Tricks to get in more PBEM turns

[niceguy2005]

While waiting for AE to come out and in preparation for it, I'd be grateful to hear some advice from others on good ways to get more turns out in a week. My former PBEM partner and I struggled to do 5 turns a week. I would like to triple that to play AE. What are some clever ways you guys manage to get extra turns done?

[Feinder]

1.  Tell you boss that you were having an affair with with his wife, but that he shouldn't worry - your latest lab results came back inconclusive.
2.  Sell you children on Ebay.
3.  Which should give your wife ample motive to file for divorce, solving -that- issue.

You should now have no job, no kids, and no wife; thus giving you lots of free time for turns.

-F-

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

While waiting for AE to come out and in preparation for it, I'd be grateful to hear some advice from others on good ways to get more turns out in a week. My former PBEM partner and I struggled to do 5 turns a week. I would like to triple that to play AE. What are some clever ways you guys manage to get extra turns done?

Quit working...divorce the wife...sell the kids....unplug the phone...buy a years supply of canned peaches... lock the doors....pull the shades.... ignore humanity....quit bathing and shaving.... install PC in bathroom.

You beat me by 15 secs Feinder.

[niceguy2005]

Haha guys.  I'd prefer a solution that keeps food on the table and doesnt completely kill my social life (beating it up a little is ok).

[Feinder]

Set all zones to "Computer Control" and see how long it takes your opponent to notice?

[:)]

Sorry, I'm not much help this afternoon. I'm already ready to go home. 1.5 hours to go....

-F-

[Feltan]

Best practice I've found is simply this: agree to an early morning turn, and a late evening turn.

I get up early and crank out a turn before work, and do another one late evening. My opponent(s) and I stage it so we have turns waiting at some given time (ex. for me, I usually have them waiting at 0630 and 2230 each day).

All that being said, we muff several turns per week. Out of a theoretical 14 turns per week, we hit usually about 10.

Regards,
Feltan

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Feltan

Best practice I've found is simply this: agree to an early morning turn, and a late evening turn.

I get up early and crank out a turn before work, and do another one late evening. My opponent(s) and I stage it so we have turns waiting at some given time (ex. for me, I usually have them waiting at 0630 and 2230 each day).

All that being said, we muff several turns per week. Out of a theoretical 14 turns per week, we hit usually about 10.

Regards,
Feltan

Wolffpack and I often manage up to 20 turns a week using a system very much like Feltan's. Saturdays and Sundays we can usually get in an extra turn or three during the day. Getting in those extra turns requires a dedicated opponent and an understanding family, though.

[rroberson]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

While waiting for AE to come out and in preparation for it, I'd be grateful to hear some advice from others on good ways to get more turns out in a week. My former PBEM partner and I struggled to do 5 turns a week. I would like to triple that to play AE. What are some clever ways you guys manage to get extra turns done?

Get Yahoo messenger. That way instead of having to constantly refresh your mailbox your opp can send you a page letting you know the turn is on its way. I use to get mega turns in that way (much to the wife's chagrin).

So I bought her a PC and now she spends her nights surfing the interweb [&o][:D]

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Haha guys.  I'd prefer a solution that keeps food on the table and doesnt completely kill my social life (beating it up a little is ok).

Teach your wife/GF the joys of WITP and play a game against them.

While you are working on your turn they can be cooking dinner and bringing you beer.[:D]

Then, once you wake up from your dream, you can go to work...give the wife and kids their alotted time...and try to squeese in turns whenever you can, like the rest of us poor souls.[:D]

[tocaff]

You guys disappoint me.  The answer is obvious:

CLONES

That's right send your clone to work, to play with the kids and to tickle your wife.  Think of it, it's the best investment of a buck you've made since you shelled out for WITP.  Hell, all you'll have to do other than eat drink and answer nature's calls is play the game.

[niceguy2005]

Do you find it works best if your opponent is in a similar times zone or much different time zone?

[Anthropoid]

In other games that I've had successful PBEMs in, we used to do what we call "Power Sessions" using some sort of online chat service. This is quite good for games like Civ where there is very little going on at the beginning but things progressively get more complicated. Basicaly just be online together and send the turns back and forth via the instant messenger service you're using. I think this is what Cuttlefish is talking about re: weekend one to three additional turns.
 
You could even do power sessions in the evenings during the work week, if you want to promote Feinder's "solutions." [:D]
 
Another idea for power sessions: impose time limits or something, or else allot each player a certain amount of time to however many turns in so many minutes or hours or whatever.

[dpstafford]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Haha guys. I'd prefer a solution that keeps food on the table and doesnt completely kill my social life (beating it up a little is ok).

You don't need to actually do any of those things. The key is to get your opponent to do all those things.

[scott64]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Do you find it works best if your opponent is in a similar times zone or much different time zone?

Sometimes it works
Example
Mike Dixon is in UK, I am in Colorado, we do one turn a day.

Okami is in Eastern Canada. We do a lot of turns when we can, at least 3/4 times a day.

Bill is out East, We try to do one turn in the morning and one in the evening.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Do you find it works best if your opponent is in a similar times zone or much different time zone?

It would depend on both person's schedules and how many turns you want to do a day. I have 2 European opponents (I'm US). As long as RL does not interfer, we can usually keep 1 day a turn going. It works nice, because I can send them my turn first thing in the morning, which is about the time they are getting home from work....they do the turn and I get it back before I go home. I do the turn after work....and send in the morning. (I have slow internet which prevents me from emailing large attachments from home).

When choosing a PBEM opponent, finding out up front from them the best time for them to do turns could be important.

[TommyG]

You have to have two sessions per day, one before work and one after. If you want to play multiple games you might have two, one in a time zone 2 to 3 zones ahead of you and one in a zone behind you so you can play a last turn at night that he returns while you are sleeping and another that you send in the mornig that he does while you are at work. I can usually do 6 turns per day weekdays and much more on weekends, keep my job (but I own the company) and have a reasonable family life. But, then I suck at WitP, I just play a lot of it.

[bigjoe96912]

The best formula that I have used is having on player that works off shift like I do. My opponet is a day shifter so he runs the turn and plans in the evening and then when I get home at midnight I do the replay and play the turn at breakfast, (takes me about an hour to do a turn) and send it to him and so forth, we get a minimum 7 turns a week and maybe 2 or 3 on Sat and Sun. We started Aug of last year and so we are at teh end of Nov 1942, the game is seriously fun to the point were we have agreed to continue even after AE, He is a great Jap and I am a so so Allied. He has pretty much wiped me out in India (but I have a suprise for him, should have finished the job) but I have made Kweglien a fortress, Truk is threatened, he took back Marcus at the cost of 2 carriers and a BB and I have lost most of the Brits except Force Z and Warspite, Enterprise, Saratoga, Yorktown, S Dakota but I have just put 3 fish in the side of Zuikaku (blub)(I am having excellent results with dutch subs) and Akagi recieved a fatal blow from the Yorktowns last gasp. But the game is a blast, he is good enough to where I think he is going to be a major threat well into 1944, unless he does a major flub.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Get an office job and play at work [;)]. [/align] [/align]Ok, not necessarily during working hours - I usually manage to squeeze in a turn during lunch break. Hooray for FAST food!  [/align]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Get an office job and play at work [;)]. [/align] [/align]Ok, not necessarily during working hours - I usually manage to squeeze in a turn during lunch break. Hooray for FAST food! [/align]

I do and I did[:D], but alas real work has intruded. [:@]

Edit, thanks all. I like the ideas.