The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

All story missions (except Desmond parts) are now in the playlist.

So no one wants to bring some help? Any faster ideas would be appreciated.

To be honest I'm kind of bored with Brotherhood. I'm more interested in playing LA Noire at the moment. I'll watch through the vids anyway and see if I've got something to comment.

Sequence 1 Memory 1: Maybe you can run around the cardinals, allowing you to sprint. Might save a few seconds.
Also, isn't it possible to take a shorter route to the church and get there on the verge of desync?
Sequence 1 Memory 3: Same. Faster route, get to the marker a little bit faster.

Haven't watched further than S01M05 yet.

In fact, in those 2 missions, either Mario or the woman trigger the end of the mission, so you there's no interest to go faster than I did.

Ah. I guess the same is true for S01M08?

S01M07: Are you sure that's the fastest route to the wall? Also, I think it's faster to Air Assassinate the guard standing at the bottom of the tower (after the cannons are destroyed).
S02M01: I thought you could ride the horse in the beginning? I'm also thinking it's faster to climb up the church a bit more to the right. Wall runs are fast. The superblend was nicely done, makes the mission a lot less complicated.
S02M02: Crossbow wouldn't be available in a normal speedrun. You can go freerun right to the bench without the parachute, which also won't be available in a normal speedrun.
S02M03: I don't understand why you didn't go for 100% sync in S02M02, yet here you do. Also, smoke bomb and climb jump aren't available during a normal speedrun.
S02M07: I recommend watching Stabguy's flag vids for that and the other lairs. He usually gets the fastest route with some nice shortcuts.
S03M01: See S02M02.
S03M02: If you get to the other side of the Borgia tower (after it's destroyed), there is a spot somewhere you can climb up. It's pretty fast, but I'm not sure if it's faster.
S03M03: Why take a (slightly) different route back?
S04M01: I remember Ian mentioning some wallrun trick near the cell. It's in my Castel Sant Angelo vid on the frontpage
S04M02: I'm fairly sure you can run while handling Lucrezia.
In Sequence 4, you use the crossbow so much, wouldn't it be wise to have it under a fast weapon-select key? Same thing for smoke boms.
S04M07: No need to ride with Eagle Vision on for that long, so why do it?

I'll watch Sequence 5 and onwards later.

I give you some links first :
- SDA planning thread http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/assassins_creed_brotherhood.html
- fluojn (the actual future runner, he's already recording a test run) YT channel http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/assassins_creed_brotherhood.html

Then, a little explaining. I did all this as individual levels, so with parachutes, smoke bombs etc. That's why I use them, but in the real run, the pistol can be used for instance. Also, remember that the important thing is to run fast (on the point of view of the in-game timer), so things like eagle vision or not aren't important.

S1M8 : yeah.
S2M1 : the horse is slower at the beginning.
S3M2 : yeah, there's a ladder on the other side, but I've timed it, and it's slower there.

S3M2: I didn't mean the ladder. I meant running up the wall, then sprinting those two meters on the middle roof, then running up that wall, then running up the tower wall.

I haven't copied the link for the Yt channel, here it is http://www.youtube.com/user/DtJacobbe

Also, you can't use the wall trick for S4M1, because of the checkpoints. And you can't run while handling Lucrezia.

Yeah, I figured in S4M1 that you couldn't do it. I tried it on my second run of the game.

Haven't been watching his segments yet. I'll finish up the IL's first.
S5M1: I assume you intended to double-assassinate those guards after reaching the first checkpoint?
S5M2: Before you go to the location with the money, you climb up a wall, then use a sideways jump to get on a lower roof. It'd be faster if you climbed up directly onto the lower roof. Also, why bother with going on the ground during the tail? There is a grand total of 2 archers to kill if you take the roofs. It doesn't make any difference to speed whatsoever, I think. Besides, the blend mechanics of Brotherhood can be a little bit iffy and there would be no need to pay the 75f to the courtesans (but maybe you can pickpocket that on the way there). And, shit, that is one high air assassination.
S5M3: There can't be said much about this. Have you checked for shortcuts which allow you to shorten the time, but not desync you?
S5M4: Throwing knife blitz as demonstrated by Ian would be faster.
S6M1: Just wanted to say: nicely done with the smoke bombs!
S6M2: Will the horse always spawn there? Other than that, I think you guys have it figured out in the thread at SDA.
S6M3: Third post (counting spearmen). You could've taken on that guard with hidden blade. Save a bolt and doesn't lose time, since that is fixed because of the troops. I laughed at the papal guards getting killed so quickly.
S6M4: Is arrow storm available there? If not, perhaps you could use a smoke bomb.

Machine Gun: I've got a vid floating around for 50% sync, I think it might be a tad faster than your version. I skip the haystack, as well as all the climbing stuff. There's also a neat trick you can use after destroying the plans. If you climb up close enough to the pillar, Ezio will act as if he's hanging on a wall. This allows you to climb up just a little bit more quickly. I demonstrate both things in the vid, which can be found here. There's also a vid by Jack Reacher, which can be found here.

A few interesting tricks

What do you think (particularly) of S9M1?

S7M2: Isn't it faster to call your recruits when Micheletto is still standing there at the last site?

S9M1: Does Ezio fall (due to the cannonball) when he becomes anonymous again? I'd say use the hidden blade for those two guards you shot, that may be a little bit faster. I assume you take the long climbing route to avoid detection? After the tower, isn't that the long way around? The fight with Cesare was really well done.
However, maybe if you're fast enough, you can do the same thing as here, but without killing the other guards. Smoke bombs, maybe?

We already found a better route for S7M2.

In S9M1, Ezio falls because the time of the fight is finished (yeah, this first fight is timed). All following paths are done to avoid alerts, and so avoid fights. It's much faster.

For Cesare, there's not enough time or money to have a heavy weapon. But I figured out that the milanese sword can be used as I did, which means one bullet + three sword hits at each step of the fight. This avoids fighting the other guards.

S7M3: When climbing up to the first checkpoint, I think it might be faster to get on the floor (instead of climbing right) and use a wallrun there. I also can't help but to feel the part after the first checkpoint can be done much faster. I remember being able to climb up all the way to the top, eliminating the need to wait. Using the table with the wallrun might be faster as well (it only differs like half a second or so, but still).
S7M4: You got lucky while catching the thief and you know it.
S8M1: Jumping into the courtyard like that won't bring you far. I'd say hang on the edge of the window and use a sideways jump.
S8M4: You sure the stairs are slower? That way definitely is easier.

For the Hidden Blade glitch with the horse and the apple, I haven't been able to get that to work, and it took some time before I finally had found a horse.

fluojn already figured out a better way for the colosseum (S7M3).

Thanks for the other tips, and... let's continue this on SDA's thread.

By the way, I made this video in order to help the planning. Does it deserve to be front-paged? ^^

Front page that f*cker!

Make another thread for it and it might get frontpaged.