The Settlers - Mission 1 (PC DOS) speedrun

Speedrunning the most casual game ever! Not very demanding on execution of commands. Instead, planning ahead and timing constructions is the key to finishing any mission in Settlers quickly. I also got very lucky in this run with combat rolls. I timed this run from the placement of my castle to victory message window with password.

There's no shortage of supplies in the first level, except for gold / gold ore. Mineable ores always spawn at the same locations. The castle should be located near the gold deposits. CPU always prefers to build at the same location. It's easy to manipulate CPU starting location by positioning the castle. CPU might build the castle much further away if positioning is slightly off. Immediate objective is to get the first smelter started to produce gold from stockpile ores. Secondary smelters and mines can be queued and connected later with roads to force construction start in preferred order. One guard hut is required for sending attacking units.

I got very lucky with combat rolls in this run. Mainly, one level 3 knight managed to clear out lots of units early. I didn't even register how many bodies he was piling up. I should've sent my other level 3 knight to follow, hoping to get continuously lucky and finishing the mission super fast. In my earlier attempts I was saving the upgraded units for later at better combat odds. With exceptional luck this mission could be several minutes faster, but that could take lots of attempts. There's room for further optimization also. My gold production was lagging behind, because of suboptimal pathing. I had much faster gold income in another play, but that ended up much slower because of poor combat luck. Including the castle, all military buildings must be cleared to win. Fortunately I managed to take out the one manned guard hut quickly.

Back in the days, when I played this casually I didn't have a clue how combat worked. For a long time I thought units could be upgraded only in military buildings with gold deposits. Instead, it seems like all upgrading takes place in the castle. Gold stored inside the castle or military buildings (doesn't matter which) improves morale. Morale affects the upgrade speed of units and improves combat chance.