So since there isn't much of an AoE speedrunning community that I know of, I need some help in deciding the timing method for ILs and other runs. Because there is an in-game timer, that could be an option, or you could just use your all-too-familiar timer. I'm currently adding a few times using IGT but I'm not sure if it's the best option:

Pros of IGT:

• it's guaranteed to be the same across the board
• game speed slows down or speeds up the timer accordingly

Cons of IGT:

• someone could have an advantage with pausing the game, moving units, and then unpausing to have them all move at once and the timer wouldn't have gone more than a second, which isn't really going that fast
• slower speed could give slight advantages as well
• (possibly the two cons I listed could just be incorporated as part of the runs.)

Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.

AoE leaderboards TriHard. Had been watching some of the existing ILs and thinking of running this (AoE2).

Personally I'd be in favour of IGT because no effort. You could avoid the cons of IGT that you mentioned by: -Disallowing pausing during a run (which honestly is not a particularly weird rule) -Forcing runs to be on a specific speed (which is a bad idea imo since it's a pretty arbitrary rule. I would say add game speed as a variable and just roll with that)

I'm more in favour of RTA (rounded to nearest ms).

The con of being able to pause all the time and essentially produce a run that would give a TAS-like IGT would be incredibly lame. There's an Age of Mythology run out there that did precisely this (I rejected it when it was submitted to SDA), and it kills the entire idea of being a speedrun. IGT no longer represents how much time has actually been spent on a certain IL.

Regarding game speed, the fact that it slows down the IGT is a very comparable issue to being able to pause a lot. It gives you way more time to react to events and give out precise orders. If game speed is used as just another variable, then all runs done on the slowest speed would always come out as the fastest runs, again misrepresenting how much time was actually spent on the IL.

Having said that, IGT would be perfectly fine if the rules state that the fastest speed should be selected and that pausing for purposes other than quickly changing diplomatic stance or giving a tribute for actual strategic purposes is disallowed. In that case, IGT and RTA boil down to roughly the same thing, with IGT being just easier to note and easier to submit.

RTA being precise to the frame/ms is another advantage, since IGT on the fastest speed is only precise to about 0.5s instead of 0.016s (if played on 60Hz). Not that huge of a deal unless everyone starts getting the same time on ILs.

In my opinion it would make sense to use RTA for all the running but for level runs the ingame timer seems to be well enough accurate so far and safes some effort from lazy people like me. This of course requires a no-pause rule and I would rather have a forced use of fast gamespeed.

However, in case I fulfilled my wet dream of running an entire game or at least one campaign as a whole, RTA might be the more reasonable way to.

Pretty sure the Hittite campaign can be run just fine in one go (on Hardest). Your wet dream may very well come true here :v)

not familiar with the game but these cons are pretty serious for the runs (someone could just do all these "tricks" to get an optimised run) ....should always support RTA on this one...or at least use both

I've already decided that for AoE I / II that RTA makes more sense for the full-campaign / multi-campaign runs obviously but I want to shift over from IGT to RTA with ILs. What I want opinions for is: when should the timer be started for ILs, and when for full-campaign runs? should they differ at all?

edit: IGT is ded.