Hi everyone!

I added a new category to the boards, replacing the "Chapter One" category that was there before. My initial reasoning for creating a shorter category was to have something more approachable for interested runners, since as it is the Any% run is rather long (and was even longer years ago). For a relatively unpopular tactics game, having the only category be a 10+ hour speedrun seemed a little unwelcoming.

Yesterday tengaugepunk and I did a Zaji% race, and it was tons of fun. We are currently working on improving our respective routes, but it should be a pretty beginner-friendly category, and likely a more exciting substitute than Chapter One.

We do intend on having more races as well, if anyone's interested ^_^

-Jacobo

Hey folks,

When looking through some of the videos on the board I realized some runs are not timed properly (that is, in accordance with the current rule: Timing Starts upon selecting "Basic series" (First option). Timing ends when the results screen appears). Some runs are timed based off of the screen fading to black, rather than when the results screen appears. For the sake of accuracy, I wouldn't mind retiming those runs that are not timed with this rule in mind, but I wouldn't want to do that without notifying the runners first.

Related to this, a lot of runs are timed to the millisecond. My opinion is that timing this way is unnecessary unless 1) there's a tie to the second, and we need to refer to milliseconds to determine order, or 2) we reach some barrier after which we decide more accuracy is needed (like Super Mario Bros. or Marble Madness, to name 2 examples).

So--does anyone mind if I retime the runs to be in accordance with the rules (which won't alter times too significantly), and would anyone mind if I delete the milliseconds from those runs? I know this isn't a thriving board, but all the same I didn't want to make changes without notifying you/asking first! I'll leave this message up for a bit (say, a couple of weeks), and will proceed to make changes if I don't hear anything to the contrary.

The last thing I want to mention is that there's HOT NEW TECH for this game! Thanks to Paintbrush_Samurai, we are now able to clip in every stage, navigating out of bounds and saving a huge amount of time. A quick look at his Basic Series (SNES) run will show you just how much time there is to save. It's an exciting time for the game, and maybe an exciting time to return to it...

Peace! Regards from,

Jacobo

Hey folks, in particular @Wallyzorde and @Rallis

Just so you know, per a recent Google update, some of your runs will become unviewable after next Friday, 7/23/21. Here's the language I received in a message:

Per Google's recent update, unlisted YouTube videos from before January 1st, 2017 will be made private on July 23rd, 2021 unless a user opts out through this form.

This essentially means that any speedrun submitted to Speedrun.com before 2017 as an unlisted video will become permanently unwatchable unless a user:

Opts out of the change, Changes the share setting to public, or Re-uploads the video as an unlisted video and updates the url link on Speedrun.com

The below runs have been flagged as YouTube videos uploaded to Speedrun.com before January 1st, 2017. Please note that this may include both listed and unlisted videos, and includes both whether you were the player or the submitter. For any run at risk, we recommend either opting out of the change, changing the share setting to public, or re-uploading the video (if it is your own) as an unlisted video and updating the link on Speedrun.com

@Wallyzorde, looks like 6 of your previous PBs meet this criteria. As for @Rallis, just one run, the 9m 39s 200ms one.

This might not matter but I wanted to give a heads up nonetheless!

Take care~ Jacobo

How does everyone feel about the new category, or the fact that there are now 5 categories?

The amount of categories does not bother me, and I see the reason behind separating Any% into 2 distinct categories as a result of Dragon Gate Skip being found. Plenty of other games separate their Any% categories into different categories (like "glitchless," for instance, though there's an older thread about this regarding MediEvil, and I only bring this up as an example) for the sake of creating different possibilities for new runners. Obviously the game we run does not have a community the size of Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64 or something like that, but in the event that we do get new runners (as we have this year) I think it's a good idea to have different categories for them.

For now, keeping Any%NMS and Any% as distinct categories allows those of us who still play without DGS to experience other levels while demonstrating our abilities with the tricks/glitches/etc. that we've spent a lot of time on. If we collapse the categories into one, we lose that space for ourselves and for future runners. I'd like to be able to experience the game in different styles and to maintain the ability to have my runs in those styles validated by the community, and at the moment that is possible.

I'm all for speedrunning being about the fastest way to get through a game, but when it comes to navigating how the community wants to run that game I think it's better to include rather than exclude, and keeping Any%NMS will do that. It should also be something we discuss.

These are some of my thoughts. Everyone else?

This happened to me during casual play and I just spent about an hour trying to recreate it. I finally got it, although the video quality is poor.

As you can see, it (presumably) won't let you progress to Mushroom Rock Road.

I'm not sure if this is known or even helpful but I wanted to post it just in case!

I've noticed in quite a few runs that when trying to move a 5th unit to 23 a message pops up that says "unable to send 5th unit" (or something like this--I forget the exact wording). My first thought was that this could be the case if there were already too many 5th units employed there, but during one run there was only one 5th unit employed in 23, and I've sent 2 to the same province before with no problem. So I have no guesses.

Has anyone else encountered this before? I don't remember if it's happened to me with other territories, but I know for a fact it has happened when moving troops to 23.

Hey skyhawks.

So this game is pretty straightforward, with Any% being the most realistic option for a run (What would 100% include? And there are no known skips or glitches that would require distinguishing between them and Glitchless, etc.). However, considering that there is a high score board at the end, getting the top score is an additional realistic goal. In my head I've been calling getting this high score challenge "BeatBrendan%" since Brendan sits at the top of the scoreboard, laughing at you during name entry; typically, at the end of the run your score is 2nd place at best (or at least that's been true of the runs I've seen, and the ones I've submitted). Getting 500,000 or above is actually a challenge since it requires you to go out of your way to defeat more enemies, which is obviously risky, and it requires you to not use continues, which reset your score to 0.

My suggestion is to make a "Brendan%" category which would offer another challenge on top of the straightforward Any%. A further thought would be to track not only the time but the high score achieved. I figure it could be a fun challenge.

What do you folks think?

I did this on accident during a run, and re-created it during this run.

I have yet to test it, but I have 2 thoughts.

1. The target zone exists on the screen already, and hitting it at all is what's required to dock with the satellite. Perhaps the spinning satellite lays over the zone, and colliding into it results in a death. In this interpretation, in theory one should be able to access the zone provided the plane is positioned in the appropriate coordinate. However, it would appear that this has to be done before the satellite fully loads on screen.

2. The target zone exists, but is limited to the boundary placed on it by the spinning rectangular hole in the middle of the satellite. You'll notice in the clip that my plane is in sync with the satellite's center. Perhaps the zone loads in a spinning state, parallel to the animation of the hole itself. In this interpretation the game expects you to maneuver through the superficial overlay (the spinning satellite), but the zone itself already exists. All that would be required, then, is to know the pattern of the spinning, and match that with the timing of pressing the button to dock.

Any thoughts, skyhawks?