How do you guys/gals do it?

[olaf73]

I'd like to know this too. Late games using largish maps (I like Aran) take me FOREVER to get through. I get to about what I consider to be the halfway point in a game and each turn has 10+ battles, 5ish random events and all kinds of other events to take care of.

I really wish there was a way to queue movement orders, commanders and some kind of rally point feature.

[Nerfix]

Willpower and bouts of inspiration. Often I play untill year three and then give up, but that migt be because I am still checking out all the stuff.

[Twan]

I think most people stop big SP games once they are first by far in the charts. I think in 3 years of dom 2 I may have fully finished 3 big games, all others I've stopped around turn 100 seeing I was by large first in everything.

In Dom 3 it's the same, once you have 2/3 of the map and 3 times the research capacity of the first AI, why continue ? (all agressive AI are probably dead, and the others are not going to do anything against a stronger nation). At this point if you want a fast and official victory I imagine you may have it by building temples on all your provinces then clicking end turn until ascension.

[Teraswaerto]

I never finished a big SP game in Dom2, and I imagine it'll much the same with Dom3. The end game against AIs always felt pointless since they don't really know how to play there. Not that it's necessarily easy, since you'll probably be fighting on multiple fronts, but wiping out army after army of chaff gets boring.

Turns take way too long to finish properly too. In MP games long turns are fine since you'll do one a day or something, but in SP not so much.

[Ballbarian]

Don't feel bad. I received my copy on Oct 4th and I am currently mid way through my 3rd game. Keep in mind that I am normally restricted to evenings and weekends due to that inconvenient work thing.

The 1rst game was a medium map with only 6 ai nations.

The 2nd game was using the cumulative victory points (again on a medium map) so was fairly short.

My current game is a large map with all EA nations and I suspect it will take several more nights & another weekend to finish it.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that few people have seen the "end game" screen in Dominions. I tend to play until Ive "won" but I know who won long before that end-game screen.

[dirtywick]

In general I don't play more than 10 nations, usually more like 6 or 8. I've played huge maps before and generally, after you take out your immediate enemies, you'll see the rest of the AI nations fighting amongst themselves and your power greatly outmatches theirs. It's an exercise in patience to go an steamroll them all and I think the time is better spent starting a new game with a new nation on a smaller map.

[Endoperez]

Sometimes I use victory points in SP games. They give me limit. It's sometimes good, sometimes bad, as the game might end while I still want to try something.

[dirtywick]

Endoperez said:
Sometimes I use victory points in SP games. They give me limit. It's sometimes good, sometimes bad, as the game might end while I still want to try something.

Good point there.

Remember the Map for Dom2 Theater of War (found on that page) That was a large map based on victory points, and it was really well designed. I think as time goes on hopefully we'll see more maps like that from talented people.

[GamerMan12]

There are some ways of speeding up play. Once you get to a certain size, then mostly use the nation overview screen (F1) you can enter most commands directly there - and it is easy to see what hasn't been moved or a mage that needs to be researching instead of defending etc.
Also things like selecting all mages in a province and then that allows you to cast summons of whatever for all of them as it directly cycles through the spell casting window for all the mages selected.

GM12