How has no-one thought of this before???

CoW's been around since 2015, and its popularity has only grown since. I've looked at speedrun.com, but there is no mention of Call of War anywhere there. I'm going to look into the pros and cons of speedrunning to CoW:

Pros:

• Fosters a competitive nature: Really, the only "competition" players are after are to increase their KDR and to see how many wins they get. There are the leaderboards, yes, but I doubt that even 10% of the players even check it out.
  
• Actually brings energy to the game: People will want to win as fast as possible, leading to development of high risk, high reward strategies. No more will we see games stagnate until day 40, since players would want to make it onto the leaderboards.
  
• New innovation: As mentioned, speedrunning will bring new strategies to the field. Each doctrine would have it's drawbacks and benefits, specific countries would be brilliant for their strategic positioning, and specific maps would have differing tactics and strategics to cope with each opponent.
  
• Brings veterans of CoW back into the fold: What better way to get the vets back than foster competition and have their expertise account for something? Their high levels and experience would actually count for something, for how fast they can conquer the map.
  

Cons:

• Extremely easy to cheat in these aforementioned speedruns: Why, it's as simple as opening Photoshop. Obviously, there would need to be very strict rules when coming to such speedruns. Multi-accounting would become a fostering problem, since many potential speedrunners might seek to fill a smaller map with alts, thus making it easier for them (and their "allies") to get victory. Even worse, some players might pretend to "help" the speedrunner, by giving them materials, without in any way being affiliated with the speedrunner.
  
• Support from the devs is needed: Obviously, there could not be gold used during these speedruns. The only way to effectively counter gold usage during speedruns is to either create no-gold matches, made specifically for speedruns, or have the devs lock gold usage by speedrunners when they are actively speedrunning.
  
• Constant monitoring: The speedrunner would need to always be monitored for improper behaviour, potential cheating, and constant abiding by the rules. Someone would need to monitor the speedrunner whenever they are active, lest them using other methods of communication to get an unfair advantage.
  

For this idea to work, there'd need to be supervisors in place, people spectating matches to make sure all speedrunners are actively following the set rules (whatever they may be), and that no unfair methods are used so the speedrun can be accurately timed, measured, and placed on the leaderboards.

Ok, this does look like a jumbled mess of thoughts. But I do believe wholeheartedly that this is a good idea, which will bring some energy and spirit back into the community. I hope the community agrees with me, and if you see any more problems with the idea, do tell. Anyways, we would have to work out how to fix the potential cheating problems, but I feel that with enough support, this idea could get off the ground, and actually become viable.

The direct definition for a speedrun is: "an instance of completing a video game, or level of a game, as fast as possible."

Haven't you seen those old school Mario speedruns? The player attempts to beat a level as fast as possible, to get the best time. (Although in CoW, it'd be measured by hours and days, not minutes and seconds).

This could apply to CoW for the fastest time it takes to achieve victory (solo or coalition). They'd need to be separate for each map, and different between solo and coalition.

If this is possible on a smaller scale inter-alliance, I don't see why we could not incorporate this officially within CoW.
I've seen speedrunning in other multiplayer games, ones that are way more RNG compared to CoW too. Although I do agree, this could be very RNG based, dependent of the average skill level of the players they face. I feel speedrunning would decrease the "dilly-dallying" of players, encourage them to take risks at the right time, yet cautious enough to not attack at the wrong time. It would increase players' awareness and change the goal from "conquer the world at snail's pace" to "conquer the world as fast as possible".

I know you probably have always had this goal in mind. It is just that, as of lately, most players seem to go with the former.

And the difference between normal gameplay and speedrunning is that the latter is a competition. Some people would want to set record time for how fast they can conquer their favourite maps, and others would want to set the record for "fastest solo victory in WoW" or so on.