Theme Hospital

Edit history:

Creaphis: 2011-09-16 10:28:55 am

2011-09-16 10:23:51 am

Quote from TheLongshotLegend:

You could do that for levels 1-5 I reckon. However, after level 5 the success criteria would become a little too high to simply rush. However, if you are reaching the end of the quarter for winning the level, you could in theory destroy your budget to win in the last three months. But for levels like Battenburg and Croaking Hospital, 12 and 11, the death quote is really low and you can lose quite easily if you don't do enough in one year. I've failed on that level a lot. And thanks for that research finding... that'll be really effective to treat some of the advanced illnesses quickly, I'll bear that in mind. As for rushing, I think it would be achieveable to a certain degree, but after a certain point rushing becomes impossible with the stricter winning criterias, possibly levels 6 and onwards.

I'm not sure that I'm right about "specialization." I'm just going by what I read on this page:

http://www.eudoxus.demon.co.uk/thc/research.htm

"Specialization is the only way of directing research to look at one specific cure and improve it. Useful when you have a particular machine that has a low initial strength, or a cure you want to obtain in a hurry."

I wouldn't doubt that rushing becomes impossible later on, but it's something that can be considered level-by-level. I was experimenting with an efficient, high-quality hospital in level 2 yesterday and I think I actually would have been better off with worse doctors. The consultant I had in the GP's office was diagnosing everyone instantly, but that means I only got to charge $100 for the diagnosis, when I could have charged $300 to each patient if the diagnosis was split up into 2 office visits and 1 trip to another room. Maybe with a junior in the GP's office you could bring that up to $500 per patient, which would be a good money-maker on levels with a slow flow of patients.

Have you decided what game speed you're going to play at? Is this run going to be judged by game time or real time?

[quote="TheLongshotLegend"]You could do that for levels 1-5 I reckon. However, after level 5 the success criteria would become a little too high to simply rush. However, if you are reaching the end of the quarter for winning the level, you could in theory destroy your budget to win in the last three months. But for levels like Battenburg and Croaking Hospital, 12 and 11, the death quote is really low and you can lose quite easily if you don't do enough in one year. I've failed on that level a lot. And thanks for that research finding... that'll be really effective to treat some of the advanced illnesses quickly, I'll bear that in mind. As for rushing, I think it would be achieveable to a certain degree, but after a certain point rushing becomes impossible with the stricter winning criterias, possibly levels 6 and onwards.[/quote]

I'm not sure that I'm right about "specialization." I'm just going by what I read on this page:

http://www.eudoxus.demon.co.uk/thc/research.htm

"Specialization is the only way of directing research to look at one specific cure and improve it. Useful when you have a particular machine that has a low initial strength, or a cure you want to obtain in a hurry."

I wouldn't doubt that rushing becomes impossible later on, but it's something that can be considered level-by-level. I was experimenting with an efficient, high-quality hospital in level 2 yesterday and I think I actually would have been better off with worse doctors. The consultant I had in the GP's office was diagnosing everyone instantly, but that means I only got to charge $100 for the diagnosis, when I could have charged $300 to each patient if the diagnosis was split up into 2 office visits and 1 trip to another room. Maybe with a junior in the GP's office you could bring that up to $500 per patient, which would be a good money-maker on levels with a slow flow of patients.

Have you decided what game speed you're going to play at? Is this run going to be judged by game time or real time?

TheLongshotLegend

2011-09-16 11:26:47 am

Give me money or I shoot you in face

It would need to judged on real time I think, if I'm going to be playing with the speed functions. Naturally I can't run the game at maximum speed all the time otherwise I won't be able to keep up without very good knowledge of any hotkeys that work, but it's not impossible. I can see what you mean about Juniors though. if they diagnose slowly you could make more money, but later levels would need faster diagnosis. If I remember correctly an invisibility patient can earn around $1,200, and be a cure on your count if you use the consultant. The thing about later levels is that it becomes very busy, very quickly, so having consultants a lot will make me cure many more per quarter, and will help keep the hospital busy.

I think it would be okay to slowly progress up. From High Juniors, low consultants in the first few levels, to High Consultants, Low Juniors in the later levels. I think that would make sense, but doctors are good for teaching if you can make them turn into a researcher or psychiatrist with training. Or better yet, get a consultant surgeon to train more surgeons. That way you can get a surgeon with a doctor/juniors salary, and surgeons are in very high demand and low supply. Having a cleanly working op theatre builds reputation a lot.

It would need to judged on real time I think, if I'm going to be playing with the speed functions. Naturally I can't run the game at maximum speed all the time otherwise I won't be able to keep up without very good knowledge of any hotkeys that work, but it's not impossible. I can see what you mean about Juniors though. if they diagnose slowly you could make more money, but later levels would need faster diagnosis. If I remember correctly an invisibility patient can earn around $1,200, and be a cure on your count if you use the consultant. The thing about later levels is that it becomes very busy, very quickly, so having consultants a lot will make me cure many more per quarter, and will help keep the hospital busy.

I think it would be okay to slowly progress up. From High Juniors, low consultants in the first few levels, to High Consultants, Low Juniors in the later levels. I think that would make sense, but doctors are good for teaching if you can make them turn into a researcher or psychiatrist with training. Or better yet, get a consultant surgeon to train more surgeons. That way you can get a surgeon with a doctor/juniors salary, and surgeons are in very high demand and low supply. Having a cleanly working op theatre builds reputation a lot.

ad3n

2011-09-16 03:40:55 pm

rawr

I haven't played in ages, but man I loved this game. I'll be following this thread and really hoping to see an eventual run.

For the later levels I always remember trying to make the ultimate teacher; take a VERY low junior, have him solo in a training room with a consultant of a single specialty, and so soon as the junior gained it, swap out for another consultant. If you use a junior with too high of a rating when you first hire him, he'll hit Consultant before he has all three trades 100% making him not so awesome. If you do this as early as possible when things are slow, you get a wicked teacher that will keep pumping out tons of highly trained consultants in no time since they learn all three things at once. It's also good to have extras in that discipline and set the break-level at a decent-ish percentage since the crazy stressed docs just misdiagnose and kill your people. Drop the percent as you near the ending though like you're sprinting to the finish. Screw breaks at the point. Also, if you want to replace a doc in a room, lift the current one out and drop him in the hall before putting the new guy in. otherwise, it's a slow animation of the first guy leaving before the second guy can even start. It's even worse if you do it while a patient is presently in the room, since they have to leave, then come back in and start it all over. And if I remember correctly, the No-Death bonus you get at the end of the year is freaking huge, which can be mighty helpful as often as possible.

Maybe I'll load it up again and see what else pops back into my head. I've beaten that game loads of times, and I always come back for it again.

I haven't played in ages, but man I loved this game.  I'll be following this thread and really hoping to see an eventual run.

For the later levels I always remember trying to make the ultimate teacher; take a VERY low junior, have him solo in a training room with a consultant of a single specialty, and so soon as  the junior gained it, swap out for another consultant.  If you use a junior with too high of a rating when you first hire him, he'll hit Consultant before he has all three trades 100% making him not so awesome.  If you do this as early as possible when things are slow, you get a wicked teacher that will keep pumping out tons of highly trained consultants in no time since they learn all three things at once.  It's also good to have extras in that discipline and set the break-level at a decent-ish percentage since the crazy stressed docs just misdiagnose and kill your people.  Drop the percent as you near the ending though like you're sprinting to the finish.  Screw breaks at the point.  Also, if you want to replace a doc in a room, lift the current one out and drop him in the hall before putting the new guy in.  otherwise, it's a slow animation of the first guy leaving before the second guy can even start.  It's even worse if you do it while a patient is presently in the room, since they have to leave, then come back in and start it all over.  And if I remember correctly, the No-Death bonus you get at the end of the year is freaking huge, which can be mighty helpful as often as possible.

Maybe I'll load it up again and see what else pops back into my head.  I've beaten that game loads of times, and I always come back for it again.

Evil_Dude

Edit history:

Evil_Dude: 2013-01-16 09:43:57 am

2013-01-16 08:53:47 am

Don't know how much i can help but would love to help you out if i can, haven't played Theme hospital in a while and its a really great game. Could be a nice game to chill out while planning for my own speedrun.

I remember that me, Tompa and one or two of his brothers tried to get the multiplayer part to work. Regardless of how much we tried, it would not work. That was a little sad, since multiplayer would be awesome.

Edit: Don't know if this is a glitch or not, found it by accident. I had on the first level purchased two reception desks because i wanted to test if it would go faster than having one. Seems that only one was manned while the other receptionist just wandered around doing nothing. By mistake i removed the active receptionists desk and quickly placed it back. The passive receptionist that was very close to the desk went and manned it, while the active receptionist had not moved anywhere. Suddenly i had two receptionists working on the same desk, dont know if its beneficial or not, it at least was a good laugh.

Don't know how much i can help but would love to help you out if i can, haven't played Theme hospital in a while and its a really great game. Could be a nice game to chill out while planning for my own speedrun.

I remember that me, Tompa and one or two of his brothers tried to get the multiplayer part to work. Regardless of how much we tried, it would not work. That was a little sad, since multiplayer would be awesome.

Edit: Don't know if this is a glitch or not, found it by accident. I had on the first level purchased two reception desks because i wanted to test if it would go faster than having one. Seems that only one was manned while the other receptionist just wandered around doing nothing. By mistake i removed the active receptionists desk and quickly placed it back. The passive receptionist that was very close to the desk went and manned it, while the active receptionist had not moved anywhere. Suddenly i had two receptionists working on the same desk, dont know if its beneficial or not, it at least was a good laugh.

gammadragon

2013-01-16 10:38:05 pm

Might be magic...

I'd be keen to see a speedrun of this.

I guess that you would need pretty good control over the game speed. From memory the shortcuts are ALT+1 (slowest) to ALT+5 (fastest) and the fastest speed is _really_ fast. I would hope the speedrun is done mostly on the fastest speed and expect to see a lot of notes about how painful it was when the vomit epidemics started Smiley

habbis

2016-12-09 02:08:03 pm

I gave this game finally a try. Here's the link: http://www.speedrun.com/run/7yl53qrz

I made a lot of research to find out how the game really works for speedrunning purposes. The most breaking thing I found out was that you can dodge all the epidemics by selling the reception desk temporarily and then kicking somebody out - the health minister doesn't then find his way to your hospital. The game is not possible in 2 hours, but maybe in under 6 hours still. My run isn't really very optimal and can be easily beaten, but it's a good starting point.

habbis

Edit history:

habbis: 2016-12-12 12:49:25 pm

2016-12-09 02:22:18 pm

Quote from TheLongshotLegend:

My My. What a properly old game. One of my favourites though, I could say. I have always loved playing this one ever since I was a bloody kid. Nothing has really compared to it, for me anyway, in terms of being fun, arcade-like, and strategic. Now, strategy games have never massively been my strong point, but I really would like some feedback or some information regarding time savers etcetera, especially considering missions 8-12. Anyone got some cards to bring to the table? Wink

http://www.speedrun.com/run/7yl53qrz

My run isn't really very optimal and you could easily beat it, but it's a good starting point.

I think I did a lot of things fundamentally right (f.e. no windows, minimal rooms, no plants - unlike the game is trying to say, they don't affect positively anything at all), so watching my record could help you get some ideas if you are still planning on speedrunning this thumbsup

gammadragon

2017-01-02 09:14:35 pm

Might be magic...

Awesome, thanks for posting this up. I'll watch it over the next few days Smiley

habbis

2020-03-21 11:47:24 pm

I uploaded a new run recently, and just remembered this thread exists. I finished the game in just 5h 33min. Here is a playlist:

The first 4 levels come with English subtitles; I thought that if somebody is actually interested in the reasonings of my strategies I discuss them as I play.

I think the run can still be brought under 5h with some serious training and some luck, but I can be very satisfied with the current run and I'm not going to run more, unless I have a real reason to do so. I'm open to give more tips if anyone wants to try the run themselves.