Complete Game -- How Long to Play?

[sage]

How long does it take to play an average size game of 2526?

[Archy]

in custom game, you can have these settings :
 
- from 2 to 104 factions
- 10 to 1 million turns.
- many size/density options.
- size 12x12 to 1000x1000
 
It has good pace, bit faster than usual for me, but that depends on many things.
Capping current technology trees doesnt require that much time/effort, and is one of the major aspects that lacks content/features.
 
I find the current tech tree size relative to the tutorial, i need something that goes on for much longer, and use that beautifull technology/research system.
That affects how long your game is, so the best would be to have an option and maybe have 2-3-4-5 tiers and enable/disable them in custom games so people
 can play different technology tiers thus shorter/longer games.
 
Having a bit more variety and diversity and randomness in content and feature-wise would also probably affect game lenghts.
 
 
 

[sage]

Thanks for the quick response...

Will an average size game take an evening after work, a few evenings after work, weeks of evenings after work, or months? I'm trying to get a better sense of the pacing.

Also, there seem to be a lot of people complaining about crash bugs (and worse) in the tech support forum. Are they outliers -- i.e. most folks don't have any issues, or is the game still pretty buggy?

[Archy]

The game is stable for me, i had only 1 error in the tutorial , i spent 2 evenings on the tutorial, trying different things and finally finding a good balance in my game i took objective.
 
you can tweak with custom game settings and find the right size for your time, you might prefer a certain way. You can play short/medium/long/too long games if you want, custom game
has enough options to give you a good experience. I like 120x80 16 players very sparse expert 2000 turns and i play human still im at turn 210 of that game got like 12 systems and made a frontline
 
I feel the current tech tree is about 250 turns so a good game would be 500ish to actually use those higher skills.
 
I would like different modes, like anihilation, other rulesets, if possible.

[sage]

How long did it take you to get to turn 210 of the game you mention? A few evenings-worth of play? Weeks?

[Archy]

turns are faster especially when you start and know the drill.... that game i probably played something like 2 hours. saving/loading is fast, and you have the choice to play short/medium/long games really.

[sage]

Oh wow -- okay, that's what I'm looking for. I don't want a game that takes a bajillion hours. Just don't have time for that. Perfect, thank you.

[Archy]

the game is fun and does not feel tedious as it brings you in different modes, the pace is not slow and turns are fast if you know what your doing.

[Shawkhan]

This is the most streamlined 4X game ever. You can zip through a decent-sized game in 8 hours or less. Turns can take mere seconds. 100 turns an hour is pretty easy to do. Most of my modestly sized games last 2-300 turns or so since I do prefer the smaller maps.

[Flaviusx]

100 turns an hour is about right. I'm basically playing out a game a day. I like this because you can play that quickly even on very large maps (the kind I prefer) especially if you autoresolve all the battles.
 
 
 
 

[Archy]

Yep, your own style of playing the game will determine how long your games are. Turns will be longer and fast in semi croweded places, the race starts at turn 1, even if the game lasts 2000 turns , i like to try different build orders/strategic actions to achieve greater results. I find this game more and more amazing as i play it due to the sheer ammount of potential.
 
The Tutorial is perfect to start with , save often and restart if your not happy. I didnt try the 12 race map yet. After a few tweaks i found something that pleased me after like 2 trys with custom game.
its epic game 120x80 16 factions very sparse..... expert 2000 turn , i dont really care if i start with a 'poor' as humans. I play games for a challenge not a walk in the park so i like to get suprised by ai and obviously the starmap ai is nasty and will definitly outmanoeuver a human already with many different tricks [:D] The early - mid game 3d combat ai though, thats another story.

[PDiFolco]

Personnally I play slower, 50 turns/hrs max, even at start (because I mm more with less planets/fleet).A full game is rather 2 evenings long.

[Warspite3]

It definitely moves along fast if you auto resolve lots of battles but there are many battles I definitely NEED to fight. You know the close ones which are cruicial and the times when you need to step in command and make sure it goes right. For example, I may have a carrier fleet and I don't want anything to attack other then my fighters. So if this is the case, I will prefer to move just into strike range and stay back, hopefully when the AI ships close in, I will have done enough damage to finish them off when they get into laser range. If I can avoid damage and dish out some damage, at least I am victorious to a certain extent.