I recently played through this for the first time and had an urge to speedrun it. Looking at some previous threads it seems there's some interest for Ultima runs so I gave it a shot.
Since this game doesn't keep track of turns, but rather in-game days it took to complete (displayed on the win screen), I'm using that as a metric. I did some test runs with liberal saving/restoring and the first came to 18 days. A brutally refined route cut that down to 10 days, so I know that's possible at least. This will be in Dosbox by the way. I don't mind if it's not hosted on SDA. This is as good a place as any to discuss it.
Nothing is recorded yet since I was testing, and still am, but I plan to at least get an 18 day recorded. As for when, I don't know. Now onto the meat of it...
My general tactics to save time are:
- No Codex quests are done. They're not necessary to beat the game. You can still yell "Veracomor" to open up Doom without reading it in the Codex.
- I only enter the underworld twice. The first time is through the waterfall. By using blink (24 times Shocked) in the right places, I'm able to get the Amulet, mystic arms and 3 gem shards all in one go. The second time I go there is to get from Shame's exit to Doom. This saves having to go through 3 dungeons and a lot of surface travel.
- Minimal grinding. I get the avatar 50xp so he can reach level 3 in order to cast blink, and that's all.
- I try to make the most optimal route by paying heed to moon phases/gates. This is what makes route planning very interesting in this game. Even a few hours can mean the difference between gating to somewhere good or bad. Also picking up moonstones and burying them are something I have considered but found no use for yet (aside from taking one and burying it in the underworld to escape).
There's a few little tricks like resting at Stonegate until 6am. I've found that from 6-7am the daemon and Shadowlords won't move a muscle inside Stonegate. Why? I don't know. But it makes stealing the Sceptre a piece of cake.
The biggest problem is Doom. With 4-5 party members who are low level it lives up to its name. However I utilise 3 tricks. The first, on the surface I grab 2 time stop scrolls and 3 (out of 4) summon daemon scrolls. These help out a lot, especially the time stop ones. The second is a game engine quirk. By using a polearm (morning star or halberd) you can attack over solid walls. This makes the first and final room of Doom manageable.
The third is a straight up glitch which feels kinda lame to use but it's a speedrun yeah? If the avatar is dead and another party member uses a glass sword, it won't break. This means they effectively have a weapon that will kill any monster in one hit. However, they are still weak, so Doom goes from impossible with low levels to plausible.
One last thing to mention is I plan to do this in 2 segments minimum. When you camp for 6+ hours and rest the party, there's a chance LB will appear to level up any characters who have the required experience. I've tried to manipulate this to no avail. It seems completely random like ambushes. So I'm going to segment it before going to the underworld to ensure a level up.
That's it for now. If people familiar with the game would like to discuss strategies or ideas I'd love that. I'm not going to write a detailed rundown until I get something recorded, but if you'd like to know anything just ask.
Since this game doesn't keep track of turns, but rather in-game days it took to complete (displayed on the win screen), I'm using that as a metric. I did some test runs with liberal saving/restoring and the first came to 18 days. A brutally refined route cut that down to 10 days, so I know that's possible at least. This will be in Dosbox by the way. I don't mind if it's not hosted on SDA. This is as good a place as any to discuss it.
Nothing is recorded yet since I was testing, and still am, but I plan to at least get an 18 day recorded. As for when, I don't know. Now onto the meat of it...
My general tactics to save time are:
- No Codex quests are done. They're not necessary to beat the game. You can still yell "Veracomor" to open up Doom without reading it in the Codex.
- I only enter the underworld twice. The first time is through the waterfall. By using blink (24 times Shocked) in the right places, I'm able to get the Amulet, mystic arms and 3 gem shards all in one go. The second time I go there is to get from Shame's exit to Doom. This saves having to go through 3 dungeons and a lot of surface travel.
- Minimal grinding. I get the avatar 50xp so he can reach level 3 in order to cast blink, and that's all.
- I try to make the most optimal route by paying heed to moon phases/gates. This is what makes route planning very interesting in this game. Even a few hours can mean the difference between gating to somewhere good or bad. Also picking up moonstones and burying them are something I have considered but found no use for yet (aside from taking one and burying it in the underworld to escape).
There's a few little tricks like resting at Stonegate until 6am. I've found that from 6-7am the daemon and Shadowlords won't move a muscle inside Stonegate. Why? I don't know. But it makes stealing the Sceptre a piece of cake.
The biggest problem is Doom. With 4-5 party members who are low level it lives up to its name. However I utilise 3 tricks. The first, on the surface I grab 2 time stop scrolls and 3 (out of 4) summon daemon scrolls. These help out a lot, especially the time stop ones. The second is a game engine quirk. By using a polearm (morning star or halberd) you can attack over solid walls. This makes the first and final room of Doom manageable.
The third is a straight up glitch which feels kinda lame to use but it's a speedrun yeah? If the avatar is dead and another party member uses a glass sword, it won't break. This means they effectively have a weapon that will kill any monster in one hit. However, they are still weak, so Doom goes from impossible with low levels to plausible.
One last thing to mention is I plan to do this in 2 segments minimum. When you camp for 6+ hours and rest the party, there's a chance LB will appear to level up any characters who have the required experience. I've tried to manipulate this to no avail. It seems completely random like ambushes. So I'm going to segment it before going to the underworld to ensure a level up.
That's it for now. If people familiar with the game would like to discuss strategies or ideas I'd love that. I'm not going to write a detailed rundown until I get something recorded, but if you'd like to know anything just ask.
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