I plan to pick up the PC version of this game somewhat soonish (maybe in a week, maybe in a month or even later).

I know there is not much competition here, but we should apply some rules to have a fair competition. So how do we define the rules for this game ?

I know there are many versions as from 1.00 original to the patched 1.09 version. So there are 2 ways we can treat that:

1. We only allow 1.09 version as it is the most up to date and allows for fair completition between PC and X360 runners (afaik 360 version is patched 1.09, correct me if I'm wrong)
2. We allow all versions as this might allow for maybe more glitches making the run faster and more interesting

The next topic to discuss is about the timing method:

1. IGT would allow for fair competition regardless of how good your PC is as loads are not counted, but you can't weight in saves or restarting missions properly.
2. RTA would solve the issue of saving/ failing a mission, but you get a small advantage with a faster PC through loads, but could be neglected if it is minimal.

Categories:

It makes sense to make a category for each campaign, but what difficulty should we use and how about bonus missions / Intel Entries ? It's probably best to have 2 separate categories, one for fastest completion on easy or normal ( sorta any%) and one for completing with all bonus missions ( Intel Entries ? if they aren't dumb ) on hard ( sorta 100% ).

Finally: I do not want to insult anyone, but the current (and only) run on scrin campaign is not an actual run. It is a compiliation of ILs put together in one video and not a run from the beginning of the game to the end in one segment. I'm not trying to run Mathgodpi down, the "run" is really good and I love his work and strats, but it would be unfair to let this on the leaderboard, as it is a compilation fo ILs and allowing that as a run is IMO dumb except if you allow segmented runs, but that should be in another category. We could also implement an IL leaderboards to solve this issue.

I hope we can get along well and find strats and tricks to optimize this game well.

Just a quick reply to all of this, firstly I'm always excited to hear about more people speed running C&C so welcome aboard!

On versions: [Opinion] You should always try an run the fastest version. If 1.0 is the fastest then is obviously that makes the most sense. If I think about some games that allow glitches only on foreign language releases then people pick those because they are faster. As long as it is an officially released unmodified version I believe it is fine.

I genuinely doubt anyone will run this game on a console version.

On timing: [Opinion] Any% (campaign) runs should be completed using RTA where as IL's should use IGT. The great thing with the generation of C&C games is that we have a fairly accurate IGT available if people really feel the need to remove loading times but I don't think this should be an issue. Please check out the RA3 board for Campaign runs and for IL's as well to see how they have it going on over there.

On categories. The only leaderboard that are up at the moment are for any%, if you're interested in the doing the 100% with bonus objectives then I can add 100% campaign categories as well but for a currently more or less empty game I only added the basic any% categories.

On the scrin run: Honestly I didn't view the full run from start to finish in great detail when verifying it back then but I'm glad you've pointed out some stuff I wasn't aware of and I will re-review it in the coming week. I mainly checked to make sure that there wasn't any additional stuff running or funny mods happening.

Thanks for your reply CornfordCaster.

I know the standard is to run on the fastest version, but welp there are always some exceptions in some communities, so I just wanted to make sure.

I'd also agree with the timing method, as the loading times are not that long, so it shouldn't make a big difference using RTA and yeah it would be dumb to not use IGT for ILs.

Let's see what strats I can figure out for any% and 100%.

My only advice would be to look on command and conquer 3 forums to see if there are any unpublished speed ones like there were with red alert 3. If you have the opportunity you should check out the red alert 3 threads on this site and see if the other communities have routes or times already

so I looked for the patch Notes for all 9 patches and found them here: http://www.fileplanet.com/175858/170000/fileinfo/Command-&-Conquer-3:-Tiberium-Wars-Patch-v1.09

So basically patch 1.01-1.04 only fix some very minor stuff and are pretty small

Patch 1.05 is huge: it fixes the engineer teleport glitch and has a lot of balancing including campaign missions ! It also fixes many bugs ofc.

Patch 1.06 is smaller again and fixes nothing major, but I found another interesting patch note: "Fixed an exploit that caused any unit or structure to become invincible if force-fired upon by a Mammoth Tank that had been upgraded with Rail Guns." I definitely want to try that out ;)

Patch 1.07 also only changes a few things, but here is another interesting patch note: "Fixed a bug that caused the Scrin Drone Platform to selfdestruct when coming in contact with an enemy upgraded Scrin Annihilator Tripod" it's probably useless, but maybe you can do a mission faster with taking over a part of the scrin base and then do that.

Patch 1.08 according to further research it only fixes that the mothership takes 8 secs to attack as intended from Patch 1.07

Patch 1.09 does some bug fixing and some balance changes, most importantly Harvesters capacy has been reduced drastically so the overall income is reduced by ~35% which affects money routing by quite a lot for some missions.

another interesting patch note is this one: Fixed an error that allowed players to detect enemy structures through the shroud by using the Set Rally Point marker. will probably not affect missions at all, but worth noting imo.

Important are also the speed changes: in 1.07 the speed of the mothership has been increased by 33%

all other speed changes are in 1.05: almost all infantery units speed has been increased by 20% APC speed is also increased by 20% and Mamoth Tanks speed is decreased by 7%. Surveyors, Emissary and Explorer speed have been normalized as well as for Harvesters.

Summing it up: Original 1.00 will be the fastest version along with Patch 1.01-1.04 since nothing important gets fixed in those. Patch 1.05 changes the game drastically with Balance Patches, mission changes and fixing the engineer Glitch, but also speeding up almost all infantery units by 20% Patch 1.06: except for the one invincibility bug fix that needs to be tested nothing major Patch 1.07: most importantly mothership speed is increased by 33% except from balance changes Patch 1.08: mothership takes 8 secs to attack, but except for that it's unimportant Patch 1.09 does some bug fixing and balance changing with most importantly reducing income

Ah yes sorry about the confusion. That scrin video I made was never meant to be considered an official campaign run. I understand that I had made it confusing, so my bad there.