A document for general information on everything useful and noteworthy for speedrunning.

Tricks + Exploits

• (horse) wall clip: on a horse, musouing or (far less reliably) running into a wall whilst being hit can clip you through it and go out of bounds -- this can also be done on corners of certain gates to pass through them, remaining in bounds
• (horse) gate mount: you can hop onto horses through gates, so you can strategically pre-park your horse on the other side of a gate that will close -- your horse will not be summoned or path to you behind a gate, unless it lacks an invisible wall, useful in conjunction with true musou clips
• (horse) save jump: (controller only) on a horse, saving and quitting whilst in a jump and hitting continue allows you to jump in mid-air on the first frame, indefinitely chainable
• (horse) save clip/save ledge clip: (controller only) on a horse, whilst jumping into an ledge, saving, quitting and continuing allows you to get onto it by holding only forward -- note that in free mode, with the addition of a continue input on the loading screen, it does not work properly, but by inputting jumps you (very inconsistently) can clip through
• (horse) ledge hop/ledge jump: on a horse, jumping and dismounting simultaneously parallel to a low ledge allows you to get onto it

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• dash cancelling: (curved sword) chaining dash cancels out of regular attacks quickly -- do note that if you are holding any direction whilst doing dashing you will go noticeably slower and that by not doing so you may dash toward enemies you hit (see below for a list)
• switch cancelling: (staff) chaining dash cancels out of a switch attack quickly
• bow jumping/hopping: dashing at the apex of a jump and immediately charge attacking, which can be done whilst dismounting a jumping horse for slightly more height
• empowered switch attack: with certain weapons (see below for a list), you can hold the switch button to do additional damage -- this can be held independently during any other action
• sniping: the flame bow's C5 attack has a huge reach with which you can kill officers whilst being outside a trigger, or through exploitable gates
• ledge clip: certain aerial normal/charge/musou attacks allow you to clip through the invisible walls of one-way ledges (see below for weapon list) -- use in combination with chainable aerial musou (see below for list) and horse jump dismounting for more height
• dash clip: the sides of hulao gate can be clipped through by dashing, no other location is known (this is likely a little extension of ledge clipping?)
• zipping: this previously patched trick seems to be doable in certain locations using only Wang Yi's musou, allowing you to zip large distances and go out of bounds.

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• animal carry-over exploit: an officer's selected animal's abilities outside of story mode will carry over into it

• dialogue cancel: ending the currently ongoing dialogue by triggering a cutscene or save-quit-continuing (save skipping), the latter being especially useful in individual level runs

• summon & mount: if you hold down the summoning button you will mount your horse as soon as it is near whilst you can continue to walk

• splitscreen: playing two officers, which has multiple uses and effects throughout the game:

1. manipulate certain events, mainly triggers tied to specific officers, such as during escort missions
2. prevent dialogue from happening by simply having splitscreen, or by picking specific officers
3. do spread out tasks or events simultaneously or quicker
4. access to areas that get locked behind gates
5. set up gate clips
6. reduced amount of troops and visible officers
7. most camera pans and some cutscenes do not trigger

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• amount of troops: in the options menu, under graphics details, you can pick between 'many', 'normal' or 'few' on-screen characters (troops), which could be useful to build rage faster, or have cleaner dash cancelling respectively; however, 'few' makes officers load in slower which will lead to timeloss
• movies: completing some stages will play a movie, which you can turn off in the options menu so you don't have to skip it manually
• return to menu: pressing start + select (menu + pause) returns you to the start menu, which is useful to skip battle camp dialogue in redo stages in hypothetical, or when you've selected the wrong officer -- note that unlike keyboard, with a controller this can be done from anywhere
• vsync 2: ledges with invisible walls do not block movement with vsync set to 2 (30 fps), but bear in mind that the you'll likely have to play with this framerate, too

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• officer selection: the (player 1) officer you play as will affect the tasks and dialogue you are given in a stage
• random dialogue: random encounter/retreating/defeating dialogue only occurs if there is no current on-going dialogue (note that there is one free frame in-between two dialogues)
• bodyguards: you can use bodyguards to trigger dialogue, or to use their skills such as Emergency Support to get musou at the start of a stage
• exploitable gates: (see below for list) a few certain gates lack an invisible wall, so you can attack through them
• true musou clip: as you use a true musou, the secondary officer (2p) will always be put directly to the right of the first officer (1p), which will allow the secondary officer to be placed on the other side of a gate

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Elements

• velocity: attack speed increases
• battleaxe: 2x damage buff for 30 seconds after every 50 kills (reward from ambition mode and XL ambition mode completion)
• induction: 2x damage for regular, charge and ex attacks (and musou that continue after their animation ends)
• explosive: 1.5x damage for regular, charge and ex attacks (and musou that continue after their animation ends)
• aggression: 1.5x damage for musou
• frenzy: 1.2x damage for 20%(?) defense loss
• harmony: 1.2x damage
• flurry: unknown damage increase the higher your chain is
• slash: elemental attacks only, doesn't apply to officers (damage unknown)
• cyclone: elemental attacks only, deals a fixed 20% damage per hit on a blocking enemy (useful on multiple projectile elemental attacks, like throwing knives' 6th attack
• triumph: slightly fills rage gauge upon defeating an enemy
• roar: slightly fills musou upon defeating an enemy

(Note: elemental attacks are specific attacks usually recognised by their 'slashing' sound or green glow -- look up cyclone for more specifics)

Recommended for Beginner: velocity, battleaxe, induction, explosive, triumph, flurry (if required, flurry can be replaced with roar) Recommended for Ultimate: velocity, battleaxe, induction, explosive, triumph, cyclone (unless confident, consider replacing triumph with jubilation on your secondary weapon)

Skills Recommended: Rage Springs, Attack Boost, Mighty Roar, Havoc If required, replace either Mighty Roar or Havoc with Dasher

Weapons Weapon 1 should always be a Curved Sword. Weapon 2 depends on circumstance. No requirements: Knives to build rage Open ledges: Bow to bow jump One-way ledge: Double-edge Trident to ledge clip (stage specific)

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Speed Comparisons

General Notes Do note that the "in-game passage of time" is tied to framerate, which the game caps. If you are experiencing slowdown, i.e your framerate dips below the cap, you are losing time.

Movement Techniques (do note that these are badly measured)

DEFEAT GAN JI: straight line from wall to gate -

sword cancelling (rage): 7.4s

• sword cancelling: 8.3s
• sword cancelling (rage+direction (W)): 10.7s
• sword cancelling (direction (W)): 12.0s
• staff switch cancelling: 12.2s
• horse musouing (3x, incl. starting prance, Red Hare):
• horse musouing (3x, incl. starting prance): 14.1s
• pugil stick cancelling: 15.4s
• bow jumping: 17.1s
• horse running (Red Hare):
• horse running: 19.3s

AI Movement Speed Officers ignore ladders and certain ledges when deloaded and will go straight through. You can mostly freeze moving officers in place by rapidly loading/deloading them.

BATTLE OF CHIBI (Shu): allies going to the ship -

deloaded (looking away): 41.0s

• loaded (looking): 44.1s

Rams' deload range is stage specific, if they can even be deloaded at all. Successful examples of ram manipulation can be seen here or here. Generally, deloaded rams (that are in ramming position) tend to stay in place, or possibly follow a timer instead. With a timer, their visual process is irrelevant. Note that if you deload a ram while it is in the process of ramming, it will reverse and restart. Certain rams have a tendency to get stuck in a turning loop, which deloading will fix.

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Language English is faster than Japanese in all tests. Chinese was not tested.

Uprising at Chang'an - Intro: Diaochan, Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Private, Diaochan, Wang Yun English ~44 seconds Japanese ~50 seconds

Uprising at Chang'an - Bridge: Zhang Liao (x2), Lu Bu, Messenger, Dong Zhuo, Wang Yun (x2), Dong Zhuo English ~56 seconds Japanese ~63 seconds

Capture of Puyang - Intro: Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Zhang Miao English ~42 seconds Japanese ~50 seconds

Battle of Dingtao - Escape: Xiahou Yuan, Chen Gong (x2), Lu Bu, Chen Gong, Xun Yu English ~48 seconds Japanese ~59 seconds

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Miscellaneous

Notes on Hypotheticals To toggle hypotheticals in Free Mode, deselect the ones you wish to disable in the 'Hypothetical settings' menu in the kingdom view in stage select, and then turn on 'Use Hypotheticals" in gameplay settings. Do note that certain hypotheticals do not have a toggle and thus cannot be turned off once achieved. One workaround is to start a new game and play to the desired stages without completing the hypothetical objectives. You can then use the continue option until you fully finish the stage. Game design! Also take note that using stage select (in NG+) will automatically complete all hypotheticals.

Notes on Weapons Dash cancel:

• normal attack: curved sword
• charge attack: curved sword, claws, sword, bow, "flute", pugil sticks, flying swords, boomerang
• switch attack: staff, sword & hook, wingblades Curved sword normal attack dash cancel is unrivalled in speed. Remember that during rage, you can dash faster. All charge attacks can be chained if you input a switch attack immediately after landing and dash out of it.

Empowered switch attack: Curved Sword, Halberd, Axe, Great Sword, Flute, Lance, Arm Cannon

Ma--ho clip (ledge clip):

• Curved Sword: aerial normal attack
• Double-edge Trident: (has multiple aerial attacks) aerial charge
• Striking Sword: aerial charge
• Siege Spear: aerial charge
• Rapier: aerial charge
• Wingblades: aerial charge, aerial switch

Switch cancel grants height (no use so far):

• Chain & Sickle: dashing
• Orb & Scepter: dash into aerial charge
• Wired Gloves: dash into aerial charge

Other:

• Fan: switch cancel can clip onto ledges
• Flame Bow: C5 has the furthest range. Its regular attack also reaches far.
• Wingblades: using its switch attack from great heights will build up a lot of speed

Notes on Officers Chainable aerial musou: Wen Yang, Yu Jin, Ma Chao, Sima Zhao, Xu Shu Wen Yang gives the most height, but is slightly slow. Yu Jin gives less height, but is the fastest. The other 3 should be used in combination with a double-edge trident. Use in combination with bow jumping or ma--ho clipping.

Ledge clipping aerial musou: Wang Yi. Useful with bow jumping.

Notes on Horses Horse jump height depends on how long you keep holding down the button. To be able to hop off your horse whilst jumping at maximum height, you have to do a jump just before it. This will give you the ability to hop off the horse at any point in the jump.

Notes on Gates The following gates lack an invisible wall (and are useful)

• Hefei south main camp south inner gate
• Hefei north main camp inner gate
• Wujun southeast main camp west gate
• Xuchang south main camp gates

The following gates can be jumped over

• Puyang east castle south gate
• Xiapi (Showdown) all gates

The following gates can be dashed through (the sides)

• Hulao gate main gate

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Notes on anything else so it doesn't get lost to time

Zhuge Dan's Rebellion, dialogue times dialogue start end length saveskip Zhu Yi: My lord... 15.0 21.7 6.7 Sun Chen: How dare you... 22.8 28.0 5.2 Sun Chen has executed Zhu Yi! - - - Quan Duan: Master Zhu Yi... 30.7 36.4 5.7 Quan Yi and Quan Duan defected - - - Sun Chen: So this is... 39.1 46.0 6.9 X Defeat Zhuge Dan - - - Wu Main Camp gates open - - - Messenger: Lord Zhuge Dan... 51.0 57.4 6.4 X Zhuge Dan: So it seems... 57.5 64.3 6.8 X Wen Qin: You dog... 64.4 69.2 4.8 Zhuge Dan: You insult not... 69.3 75.2 5.9 Zhuge Dan has executed Wen Qin - - - Wen Yang: Father... 77.8 83.1 5.3 Wen Hu: You're right... - - - Wen Yang and Wen Hu defected - - - Shouchun Castle South gates open - - - Private: Master Wen Qin... - - - Messenger: We've received reports... 95.1 100.9 5.8