Measured Twice

Measured Twice
Win a run, no buildings demolished.

One demolish order ends the attempt, and cancelling a foundation you have just misplaced is a demolish order: X or Delete on anything but the Holdfast and its upgrades counts, finished or not. Buildings the raiders destroy do not count, and an upgrade is not a demolish.

Why not the autopilot?

The autopilot (F1) does demolish: when a gathering camp has worked out its node, it pulls the camp down to build elsewhere. On every one of 78 seeds tried it did so at least once, and nothing a player does beside it stops that. So this run never touches F1. It is played by hand from a build list: the autopilot's own choices on the same seed, with those demolitions left out. Every order stays at its default, and the defaults are the ones the autopilot sets.

The run, in order

1. New Game, seed 21, Begin. Hold the clock with Space whenever you place something, and let it go with 3 (speed ×8). Space alone lets it go at ×1.
2. Defence first (0:20–1:30). A Quarry, then three Watchtowers in a row hard against the Holdfast, a second Quarry, and each tower upgraded to a Signal Tower (click the tower, then the upgrade slot).
3. The first homes and work (1:40–4:10). A Barracks at the end of the tower row, a Hovel, Fen Crofts packed round the Holdfast, a Fishing Hut on the water's edge, a Smithy, a Fen Mine on the distant stone (pan the camera there), two more Hovels, and the first Hovel raised to a Cottage.
4. Grow (6:30–12:30). A second Fishing Hut; a Forager's Hut and a third Quarry far out; the Cottage raised to a Longhouse; two more Cottages; a second Barracks; eight more Hovels; a Storehouse, a Guildhall and two Rekindling Shrines.
5. The Causeway, right beside the Holdfast, as soon as its slot lights (the list has it at 15:20; the recorded run placed it at 16:24).
6. While it rises (15:40–32:00). Two more Cottages, two Bastions, two Garrisons, a Fen Croft, a second Fen Mine far out, a third Barracks, Net Sheds on both Fishing Huts, three Reed Cutter's Stands, four Longhouses, three Fen Farms and an Eel Wharf.
7. The Causeway is finished at 34:11 (tick 12,309), and Measured Twice comes with the win.

The times need not be exact. When a slot is greyed out the stores are short: wait and place it when it lights. In the game's own rules, the same list replayed with every placement delayed at random won 200 of 200 times with delays of up to 60 ticks, and 60 of 60 with delays of up to 800 ticks (2:13 of game clock).

The recorded run

One game on seed 21 from a fresh profile, played by a script working from the list above as a player would: Space to hold the clock, the building picked in its tab, the tile clicked, an upgrade by clicking the building and then its slot. F1 is never pressed and nothing is demolished. It runs at ×8; the moments the clock is held are shortened in the video. The badge on every frame says so; the game's own music, no commentary. The video ends on the in-game Achievements screen.

▶ Play the run

What goes wrong

• A misplaced foundation. Cancelling it is a demolish; leave it standing and let it be built. Hold the clock and check the tile before you click.
• F1, even for a moment: the autopilot's first worked-out camp is pulled down.
• Space to let the clock go runs it at ×1, not ×8; nothing breaks, the run just takes eight times as long.
• Any other seed needs its own list: this one is for seed 21's fen.