Hi guys and welcome to my Hogs of War TAS!
This is my first tool assisted speedrun and this thread will serve as documentation and also demonstration of videos I record. Of course comments, criticism and questions are very welcome!
By now the only TAS-techniques I use are making/loading savestates whenever I wish to do so and rarely using luck manipulation by rolling the RNG with button mash as I must use epsxe to be actually able to play my game at all. Unfortunately I do thus not have frame advance which explains some minor waiting/aiming/human menu navigation. Still looks good I think.
CURRENT STATE
Run complete!!
Time: 1:06:27.32
Video:
Link to video
Use Link for HD Ready quality!
Current team:
TEAM LARD
1. Hero
2. Hero
3. Pyrotechnic
4. Pyrotechnic
5. Pyrotechnic
SPEEDRUN TACTICS/DISCOVERIES/GLITCHES
1. Half-Health glitch
This glitch works only in the PAL PSX versions of Hogs of war. Setting the pig health to half in Multi Player mode has the same effect for the career mode. Means all pigs have half health. It makes some stuff simpler, but also is a lot riskier. But more than anything else makes things faster!
2. No Pig voices
This one is very important. Not only do the comments of the pig soldiers delay your actions, disabling pig voices also shuts down the major's instructions which saves a lot of time.
3. Attacking techniques
I mostly use the gunner path as heavy weapons are the strongest and reach any place on the map. Usually the drawback is the high difficulcy when aiming compared to other weapons but that doesnt matter on a TAS.
Poison trick works very well in the beginning. Reducing a poisoned enemies health to 10 or less will cancel the next enemy turn if that pig is supposed to act because it is dispatched in its own turn.
One of the strongest weapons is the Cluster grenade which commandos and heroes carry. Triggering all small grenades right after the detonation of the main grenade allows damage of greater than 100. This is strong enough to blow up certain kinds of tanks/machines and due to half health also enough to one-shot any single enemy. Hence getting a commando early and using him against the strongest entities the enemy has to offer is wise.
Another important trick is getting on top of Pillboxes to make the enemy inside come out. This cheaps out the final mission in just two turns.
MISSION BRIEFING(Documentation)
STARTUP
First of all Im triggering the half health glitch, then Im naming my team to “Mardy Pigs“ in order to get Team Lard. Just couldnt help it, this is no cheat or help whatsoever. Team Lard acts just like all other teams and the password doesnt change career mode either. The purple guys just look more badass :) So I sacrifice those few seconds, makes stuff a little more cool and special! Also we get to fight all 6 nation teams on our run, not just 5 of them.
HOGS HEAD
Mission 1:
Dead simple, not much to say. Just throwing 3 grenades and win.
Mission 2:
We promote 2 gunners. Poison doesn't make sense yet as 2/3 enemies can not be reached or killed with it. Simply shooting the enemy with bazookas is much quicker.
First we take on the enemy gunner and place our own gunner so that the enemy AI will not run around and use a grenade from somewhere but quickly pull out the rifle and shoot. This saves time and health.
Our second gunner takes the grunt on the hill and places himself even closer to the other enemy-grunt so he will absorb the next attack. Finally we throw the next grenade a little sideways to move the enemy away from our gunner so the dying enemie's explosion doesnt kill our soldier.
Mission 3:
We get 2 scouts for poison. We can afford having 2 non-gunners later on but in this mission and the next this saves big time. Basically we just poison the grunts. 1st the one most west, then the other 2 with one grenade. Finally we bazooka their gunner and skip our turn as the poisoned grunt dies anyway.
Mission 4:
We get an additional gunner and start out poisoning the 2 grunts(1st the west one). Next we just use our 3 gunner's bazookas to defeat the rest. Straight forward.
Mission 5:
We make our first scout a sniper so he can actually deal damage. 1st our sniper takes on the engineer, then we just use bazookas to kill the other foes. I usually start with the medic as the gunners often miss. Basically a simple mission.
SAUSTRALIA
We promote every pig to the 2nd level. While we're on this continent we never promote a sniper but always use as many points as we can. Leaves always only one option.
Mission 6:
We use our Bombardiers to finish the enemie's ones and hide left of the wall with our first one so the Sniper later will miss us. Finishing that Sniper with a mortar and finding our way through the mines to get the Super Air Bust defeating the last tarned sniper in his box.
Mission 7:
Just getting our 1st bombardier out of the range of that artillerie so the guy inside will come out and throw a useless grenade. While we're hiding behind the hill we just use our mortars to defeat the enemies in the following order: Pyromancer, Medic+Scout,Grunt.
The last grunt should move out of his artillerie as well for our sniper to take care off.
Mission 8:
Also simple. After 6 turns 2 spies will appear but we have the mission done in 3 using mortars to defeat the enemies the following order: Medic/Sniper/Sniper.
Mission 9:
We get the airstrike and win, full stop.
Mission 10:
A pain in the butt. 2 attacks must finish the artillerie and our next 3 attacks should take out their team.
TROTSVILLE
We use all promotion points to promote one of our snipers to a commando. This way we have just 1 pig left without heavy weapons. This continent has very simple and very hard missions, good preparation is required.
Mission 11:
Principally our usual strategy pulling out mortars/airbusts and finishing the enemies is working very well. The only difficulcy is having no map markers of the snipers which makes aiming without eye contact quite rough. Also our sniper cant one-shot an enemy thus we leave the guy closest to the mine field for the end as he can be knife attacked into the mines for an easy finish. We start out with a Cluster grenade on a tarned sniper.
Mission 12:
This one can take forever if we let the snipers run circles and allow the enemies to use their tanks and spread on the map. The fastest way is entering an enemy tank to give them a target. Still their Spy will enter the tank closest to him but he wont act if we place our tank so that an enemy-pyromancer is between the two machines. We blow up one spy with an airbust and then just use heavy weapons to blow up everyone. Quick and easy.
Mission 13:
This one is the most painful mission for a speedrun in the entire game. Everyone is sitting in a machine with 100 health and annoys us. In the following Ill name the machines 5-1 from West to East and the pigs inside p5-p1. We switch our sniper to position 3 as a well timed and aimed poison attack saves our arse here.
First our commando uses Jetpack and grabs the mines, then uses a little trick to blow up 5. Usually a single mine won't detonate but placing one from the slope onto 5 so that it hovers in the air makes it blow up after our turn. We grab the health, place our commando right in front of 3 and blow up 1 with a Cluster grenade. We definately wanna have p1's health drop to 10 or lower from water damage, death is also ok.
Next our pyromancer blows up 2 with a flaregun and turn 3 our Sniper throws a poison grenade killing p1 and poisoning p2 to steal his turn. Our gunners blow up 4 in the meantime and kill p4 with the final attack on 4 and our commando will poison p5 for another extra turn. Finally we blow up 3 with another Flaregun and take out p3 with our Sniper.
Mission 14:
A great way to relax after glacier guns. We use 2 perfectly aimed airbusts and win.
Mission 15:
Even simpler than the previous one. Our commando grabs the airstrike to kill every enemy in the eastern half and turn 2 we blow up the oilpipe next to the remaining spy.
BELLYOPOLIS
We promote our commando to a hero and our sniper to a spy. No need for a second commando, we much rather wanna get access to an airstrike right now.
Mission 16:
Airstrike, Airbust, win.
Mission 17:
We move our Spy to the 5th position and get started. First we blow up the tent most north and the one most east with an Airstrike. We use Airbusts to kill the remaining 2 enemies starting with the one who acts first because we can only kill him with a single airbust as long as he is standing on his tent. Win in 3 turns.
Mission 18:
Basically we start with the guy who usually acts the 2nd and kill him with a Cluster grenade while he's tarned, then we just Airbust the next 2 spies after they acted. We kill the fourth one with a flat angled, fully powered airbust while he's tarned. The shot is crazy difficult but possible. Finally we use RNG rolling by mashing x button to make the last guy tarn twice in a row. Our spy skips turn and our hero uses airstrike to win.
Mission 19:
We start with an airstrike to finish the spy and the medic. Next we use 2 attacks on the tank to blow it up and kill the guy inside after he came out. We use RNG rolling to make sure the enemies hit us as weak as possible so everyone stays alive. The next 2 attacks finish the commando, win.
Mission 20:
We use an airstrike, a bazooka and an airbust. We use the airbust for the one most west whom we're leaving undamaged till the end and the bazooka to defeat the one who survived the airstrike.
ARSTRIA
We promote our spy to a commando and save up the rest. We will not get the survival bonus after the next mission so we can only promote our second hero if all survival bonuses have been collected so far. Except for Mission 22 “Assassination“ the rest of the game is pretty easy as most of the work is usually done after our airstrikes hit and the final mission can be cheaped out in just 2 turns before the dangerous legends even arrive. On the whole speedrun we never let reinforcements arrive before finishing the mission and we wanna stick to that till the very end.
Just 5 Missions left!!
Mission 21:
First we hit the 3 commandos most east with our air strike, 2 will survive. Next one is truly an amazing trick shot. We use a cluster grenade on the tarned commando who is closest to the survivor of our airstrike who is located right between the hills the parties are starting on. The cluster grenade has to be used so that it defeats the commando and also moves him down the hill next to the other commando. That way he will blow up both enemies when he dies due to the small explosion that causes.
The rest is done by mortars. We mostly ignore losses in our team, we just dont want 3 or more non-heros to die.
Mission 22:
The last real challenge. We make our final promotion making our commando to a hero. We move both heros in the pillbox using Jetpack so the stupid Scout will always shoot that thing. We damage the two tanks with our airstrikes and blow up the west one with an airbust so that the guy inside has 15 or less health. Next we blow up the house with a flaregun and kill the hero who was inside. Now our hero gets out of the pillbox and blows up the other tank with a Cluster grenade. Our second hero poisons both enemy gunners at once killing one and poisoning the other one stealing his turn. We use our extra turn to kill the scout with a mortar. Win.
Mission 23:
We use 2 airstrikes and an airbust. We ignore any losses we just need to win. Our 2 heroes cant permanently die and they are all we need for the last 2 missions.
Mission 24:
Our airstrikes will finish everyone.
ISLE OF SWILL
Mission 25:
Special ops on top of the Pillbox and kill the guy who comes out. Game beaten ;)
Already in the first mission wouldn't it be faster to change the order of killing of the first two pigs? Because the second takes so long to choose weapon and target.
Potentially yes. However, I haven't yet found out how the AI exactly works. On other runs I did just what you suggested but this time it always made the 1st acting enemy grunt chose a grenade and kill one of mine.
A certain part of the AI is RNG which can be rolled by opening the menu and waiting a moment e.g. but I simply did not survive this 1st turn the fast way on a few retries and I don't know how to ensure that the 1st enemy grunt will pick the rifle.
I made a new discovery on this game!
Luck manipulation can easily be done by mashing the x button. Ive been using this a lot on mission 18 to control when I want the enemy to act or to tarn quickly. Also on mission 19 and some others I influenced the enemy's accuracy for bad shooting.
Often the enemy will act depending on the situation and always behave the same way. Sometimes there are 2 possibilities(maybe more but 2 is the highest I've seen yet) what to do and when attacking there is a random factor as well sometimes.
I found out that reloading a savestate made by epsxe gives reproduceable results and pressing x repeatedly changed those results.
That means you cant totally determine what your enemy is gonna do but you can chose the best oppertunity you have by:
Keep reloading with button mash and counting your inputs. When the enemy does what you want you remember that number and that way you can always reproduce the turn.
What choices you have is dependand on your previous actions in that level. Im pretty sure all random stuff doesnt flow from one turn to the next. So what you do and where your pigs are placed makes a difference but button mashing in an earlier turn should never influence the oppertunities you have at the end of the level, only the next action is influenced and the RNG responsible for that action can be rolled at any time I believe.
...by pointlessly mashing x button, well great programming, mission 18 can take ages but now Bellyopolis was conquered almost as quick as Hogs Head. Im currently uploading the video to utube.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you but it doesn't appear this TAS can be submittable on this site with a input file and EPSXE shows no signs of being able to record one from what i checked out of it. Just so you are aware of the issue.Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about emulation of games on supported emulators that allow recording input files but wait.
Please see the Rules for more information.
http://tasvideos.org/MovieRules.html#MultimediaFilesAreNotAccepted
I'm assuming from the moment he started TASing without frame advance he knew it wouldn't be something to submit to the site. TAS for fun, not just to submit :D
And if it ever becomes possible to properly TAS this in the future, having pre-existing routes and notes will help that a lot.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you but it doesn't appear this TAS can be submittable on this site with a input file and EPSXE shows no signs of being able to record one from what i checked out of it. Just so you are aware of the issue.Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about emulation of games on supported emulators that allow recording input files but wait.
Please see the Rules for more information.
Meesbaker wrote:
Still, without trying to be any cocky/idiot/offensive, I'm not getting all the formulations and grammer in this reply. This “but wait“ I don get
Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about emulation of games on supported emulators that allow recording input files but wait.
What the 'but' does here is introduce a 'crack in the armour' in the previous phrase.
Here's an example of a similar sentence: "I am Dracula. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to slay my immortal body, but a piece of the true cross could stake my heart and kill me."
As you've noticed, sentences including a 'but' can get a bit unwieldy if they lead you to believe something 100% and then retract that confidence. But it is technically correct English to use 'but' like this.
A rephrasing that removes the 'but' might be: 'The only thing that can be done about emulation on supported emulators that allow recording input files is to wait.'
and shouldn't the sentence before talk about UNsupported games on recording emulators than supported games on any emulator?
Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about emulation of games on supported emulators that allow recording input files
It depends on what you think is more likely:
-That Hogs of War becomes supported by an emulator that is supported by tasvideos (Such as PSXJin)
-That an emulator that Hogs of War works on now is updated to become a TASable emulator (such as ePSXe)
Cooljay thinks the former is more likely, and thus proposes you should wait for the former.
Also shouldn't the first sentence say runs withOUT input file cant be submitted?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you but it doesn't appear this TAS can be submittable on this site with a input file
Yes, that looks like a typo to me, it should read 'but it doesn't appear this TAS can be submittable on this site without an input file'. Typoes happen a lot in forum posts - if it's obvious what the poster meant, then elide the typoes existence by pretending the post reads correctly. (Though if you're not sure, definitely ask.)
I hope this helps you, Meesbaker. (EDIT: Since you deleted your post, I'll leave this up for about an hour then delete this as well.)
Patashu said it, this isn't meant to be submitted. If you watch the videos you should notice that gameplay isn't instant and robo-like enough to keep up with runs like Spyro or Crash Bandicoot due to no frame advance, thus it wouldnt even survive the voting....
I recorded the very beginning of the game in PSXJin using fa. I think the disparities between the menu navigation before the first mission and just that during the rest of the run are more than evident.
This run is mostly born from some phrase like “share your stuff with the forum before submitting anything“ from the rules. I love TASing this game and I hoped recording a TAS myself helps hear what people say about it ;)
Still I'm having big fun at it :)
And also thanks for your interest in my run and your replies Cooljay and Patashu! ;)
UPDATE
I finished the whole run! I uploaded a video of the whole run and attached it to my first post in this thread. Final time from the first to the last decisive action is 1:06:27.32.
The video runs from the very beginning of the game to the end of the ending fmv of the game like a TAS video is supposed to do. My work on this thread is done, enjoy Hogs of War being beaten in just a single hour!!
:)
