I am thinking of trying to speedrun this game a bit. I am coming from the multiplayer scene and so I am by now very used to mods specifically Settlers United the current multiplayer mod. Now I understand that we don't want to speedrun the game with the multiplayer balance and there is an option to play the original balance with the Settlers United mod installed but I did notice that some of the quality of live changes are not possible to be turned off. Now I have the issue that if I wanted to run the game I'd have to uninstall the mod for speedrunning and reinstall it a day later for a multiplayer game. I don't wanna do that wich is why I am asking to allow quality of live mods. Sadly it isn't that simple because some of these changes would actually give a competitive advantage.

• HD Patch (no advantage)
• customisable hotkeys (probably the biggest advantage example: crushing buildings with the press of one button and no mouse movement)
• some bugfixes (also an advantage but I don't actually know all the fixed bugs one example I do know: when a building is leveled and the very top of it is to uneven diggers would take ages to finish that is fixed)

What are your thoughts?

I also had the idea that it could be a setting like normal and easy difficulty.

Unfortunately, mods do provide certain advantages, even if they're just hotkeys. They can also lead to different AI behavior or completely different construction costs.

• Demolishing buildings with just one key, for example, would make a huge difference and could save a lot of time.

• I believe bug fixes also affect goods transport and the "coal bug," but I'm not familiar enough with the Settlers United mod for that.

Therefore, any kind of mods that change gameplay are not allowed. Only the original releases up to the Gold Editions and the History Edition are permitted.

Yeah, I do know that it would give an advantage. I actively stated that in my original message. That is why I was thinking about a sub category or whatever they are called. I don't want to compete against runs not using it as it would be quite unfair. And no Settlers United does not change any AI behavoir or construction costs at least if you turn them of. Similarly you can also turn of Transport+ what you referenced as the coal bug. Nevertheless if a bug being fixed makes a building be built faster, it can affect what the AI builds afterwards as an example. The algorithm of the AI stays unchanged tho.

Anyways point is I don't want to compete against others without the mod but I'd appreciate it if there was a way to submit the run. If not it'll probably stay something niche for me and my friend to enjoy.