How many hours will a Small Map take to win for experienced players?

[ShadeAuthority]

Game has great reviews. I realize there is a steep learning curve. Once I've got over that, how many will a small map take to finish/win? 10? 20? 30+?

[Jdane]

Much more than that.

At turn 50 in my first game, I had just managed to storm into one of the other two major power's capital using the Attack at all costs Posture Stratagem card after several unsuccessful attempts.
Then the other major power, which gobbled up minors unimpeded while me and the other one were at each other's throats, declared war on me, and I reckon it would take me at least 50 other turns to win that war, staying on the short estimate, because the opponent had five cities to take from.

Admittedly, I may not be the best player out there. But that's my experience.

[ShadeAuthority]

So 100 turns. How many hours is that?

[Jdane]

At the least (if you're as bad a player as me).
It was my first game so I might have not been the quickest to play my rounds (especially in the very beginning when I was learning the ropes), but if I had to extrapolate (since I started another game to write an AAR about for other people to enjoy and have not finished the first one yet), maybe 15 to 20 ish hours?

Bear in mind there where only me and two other majors - can't remember how many minors. Siwa class planet. Depending on the map you might have one more major to deal with if I'm not mistaken.

[aperfecturkel]

Hey Shade, I don't know if this is particularly helpful in the end, but just to give you an idea:

I had a friend say that his first small-world game ended on turn 112 -- and based on the timestamp on my autosaves, my turn 1 to turn 22 were just over 5 hours apart. I myself am kind of a slower, methodical player and I DID hop up to grab drinks and check in with the familiy and such, so...I hope this might give you something to work with!

[Jdane]

Yup, turn length can vary significantly.

My first game, the 20ish first turns took quite some time because I was learning the mechanics and the UI. The following ones took much less time as I was trying to press on to see what medium to late game looked like. (Plus having most of my troops committed in a deadlock siege meant troop movement was really quickly done).
My second game, I've been paying much more attention to the wealth of details you can find and slowed to a crawl. Might have spent ten or more hours playing ten turns (but I'm also writing and editing screenshots in between).

You can manage to play reasonably efficiently just sticking to the surface but also immerse yourself deeply in the multiple interlocking systems that constitute Shadow Empire, that's why to me it seems difficult to give a definitive answer to your question.

The more experienced you are the quicker you can play I would say, but I really feel it depends on the player and even on their current mood (am I in for pure war gaming or am I willing to slow down and read here and there stuff that will allow me to build a narrative in my head for my and possibly others' enjoyment?)

[Kamelpov]

I won a small map on turn 93 on beginner

[Stelteck]

The game is amazing but if something can be done to reduce AI turn time it would be great.
I did a AI turn process while looking at my computer ressource consumption. (With beta patch).

The game did not mobilize my computer ressource so much, CPU time was never more than 45% for example.
It could be a good idea to identify what is going on during turn time and maybe find bottle neck or critical ressources.
At least give players clue of how to accelerate the turn. For example is it a good idea to install the game on SDD ? I did not notice a lot of disk read/write during turn (As probably the whole game can be stored in RAM during play) but i maybe wrong.

Also maybe the game is not configured to use so much ressources and so run slowly or things like that.

I'am sûre something can be done to process the AI turn faster.

[Dampfnudel]

It depends on how much to optimize.

In regular difficulty, you can skip research/diplomacy/etc. and just rush forward with buggies and sentinels to victory. Just ignore all parts except for maintaining logistics, metals, food, fuel, recruits. Spend fate points on sentinels.

Dirt roads and chained truck station level 1 is enough to fuel a small buggy/sentinel army.

[KingHalford]

The first small map I completed I probably did in under 15 hours.

The current game I'm playing, on a Normal-Large planet has been going for nearly 30 hours now and still not finished, although if I ever finish this war I'm in, it'll be a win for me.