Time tips

[McSwan]

Hi,

What are some good time saving tips?

I always pause the game after a battle with space bar before choosing my next target. This means I can have a fair chunk of rage left over for the next fight, and it's fast.

Getting sprouts and such can be good so you don't have to go back for reinforcements.

Are there any good tools that you can see your time, all the time. I think I'm doing something that makes me go slower than I should be.

Does, for example, going from greenwort to the swamps cost time? Likewise does entering dungeons and such cost time?

[Vilk]

About game time tool, in bottom left there's a mid disc showing day/night. When you put the mouse cursor over it it should show detailed game time, day/hours/mn.

Some game versions had not this information or had lost this, but for example 1.7 should work fine. So update your version or reinstall if you don't have this time detailed information.

Some game saving time tips:

• Always pause before saving or save when you are in a castle.
• Always pause the game, for example walk with successive pauses, pause before any battle and after any battle.
• Use Resurrect and Sacrifice to maintain and increase stacks.
• Travels with zeppelin/boat/train/submarine that you do by talking with a NPC should be minimized. At arrival it will always be 7AM. For example it is 7H05 AM day 5 when you use such travel, at arrival it will be 7AM day 6.
• Walking there and there cost time so try plan your walking, for example don't forget open all quest close by, don't rush to take a quest reward because you just finished it but take reward only when you plan will lead you there.
• When an animation is shown time continue to run but you can skip many animation with esc key. For example animations for boat travel or most escalators.
• Experiment a little with walking path, there are some some non obvious shortcuts.
• Wait cost as much time than walking ie a lot, so don't wait that an enemy move out so you dodge it easily, fight it, plan another general path, try dodge anyway.
• In beginning of the game there's not far a Knight tent. It is guarded by a very strong army but you could attract it elsewhere and access to this tent to buy Horseman or sometimes Knight. That tips is a little tedious to apply but this can be a huge time bonus for first area.
• Scout the game to adapt your plan path to real contents of current game. Scout with dodging or even cheat code, just reload and don't use useless dodging or cheat code when you really play the game for the time record.
• If you want attempt a time record the better is to experiment it with normal mode and then apply it in impossible mode.

Now good luck for best record, current best posted here is 7 days and 102 quests.

[McSwan]

Cheers,

Day 3 and I've only cleared verion forest and greenwort, although I grabbed the free stuff int he swamp and got the spirit of rage first up. Still that's too slow and I was very careful with time. I was aiming for 0 losses as well, so I might have to give up the 0 losses.

[Vilk]

It's clearly much more difficult to attempt at same time zero loss and a short game time.

But for not loosing time it's important to not not have too many loss.

[McSwan]

Do you think it has to played in a very linear fashion ? I was thinking of doing the plumes quest, and getting the chest of rage, then going hard on time.

"
Travels with zeppelin/boat/train/submarine that you do by talking with a NPC should be minimized. At arrival it will always be 7AM. For example it is 7H05 AM day 5 when you use such travel, at arrival it will be 7AM day 6.
"
So if you leave at 6H55min day 5 will you arrive at 7AM Day 5 ( or 6) ie trip take 5 min or more than 24H?
or do aim to
ideally leave at 11:59 day 4 and arrive at 7am day 5 where smallest trip time possible is 7 hours. (max 23 hours)

Hmm I might have to test it. It would mean regardless of your situation you must catch the boat at a precise time, as travelling represents the biggest time loss.

[Vilk]

For travels through a NPC dialog with zeppelin/boat/train/submarine:

• It is Day 5, 6H59 AM, you travel, then you arrive day 5 7H AM. Travel took 1mn.
• It is Day 5, 7H01 AM, you travel, then you arrive day 6 7H AM. Travel took 1 day minus 1 mn.
• Take care of the animation trick I quote, if you don't skip them some will use more than 5mn of game time.
• There's one and only one exception to this rule, it's the travel to go to Turtle island, for this case your travel will only take the game time to run the animation. But the travel back from Turtle island to Darion follow the standard 7AM trick.

About playing it linear, well there isn't only one way to do it. If you want make a 7 day game there's certainly many margins there and there and many alternate choices.

One of the more challenging area for the game time point of view is Darion. But you have choices and that depends of your game. To win the maximum time there's no secret you rely on finding fast enough Gift + Inquisitor or Resurrection. To win even more time you rely on finding sacrifice that allows increase your stacks without many walking. So if you find soon Inquisitor + Gift + Sacrifice you can save a significant game time, in this case you get more margin.

In my game I didn't find Sacrifice until Freedom Islands and had inquisitors and Gift in Swamp only. So I tempered this by many little tricks and one of those tricks was to not rush to the rage box to save many walk. But the price is huge because of the tactical plus that gives Sleem in the game beginning. One thing before getting Sleem is probably to be sure you'll really get profit of it. I think you need have at least rage of 20 otherwise in most first battles it will be useless if you are a mage. If you are a warrior rage fill up much faster and this can be tempered. Myself I set my limit to rage 30 before go to rage box in urge and this had the effect to not change my path at all for the rage box. But even for a mage the alternate option is a possibility to look at. For a warrior the point of view is clearly different.

The better is to try different options by yourself for the game you selected. If I remember well I played 3 times the same game before Freedom Islands until I find a fair way to manage Darion and game time.

[McSwan]

Hmm,
So I need a perfect schedule.

Given that travel time can be almost complete negated, you have to play around it.

Start
Day 1 12:00
Day 2 6:30am -> Goto Turtle -> kill him -> return before 7:00 am
Day 3 6:30am -> goto freedom Isles
Day 4 6:30am -> return from freedom isles
Day 5 6:30am -> goto elf land
Day 6 6:30am -> return from elf land
Day 7 6:30am -> head back to elf land after getting the key.
Day 7 kill haas.

Man that is tight, and it doesn't look possible to complete it in less than 7days.

Do you think it could be done with 0 losses?

Can you increase the numbers of royal thorns with sacrifice ?

And yeah the animations, especially in demonis would slow u down, something I'll need to remember.

I might try it with paladin as it has never been done in 7 days with paladin as far as I'm aware.

My plan might be to get chest of rage quest, maybe dragon tooth quest, goto swamps get royal thorns ( will need 760 leadership.. ouch!) and inquis, kill everything till I can. then go turtle, and follow schedule. Might need to replay it a couple of times so it's faster/possible.

If I can't hit the schedule then I'd need to replay it. A good way of knowing if I've done it fast enough.

[Vilk]

About Demonis animations those cannot be skip. The more simple is just try escape key and if you get the menu you cannot skip the animation.

About Thorn, Royal Thorn or any troop, you can restore them all with sacrifice but your spell power need to be high enough to restore that much life level. That includes the sacrifice spell level and the int level and any magic attack bonus from skill or items.

Yes that's the way to make it in 7 days. Yes it's not possible to do better... if you refuse using all resources of the game.

There's a trick to fast travel, which is totally standard but you have a price to pay. This way is using the retreat command in a normal fight. Then you are instantly transported to Darion King castle.

The price is you don't bring with you your army and have to build a new one. This trick is even compatible with zero loss because you can let in a castle your last troop and leave with no army. Then at next fight you will automatically lost and get back to Darion King Castle.

In fact even with troops I suspect that if you use the flee command or have all you troops not under your control and automatically lost the fight you lost your troops but that doesn't count in final board, I'm not sure of this last point.

That's with that trick I achieved all quests in 7 days and beat previous record and that's with that trick that I'm looking for a path in 6 days.

[McSwan]

Hmm nice trick with instant travel via death.

Start
Day 1 12:00
Day 2 6:30am -> Goto Turtle -> kill him -> return before 7:00 am -> (there's nothing to kill you on the island after u kill the turtle, so you can't return via dying)
Day 3 6:30am -> goto freedom Isles

Day 4 ?12:00am? -> return from freedom isles by dying, leave enough time to open elf lands
Day 4 6:45am -> goto elf land

Day 4 ?12:00am? -> return from elf land via death
Day 5 6:30am -> head back to elf land after getting the key.
Day 5 kill haas.

Might have to kill yourself a fair bit to get back to castle in time to catch the next too, ie when your in the dwarf lands.

very, very. hard but might be possible...

[Vilk]

Lol funny, do the game in 5 days. In fact it's perhaps possible but I doubt in order to achieve a higher score because to go that fast you'll need skip some quests and probably not finish level 30. Still a funny (and extreme) challenge.

For a 6 days path it's the idea but not the first shortcut. But definitely the second shortcut. Now I have finished from begin to end in 7 days I see well where you have too much time and where you don't and what you can delay or not.

Key points with the second shortcut is that:

• Demonis isn't that much harder than many fights of Undead lands.
• So you could reduce drastically Elven day by skipping many things and start lower level Demonis.
• Demonis can be done very fast despite the wait because of teleporters.
• Doing the Labyrinth plus Murock is very fast, I finished the game at 13H30 and took some time before starting the labyrinth. So perhaps it can be done for 12H00 AM and that let 12H before 24H.
• When you come back to Elven lands for the labyrinth you can achieve some stuff in Elven and Undead lands before to start the Labyrinth.

I'm not sure it's really doable and beat my last record because:

• I know demonis and stuff around can be done very fast but not how fast and if it's fast enough.
• I know you can skip stuff in Elven and Undead lands but how much to be able do Demonis in same day, I don't have yet the answer.
• The number of quests done and hero level count in final score. In 6 days I can only skip 1 quest or end level 29 to beat the score, more quests skip will involve a lower score (1723 for 6 days, level 30 and 101 quests vs 1727 for 7 days, level 30, 103 quests).

Now there's another option for the 6 days game, it's to use both shortcuts you mention to win time for Creiston + Hagar + Taron + Ardan's Peaks + Mehgard. Alas this option also involves a base of 102 quests so all other quests should be done and level 30 reach. That's still an excellent option for a 6 days game. But I admit I'm highly tempted to use the first shortcut to achieve the last Freedom Island quest that gives an interesting item, the Anga's Ruby. This quest requires you get back in Freedom Islands and that's not possible with the path you describe.

In fact I think I'll attempt an easy game and try do it in 6 days to get an idea. The problem is resources you get in a game can involve very different problems in another game with different resources. That point is also why I'm tempted to try the 6 days, because I quote in my game resources that match well this shortcut. In fact I used it to achieve 103 quests instead of 102.

Also the different difficulty could involve to not see some problem at harder difficulty.

EDIT: In 5 day, hero level 30, 3 quests can be skip and still beat current high score, the result is 1728 vs current 1727!! But that won't beat 6 days with 1 quest skip that gives 1732.