Enemy Scaling Explained

Every night, the difficulty of the enemies in the game increase. You know this already.

What you DON'T know is that this scaling has a few conditions. These can be used to most effectively navigate your way to the end of the run.

1) ENEMIES HAVE PREDETERMINED STARTING STATS AND DON'T START SCALING UNTIL A CERTAIN DAY
In the speedrun, this will be most noticeable with the knights and the thieves. If you move fast enough through the maps, you may notice that some enemies have lower health than usual. On the flipside, you might notice that no matter how fast you go, the Barbarians always have the same stats. 

In a standard speedrun, you will likely be balancing on the threshhold of the whether or not the knights and thieves are upgraded but by the time you reach the Barbarians and Bears, you are so far below their first scaling date that unless you waste time, you'll always know their exact stats.

I'll eventually do the researched and put some concrete numbers here but for now you just need to know that going fast can help you with the city sections but it loses it's benefit once you get into the mountains.

2) BOSS FIGHTS ARE PRESET BUT THE MINIONS WILL SCALE.
Unlike the random encounters, the Boss will always have the exact same stats, even if you fight them on day 100. Further, Boss fights won't increase or decrease the amount of enemies in the battle based on the date. That said, the minions that ARE there will scale normally based on the date.

For speedruns, this means that will you can certainly go fast (especially with the Bluff Guide), you need to make sure you can properly defeat the Boss. Typically this just means have enough armour/HP and some armour-breaking runes to deal with the boss before you start losing too many mercs.

Finding the Books (Practically required for Any%)

Battles take up SO much time in this game. It's in our best interest as speedrunners to skip as many battles as possible. Thankfully there's two super-useful books that can let us do just that: the Bluff Guide and the Corruption Guide.

The Bluff Guide lets you skip any non-boss fight with sentient enemies (everything that's not a wolf or bear) for FREE. The book isn't even consumed! You just get to skip pretty much everything! This includes random encounters you get from searching buildings. Amazing.

The Corruption Guide lets you skip any non-boss fight (including wolves and bears) for 1gp. Further, if you borrowed money from the Banker, you can give him the book at the end of the run to skip having to pay him back or fight. Wicked.

Now I hear you asking, "Where can I find such amazing books?!"

The answer is, "A lot of places very very randomly, and a few places less randomly."

The most "consistent" way to get these books is actually through a character-specific reaction for Erus. There is one event you can get that talks about finding a cool library and if you search it, you just get a regular book. However, if you have Erus in your party he finds you the Bluff Guide AND the Corruption Guide AND the Reseller's Guide! Holy wow!

Now you might be thinking that such an event is hard to find or perhaps the result of a rare building. Nope! It actually has a chance of happening on any "middle-class homestead". In the City, this means "Houses" and everywhere else it means "Cottages", but not the ruined ones, the nice ones. I have not seen this event pop up in the Necropolis although if I had to place a bet I would say you could probably find it in the Mansion.

In any given run, you're bound to find at least 2-3 eligible locations PER MAP. It's not guaranteed that you'll get this event, but with the sheer volume of them, it's not uncommon to find it. Speedrun-wise, it's all about finding these books as quickly as possible so you can stop wasting time with encounters and blast through the game.

OTHER LOCATIONS THAT CAN DROP THE BOOKS
Castle Loot
The Gypsy
The Thief Master
Any other event that grants a random rare item

GGWP (Tavern Games Guide)

I wouldn't blame you for thinking that the outcome of the games available at the inns are based on chance or luck, but like almost everything else in Crowntakers, the results of these games are 100% scripted. While the available game itself is random, all you need to do to win every single time is to make sure you have the right mercenary in your party. There is no RNG to these games. If you have the right merc, you win. If you don't, you lose. Some of them are pretty obvious to their character, others only make sense if you know their backstories.

Without further ado, here's the list of who's will win each game:

Arm Wrestling - Darion
Card Game - Melic
Chess - Erus
Darts - Jeda
Divination - Malda
Drinking - Theogal
Insult Match - Halfarus
Juggling - Velena
Poetry - Meledar
Singing - Zoe

HOW DOES THIS HELP THE SPEEDRUN?
This should be obvious, but since the results are guaranteed and you're probably opening the Tavern menu anyway, it's always good to check the game. If you have the right merc, it's a free 2gp for 1 or 2 seconds of your time - this is especially good since 5gp can save you *minutes* by bribing enemies.

Know Your Shrooms! (Mushroom Guide)

Mushrooms in Crowntakers are divided into two categories: Good and Bad. 

When used, the Good mushrooms will heal you for a random amount of HP (usually 1 or 2 but I've seen as high as 7) and the Bad mushrooms will damage you (I've never seen more than 3 damage with these mushrooms). It might be a random percentage of HP rather than an absolute number. I'll edit this guide if I find that to be the case.

Like most things in this game, Crowntakers tries to give the illusions of randomness when in reality everything is very, very scripted. Below you can find the list of all the mushrooms, sorted by "Good" or "Bad.

GOOD MUSHROOMS (Heals)
Agaricus Bisporus
Amanita Vaginata
Boletus Impolitus
Cantharellus Cibarius

BAD MUSHROOMS (Damages)
Amanita Phalloides
Clitocybe Candicans
Cortinarius Orellanus
Sacrophaera Coronaria

HOW DOES THIS HELP THE SPEEDRUN?
Mushrooms are dropped pretty frequently over the course of most runs, especially if you have Meledar in your party. Knowing which muchrooms are good can save you money on healing items that can then be better spent paying off random encounters.

Name	Author
Enemy Scaling Explained	Gumjaw 6 years ago
Finding the Books (Practically required for Any%)	Gumjaw 6 years ago
GGWP (Tavern Games Guide)	Gumjaw 6 years ago
Know Your Shrooms! (Mushroom Guide)	Gumjaw 6 years ago