I've only done one complete playthrough (did a handful of partials that I had to restart on, I skipped KBTL so I had a lot to learn) and on that one I reloaded constantly and my time was atrocious. I didn't bother checking at the end, but I did so much backtracking and traveling that I'm sure it must have been several months.
My biggest annoyances were that I didn't the kind of troops I wanted to experiment with and I never got Geyser or Turn Back Time (though when I scanned my finished game it turned out Geyser was at Debir after the 6th stone, but I didn't realize it worked that way).
I absolutely cannot imagine doing another playthrough of this game without being certain I will get a chance to complete at least one of the new giftbag sets and getting Turn Back Time and Geyser, hence I will always scan from now on.
I also have zero qualms with kiting, though I find the process annoying so I tend to avoid it, and I don't understand people's obsession with time. I play a handful of 'competitive' multiplayer games so when I sit down to play a single player one and -and RPG at that- I don't push myself to match or beat anyone else's scores.
For me the fun of the game is the item collection and army building, so generally any choices I make are going to be focused on facilitating those.
|