I haven't read the books, but I also read through the Wikipedia summaries a few days ago (I'm not really bothered by spoilers as a general rule), looking for clues relating to the prophecies. I didn't find much, but I did notice Ghisteslwchlohm ("an ancient, evil wizard and traitor from ages past") reminded me of Tavara. So this part seemed interesting:

Sensing a powerful, dangerous force in pursuit across her land, Raederle uses her abilities to confound it, thinking she is protecting Morgon; but discovers that the force she thought was Ghisteslwchlohm is Morgon himself, who has stolen much of Ghisteslwchlohm's power during his long captivity, while the helpless man he pursued was Deth, who betrayed him.

Morgon seems to be the protagonist of the first book. gandreas said "Tavara" is an anagram of/reference to "Avatar," the player character in the Ultima games…

I would like to nominate "Seldanish" as a third (fourth?) option. Anyway, I see three different branches of the language that might not be related to each other: spoken, written, and transliterated.

gandreas says the spoken language is based on phonetic ancient Egyptian. That seems plausible, based on the Cythera 2 phrase connections, as well as the 20 minutes I just spent trying to research ancient Egyptian phonetics and getting very confused.

The written language seems to be based on the Greek alphabet, as @Pallas-Athene observed in the earlier topic. And as he speculated back then, the font may have originally been intended to be used for (human) Cytheran writing, and then later appropriated to represent Seldane writing.

The transliteration (e.g. "ERI AY N USXT WN") might be gibberish, but it seems to bear some structural resemblance to transliteration of ancient Egyptian (namely, the short "words" and lack of fondness for vowels). Also, since the alphabet seems to be based on Greek (rather than hieroglyphics or hieratic), the idea that the text only exists to map characters to symbols seems a bit less likely.

Also of note: "ka" apparently means soul in ancient Egyptian.

I just did the click-and-hold trick to speed up the sleeping, but normally you'd still see it fade to black. Music and fading have never worked on my SheepShaver build for some reason.

18-minute False run

Credit to @vIsitor for the Stentor timing suggestion, doing so saved close to a minute alone. This is probably the last one I'm doing in this style for now. I'm guessing ~16 minutes is the fastest possible time without hacking or using the menu patch feature.

@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:

I've installed the menu patch now and I feel like it speeds up travel significantly. However, it may also make it harder to control your character, so I'm curious whether this feature would be helpful for a speedrun.

Yeah, I just tried it out, and it's dizzying. I also wonder what the fastest possible time on the slower setting is.

I tried to do a "speedrun" using Ignae as my character (invincible, can fly), but it still took me about an hour! I forgot to check exactly how long. Speed is so stressful for me, I want to do everything "right" and I end up having to backtrack. I also neglected to get any followers, which forced me to fight my way out from enemies surrounding me on a few occasions. I obviously was a pretty weak character, so that was time consuming even though I was in no danger. Got slowed down by harpies both times I visited Jhiaxus...

I keep a checklist open to avoid having to backtrack. It seems like @Wizard made a similar set of notes. This is the one I used for the 18-minute run:

storyteller

Omen's Test: shortcut

LKH
get items: equip, death strike + direct nexus
	+ cloak from dresser + pouch
death strike on magic chest
ask hector to join
hadrian train defense (2)
grab white purple black potions
get hector

Odemia
get ariadne mission

Vineyard
ask sad guy about name
get kelp, shovel, grapes
dig book, put in pouch

Catamarca
put book in pouch
cure plague (get hector to kill polyps)
	make sure mustache man follows up
ask propontis about comana

Kosha
ask itanos about stentor
ask itanos about idom
sleep until dawn + 1 more hour

Cademia
ask stentor about job and pelagon
sleep 1 hour
ask halos about prop
	Kosha: ask pelagon about dead
go to sewers, straight past bridge, ask dryas about awful
leave sewers via ladder, bomb door, talk to stentor
back to sewers and out via pipe
turn dryas in

Pnyx
train casting (6) and mana (2) for now
ask lindus about crystal
ask pala about charax and wine and teach
	heal + antidote potions
turn in books (6 - three times)
save + reload when done!
learn spells
	mystic arrow: main library, right, middle
	directed nexus: scroll
	paka (s): remote manip (right)
	tiri (e): fetch (second from top)
max out mana
meet timon, ask to join
use merged crolna on pedestal
	Ayrit: west portal

Maayti
remote manip entrance
mage's friend potion + timon heal
fetch door
stick to inside path
get crolna shard
directed nexus out
sleep to recharge mana

Kosha
fetch secret door
sleep to recharge mana
enter grotto: "no" until force? "yes"
Cove: avoid crabs
arrow'd hydra, get book
directed nexus out
sleep until dawn, directed nexus
fetch table
bomb alaric's door
get alaric help

get mushroom from sabinate (just talk thru door)
west portal
give charax stuff
use distiller on crolna
directed nexus out
cure alaric

@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:

Do you always play as a female character? Or does she just look faster than the guy?

I didn't always, but I like how the portrait matches the sprite. Also, a lot of (most?) games force you to play as a dude, so I usually play female characters when the game gives you a choice.

Begging for food is definitely a waste of time. I stopped doing it on later runs, and you can just have Timon cast Nutrient if absolutely necessary.

Grabbing Eudoxus's mace is definitely worthwhile in a True and/or 100% speedrun. You can skip the rescue entirely in a False run, though (I haven't done so yet, but I did test to see if it works).

I was extremely Not Impressed with that beggar.

I am super confused. When you’re going up toward the magic staff, it sounds like three spells are being cast. The log isn’t shown in the video, so I have no clue what’s going on. You haven’t learned magic, and don’t have Timon in the party…

I'm just as confused, but it happened a number of times (always in that area). The log doesn't show anything when it happens.

Steal a potion in order to get Palaestra to stop teaching her class and talk to you about wine was really clever! I would not have thought of that.

I thought so too at first! But I think the time just happened to advance an hour, because when I tried the trick later, it didn't work.

I did some more experimenting. The requirements for triggering the murder seem to be:

• Complete "Ask Halos about Comana"
  • Prerequisite: Acquire "Rescue kidnapped Ariadne"
• Confront Pelagon about being dead
  • Prerequisite: Ask Stentor about seeing Pelagon die
    • Prerequisite: Complete "Take net to Stentor"

You don't actually have to rescue Ariadne, but you do need to learn about the kidnapping. So a ~19-minute speedrun is possible: swing by Odemia to talk to the guard, but then skip the farmhouse entirely (and make sure to ask Propontis about Comana, since Ake isn't an option).

Then, as @453 points out, you can use Fetch on the secret entrance to the grotto. When I tried this, it proved a bit problematic due to Fetch's high mana cost and having to tackle the cove right after. But it is doable: you'd need to either grab the bow early on, keep Timon and his mystic arrow alive, or use a bomb (since they aren't needed for Eudoxus) to take care of the hydra.

20-minute False run

I followed @Wizard's lead in using the Remote Manipulation exploit, but also skipped the Maayti and Ayrit puzzles with Fetch and talking past doors. I made use of the Sapphire duplication trick like @Pallas-Athene suggested, and just did a save-and-revert beforehand to avoid the sixth hall glitch.

As a bonus, this whole run is completed in one in-game day, with no sleeping.

I still made a few mistakes. With better execution, it should be possible to do a sub-20 run.

@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:

I am puzzled. I feel certain that in most Cythera games I've played, I've used Resist Fire just one time to get across the lava field and back. It lasts way longer than the potion. I feel like the duration should be plenty for both directions.
I didn't think about the path through the volcano to the mine nearly equalling the path from LKH to the mine. You guys really map it out!

I just tested this out. It doesn't last long enough to go all the way through the lava (like I was doing) twice, but you can get far enough to toss the bread and back before it wears off. I also timed going back out the volcano, and it's nearly identical (about two minutes by either strategy). It might be worth it to bypass the ruffians, though.

@Wizard said in Cythera Speedruns:

• What exact prompt is needed from Glaucus for the wine question to work with Palaestra? Is it just "ruined"?
• What prompt is needed from Jhiaxus for the Honor Jinrai quest? Just Jinrai?
• For Magpie to respond to Bahoudin, Jhiaxus must be asked about both Son and Bahoudin I believe. Maybe Son isn't needed?

After some experimentation, the necessary prompt for Glaucus is, bizarrely, "name." With Jhiaxus, it's "honor" and "Bahoudin". Jinrai and son aren't needed.

@Wizard said in Cythera Speedruns:

Instead of the door bash, Buzzy demonstrated a great way to get bombs early, so I'm liking the idea of using one of those to blow the door.

That was the original reason I wanted to get the bombs, because I was still trying to get four sapphire books at the time. But later I decided two bombs for Eudoxus + one for the sewer door was a better use for them. You might be able to talk to Stentor through the window and then head back into the sewers, though (eliminating the need to bash/bomb the door). Not sure how that compares, speed-wise.

You would need to get very lucky to do a no-follower speedrun. But it's probably possible: I've had crabs in Maayti ignore me for no reason and polyps in the cove all single-mindedly decide to gang up on a poor mini-crab, but both seem to be random. Otherwise, they will all target the player in the absence of a tank (Hector) and/or distraction (Timon).

@Pallas-Athene said in Cythera Speedruns:

Unfortunately, while it’s clear where the progression from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 are, I can’t find the code that starts the murder thread itself. Maybe it’s in some common subroutine that I haven’t disassembled. Does anyone know what exactly triggers it?

I think it's ask Itanos about Stentor –> return Stentor's net –> ask him about Pelagon –> ask Pelagon about "dead" –> murder.

@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:

Not having a full conversation with Halos was my favourite part of the whole video :D You seriously learned Persuasion and talked to Propontis just to say hi and bye to Halos.

Yeah, I was surprised at how little you really need to talk to Halos. Just telling him someone sent you is enough.

I don't think there's any need to talk to Berossus before getting Dryas and talking to Stentor.

Huh, you're right. I thought Dryas wouldn't show up, but he does. That might shave a few seconds.

I think grabbing LKH's Smith's Friend Potion would have been worthwhile for Land's End. It's very short-lasting though. I feel like Resist Fire is worthwhile to learn, because it saves you having to cast Directed Nexus to get out of there, and you could get back to Jhiaxus faster.

I did wind up learning Resist Fire for the 29m run, but going back out the volcano isn't really worth it. Resist Fire + the potion don't quite get you through the lava twice, so you'll still usually need Timon to heal you a couple times on the way out (which wastes time), and the volcano itself is three maps long, which isn't much shorter than just heading back to the mine the long way.

Both Speedy McSpeedface (37m) and Run! (29m) reached level 4 and just used the sword from the beginning.

I don't think bashing doors saves much more than a few seconds, but it might be worthwhile if attempting a no-sleep speedrun. Charax is still problematic, but I did succeed at attack-waking him once, and then bashing down Alaric's door would allow you to cure him at night.

The thing with crabs is that they're very good at flanking and boxing you in if you're not careful, which wastes time even if you manage to survive.

Under 30 minutes, if only just

I went with a mage and had pretty good results. I basically did things in the order @Wizard did, but with a few changes (e.g. I did the Cademia-Kosha back-and-forth before Pnyx). My original plan was to learn Fireball to make the cove easier, but getting four sapphire books and training in enough mana to cast it more than once proved too time-consuming. On the other hand, collecting two sapphire books really didn't add much time at all, and that way I was able to learn Resist Fire to get through Lands End a little quicker.

I saved and reloaded after dying on the way to the mine and forgot to sleep near the end, which combined to cost me about a minute. For the record, I did manage to successfully attack-wake Charax one time, but I also forgot to learn alchemy on that run, so that didn't work out.