[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by thejeff

It's not the time it takes to run the turns that bothers me, but the time it takes to play them.

Maneuver dozens of armies, rescript as necessary, try to figure out which battles were critical and what happened, what can I afford to summon, what gear do I need to forge for it, etc, etc.
You get so bogged down in the minutia, it's hard to remember what the larger plans were.

I understand. But for me thats part of the game. Im coming more from the RPG games than from other strategy games. The idea of being "the one god" doesnt role play well if you do it by taking a few provinces. If you cant gain enough area to make administrating it hard then it doesnt feel right to me.

MP is different, even when it takes as long, or longer. Since you can negotiate, useful planning can be done even longer term and there is far more reaction to what you do, so you can rarely just go through the motions with one strategy even against a weaker opponent.

Like I said, the game supports everyone. Some people consider solo play to be just a quick tutorial for mp play. But personally I never found MP play to be much fun. I dont mind really big games with alliances but I dont enjoy cutthroat games. Map and mod work that I do tend to be more toward solo play than mp games.

Gandalf Parker