Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

I've recently gone AI in a game that was taking me almost 3 hours a day to play. It was a 12-hour game and, until recently, I was having a great time.

Recently, though, things have been going less well and I was having less fun. However, I was still a major nation - some may even have said I was winning. With a sudden increase in my work/study commitments, I had little choice but to abandon the game.

Now, before I'm accused of Cohen-esque play-and-run behaviour, I should point out that I survived some very grim times indeed, writing off my winning chances altogether at one point, to ultimately emerge as one of the leading contenders. I chucked the game at turn 75. The important point here is that during those grim times, turns were not taking a long time to play, so I didn't mind that they were not much fun.

However, I'm also aware that it pretty much ruins a game when a major nation goes AI. So what's the solution - find a replacement? Rarely, I think. Apart from the difficulty of finding someone with the available time required, there's the fact that the replacement is unlikely to have any more fun than the departing player, so what's the point?

So, at Last, to the point of this post. How do we solve the problem of games being ruined when large nations go to AI for the understandable reason that if you're going to commit 3 hours a day to something, you need to be having fun?

[ July 19, 2004, 03:39: Message edited by: Zapmeister ]

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

people who chastise you for not making a computer game a priority in your life are to be ignored.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

I think alot of newbies would have stepped in. I often recommend it in fact. They have a ready excuse if they do bad because it wasnt their nation design. Gives an idea of a multiplayer game and all they have to do is play better than turning it over to an AI. Or at least, more surprising. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

You get to go AI about 20 more times before you're accused of Cohenesque play. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Seriously though - I think that's a big problem with 12 hour games. Early on it's great, sure! Get those 2-5 minute turns with no action out of the way faster!

But the game runs on, and ... It starts to take half an hour a turn. Then an hour. And if you're on 24 hour cycles, that can be hard enough some days - but twice a day???

Personally, I'm more and more inclined towards 48 hour games nowadays, because I have seen this happening. Even better, I think, is if people agree beforehand to shifting timelines. Maybe 12 hour turns for the first 10 turns, 24 hours after that until turn 35 or 40, and finally settle in for 48 hour turns. After all - it's much easier to find an hour or two once in two days; and it lets you take a quick look at the turn as soon as it cycles, and then ponder the situation offline, while commuting, sitting in a bar, sitting through long meetings, etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

None of which has to do with how to minimize the impact on a game when one of the major nations goes AI, but ... Had you considered asking if the other players would agree to a slower pace? Quite possibly some might be in the same situation as the game started to demand enough time to almost qualify as a part time job. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

One huge thing that could be done by Illwinter though : Add some rudimentary diplomacy, or at least "allied / friendly" settings.

If, when you go AI, you could tell the AI which nations you were allied with, which you were at war with, etc, then at least it wouldn't have quite the huge impact of someone's trusted ally going AI and all of a sudden their previously safe border is getting devastated by the 'ally'.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Eh.... Not for a 12 hour game, I don't think. Even in the early game, new players suddenly realize that they're in a 12 hour, 2 turn a day game, and balk.

Turning it over to a new player is great, certainly better than going AI especially if the replacement player agrees to keep in mind alliances / wars that were going.

But ... If it's taking the original player 3 hours to take his turns, in a nation he built, where he knows what his plans were, how long is it going to take the new guy?

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Keep in mind that it's not really "just a game" - getting into a multiplayer game is making a commitment to other human beings.

Zap's situation is understandable - frankly, I can't imagine keeping a game going at a 12 hour pace when the turns are taking that long.

But people who go AI regularly, on whim, really ought to consider sticking to single player where they're not screwing other players over.

Again - I'm not talking Zap here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

I'm currently in 2 other games, both on the Faerun map, so potentially leading to large and demanding positions as well (although not there yet).

I think I owe it to the other players to offer these positions to anyone that thinks they can handle the time commitment that they may come to involve. So that's what I'm doing here and now. They're both 24-hour games at the moment.

One game (Machaka) has 4 human players, one AI and one abandoned position. Oh, and you're not allowed to make gem-producing items. Annoyingly, the name is Human_God_-_No_Clams,_other_gem_making_trinkets

The other game (R'lyeh) has 14 humans and 2 AIs, with no house rules. The name is Faerun_Folly.

Please read this thread and understand the potential time commitment before accepting either position.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but then I realized it wouldn't make any difference, even if they agreed. I'd still want to quit regardless of whether turns ran twice a day, once every two days or once a week because 90 minutes is too much to take out of any day, however infrequent, if that ninety minutes is a chore as opposed to gaming fun.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

Color me obvious, but the problem of turns taking too long can be avoided by not playing on Faerun, or any map bigger than about 200 provinces, even with 17 players in the game. When the game gets down to 4 or 5 people (or as often as not - STARTS with that few), and you're playing on Faerun, and you've got 100 provinces to deal with, that's just not going to be fun. Less fun if you aren't winning.

It's easy to pick a number of provinces per empire that you happen to like, and then assume that it scales linearly with the number of players in the game, but it doesn't. More players does mean a bigger map is required, but it's logarithmic, not linear.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

There's the basic reason why I don't play Online. The maps are too fuggin huge and take way too long to finish. If that's your bag, fine. I can't possibly dedicate an hour a day to update a game, let alone 2 hours on one game in a 12-hour cycle. There are plenty of really nice smaller maps. My friends and I play on Ormus quite a bit. Fits 4 nations pretty well, ends up in a 2-2 situation most times... and we finish the games in about 40-50 turns usually. Even played Online, that's a month and a half, and even in the end my turns rarely took longer than 10 minutes to finish.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well being Zapmeister's main antagonist in the game he left, I was sad he left since it has been a very interesting game. In fact I commend you on your strategic thinking. A couple times I had written you off and turned to other nations only to see you rise to one of the top nations. we proabably should have changed to a slower pace but we sure did get alot of turns in quickly. With you leaving it is basically now between me and Arco (Mark the Merciful) since you hurt C'tis pretty bad before you left.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But ... If it's taking the original player 3 hours to take his turns, in a nation he built, where he knows what his plans were, how long is it going to take the new guy? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They dont have to make all the moves. If they pull down the turn and just moves some pieces then logs off. Maybe later in the day he decides to tell some mages what to do. Or the next day he can tell the mages. The following day maybe look at build queues.

The thing is that he doesnt have to play well. Or even turn in every turn. The AI is too predictable for most players. So anything less predictable, even if its bad play, is better than AIing a player.

Actually one of the biggest surprise replacements Ive ever seen in a multiplayer game was where one of the players went stale-turn for a couple of weeks, THEN was put AI. The continual researching in one channel, saving up gems and gold, and casual advancement of other players into his lightly defended outer provinces; did a big turnaround suddenly. All defenses shot up. Global castings. Sudden large armies that surged forth. What a gusher!

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

I think my typical main suggestion for when the time to play gets too long, would be to reduce the frequency of turns. 12 hours is too short for late-game on a big map.

If as you say Zap, you also weren't enjoying it... well you can try to find a replacement, since different players enjoy different things. Meanwhile, consider Gandalf's advice of not doing everything every turn. Put as much as possible on repeated behaviour, do the important and easy stuff only and send in the turn. Another idea is look for things that would be fun for you to do in the game besides micro-managing everything, and do those things.

PvK

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

Few months ago I've found myself in a similar position. Being inexperienced, I've join too many games (and 2 of them on Orania) without realizing the time commitment (or maybe I hoped to be eliminated quickly). Fortunately, I had found a sub for one of those games (Norfleet was eager to try his skills without castles, VQ and clams ;->). In another game, I've decided to radically cut on micromanagement and allocated myself 40 minutes per turn. This way I've ended up starting from doing important things and gradually moving to less important tasks. For example, I've stopped watching taxes every turn, once every 5 turns was ok too. I've stopped ferrying blood slaves and built labs in all bloodhunting provinces. I've stopped trying to forge items ahead (meaning ones that I expected to need the next turn). Instead I was forging them as needed. Rather than building a castle regular way, I'd cast a spell, etc. It wasn't as optimal, but this way it was more fun than work. Fortunately, I was winning in that game anyway, so I didn't need to squeeze every opportunity.

But the lesson was learned and I'm not joining games on huge maps anymore. While they may be ok in the beginning, as players getting eliminated remaining empires become too big and require too much micromanagement for my taste.

For me the loss of fun factor is not due to high level spells, but rather due to big empires. Two best games went well into the late game with the research finished (one was on Karan with 7 strong nations remaining) and another was inland map with 5 major players remaining.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

Have you considered not micromanaging everything. 3 hour turns boggle my mind!

frosted flake

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, it was 90 minute turns, twice a day.
If I didn't play as well as I can, I wouldn't enjoy the game at all.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

IMHO, Sheap is right. For some strange reason people think that bigger map = more fun. In my experience, the best part of a dom game is the early and middle game, and the game just goes worse as it drags on, because in the endgame everyone has access to all tech and items, and esp. after some decisive castling you cannot really hurt the opponents all that much. I'd say that either figure out winning rules with what you will not have to occupy huge tracts of land to win, or play in such small maps that the map is not bigger than (preferred amount of provinces)x 4.

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

You just need to realign your sense of fun: Once your concept of fun is aligned such that it is no longer fun unless you are giving and/or receiving pain and suffering, it becomes much easier to handle games, and life in general.

After all, no pain, no gain. You stand to gain a lot in life if your tolerance for pain is above and beyond anyone else's.

[ July 20, 2004, 08:28: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

You stand to get more pain for sure.....

Pickles

Re: Finding the time to NOT have fun
 

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[ July 20, 2004, 10:30: Message edited by: Aikamun ]