NOTICE: This video is not necessarily meant to be watched, it's meant as proof that I've done this challenge in the time specified in the title. The worst part is the intro, which got cut off because I hurried to get started with this run as fast as possible... and I was considering to EDIT the intro and several other errors that popped up throughout this stream, but if I have a single cut in this challenge, it de-legitimizes the speedrun. But if it's Streamed, it cannot be edited, and what you see is what you get: 7 hours, 6 minutes and 38 seconds of raw uncut footage, with the actual run taking 6:48:37, from the moment the character was created to the final castle I have bought. The rest is the introduction at the start and the gloating at the end.
When I say "this video is not meant to be watched" I mean that it's waaaay worse than the rest of the stuff I have on the channel. The presentation of this one is sub-par, and I intend to compress all of these 7 hours into a 10-15 minute watchable video where I talk about the tactics I've used to conquer the world in less than a day. (3 in-game years)
I'm also not 100% sure about this being a 100% run. IN MY OPINION, owning 100% of the settlements, castles and towns in the game is what constitutes a 100% run, but definitions can vary from person to person. A true completionist run can involve many things: finishing every single quest in the game (the main quest was not functional during the version of the game I was playing on), unlocking every single weapon design, recruiting (or executing) every single lord in the game - but all of that was irrelevant to me. The ultimate goal of Bannerlord is global conquest, and that's what I focused on.
As for the intro; the first few words of this livestream were meant to be: "Hello there, I am Halcylion, and this is a very special video. Mostly because it's not really a video, it's a livestream...", but because I said that phrase immediately as the stream started, I wasn't LIVE yet, so it wasn't recorded by youtube. In hindsight, I should've waited about 30 seconds, verified that the stream is live and then made my intro, but as I already specified, it was already my 3rd attempt starting it, and I was running late, but.... I rushed it. Oh well, the presentation of this challenge may suck, but the run itself was good, and EXTREMELY Lucky. Every single instance that was a dice roll was passed in the first try, and because this kind of luck won't shine on me again, I'm not redoing this challenge just to have a better presentation. That comes in the upcoming EDITED video I mentioned.
And as I say throughout this video, I was originally planning to do this stream PUBLIC, but I decided against it, and I want to explain why. On youtube, there's some... Unknown Variables that can put an unceremonious end to the stream. And because I could only do this challenge ONCE, I could not afford to risk my livestream to be taken down, so I had to do this solo. But if I did it with a live audience, I couldn't have interacted with chat anyway, since 100% of my attention had to be dedicated to whatever I was doing in-game. Even trying to talk about the things I was doing at various points was a struggle for me, because I couldn't fully focus on DOING the things I was supposed to. And that kinda made me look like a retard who can't speak basic english. Anyway, that's all I had to say about the video. I feel like I should've skipped that cringe-inducing intro I did at the start of the stream and just write everything here, but what's done is done.
Finally, I don't usually like using exploits, but when you're trying to beat the game as fast as possible, you gotta take a shortcut every once in a while. The biggest exploit I've used involved dumping trade goods into the stash of an owned town, and I put my own spin on it, by combining this exploit with my "siege trading" tactic, described in the Expert Trade Guide. ( [ Ссылка ] )
But because I tend to avoid exploits, I wasn't the one who discovered this one. I promised to credit the original video that showcased the glitch, so here it is: [ Ссылка ] ; Maybe it's not the original, but it's the one that gave me the inspiration to use this glitch in my run.
But yeah, the only thing that makes this "Speedrun" worth a shit are the strategies used to bring it to fruition, and the fact that it is (or seems to be) the first. At the time of making this stream, (26/9/2020) I searched for Bannerlord Speedrun on youtube, but the only results I got were not 100% runs, so it would seem I am first. This was also my first speedrun ever, and most likely it is my last. As I say in my intro, this is not a skill-based speedrun, like Doom Eternal, or other fast-paced games. But this description is getting too long, and I feel like I've explained everything I was supposed to. Stay tuned for the condensed version of this challenge, as well as the upcoming Corporate Reports episodes.
