Last week I was practicing at speedrunning HEH (still playing Version 5.14)

https://imgur.com/a/Qpv4z11

Today I made it in 44/41 minutes.

Advancements: all of them maxed (all the relevant of course. Skip Level or Auto Smelt give nothing in this matter)

Artifacts used: legendary Alloy Value, epic SAC, epic ACB, rare Draft Boost, rare Hospital Boost, rare Army Cache, rare Merc Discount.

Strategy used: SAC on Gislic. Capturing and milking all 7 markets, capturing and purchasing all Mercs on the way. Capturing all 15 Hospitals. Capturing Kirovsky Mercenary Camp and superpowering IM. Getting 11T armies. Capturing Russia actively. Finishing the rest with Auto-Conquer.

Although I am happy with that time, I do believe that time can be significantly reduced. I finished the level with 3.5T armies and 750B money to spare, which means:
- using all the enlisted artifacts was an overkill and changing them was time consuming. Probably stick to SAC, Draft Boost, Alloy Value and Mercs Discount
- It is probably best to go straight to Kirovsky and skip the trips to the hospitals
- After the superpowering, capture the near 1.1T giant stack at Ivanovo Bonus actively and then trust the AI to Auto-conquer the rest of Russia
- Got a phone call in the middle and had to answer ---> next time don't answer calls
- Closing the constantly opening bubbles of powers, arenas, dig sites and mortars is not only time consuming but also ANNOYING AS HELL ---> sadly nothing to do here, those are not uncheckable in the settings.

there is no doubt that HEH can be done under 40 minutes. But could it be done under 30?

UPDATE: YES, it is possible! HEH done in 17/13 min!
https://imgur.com/a/zpLLV6d
Full strategy below

Edited 11/10/2021 09:03:48

Superpowered Kirovsky and Legendary Alloy Value lmao

That for sure is an overkill. When you're overkilling a level, trust auto-conquer a bit more. What's your auto-conquer percentage? To improve the joint strike rate while using auto-conquer, I keep my auto-conquer at 5% and leave my auto-conquer on while purchasing from merc camps one by one. Like, each time purchase from one camp and let auto-conquer do its job. After the capturing stopped, purchase from another camp, and continue. I find it useful when doing levels that I can overkill. Not sure if you're already doing that.

I mean like, the style of 1:59:29-2:01:32 in my video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dts87Xsa3w

@Math

my AQ is maxed, so when it's turned on the game becomes laggy. It's impossible to do any actions like purchasing mercs.

My guess is that superpowering Kirovsky is op enough to even partially ignore JS .
I'll try it later when I have 5 IMs again

Are you using laptop?

I had serious lag when using auto-conquer on laptop, often crashing my browser. But when I play on phone, it never lags.

44 minutes! That's crazy talk.

Impressive but comes at a steep cost of 5 IMs to achieve it.

@Math

I use my phone. It lags because of all the bubble windows...

btw, superpowering Kirovsky means that it doesn't matter if AQ is at 100% or 5%. The AI will start "eating" immediately

Btw, how is HTrisk with Leg Alloy values? Still run out of money before able to buy all mercs? Still need to use Leg TS or any IMs to clear it without extending clear time?

Able to speed runs on HT?

@Krinid

I never tried speedrunning Hard Trisk.
Till now I played it only twice, both times with superpowering the biggest Merc Camp. It gives you ~7T Armies, which isbarely enough to finish the level. So I had to deplete most of the other mercs as well.

My first go was during my 2nd ascension - took 20 hours
My second go was duing 3rd ascension - took me 5 hours
https://imgur.com/a/sY9SLKr

The problem with Trisk for me is the badly placed markets and merc camp.
I'm sure it can be done faster, but with the scarce IMs I have, I prefer go all into HEH

Legendary Alloy Values is for now my best artifact, but I can't remember if I already had it during that second go..... maybe?...
For now the best power to use on both Trisks is Skip Level. (in my opinion of course)

For now the best power to use on both Trisks is Skip Level. (in my opinion of course)

HAHA, too funny! (And true). It's like a mountain ... I finish it b/c it's there even though it's better to skip it (walk around the mountain).

I would consider 5 hrs a speed run for HT. That's pretty darn fast.

I think with the new Leg TS change that it might be possible to avoid the SP IM.

ok, so Hardened Europe Huge can be done way under 20 min.
My time now stands on 17/13 min

https://imgur.com/a/zpLLV6d

(I still play the 5.14, so I can't be sure if there aren't some minor changes, but I guess this strategy can be also applied with the 5.15 version)

Strategy:
- artifacts set on: Army Camp Boost, Money Cache Boost, Army Camp Discount (this step is optional)
- SAC Gislic (I used artifact, but a single supercharge army camp power will do)
- take some of the money caches in the near region and upgrade Gislic a couple of times
- use Superpower on Free Cache (I got 1.2B armies out of it)
- go straight towards the first market at Vendôme (France) ignoring JS
- change artifacts to: Army Cache Boost, Mercenary Discount, Alloy Values. Milk the market
- take the two merc camps that are near and go straight to the next market ignoring JS.
- I took my seven markets in this order:
Vendôme (France), Westerland (Germany), York (UK), Kirşehir (Turkey), Derbent (Russia, on the border with Azerbadjan), Boryspil (Ukraine) and Navahrudak (Belarus)
- take every merc camp on the way, milk markets, purchase armies from all camps
- capture the merc camp at Kirovsky (east of St. Petersburg) and use Superpower IM on it. I got over 11T armies.
- go east straight to Puchezhsky (Ivanovo) and capture it using JS! It has a stack of 1.1T armies guarding a dig site
- Press Auto-Conquer

I tried to purchase more mercenaries during the auto-conquering which was a pain in the ass, because of the constantly opening bubbles and overall lag. It wasn't fun but somewhat doable. I used most of my money (left with only 50B) and ended the map with under 2T armies (so maybe I could spare myself the fight against the pesky bubbles after all)

Can it be done faster? Maybe... but I'm done speedrunning (I'm out of IMs) and I'm pretty happy with the result:
almost 6k AP within 17 min

Edited 11/9/2021 11:30:36

Would be interested in the best time without the superpowers. Do we get back to Math's times of ~2 hrs?

@Krinid

I think Math's run is absolutely great, and actually his achievement gave me the idea to speedrun HEH myself.

There are so many categories of speedrunning. To make it fair, you'll have to lay some rules:
- is superpowering of IM allowed
- is superpowering of other powers allowed, if yes, how many times
- are powers generally allowed
- is using SAC or/and TW or other active artifacts allowed
- is using of auto-advancements allowed
- is using clan gifts allowed
- is using mortars alloyed (lol)
- is exploiting CW bonuses allowed
etc

you'll get different results with every rule you decide on

Edited 11/9/2021 15:08:30

- is using mortars alloyed (lol)

HAHA, this made me laugh so hard, I'm still grinning. Thanks for the morning laugh!

For the record, YES, mortars are allowed! In fact, bonus points for each mortar fired. lolol

Imho no rules are required for speed runs. Functor did set an early precedent with his documented speed runs (I think he was the first to do them but I could be wrong), but I wasn't down with the idea of using no powers or artifacts (ie: longer, less fun gameplay) just to be able to compete for a speed run, especially knowing that it's only a partial solution b/c of the gap with Advancements that will prevent it from being a level playing field, so I never participated and think others didn't either for the same reason. Also, there's no way to verify that people actually abide by rules or that they even fully understand the rules, etc, so think we're better off just leaving it as a free for all for anyone to post what they did and how they did and take it at face value.

Side topic - have you considered the 0 min challenges that Master Jz put forth?

Not bothering with hospitals is the meta now!? Dear lord you’re pushing this game somewhere that’s almost unrecognizable. I suppose 10x IM opens options that normally don’t make sense.

Is Alloy Value the consensus artifact to push to Legendary/Insane? I’m getting ready to take the Legendary plunge and trying to decide between Alloy Values and Army Cache Boost, was leaning towards armies over money. What is everyone else doing here?

Go for the money. It'll help in every case. You do need Increased Mercs in order to truly benefit from this though. It'll also help with hospitals, where on levels like Hard Trisk without a nicely upgraded Alloy Values artifact, you're not going to be able to afford all the hospital upgrades you need. You should max all but the first 3 or so.

Leg Alloy Values
- Gives +112%, presumably on top of already +100% Adv & +30% Techs.
- Total +242%, or +86% increase from Adv+Techs.
- The perceived benefit of having this @ Leg is big. This will stand out maps where mercs are cheaper (USA, Europe).

Leg Army Cache Boost
- Gives +32%.
- Option A: Map w/o +50% cache bonus, you don't have phase 4 Increased Cache Armies:
- No other buffs.
- Total +32% benefit.
- The perceived benefit in this case is medium, and would stand out on maps where mercs are expensive.
- Option B: Map with +50% cache bonus, you have phase 4 Increased Cache Armies:
- On top of +50% Tech & +100% Adv.
- Total 182%, or 21% increase from Adv+Tech.
- The perceived benefit of having this @ Leg is fairly small.
- There are also cases no +50% Tech + L4 Adv's & yes +50% Tech + No L4 Adv's but I'll ignore them as they are midrange of the above 2, and won't change anything.

I'm not pushing Alloy Value artifact. I'm pushing Time Warp because it helps with digging.

Alloy Value helps a lot in clearing levels. But I haven't cleared any levels in a month because clearing levels only give AP, and AP is useless.

Well yes, I agree w/Math, but I was answering the question of AV vs ACB.

So maybe I'll say, focus on getting TW to Leg, AV to Epic, ACB to Rare.

But if you're not down with the TW agenda (most aren't until the no longer need AP and want to dig more), then do AV Leg first until you're convinced about the greatness of TW, then upgrade it too.

I have TW to Epic (upgrading to Leg, finishes in another 2d7h), AV Epic, ACB Rare.

Epic AV does wonders for me, so excited to get it to Leg next.

But Epic TW does wonders too in the context of really speeding up digs.

Currently I have HEH, HT & HC all going, completely finished, just digging; I've used up all the 100% C & high % UC digs on HEH so I may finish it and prepare the next map for new digs soon. I've only done about 2 days worth of digs on HC yet and not many on HT so still a lot to go on both. Will be quicker when that dang Leg TW finishes!

The ultimate goal ... get a fleet of Legendaries, of course.

(I'm not crazy enough to think getting a fleet of Insanes is even plausible).

I agree that AV rarity has a higher priority than ACB, because

1. Typically mercs give almost double the amount of armies you get from caches.
2. The percentage increase in AV is much higher than ACB.

@Math

AP is useless

That's quite a statement...........


Let's agree instead that the priorities change as a player advances through the game

AP is super valuable until you don't need anymore, and then it's useless.

So how much do you need? Depends on your goal ... do you just want the ones which help you clear levels better/faster (~250K-300K) or do you want them all (probably 1M-ish?).

Or even beyond unlocking them all, do you want to save up just in case Fizz adds some new cool ones? Like Auto-Digging?

Or do you just want to earn so much AP b/c you want to have the most, just in case Fizz adds an AP leaderboard someday and you want to be at the top?

Edited 11/10/2021 20:48:05