Finding the time to NOT have fun

[Sheap]

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.

[Blitz]

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.

[Frosted Flake]

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

frosted flake

[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by Frosted Flake:
Have you considered not micromanaging everything. 3 hour turns boggle my mind!

frosted flake

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.

[Tuna-Fish]

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.

[Pirateiam]

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.

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Cainehill:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
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.

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?

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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!