Which route do you start first ?

[Estoroth]

Interesting question, I'm curious to know the path players choose first when starting a new game.

For me it is KU (Warrior), why ?
Because I'm able to collect quicky one of the two best melee weapons of the game (Executioner) afterwards unlock the Dragon Den which gives me almost unlimited food for the rest of my adventures with the Dragon Sword in Bonus the second best weapon in the game.

[Ameena]

Yeah, I do Ku first too, because I find it the easiest, and dragons are fun to fight . Not overly fussed about Executioner, but Ku in general isn't too hard, I find. Dain is the worst .

[Ian Clark]

I tend to do the first part of each path first then go to the Demon Director area. Usually I'll do Neta, Ku, Ros then Dain. The Ros part of the DDD can be bypassed via a fake pit in the Ku area.

[Ameena]

Oh yeah I do that too, the first halves of each path before the DDD I mean. I remember skipping "part two" of one section via the fake pits but I thought it was Dain, not Ros (but used a route from the Ros side of the pillar). Oh well, it's been several years since I last replayed it and I've only done that shortcut once.

[Saumun]

I usually do ku first for much the same reasons as Estoroth, but unlike Ian and Ameena, I do the whole of each path (including DDD) when I’m on them.
It has been a few years since I have done a run. Maybe I’ll do it differently next time.

[oh_brother]

I do Ku first, because I find it the easiest. Seems to be a general trend - and I don't think that I was influenced by this forum because I used to do Ku first back in the day too.

I tend to do Dain last, because I find it the most difficult. Or, perhaps the "most fiddly" rather than the "most difficult"

[pjs]

This seems to depend on your strategy and knowledge of the game.

First time I played I did the "typical order" Ku, Ros, Neta, Dain, all the way through (also DDD). This was very heavyweight but I suppose a good approach to get to know the game.

Second time through with only two imported champions, I did those in roughly the same order but skipped DDD until the end. This was obviously much quicker and you could also skip many parts of the game completely if you want and know what you need. You might however need to repeat the junctions several times to get to the locations you want. I noticed this the "hard way" because only at DDD I noticed that I was still missing some keys and had to go back to the junctions to obtain them (by choosing a different strategy for getting to ful ya pit one could possibly have avoided this). You can also skip much of KU if you want if you use the shortcut via ROS to get the corbum (viewtopic.php?f=28&t=31395) or possibly skip the DDD ROS part if you use the KU side of the shortcut (I didn't try it, I suppose that also works as mentioned above).

The most important point is that if you don't know and don't want to bother how the junction teleporters work, and/or you want to "play the game as it's given to you each time" and finish the path you are given, it may be "safest" and "easiest" for a resurrected party to proceed in that order.

But if you do know, want to optimize and/or if you reincarnate, you may want to do these in different order (also especially with reincarnate so that you don't get to too difficult sections, like parts of KU, first). I'll try this next. A leisurely 3 hour reincarnate walkthrough I watched on YouTube with two lousiest champions "You" and "I" went to certain parts of Ros first, for example (downstairs, the mummy room by the torch, etc.). But this essentially requires intimate knowledge of how the junctions work (see viewtopic.php?f=28&t=31294) and which invisible teleporters you have to use to achieve what you want (also know how to get back to the "safety"). The teleporter destinations are not explicitly marked on the maps (if you try to keep track/plan where you want to go), but I think I finally figured out that the first teleporters after the junctions transport you to the corresponding location on L08, the second to another location on L05 and if you get past both, you stay with L07; look for H101, H102, H103 and H104 hint markings on the maps to keep track and/or plan.

[Ameena]

There have been speed runs of both DM and CSb and in the case of the latter the record is something like nine minutes, by the forum user "Rain". There's a video of it somewhere, I'm pretty sure. I can't recall if they also hold the DM speed recoord but that's something like 18 minutes since the dungeon is more linear so you can't just skip over most of it. But the CSB record at least demonstrates that it's possible to get everything you need super-fast, if things like pit timings and monster spawnings go your way . Note that I'm pretty sure that speed run wasn't literally done in one go but with reloads every time something went wrong. Still, pretty impressive :O.

[pjs]

Just did a reincarnate run with CSBwin's "You" and "I". Dodge around the worms for a while and do basic stuff, when/if the health drops low, go via the flask downstairs and take ROS from the junction. Supplies for the quick could be too dangerous and/or crowded with monsters you may have difficulties killing at the start for a reincarnated party. ROS provides excellent opportunities for training: downstairs worms, upstairs mummies by the torch room and especially the rock piles after you drop the knights through the two floors. You can relatively easily get to expert or so by first war crying the rock piles (Both Priest and Fighter in CSBwin CSB rather than just Fighter as in CSBwin DM) and then punching them down (for ninja).

After first parts of Ros I did Neta, then Dain (second teleporter skips straight to Couatl's), only grabbed the B key from Ku. I actually went to DDD after Neta, but I should have skipped that because I had to go to there again later and rather just dropped down a pit to get back to the storage area under the supplies room and through there a junction for the next part.

[Paul Stevens]

A leisurely 3 hour reincarnate walkthrough I watched on YouTube with two lousiest champions "You" and "I" went to certain parts of Ros first, for example (downstairs, the mummy room by the torch, etc.). But this essentially requires intimate knowledge of how the junctions work

I discovered that this video is one of my games played and recorded
many years ago. Somebody must have downloaded it from my website and
published it on YouTube. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
But is was a surprise. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Estoroth]

When I have downloaded "CSB_Windows_x86-32_20151213.zip" I have noticed that a savegame in the slot 2 with characters "I" and "You" is available and we can launch the playback session too. I think it is the same walkthrough available on YouTube.

Your walkthrough will be never forget Paul.

[Antman]

There have been speed runs of both DM and CSb and in the case of the latter the record is something like nine minutes, by the forum user "Rain".

Rain's recording is actually made using saves, I made a similar one here which is 6 minutes 40 seconds . I think the non-save record is still the 10 minutes and 37 seconds one. The non-save record for DM is 26 minutes 15 seconds here. I haven't seen an 18 minute with-saves video for DM, got a link to it?