FinlandMy request for Shadow of the Beast series was recently approved.
https://www.speedrun.com/shadow_of_the_beast
I'd like to suggest adding the first two games to the series.
https://www.speedrun.com/Shadow_of_the_Beast https://www.speedrun.com/Shadow_of_the_Beast_II
I could also serve as a backup mod for at least the second game, because the only current mod is not active. Thanks!
I played this game a bit and got a lucky moonstone from the dragon. Never saw that happen before. I noticed Any% rules say this: "You must slay the Guardian and Obtain the Moonstone". Maybe worth creating separate Any% category for the "normal" route, collecting all keys and slaying the guardian? Whatever is fine with me.
Not sure if it's possible to change much about formatting. You could try asking here https://www.speedrun.com/The_Site/forum
Nice job so far! :)
Some suggestions: If you have information that is valid for all maps or repeated many times, it's better to mention it only once to keep the maps less cluttered and easier to read. When possible, write explanations for different things separately. For example, "player first. AI starts after some min". It's not necessary to mention this in every map. Just write the explanation of free vs forced castle placement at the beginning of the guide and mark player start position separately for those maps where that's valid.
Just an idea that could make the maps look a little bit prettier: use AI opponent faces as icons for start positions, instead of color codes. There are lots of different colors on the map and it might get a bit confusing to instantly see what everything is at some point. Especially the green color for an AI could be a different one, it kind of blends in the grassland background. You could also use resource icons inside colored boundaries, at least for the largest continuous deposits. That could make the maps look a little bit cleaner, but not really necessary. Then you wouldn't need the resource explanations at the side, when it's easy to understand from the icons straight away. Maybe just have the resource explanations in the first map.
Just a general rule of thumb type of suggestion, try to have as little as possible text and written information on the image if you can explain it separately or with sensible icons, when the same information is repeated for every map.
Nice update! :) Again, I'd suggest putting these maps in the "guide" section as this is growing beyond the original topic. Forums are good for discussing things, but not so much for collecting information. No need to have your hard work buried among distracting posts. Check for example how it is done here, very clean and easy to find http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/DOS/Dune2/HarkonnenMaps.html
...or if you want to collect the maps elsewhere instead of posting separate images here, you can just link a source address. Just a suggestion though.
Nothing wrong about posting that resource info in this thread, because it answers the original topic very precisely. Maybe in the future it's better to add this kind of stuff in the guide section. There aren't many following this game, but more detailed info and general activity could help to draw more people. Anyways, if that's something you'd enjoy doing, go for it :)
Nice post! However, gold is the only relevant resource for the first missions, because there's plenty of other stuff stocked. CPU spawn locations and alternatives might be of interest though :)
Good post! Because we are running Amiga games under emulation (nobody to my knowledge has recorded a speedrun of any game on a real Amiga), it's good idea to agree upon specific settings. The thing with many Amiga games (including Settlers) is that those were originally designed for OCS/ECS chipset, corresponding to Amiga 500 model, but can be playable on faster Amiga 1200 AGA chipset. With simpler games such as platformers and shoot em ups the CPU speed doesn't make a difference, but in the case of strategy and 3D games it can. I'm not 100% sure if CPU speed only makes the game smoother, increasing frame rate and scrolling speed or if it has any effect on actual game speed. I'd assume with this game it goes the same way as the DOS version with capped speed on faster CPUs so it's not possible to make the game run faster even if you increase DOSBox cycles.
I would personally allow running this game on emulated A1200 model, because the speed should be same for everyone if they use the same settings. However, I'd recommend using the "stock" A1200 settings so it matches a real, non-customized A1200 more closely. To do this go to Quickstart menu, select A1200 model and tick the box "Start in Quickstart mode" and then start the emulator. Settings will be selected for you automatically, you can then deselect the Quickstart mode and save your setting configuration. Then just load the conf each time you start the emulator. Your CPU should be 68020, everything on cycle-exact and CPU frequency 4x (A1200) and obviously AGA chipset. I would suggest default RAM options also, with 2MB chip and no Z2, but I'd say it's up to you. If someone else wants to run the Amiga version, they can use the same settings.
So I did some testing on Amiga version and game speed seems surprisingly comparable to DOS, but it's likely not quite identical though. In any case, comparing these two versions would require re-timing the DOS runs with same rules as the Amiga version, because of Amiga version taking longer to show victory screens. Also, as the versions aren't probably 100% comparable anyways, there's not much point to do so. So I just mention this if someone would like to request separate boards for the Amiga and DOS versions, it's possible to do that. Anyways, seems like there are many games on this site done on different platforms and listed on the same board. Personally I don't care about it either way.
More runs, cool! Since nobody has objected my suggestions for timing, I've put this into rules. Also made the description for start of time little bit more precise. Please check the rules and how submitted videos were timed before submitting! If there are better ideas about timing, please tell us. If a problem is found with current timing rules, it's better to fix it ASAP so we don't have to re-time lots of videos in the future.
We now a have a run for the Amiga version! It's apparently timed from when the level has loaded to when first victory screen has loaded. With DOS version the loading of victory screens are pretty much instant, whereas the Amiga version loads each several seconds from a floppy. Submitted video for some reason was cut before the password screen appears.
I thought it might not be necessary to include the load times for the Amiga version, because those can be reduced or eliminated by playing HD installed version (such as WHDLoad) or by modifying floppy speed settings on the emulator. So I'm suggesting timing to end when the screen freezes and music fades, but using the same start of time as the DOS version, from placing the castle. In this case without doing a frame count, start time of the submitted video would be 0m 29s and end time 31m 11s and total time 30m 42s.
Also, please check the current rules for timing and I'm open to feedback if you have suggestions regarding this.
I played the second mission a bit just for curiosity, not too long ago. There's one big mountain in that map. The two CPU players default spawn points are at left and middle of the mountain north face. Only gold deposits (at least on the north face of the mountain) are located right under the rightmost CPU. If player castle is placed directly at that location, the CPU spawn point will reset at the opposite side of the mountain.
It seems like the best place for the castle is at the north / east face of the mountain next to right side CPU spawn point. It is then possible to squeeze under the right CPU castle with barracks to get access to some of the gold. It seems to be a better option to keep the CPU players clumped at default spawns, than going around the mountain to fight the second CPU. In this case it might be a good idea to try and surround the CPU players quickly from above against the mountain before they have much time to spread across the map. Just some ideas, not at all sure if these turn out to be optimal.
IMO best way to go about this would be to only have the requirement for defeating each tournament by any means necessary, starting with a new character. For example, one could start War invitational right away or play couple of rounds in Norham and couple in Katsuhai, then move to war without finishing either. One could finish either Norham or Katsuhai many times and then go to War and so on. Full tournament run, not on individual level boards, could have the requirement for winning all tournaments.
Not sure about starting with an edited or previously saved character as that would maybe be less interesting to watch. Especially, starting with a saved character is not a good idea, because one could for example try to max everything in Northam and do a poor run there to get advantage in Katsuhai and so on.
So I think the rules you came up with are good already. Not very keen on doing tournament runs myself atm. but it's nice to see you guys are thinking about these rules already :)
I checked the manual for victory conditions. At paragraph "The End of the Game" it says: "The game finishes when there is only one city remaining in the game’s world. You can quit a game by left-clicking on the white, surrender flag in the attack menu".
So there's nothing written about winning by military strength, but it's mentioned the player can surrender. I didn't notice any mention about winning by enemy surrender either. It would likely be appreciated by potential runners if you can figure out more about winning conditions and post that info in the forums or at the guide section. Very interesting to hear about this :)
So it's not even necessary to capture the castle and all military buildings to win, didn't even realize that :) So it's just a matter of military strength percentage and your military buildings against the opponent? I wonder how this will translate to having multiple opponents in later levels...
Nice run! When I submitted my first run the rules were not very clear about the start time, but it was written: "Timing Ends When The "Congratulations With Next Password" Appears". In my previous post in this thread I wrote: "Started counting frames from placing the castle (first frame when the flag appears). To first frame of the victory screen with picture of the knight and the password". Your start time is pretty much correct, but the end time is from the first picture at the end. I think it would've been better to use that point in timing instead of the password screen, but that's not in the rules atm. So the end time in video should be 21.53.39 and rounded down to nearest second, total time is 21m 20s.
Because I was only made a verifier, I can't change submitted times so I rejected the run for now. Submit 21m 20s and I'll verify it for the leaderboard.
P.S. I wonder if the speed for appearance of the victory screen is RNG. I remember at least once I didn't get the victory message at all, after capturing the castle and every barracks. You got it really quickly in your video.
MPC - media player classic is commonly used video player, just a suggestion. You can probably do to same with VLC. Another way to time a video accurately is by loading it into a video editing program such as Avidemux or VirtualDub.
Congraz to tz for his run :) I checked the timing and it should be 23:34 instead of 23:33. Start time 29.5s and end time 24m 3.8s. One way to check the time relatively accurately from video is by using MPC. Right click at the bottom right where the video time is displayed and select "high precision". You can cycle frames with CTRL+ left / right arrows. There was at least one major slowdown spike though, that probably cost that one second or more. Hopefully you have better luck getting this game to run without any issues in the future, don't know what else to say that could help.
I noticed I was made a verifier to this game. Since I already downloaded the video I can say it's 30m28s, if tz wants to submit that. Using same timing as in my video. Started counting frames from placing the castle (first frame when the flag appears). To first frame of the victory screen with picture of the knight and the password.
