One of the surest truths for this world is that we love to create, and we love to destroy. In Black & White 2, though you shed your humanity for the gift of divinity, you'll be doing a little of both. How much of each will define you as black (evil), or white (good). Probably, you'll end up in the center somewhere, mixing your destruction with a little TLC.

Of course, even gods need a bit of help sometimes, and IGN will, as always, be right here to assist you. With a full walkthrough of the game, along with basic advice for those who just want a couple tips, this guide is the only source you'll need.

Plus, this is written with the Black & White 1 veteran in mind. Any severe change from the first game will be highlighted with bold text, such as the declaration all multiplayer and computer-skirmish modes have been eliminated, thus leaving only the single-player campaign mode.

Inside this Black & White 2 strategy guide, you'll find:

• Creatures: Details of your physical extension, how to train them, and their advantages and disadvantages
• Miracles: Ten godly powers are at your disposal, and this section will tell you how to use them
• Construction: A list of the various buildings in the game, what they do, and how you use them; plus this section lists everything else you can buy with Tribute
• Black & White 2 Walkthrough: A step-by-step and world-by-world guide

Get the Black & White 2 Online Strategy Guide

Find the game folder and go to \Data\Balance. Open the file PlacementData.xml in Wordpad. Go to the third paragraph, which starts <object type="abode" name="greek_abode_c">:. Change the line <basevalue impressiveness="0.2" />: to <basevalue impressiveness="20" />:. Next, just load up on of your saved games and place several villas. With this, your town will be powerfully impressive and you will win the land you are in. This affect all of your saved games.

This can be a complicated but nifty little trick that not everyone will know. This will not work on pre-saved games. You need to start a new game (or mission select to reload the campaign) to get the changes you want. Plan ahead.

Go to the game directory and find the file GameBalanceArtefact.txt in ...\data\Balance\.... Back it up in case you mess it up during the edit. Open the file using Notepad.exe. You will see the values for everything on the tribute menu.

Look for a string similar to ARTEFACT_EPIC_WONDER_NUMBER_VOLCANO 100000 and disregard the other numbers. Change the value directly to the right of any artefact and you will change its tribute cost in the game. Safe range of values are 1000 (or there abouts), but be sure that the new sum value is reflected in the total cost at the end of the file. Save it and you can start buying stuff you only dreamt about before.

Values less than 1000 may cause your game to crash.

Edits the critical BWE files. Back them up or fail in life. That is all.

Go into ...\Program Files\Lionhead Studios\Black & White 2\Data\landscape\BW2\ and Open one of the Land[numer].BWE files with notepad. Scroll down until you see something like:

CREATE_ORE_LODE("912.90,514.99", "Ore Lode Normal", 2914, 1000, 0.000000)

Change normal to infinite, and repeat in every Land file. Changes won't take effect until you move to the next land, however. You can also do this and start a new game.

Purchase the Fireball miracle from the tribute menu, then have your Worshipers start getting you some mana points.

When you have enough mana to cast the fireball miracle, select it and find a very large tree. Cast the miracle so that the tree sets on fire.

Now pick up the tree and move over to a opposing town and hold the burning tree over a building. You should see that it starts to get damaged and that villagers have to start rebuilding it again.

This is very useful for getting rid of an opponent's Epic Miracles so that they cannot cast them. It can also cause similar chaos when used to remove Armouries, creature pens and other buildings.

Submitted by Ben Brown (bendragonbrown47)

Edits a critical game file and not tested or verified. Perform software surgery at your own risk.

To make your creature invincible, go to the directory:

\...\lionhead studios\Black and White 2\data\balance\

Click on the file creture_physio.* and open it in a text editor, like Notepad. Search for the line value SecondsPerYear = 3600.000000.

You can change it to SecondsPerYear = 60.000000 so every minute your creature will grow a year (you can adjust the value further if you like). You can also scroll down to the bottom and change the lines

PainFromForce = 0.000200
DamageFromForce = 0.000100
PainFromBeingOnFire = 0.300000
DamageFromBeingOnFire = 0.001000
PainFromEachStuckObject = 0.001000
DamageFromEachStuckObject = 0.001000
PainFromStarvation = 0.000000
DamageFromStarvation = 0.000020

to have values of absolute zero (the above values are listed if you want to change things back). Once you do that, your creature will be invulnerable, allowing you to wreak havoc with impunity.

Submitted by joshyboy99999 (ahuge6)

When the Lion's Head Studio logo apepars, you can grab the jar with your mouse and shake it for beads.