Is this fun multiplayer?

[Budee]

I read a great review about this game on computer gaming world. Sounds like fun. Is this mostly a SP game? Is there enough folks to do MP and how long do those games usually take to setup, play and finish?

Thanks in advance

[Saxon]

Live music is best and making love is no fun alone. I think the game is very good single player, but MP is much more fun. The community is active and you can hook into a game easily.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its mostly a multiplayer game though solo isnt too bad. Always enough people to start a game. Maybe not all 17 nations, that would mean waiting awhile for all the slots to fill up. But easily 5 or 6 can be found in a day when you want a game. There is an IRC channel which is instant game but kindof a luck roll.

Finish? I dont want to scare you off. If a game is one turn a day then of course finishing can be a long way off but its a very interesting way to play. Its like those chess-by-mail you see people playing on TV. You spend all day thinking about strategy.

Actually very few games really finish. They tend to run until its clear who will win. Again, the chess analogy would be that there is rarely a surprising end-of-game move. Usually more of a "checkmate in 7 moves", everyone sees that and knocks over their king. But it takes ALOT longer to get to that point than it does in chess. There is definetly no "5 moves into the game everyone sees where its headed and quits" type of strategys for THIS game.

[Lex]

i've also been curious as to how many turns most MP generaly get to before its obvious who's gonna win.. i've been reading old threads and it seems like games go to about 70 turns sometimes.. is that average or the exception?

[Gandalf Parker]

70 turns doesnt sound bad as a common number. Yeah that might be right.

Depends more than anything on the map I think. Id say that in just about any game if a player has 50% of the map then unless someone has been strongly researching a particular nasty surprise then the game can probably be called. Variations of course, if he was spread real thin and everyone was waiting for that before surging forth. Ive seen big turnarounds in a game, sudden alliances to take down the leader, some that really dragged out to the Last province. But you can see what I mean. At 50% of the map then someone might at least broach the subject of an "end of game" call so map size I think has alot to do with it. IMHO

[ July 24, 2004, 15:57: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[PvK]

Personally, the game is still lots of fun for me in SP, after about a year hooked on the series (started with the first game). And, I'm having lots of fun playing MP too.

PvK