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Well then, who's going to attempt a speed run?

Haha, that's an interesting idea. I might even want to join in on that.

We'd have to set up code-of-honor-rules on whether any form of multiplayer is allowed...

I did my best at a speed run just now. I finished to the end of the game ie. completion of every quest including building the special gift at the end. All kingdoms are complete including both ice and desert (although not all buildings needed to be built to complete it). Final time for me was just under 4 hours 3:56:13. Having done it once I know there's room for improvement in that as I hit a couple of obstacles along the way

All done on single player only

Nice work, and impressive time!

Please clarify: Did you build all the buildings in the tech tree for all kingdoms, or just finish the story? (did you build all the custom piece shops? bridges? did you build the ice palace?)

I have no preference if you did or didn't, I just want to know what I'm competing with when I do my speed run.

Really good questions. For the 3:56:

I did build the ice palace.
I didn't build all the bridges in the forest kingdom, because I didn't have to (had to build a vertical bridge for the seer stone and for one of the googly eyes, etc quests).
I didn't do the "manly entertainment" or "tough love" quests.
I didn't build the mansion in the desert kingdom.
I didn't build all the custom pieces.

I did make sure I completed the "paint the town red" quest.

I then went on to complete everything, including building all the special pieces and all the buildings (including rebuilding the town hall, etc) and ended up with a score that was around 12th or so on the leaderboards and it took me about 5:40 or something - I still have both game saves

It was a lot of fun, but left me a little tired LOL - finished at 3am.

BTW I'm pretty sure that when I took the seer stone to the glass trader when she tossed the gears into the air, they landed in the glass traders building and were converted to one piece of glass. I know this has come up in the forums before and was dismissed as not possible, but I'm pretty sure it happened.

Ah, I really appreciate the confirmation, then...

OK, I just did a single-player speed run. I didn't do anything I didn't have to (or didn't feel would help my overall time). I just made a beeline for the Rocking Chair.

My game time was 2:57:00 when I got back out of the chair and saved and exited.

I didn't build the seer stone bridge, since that quest isn't needed for the main story. (So, I only built one bridge in the Forest kingdom).
I didn't build the ice palace.
The only decorative workshop I built in the Forest kingdom was the nursery, (which has one fewer piece than the sculptor )

I did build the Long House (requiring me to dig out Rocky), Mansion, and Manor, because I wanted the keflings! My approach is all about kefling upgrades and parallelizing, and I needed transporters.

I think I personally could only do a tiny bit better. I stumbled a bit at the Castle (getting enough resources into the Royal Workshop, grrr...). But up until there I felt like I was doing pretty well. I doubt I could get under 2:45 without a significant change in approach.

Although, I still feel like I don't have an optimal city layout figured out yet, so there's room for improvement there.

Of course, this isn't exactly fair, since I've played through the game many times.

By the way, I totally exploited kefling gender proficiencies the whole way through.

That's a great time, I'm not at all sure I can get close to it but I'll have to have another crack and only do what's needed to get to the chair too

I also exploited kefling gender in my first run.

I just got it done in 2:46:35

That's with the castle built and into and out of the giant's gift

It's my current game save.

That rush towards the end to stock up the royal workshop was fun!

... and that whole desert palace seems to drag so much.

Oh you fiend! I don't know if I can find another 15 minutes in my time.

Nice work!



I think that's a pretty good measuring stick for speed runs. Sit in the chair, hop out, and check your time!



Fun?! That was where I really blew it in my game. So painful. I need a better layout, and maybe some centralized piles of advanced processed resources so I don't have to transfer with stockpiles...



Yeah, it's the freaking clay. There's never enough. In order to have enough clay even most of the time I have about half my keflings working on sand and transporting.

OK, so, two questions:

1. Do you assign your harvesters to harvest AND transport, or do you split up harvesting and transporting duties? Do you use the same approach in all 3 kingdoms?

2. Did you build the longhouse, mansion, and manor? (Did you think it would be worth it for the speed?)

1. I always split up harvesting and transporting and I use this same approach in all 3 kingdoms. A couple of things which help which I'm not sure if you do:

- In the forest kingdom I build the stone cutter and lumbermill to the left of and immediately next to the factory, this means all stone and timber added to each is automatically added to the factory. Once I had the noble workshop built I seperated them because I needed carved wood in there but also needed planks in the factory and cut stone in more than just the factory.

- In the desert kingdom I push the clay maker up against the left side of the market bazaar, so all manufactured clay is automatically added to the bazaar.

I'd previously taken this approach with the ice carver in the ice kingdom but found it quicker to move carved ice only as I needed it.

2. I built the longhouse in the ice kingdom, I think it's necessary to get the number of transporters working. I didn't build either the mansion or manor. I was thinking of building the mansion but I don't think it would have been worth the time to create it and then assign jobs. One thing that did help was placement of the metal trader and glass trader. I put them between the infinite supply of rock on the left of the map and each of the inventor's building and the castle workshop. They were pretty easy to supply quickly for the final rush to the end.

I'd thought of getting transporters to create piles instead of moving stockpiles, but I'm just not sure it's worth the time re-assigning them, with the transporters all over the map it takes time to find them and then I can never tell which building the transporter is transporting to, because often times I'll have two or more transporting to different locations. Also this run through I used transporters a bit better so I didn't have to move as many stockpiles as last time which I really felt was wasting my time last run through.

As with the approach you took I only built what was necessary. Which meant I didn't build the sculptor, the florist, the fountain workshop, the horizontal bridge, the machinist, the paint shop, the gatehouse or the ice palace.

Pretty clever! I've seen NinjaBee's testers do that, but I've always avoided it because I don't like dealing with stockpiles, and I don't want to have to get my planks out of the factory. But you solved that by just separating them again later.



Do you separate it again later? You need clay in Uncle Habib's, right?

I have usually pushed my bazaar and clay maker together, but not close enough for the clay to transfer automatically. But it's a good idea I should explore more.

On the desert kingdom I don't seperate them later, I think from recollection I only needed to move a small number of stockpiles worth of clay over to uncle habib's so it was quicker to do that myself than devote a couple of transporters to move clay to each of habib's and the bazaar.

I'm sure some more time could be found on that level, I really struggled with enough transporters for branches at one point and had to collect some myself for the silk weaver and the bazaar. It's hard to find that happy medium between sand harvesters and transporters for the clay maker and the glass maker. I found myself wanting to destroy the glass bridge (not that you can) to prevent sand harvesters from harvesting over there, it's such a long walk back for the transporters and it takes forever. Maybe I should build the buildings closer to the bridge or at least more central to the map

I keep wanting to do something similar in the ice kingdom. Stupid bramble harvesters...

Of course I *can* build another bridge, but not until it's much too late to be useful.

My head is spinning from all this speed run discussion.