managing empires
 

A long time ago, there was a thread about managing several games at once, i searched several times for it but came up empty handed, does anyone have any ideas as to where this might be?

Re: managing empires
 

I know if you are unemployed or have plenty of time on your hands it is a snap. If you really are playing the game then 2-4 hours is sufficient to play adaquatly. If you intend to win then 4-8 hours per turn is needed. Some folks may deride me for the times but they include running simulations to see what your opponet can do.

Re: managing empires
 

I rarely am in less than 10 games at once. Right now I am in 13. To be fair though probably only 4 or 5 have turns every day. At times it gets rather overwhelming. Like the days when I log on and 7 or 8 games have new turns all at once. But I just take them one at a time. It's times like that I start to think I am in too many. But then there are the days when I get no new turns for 12 to 14 hours and I start trolling the open game list on PBW for games needing replacment players. I try to fight the urge though cause it never fails when I join a new game three days later I am back to thinking I am in too many games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I won't deride you at all Gozra. I know I am probably at the low end of time spent on turns. I can't comprehend taking 4 hours on one turn. Even in heavy duty complex games the most I ever take on a turn is maybe 30 minutes. And to take that long I have to be distracted by something like my kids, or work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Geoschmo

[ August 31, 2002, 22:51: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: managing empires
 

I tend to do 30 min or less in turns myself. But I have a friend who was spending 4-6 hours a day on one turn. I was stunned that anyone could put so much time in. So I took a second look on how I did things and in one turn I concentrated on maxmizing one factor and played the turn. It took me close to 2 hours. Also I don't do too many simulations. This fellow was trying to beat the Talisman and getting games to the point where he was running fleet battles from both sides. Going all out and using enemy ship designs. It is hard being an Admiral and Emperor and Researcher and pushing all three roles to perfection.
However if you met this fellow in a game you would know it.

Re: managing empires
 

But all that knowledge can be acquired from experience in other games, leading to a lack of a need to do such things in newer games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: managing empires
 

I play 7-8 games at a time. 4 hours a turn is a little excessive. Has your friend seen a psychiatrist? Winning isn't everything.

Experiencing the game is worth more to me. In one game, I only have a colony ship left, no planets. I merely continue playing because it is cloaked and I want to explore the rest of the universe, to see what possibilities could have been. If I get lucky, I will colonize a planet. More than likely, I will be detected and eliminated. But life goes on.

I spend as little time as possible in each game. Oh, I have had the rare game where an hour needed to be invested in a turn, but it is usually 10-15 minutes and I am on to other things.

Re: managing empires
 

I have to disaggree. Over the Last 2 years I have learned a lot about what to do and not do and I still learn hint's and trick's as I continue to play.
Want to build a Missle Boat that fires continually almost every combat turn? I know how and I learned that about a week ago.
I know someone that can outproduce anyone but I have yet to even keep pace with them. They have 6 million Game point and I have 2 and we started out with exactly the same They have 500 ships and I am struggling to get over 150 I am getting full trade bennies from 6 other Empires and still it is not enough. I still think I have a lot to learn.

Re: managing empires
 

Depends on how many games you play at a time, and who you play against. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Try playing games against people with a lot of skill/experience. You'll learn a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: managing empires
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Three different levels of CSM? Then each would fire at a different range. In thoery this could result in a few missles eveery turn. It wouldn't be perfect of course because of differences in ship movement between your ship and the enemy, but it would be close.

I agree, as many games as I have played, I continue to learn new stuff all the time. And I even relearn a lot of stuff I used to know but forgot. Ideas for straategies I gave up on, but then saw later put into practice by someone you worked out the kinks, that sort of thing.

That's the main reason I don't like playing the AI. It's not so much that they are bad, cause I have lost solo games before. It's just that after a few games, they never show me anything new.

Geoschmo

[ September 01, 2002, 19:42: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: managing empires
 

I'm a compulsive micromanager; I can't handle more than 2-3 active PBW games.

I've recently decided I need to concentrate on finishing some of my solo games, as well. I used to cycle through all of them, but it seemed like I was spending too much time refamiliarizing myself with the situation in each game.

Re: managing empires
 

The time bug got me. I was in something like 11 games at once, now I am in one, and that too is pressing me right now.

Re: managing empires
 

I am slowly getting in more games. Although I think I'm at my limit right now. I'm in 4 games. One is going to start tomorrow evening. The other 3 are in progress now.

I usually spend about 10 minutes for a turn. I go through log files, check my research and build ques and then I just my empire lines, battle lines, etc. The max I've done for a PBW game is I think 30 minutes.

Re: managing empires
 

The most I've spent on a PBW game would be about 1.5 hours, but that was only because I had a 180 planet empire that was rioting. Building Police Troops is tedious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: managing empires
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The new multi add really helps make that less painful. Unfortunatly you can't do a muti-add of "one turns worth", but you can do a muti-add in blocks of 5. You can get close.

Re: managing empires
 

Nah... all the planets had widely varying build rates. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: managing empires
 

i keep whishing for multi-add in all my non-gold pbw games, it is such a good idea, better than drones but that's another topic.

However, this thread hasn't really answered my question, where is the thread about all those programs that could help you take "notes" on games?

Re: managing empires
 

Did you do a search for it? If I ever need to make notes, I just use text files. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: managing empires
 

I actually use M$ Excel.

I have a sheet that I enter each planet and moon I come across. I the sort it by the different columns to find the information I want.

I realize that you can sort the columns in the game report, but this way I can log the colony ship ID with the planet it is heading for so I can send it there when it loses its orders. (This happens if it picks up colonists on another planet or hits a waypoint to pick up supplies.) I used to put every colony ship into its own fleet and embed the destination in the fleet name.

This alone has made me at least twice as efficient in expansion.

I have considered writing a program to log some data, but have not decided whether to invest the time.

Also, I extensively use Ctrl+B to go from ship to ship (only the ones who don't have orders).

When I started using Ctrl+B, it cut my turn time in half. I am not joking... half!

Re: managing empires
 

I did find it, and i just noticed that when you roll the cursor over systems in the system viewing window (after enlargin it with r-click) it shows notes. So its better (that is in 1.49 too)

EDIT:

I thought the command was <space> also, I think it woudl be nice if we could see better data analysis/collection capabilites. I wanna be able to look back at a succesful empire (not neccesarily mine) and say "what did they do that i didn't do?" and then look at another empire (more likely mine) and say "what did they do wrong" maybe even write a program that could take 50+ turns and then analyze them for information (how about those nasty txt files included in some PBW zips that seem to mean nothing)? Just a thought and sadly my lack of programming experience means its one i can't do anythign about, like the calculator idea.

[ September 15, 2002, 05:50: Message edited by: Skulky ]