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... Weird, you seem to be right about having to go up then down past the shrine then up again to prevent the fire. I probably wouldn't have noticed something like that. Still works out nice though, because then I can kill as many enemies as I want up to the first lair(the fire incident didn't occur for me when I did so). After the 6th growth, I had 136 people, compared to 118 in my previous test. I might be able to make the growth even faster if I can manage to kill even more enemies moving up to the first lair (I killed 33 up to the first lair in my current attempt). So if nothing else, building in two directions will certainly be useful right at the beginning of Filmoa as you said.
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Looking at my growth table, I might be able to reach a population of 200 one phase sooner than before due to the extra growth up to the first lair, which would be quite nice.
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Hmm...before we make a final decision about where to use this strategy, I can see one more place where you might want to build an extra piece of road in order to reach a lair quicker. When going back down to reach the third lair, build a square of road to the left towards the river. As soon as the people learn to build bridges, they automatically build one over the river. Then you will be able to reach the last lair one phase sooner. That way, we would have one more phase where the people are building with the high civilization level houses. Haven't done a TAS-quality test to see if it would actually be worth it, but I suppose it's worth a try. I modified your SMV a bit so you can see what I'm talking about. Note that I didn't try to optimize my movements at all, this is just to show the concept.
EDIT: or is that the "cheat" you were thinking of?
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Nice, I'll look at those maps in more detail later.
I've got an idea about how we may be able to reach the lairs in less time. The basic idea is that instead of only building towards one lair, we, in a sense, build towards two or more lairs at the same time, in the hope that less construction phases will be needed to seal all the lairs. I put together a quick demo so you can see what I'm talking about.
It probably won't be useful due to the extra movement of the construction pointer involved, and the fact that we want to wait for the population to grow anyways, but I thought I'd throw out the idea in case it ends up being useful somewhere for some strange reason.
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Oh, I'd forgotten about your presence at No-Intro.
Keeping a table of how much the population grows during each construction phase sounds like a really good idea. That'll make it much easier to assess how well certain strategies work. I'll be sure to keep a table with those values for my TAS from now on.
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Sorry, I shouldn't have said phantom construction. I was just talking in general about the construction that happens when you're not in a town.
Sir VG wrote:
You're not losing 1020, because you have to build SOMEWHERE.
I'm not sure you understand. Let me explain the construction timer a bit. The construction timer increments by 1 every frame. Once it reaches 720, it resets to 0 and, after some lag, the people start building houses. Once they're done building houses, the counter starts incrementing again. While a spell is going through it's animation, the construction timer does not increment. Same thing for when you're in the menu. That's what I was talking about with the 1020 frame delay. It doesn't matter whether I'm waiting for the people to build or where I'm waiting, about 1020 frames of the construction timer not incrementing will irrevocably occur if I clear those bushes, compared to if I didn't clear them. I could've had one more construction phase begin in that time. So while I do have to build somewhere, clearing those bushes is not a good idea because it slows down growth by a fair amount. Instead, I should be building roads somewhere else where I don't have to clear any obstacles.
Even with 6 scrolls, I would, according to the results of my Death Heim tests, have great difficulty saving 150 frames compared to having 5 scrolls. The savings are even more negligible with 7 scrolls compared to 6 scrolls.
Let me lay out the results of my tests:
Boss 1: 420 frames saved with 1 scroll used on the boss
Boss 2: 278 frames saved with 1 scroll, 70 more with 2
Boss 3: 296 frames saved with 1 scroll used on the boss
Boss 4: 161 frames saved with 1 scroll used on the boss
Boss 5: none saved
Boss 6: 156 frames saved with 1 scroll used on the boss , ?? more with 2 (didn't think to write it down. It was less than 150).
As you can see, the savings from the scrolls are not that much compared to the time it takes to fetch some of them. As I go through the sims, I'm only going to bother fetching scrolls if I can retrieve them very quickly.
Sir VG wrote:
Plus having the growth in Filmoa is actually beneficial, because that gives them more room to expand, more room to plant houses, more room to get to the max you can get. And since it's first, you might (I'm not positive) get that benefit in every land after that until the max. I gained 128 people in my present speedrun, so probably 3 high quality growths. With additional room to build, you may get another growth of 40 or so.
That's why I built those side roads in my WIP: They accommodate for the growth that happens when you're away.
BTW, did you see my post wondering if there was a way we could talk on IRC or AIM or something like that? I think that would make strategy discussions much easier.
EDIT: Sorry if I sounded ticked off. I notice that you've managed an even better time. Could I take a look at that if you made a recording? I feel like I'm somehow not communicating very well; perhaps it would help if I could see your strategy being carried out?
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Sir VG wrote:
Getting the 7th scroll may seem like a waste of time, but after this run through, I don't think so...even for a TAS. You still need to build SOMEWHERE to boost population (since you generally get hampered around Casandra/Aitos), so you might as well take the time to do it there and then go use the scroll in Deathheim.
Don't forget, however, that you still need to clear those three squares of bushes to get the scroll. That takes some time, more than can be saved with any single scroll in Deathheim. And yes, around 20 frames could be saved with the first boss with a 2nd scroll, IIRC. However, I think it would be better not to wait in Fillmore before moving onto Bloodpool, because you don't get the benefit of phantom construction in other towns. Waiting in Fillmore on the way to Maranha wouldn't be good either, because the time to enter and leave Fillmore would, combined with the time to clear the bushes, easily nullify any time savings from getting the scroll.
In fact, I'm not sure where I got my figure of 450 frames to clear three bushes... I re-tested and clearing a bush actually delays the construction timer (located at 7F91FE and 7F91FF) for about 340 frames, including the time to go through the menu in frame advance. That means at least 1020 frames of delay to clear three bushes, not 450. With that kind of delay, I have no idea why I'd want to fetch the 7th scroll. I never got a single scroll in Deathheim to save more than 420 frames. If you think that 7th scroll will somehow save at least 1020 frames, I'd really like to know how!
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Sir VG wrote:
A little strategy I picked up just now for Northwall Act II's boss:
It's possible to get as many as SEVEN sword hits on him, if you get him to spawn on the right, near the high bump on that side. You may even get 8 if you do it dead on perfect. 8 would allow you to beat him in 4 rounds without magic.
Yep, I noticed that while doing the testing in Deathheim.
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erm... oops, *smacks forehead*. Please disregard my previous post, except for the bit about the snes9x version. Yeah, your strategy looks OK.
As for the scroll in Bloodpool: what do you mean? When I cast rain on the lake, I get a source of life, not a source of magic.
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Why are you going to the upper-left lair first? Wouldn't you want to go to the right lair? That lair still gives a civilization upgrade, and it takes less time to get to from the shrine.
EDIT: I think I'm going to finish this particular run in 1.43. I really don't want to start this run over again just to have a run that works with 1.51.
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Yeah the voices are better now in the Star Ocean intro. It's just that the music in the sky palace in ActRaiser sounds off to me in comparison to what it sounds like on my cart.*shrugs*
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OgreSlayeR wrote:
I'm sure it's worth it if it's like 10-20 extra as it took hardly no extra time to do.
Yeah, it's somewhere around that amount.
EDIT: I'm not sure if this is already known, but while the hero is invulnerable, he can walk through water at the same speed as on land. Not sure if this will come in handy for Fillmore Act 2, but I can try. If not in that act, then perhaps Bloodpool Act 2?
EDIT: That trick didn't help any in Fillmore Act 2. We'll see if it ends up being at all helpful in Bloodpool Act 2. Anyway, I've completed Fillmore Act 2. 124 frames were saved in Fillmore Act 2 over my first WIP.
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A mildly entertaining movie with some funny highlights, like the pose where it looks like the guy is taking a leak. It looks like you used that pose to suggest some other things too...
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Here's my second WIP of Fillmore. This one is 391 frames faster than the previous one up to the beginning of Fillmore Act 2. The extra roads I built toward the end of the sim are to accommodate for future growth while I'm away from Fillmore. I'm not sure how to be entertaining in the sim without making too many "nervous" movements, so comments on that are welcome. Note that I can't really mess around too much with how I handle the downtime up to the sealing of the first lair, because I can only kill a certain number of enemies at that point before enough houses are built to trigger the fire event.
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Dang, nice find. I see why it works: for some reason, when the hero falls after being hit by the spikes, the hero eventually falls at a rate of 6 Y positions per frame instead of 5. You seem to be pretty good with these action sequences.
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It doesn't really matter whether or not Fillmore gets wheat, because of those mansions (or, as the instruction manual calls them, factories) that the people of Fillmore start building at the highest civilization level. Those feed 72 people per building, in contrast to 48 people per wheat field.
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Interesting, that's basically the same strategy I came up with. Except that I forgot to not clear that set of bushes to the left of the shrine, and the way I build toward the bridge is slightly different. I'll redo the sim so that that bush isn't cleared, then I'll put up a WIP.
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About the fire event in Fillmore: it looks like you also have to limit the number of enemies you kill such that 3 or less houses are built during the second construction phase.
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Ack, I don't think we're communiating very well at all. Could we start an IM conversation on IRC or AIM or something like that? That would probably work better than posting back and forth on a forum. I would recommend reading the entire FAQ if you haven't already, because the author could probably communuicate this stuff better than I can. If you prefer to use IRC, I generally hang out on #nesvideos on Freenode.
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Sir VG wrote:
The one big question though is this...score. If you remember the guide, score makes a difference in the soul counter as well (50 pts = 1 life). The fastest jump would be to find a quick 1UP, as extra lives at the end are 1000 points (20 points to the soul counter). I've been working on a chart of this, but haven't gotten it fully completed yet. If there's one that's not far out of the way in a couple spots, it could cut out a round of construction.
For Fillmore at least, the in-Act score doesn't matter, because the minimum number of enemies across the four lairs in Fillmore is 500. That is, if you somehow got a score of 0, you would still have 500 enemies total in the four lairs, which is more than enough for our purposes.
You probably already know this, but just in case: the soul counter always starts out at 0 in every sim. The in-act score affects the number of enemies in each lair, not the soul counter itself. But by extension, the in-act score affects the potential number of souls you can free. But since even for a score of 0, the minimum number of monsters across the four lairs is 500 for Fillmore, in-act score doesn't matter in Fillmore. What matters is how many enemies you kill in the Fillmore sim going up to the first lair. Once you've sealed the first lair, it doesn't matter because you've killed every enemy in that lair, giving a huge boost to your soul counter.
