Lacus Curtius lair), the skull
for Sibyl (in the back room of her taberna), and the stylus for Gordian
(on his desk in the Tabularium). If you used the axe in Saturn, you should
have 4 soldiers, 3 horses, 2 acorns, 1 skull, and 1 stylus. Lucius,
then, is the Calamitus. If you didn’t use the axe, you’ll have 3 soldiers,
making Xanthus look like a likely suspect too, but Lucius is the
man. If you stay in the Forum long enough before going on to the next step,
Sibyl exonerates herself in a final scroll, in which she says that Cornelius
speaks through her "from beyond."
2. The Elements Door.
Go back to Gordian’s destroyed temple site (through the rebuilt arch)
and straight ahead to a courtyard. To the right is Cornelius’s Elements
Door. You’ll need to click twice on each of two of the panels and once
on each of the two remaining panels — it doesn’t matter which ones. For
example, click twice on the first panel (upper left), once on the second
(upper right), twice on the third (lower left), and once on the fourth
(lower right). (Clue in Gordian’s "Measures" notebook on the
properties of wood — he mentions what the door is made of, and in the
chart of woods, the number of times "max" appears is the number
of times you click. There’s also a clue in the final scroll in Saturn,
assuming you used the axe and got it.) Turn the door handle and enter.
The Navitor promptly shuts down and explodes, scattering the five "stop
the Calamitus" items on the floor, along with the first initial of
each character’s name.
3. Stop the Calamitus.
Clicking on the initials will re-play the "If I Were Calamitus…"
messages. Click on your suspect’s item to pick it up.
A. Lucius. If you’re going with Lucius (as you should, but the
other endings are fun to see), click on the axe or bone. You already know
from his "If I Were Calamitus" message that he plans to blow
up Cornelius’s manure boat in the sewer (the one you cranked up at the
game start, and which powers the Navitor),
and that you can stop him by cutting the boat free with the axe. Go through
the wrecked Ver door and to the left through the old Hiems door, where
the conveyor belt is, and click on the belt. You’ll be transported to the
sewer — the same sewer you entered the game from. If you chose to keep
the axe, get over to the rope holding up the boat and click on it. The
axe cuts the rope, sending the boat out of the sewer and into the Tiber,
where it blows up. This ending I like best; you’ll see the ancient Forum
morph into the way it looks today, in modern Rome. If you went for the
bone, go over to the skeleton and click on the missing thigh. The wall
crashes forward, knocking the boat out of the sewer. This transforms Rome
into an ancient technological Utopia — the ending Cornelius would have
liked, I think.
B. Xanthus. He’s not the right man, but his ending is fun. Click
on the water key and go out through the courtyard. You’ll be transported
all the way up the Via Nova stairs and through those mysterious wooden
doors you couldn’t do anything with. This is the Valve House. Click on
the machine and the water key appears. Xanthus says that he can be stopped
by rotating the water key "in the opposite direction" until it
runs off the teeth. Remember the scroll in the Baths. If you turn the key
counterclockwise, it causes a flood, and Byzantium takes over. If you turn
it clockwise, Rome burns, the Goths take over, and Xanthus is made king.
C. Gordian. Click on the counterweight and try to go out the
courtyard door; you won’t even make it, for Rome burns, the Goths take
over, and Xanthus is made king.
D. Verania or Sibyl. Click on their respective items; as with
Gordian, you won’t make it out the door. Rome burns and Byzantium takes
over.
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THINGS NOT TO BOTHER WITH
(Semi-Spoilers)
Places you can see but can’t get into: The Senate House, the Temple
of Concord, the Tullian Jail, the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Cloaca
Maxima (no, not even through that grate in the Lacus Curtius tunnel!),
the alcoves along the Via Nova, the Tiber River, the Temple of Hercules
(at the Tiber); the pool in the House of the Vestal Virgins, the Temple
of Jupiter.
Places you’ve heard about but can’t get into: The Valve House (except
during the Xanthus ending), the cistern under
the Regia, the Imperial Palace, the reservoir on the Palatine Hill, the
mundus, the Field of Wickedness (where Verania was buried alive), the Colosseum.
Places you can get into but that hold nothing of importance (except
possibly generating notebook entries): The Basilica Julia, the Basilica
Aemilia, the Rostra, the top of the Arch of Severus (unless you really
need that clue to the Aerarium door in December).
Things that do nothing: The gates, stone blocks, and grate in the Lacus
Curtius; the mysterious wooden doors on the stairs of the Via Nova — they
only open for the Xanthus ending.
Things you can play with but that do nothing important: Most of the
items on the characters’ desks make some kind of appropriate noise when
you click on them; the chains across the doorways in the Lacus Curtius
tunnel rattle, and some of the closed gates make a clanging sound; the
livestock in the Cattle Market make barnyard sounds; wall pictures not
mentioned above often display some kind of fun animation.