There were no video, audio, or syncing problems.

There was no cheating or other funny business.

This run really pushes the known limits in AOE3. It is very well optimized and uses every trick I knew of as well as several I didn't.

I recommend that it be accepted.

I didn't notice any problems with sync, but I use VLC under Linux64. There are some graphics glitches I noticed, but I figured those were probably the SLI card setup. My windows computer has been giving me a lot of trouble, but I did manage to play AoE3 a little bit and check some things. Reading down through the runner's comments, there's a few things I didn't notice: the big one is Beaumount on the last level. People get hung up on buildings and stuff, and that issue slipped right past me.

Here's the AoE3 review.








I've played through AoE2+Conquerers and AoE3, but have not played the Warchiefs expansion.

The in-game timer appears to be accurate, even if I don't fully agree with its starting point. I based final time on the in-game timer. End segment time is measured at the first frame when the message "You are Victorious!" is displayed on the screen, and includes frames after the decimal. Future speedruns at a lesser framerate would naturally not have the same level of precision afforded by the higher framerate capture of this video.

Wow, the video is really high quality.




mission1-
Runner immediately kills all his pikes and crossbows. Optimizes food and gold and groups civilians, then tears down the primary defense structures. Scouts the spawn points with Morgan. Groups civs next to the bon fire in preparation. The first bombard cannon spawns at 4.30, and the best you can do is be in position with a force. The runner is there with fighters and stomps them. The civs automatically light the fire, and the other canons are immediately destroyed. It is obvious the runner has really optimized the hotkey scheme and practiced this mission extensively to perfect the routing. It can't be done any faster unless you type in the code for instant win. End frame 19002, in-game mission time of 00:05:15.37.

mission2-
Another "set piece" mission where the fastest route is using what you are given at mission start. The runner uses the initial force to go through the caves as quickly as possible, without even stopping to attack individual soldiers or rescue units. Puts up a foundary and pulls out hoopers. Uses blind pointing to keep things moving. Converts the cannon to transport mode until reaching the final target. Queues swordmen with upgrades to attack the western cache, hoops for an eastern target. This is another optimized mission. The end of this mission is a little different, in that a cut-scene interrupts the video before the victory message is displayed. As a result, the time for this mission is recorded at the point where the cut-scene begins: end frame 8123, 00:02:11.1 on the in-game timer.

mission3-
Loads morgan onto the boat and blind points. Drops town center, sends all other units to south of island. Great unload with morgan at 0:52 for west treasure. Sends morgan to the treasure, ship back to main island. One-hit attack on the defender at 1:08, and morgan grabs treasure (that's a really close call on that one, since there's leeway of about 1 second with all those people on your ass). Ship lands at eastern island at 1:11, drops off some civs, calvary, and pikes. Sends ship to west island, new force to the treasure. Uses ship to attack south defender at 1:24. Very nice because the AI attacks the boat instead of ground units. 
End frame 6188, 00:01:38.50.

mission4-
Immediately drops the colony on the beach, assigns wood cutters. Drops trading post at first village, takes swordman card, sends boat to attack dock. Pikes head south to fort, micromange civilians for food, cranks out spearmen and sends them south to pikes. Grabs pikemen, town cart cards.  Stays focused on gate with morgan, pikes and spears. Looks like a glitch with the guy in the wall. Breakthrough at 2:14. Straight to command post for attack. Sends more spears to attack fort. Sends civilians down to attack fort at 2:39. Command fort falls at 2:50, pours everything onto the town center. Takes falconets and mortar cards.
End frame 12936, 00:03:32.00.

mission5-
Groups primary force, sends morgan ahead to build post. Wipes out guard force to grab indians. Builds post, spawns ship, drops center, 2 houses. All forces up to east gate, ship pulls back at 1:06 to clean out guards and free east indians. Main force frees north eastern indians. All villagers to cutting trees. City card for for mortars. Every available unit heads up to the gates. Notices the idle villager at 1:49, sets up a few more jaguars. When the southern indians are freed, the runner is right there during the color change. That is just perfect timing. Drops the gate, sends for falconets at 2:15. Fort hasn't even begun building. Wipes out all the central buildings for the win.
Frame 12652, 00:03:25.00.

mission6-
Sends cavalry west to head off attack. Morgan south to a trade post, east to the boat. Deletes boat, which spawns a new one further north. There's ten seconds saved.  Sends 1 cavalry, 1 settler, and the kid. Drop off kid, has the cavalry circle a few times for aggro while the settler steals the treasure since it's not a "guarded" treasure. And Morgan rolls straight up into position for the trigger. That level of precision is disturbing. Pulls the boat support card.
Frame 8774, 00:02:23.43.

mission7-
Drops off force at nearest beach. Drops town hall, sends primary force north into the black, has small boat head up to the east galleon. Mortar heads west still on the boat. Puts up a church at 0:43.  Ship drops the holding cell, and the prisoners just head west past the tower. City card, 2 mortar.  Runner stops to address a force at 1:08. The starting canon continues north. Prisoners drop the central tower, ship number 1. Runner drops off a mortar way over on the left at 1:40, then pounds the north western tower. Finally locks the two ordered mortars onto the close tower in the east. Ship upgrade from church at 1:46. Starting canon attacks northern tower, main force attacks tower 4. Past 2:00, it's just a matter of waiting. Small setback when redcoats show up on the main force. Takes a galleon city card. This is a really balanced route and organization. All the units have been juggled around to get the job done without having to wait for build orders, and only the necessary move orders.
Frame 8018, 00:02:07.00.

mission8-
Runner heads over to take the cannon and clear out some of the town. There he goes again at 0:40, waiting for the cart to spawn. Throws up the town center and artillery. Runner deletes the whole force of crossbows to free up population limit. Orders two mortars from card. Builds a few more settlers, sticks everyone on gold, queues up a load of mortars.  Clears out the small island with the great canon. Moves the main spawn point to the fountain so he doesn't have to micromanage boats. Runner is right there with a drag-box at 1:37 to get the sent mortars. Drops 7 mortars on the island at 2:09. 4 more at 3:57. Great job loading up on mortars.
Frame 12308, 00:03:18.14.

mission9-
Runner takes out the initial wave. Forgets to convert the canon to transport for quite some time, and then forgets to deselect it when attacking the bears, so there's maybe 5 seconds to be saved.  Queues and sends the rifles west as they generate. Puts civs on gold. Takes a light canon card. I don't know what that flashing glitch is at 1:47. Converts canon over to deployed config for defense. Takes crossbow upgrade. Repels first assault, takes cavalry card and muskets. God damnit, the runner's got that governor down there taking swings at people. What the hell is he thinking? Takes mercenaries card at 3:34, and a load of civs. Queues up more riflemen, micromanages for gold, foundary upgrades, civ card. Sets middle force south to the tribe. Oh hell, that's the way to go with that spawn point at 8:07. Another civ card, finishes the south battle. Another civ card. Starts putting civs on wood. Maximizing upgrades at the foundary, civ cards. At the 12:00 mark, I'm sitting there looking and wondering what the hell spawns there? Good job. I didn't catch on until the first side of the "A". Runner wipes out the enclosed civs at the dock. Chalk it up to broken AI/scripting with the static indians after dropping the enclosure, but if they were still trying to pathfind, it would bog down your processor. Even AoE2 had a time limit on pathfinding. Takes the hero upgrade, cavalry, and light canon, and caravel cards.
Frame 57100, 00:15:48.00.

mission10-
Sends primary force to the first village. Wipes out the old village center, mill, and dock, as well as some of the walls. Uses some one-shot kills. Wipes out the rest of the starting village in the north-east. Destroys both indian villages, sends soldiers north and the two heroes head west. British spawn, everyone heads up north to the razed original town. The british wagon spawns, and the 7 soldiers are in position to immediately attack at 2:46. Pulls out a town center with the west spawned wagon at 3:18, harasses the wagon at the edge of guard range, grabs settlers heading east and drops a barracks, calls in militia at the town center and puts the gather point in front of the wagon. Reinforcements arrive, everyone attacks brit wagon, deletes the barracks and the mission ends before the runner kills the wagon.
It seems there is a time trigger for the british, and if they haven't fully put down through their base scripts and bought all their stuff, the game defaults to a win. So this is a scripting loophole the runner stumbled across: harassing the wagon. Very nice.
Frame 14632, 00:03:59.58

mission11-
Drops town center, sends forces to both sides. Drops a barracks, straight up attack on the south gate, one-shot kills. North side attacks outpost, puts civs on food and gold, drops two houses. North force breaks through, puts them on the barracks, orders cavalry card, puts house civ onto food, orders grenadiers. South gate breaks, attack south outpost. Strage video glitch with the torches on the southern outpost, which the runner also notes. That may be an SLI glitch, which would explain the video quality. More grenadiers. Orders musketeers card.  Orders the hero upgrade card. Proportions forces around the base really well. Bashing the village trade post just as the last building falls in the base is strange. Takes a gold card.
Frame 17400, 00:04:43.00

mission12-
Splits off the cavalry to take the british canon up north, ground forces engage primary force. One-shot kills. Takes out canon, soldiers head up to the north crossing. Runner already has the foundary selected before it converts at 1:07, builds light canon, city card for 2 more. Waypoints civs to put in a outpost near north crossing. Main force attacks the northern wall, threatens limey bastards with a one-shot and they take off at 1:40. At 1:47, the shipment of canons and the outpost building. That's incredible. The runner obviously figured out exactly how far north he/she could place that outpost and still make the cutoff. Wall breakthrough right when the canons are in position, immediate attack on command post, orders another canon card. Drops the post. Brilliant mission.
Frame 10056, 00:02:42.00

mission13-
Blind points forces north, throws down artillery, civs on gold and food. Locks forces onto outpost, moves boat spawn point, builds grenadiers, puts civs on gold. Redcoat patrol doesn't see civs, ships in caravel card at 1:32. Puts forces on next tower, immediately sends boats to west tower, doesn't worry about his civs getting blasted. Sends hero card. Just as monitors spawn, the runner has just loaded his troops into the carrier to head over sans one grenadier who's left at the beach. Boats pull up just as the enemy boats spawn at 3:31. Excellent. Drops first monitor, unloads tiny force to attack town center and docks.
Frame 16123, 00:04:24.42

mission14-
Drops town center, civs on gold and wood, puts up trade post, takes age 3 with 2 pirates and 1 boat. Main force heads west, throws foundary  in north village, more civs on gold, takes cavalry card,  attacks west trade post. Throws down houses, takes riflemen card, puts down outpost up north next to foundary, cavalry head north.  Outpost completes, hits age 3, buys light canons, takes both light canon cards, stuffs everything east onto the northeast tower, west group grabs buffalo then heads east. Takes cavalry card. Western tower falls, and runner stuffs everyone onto the fort. Takes hero upgrade card. Runner's got 6 light canon on point and psychotically keeps queuing them. He needs to be ordering attack-move commands for the canon and stop messing with them to micromanage his riflemen. The light canon prefer infantry on their movement AI, buildings secondary. Cavalry reinforce from outpost.
Frame 24767, 00:06:31.20

mission15-
Sends canon and troops west to left of hospital, builds temple.  Goes straight after the town center with the light canon, drawing aggro away from the mortar. And that's over with the mortar doing 600 damage per hit. Takes the wood card.
Frame 5912, 00:01:33.00

mission16-
Divvys up miners for southern bridges, puts up a church. Loads up on civs and puts them on gold, northern civs get supplies at cave entrance, then onto gold. Takes canon card. Grabs the miners as they spawn, throws the light canon onto guard duty for the southern base. I've never tried to delete the bridge. Takes build upgrade at church. Yeah, they fired the Czar Canon one time and the ball went something like 10 meters. The engineers couldn't put any more powder to it because the whole cannon would just explode before the ball was ejected due to the poor carbon-content and purity (nitrates, sulfides) of steel manufacturing back then. Historically, the Russians actually did invade, but I think they got shut down by an avalanche -- I forget if it was triggered by saboteurs or not (this game iteration is the like the "Forrest Gump" of the series). Anyway, back to the video. Upgrades hero, and canon cards. Runner is just messing around now at 4:00 through the end. Very nice.
22020, 00:06:06.00

mission17-
Loads cavalry, ships everyone south, splits up forces to speed building posts, takes a rifleman card. The female hero does the upper post, then heads all the way to the southern post. And, that's it. Takes the hero upgrade, the two infantry, light canons, mortars, little and big boats.
7102, 00:01:53.31

mission18-
Launches everyone down south after the town center, light canon upgrade, takes rocket card. Top cannons go north. And that's it. Not much to say on this one. Well done.
6160, 00:01:38.00

mission19-
Runner immediately heads for the right passage since that's half the cave. runner needs to use the indians one-shot at 1:50. Cart goes south to....left village shooters. Runner keeps the immortals up front for bullet bait. Fared much better than I expected. The shooters come up late, and the others are along the way -- it might be possible to skip one group.
21437, 00:05:55.48

mission20-
Immediately drops a canon building, forces to the southest indians. Queues 2 mortars and the upgrade, builds market. Sells food for gold to buy 3 more mortars. Drops outpost out west next to base. Amelia on trade post in southeast. Takes mortar card, and sends the 5 down west to the back door. Civs put in outpost, mortars start in on the town center. 2 backup mortars arrive at the outpost and are slapped in there too. Excellent timing with the backup mortars even though they make the difference of maybe 10 seconds.
8508, 00:02:16.00

mission21-
Runner heads south and drops tower, using the boat to attack bears for XP. Takes the light canon card. Civs pickup initial resources, fishing boats head north, builds a frigate, throws civs on gold. Buddy, what're you doing with the fishing boats? Ah, canon bait. Good, good. Runner unloads the team and goes to work. Everyone is basically buying time for the mortar and ships. There's not a lot of leeway in there, but that's just the right timing to load the mortar and send it with the frigate.
11829, 00:03:11.00

mission22-
Another set piece mission.  Runner sends the indian ahead of the party. Amelia picks up the helmet, giving the indian a bit more time. Finally has a little mercy and moves the mortal guys into the cave near the fire. Repairs at a cave and just plows straight through everything.
14022, 00:03:43.00

mission23-
The runner starts off on fire. Pulls out some spear guys and upgrades (hitpoints and speed). Micromanages for wood, sends all available units along the south corridor to the fort. Takes hussar card at 1:25.  Locks everything on the map to the fort, other than civilians. Forlorn hope lives to see another day. Nice.
9300, 00: 02:28.00

mission24-
This one starts off on the crazy side. Runner puts in on the side of the cliff next to one of the cannons. You get about two or three hits with that thing on your boat. Manages to do a very funky unload with the two heroes, followed up with the entire boatload of seadogs at 0:32. That canon swings around to nail the building, and the runner cruises around with amelia as bait to lure the boneguards around the target building, away from the rest of the group. Takes over the far canon with amelia, does a one-shot, manages a ship battle. Boneguard is hammering the pirates, canons manage to take out the building, runner immediately deletes the remaining two boats. There's a series of really weird trigger checks involved in that area. The route for this mission is absolutely incredible.
4730, 00:01:12.00




This is a really outstanding run, extensively practiced and optimized. The runner blindly knew where to send forces on the mini-map, before the area had been exposed, indicating a huge amount of practice on that mission. Split forces to the exact level necessary, knowing how many soldiers to send and about how long it was going to take them to travel. When stuff was in place or about to spawn, the runner was there waiting for it with a drag-box.  The runner uses extensive unit grouping and hotkeys, minimap movement, latent build orders (where you queue something, and then do the upgrade or put down an outpost before the queue finishes). There were also several very significant "unload attacks" used, where the player drops off a load of troops in just the right area to avoid whithering fire (that last mission).

It is possible that better knowledge of all the hotkeys, to automatically select and jump-to buildings, would save a few seconds per mission. And a few minor flubs that, of themselves, are not a significant time waste.

I couldn't detect any cheating inside the game. There were several really close calls (1 or 2 second leeway), with maybe a 10% probability. It is possible the runner used the slowdown, from FRAPS capturing at such a high quality level, to gain an advantage; however, the mouse movement and scrolling is precise enough to argue against such a tactic, even if the cursor is moved with deliberate speed for majority of the game (the way you would move a cursor during "lag" in a game). I can't capture at that level -- my dual-core raid0 chokes up at about 20fps on the lowest settings. This person captured at 1024x768 at 60fps, and as near as I can tell, the absolute highest graphic settings inside the game. VLC makes my system cursor invisible over the video box, and it was enraging between that behavior and the runner's cursor all over the place in high-detail. I finally just resorted to alt-tab and keyboard controls.


I think this run should be accepted, barring issue with the video capture. This thing has crazy timing like the Blaster Master and Abe's Exoddus runs. Is the runner one of the developers?



Final time: 85min, 25sec, 306frames

01h 25m 25s  without interstital frames before victory message
01h 25m 30s  with interstital frames before victory message