Should we replace "Glitchless/Exploitless" with "Bug Limit"?
4 years ago
Germany

When we first introduced Glitchless/Exploitless, it was meant as a way to play the levels with strats closer to intended gameplay. Most importantly, we wanted runners to come up with ways of outplaying the AI lords without the house exploit, the multiple worker glitches, or the disbanding of hundreds of slaves/laddermen for insane amounts of taxes, however we didn't know that categories like "Bug Limit" exist in other speedgames so we decided to ban anything that we considered a glitch or exploit in the general case, and could also be reasonably banned without also hitting intended mechanics.

I don't know whether runners of this game might be deterred by the long list of things you're not allowed to do, when other games like Super Mario 64 allow you to perform a variety of glitches for minor timesaves. I could also imagine that it might be reasonable to strat and run a whole Crusader or Warchest trail full of Bug Limit completions, but it's unlikely that anyone would invest the time and effort into following every Glitchless/Exploitless rule in every level. Furthermore, runners may disagree on what is an exploit and what is not - for example, someone once challenged me to match their glitchless run which included no attacking before 5 minutes, but made very intentional use of blocking the workers' paths to flower gardens to dodge some of the productivity nerf. On the other hand, we allowed deleting structures for resources even when they were handed to you by the game, as well as stacking military units on towers/walls as sometimes troops will just do that by themselves and there's not much you can do to prevent that without using less options than the game gives you.

As a result, I'm suggesting to replace Glitchless/Exploitless with the less strict "Bug Limit" category encompassing only the most central restrictions:

  • No blocking an AI lord's castle layout with buildings
  • No allocating more workers than intended to any given workspace
  • No disbanding troops to collect taxes from above maximum peasants (above maximum being more than your houses support, more than your workspaces and your campfire support (the campfire supports 24), or both). Smaller glitches (e.g. waypoints across swamps to avoid slowdown) and exploits (e.g. moving and/or splitting the stockpile) would be allowed as they, while nice to have, don't really break the game. All Glitchless/Exploitless runs would remain valid as they satisfy those rules. Does any past, present or future runner want their Glitchless/Exploitless board to remain pure from runs that potentially beat their times using smaller glitches and exploits? If so, please reply.
Edited by the author 4 years ago
Germany

Since there has been no objection within over 200 views, and no runs tailored towards the current ruleset in years, the changes will take effect soon.

Germany

i have jsut started a bit and wondered if u can disband troops at start to create more troops since i saw it in mission 4 in the non glitch run

Germany

Yes, that's just repurposing troops. What breaks the game is getting an insane amount of taxes from hundreds of former laddermen/slaves because they can't leave fast enough

Game stats
Followers
73
Runs
164
Players
30
Recent runs
Level: The Kings Crusade: 3. Konya, Frederick Barbarossa
Level: Crusader Trail: 2. Setting Out
Level: Crusader Trail: 1. Arrival
Level: The Kings Crusade: 2. Tyre, Drawing the Line