How long are your battles?

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Mon May 28, 2001 11:08 am

Reading some of the posts lately, I've been seeing comments like "I played the campaign last weekend". While I realise that some campaigns may have as few as three encounters, based on my own, albeit limited, experience this still seems like an extraordinary feat. For me, a single battle (scenario) can take me anywhere from about an hour and a half to well over five! For a large scenario, I can easily spend an hour at the start just looking at the map and assessing my units.

What I'd like to know, from those who have been at this longer than I,
is how much time do you spend on individual battles? What would be an average time for small/large battles? How long was the longest battle you've played? (PBEM players need not apply

) Do you find that with more experience, you play faster? And finally, after learning how it's done, does playing with C&C on speed up things?

I'm just curious to see if my three to four hour average is par for the course, and whether it's likely to get much quicker

Figmo · Post by **Figmo** » Mon May 28, 2001 4:39 pm

I don't think anybody can play the "long WW2 Campaign" in a weekend - your talking about 30 something battles at 10 to 20 turns a battle. Your time seems about the same for me.

It took me 2 months to finish the Long Campaign - Sept. 1939 to Aptil 1945 - 39 battles. I saw the world while doing it!!

Figmo

Voriax · Post by **Voriax** » Mon May 28, 2001 5:18 pm

Weelll..I'm currently playing a 45-turn scenario with quite a lot of infantry and cavalry in it...it's taken perhaps 4-5 hours already and current turn is 31. On the other hand, a smaller 12 turn scenario from Wild Bill that had about 2 companies worth of infantry on both sides took an hour or so..

And yes, with more experince the game does go faster - partly. Especially if you play against the computer. You learn the computer's way of play and know where and when you can advance rapidly and when a caution is needed.

Of course if you are playing a scenario designed by the Grand Scenario Master Wild Bill, then you better be cautious all time..you never know what will happen...

Voriax

Warrior · Post by **Warrior** » Mon May 28, 2001 6:27 pm

One thing that can speed up a game is to set your Message Delay preference to "XXX" and your "Live Delay" to about 40 or so. Made a BIG difference for me. Another thing to remember is that some of us have no job or "life" (like me) and can spent all day, every day, just playing SPWaW.

victorhauser · Post by **victorhauser** » Mon May 28, 2001 8:37 pm

Large assaults and advances take the longest, a whole evening or more for me. Delays and defends don't take as long for me, several hours or less.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Mon May 28, 2001 9:55 pm

Well Voriax! What is life without a few surprises

I personally prefer smaller, less complicated battles. I enjoy the moment, take my time and usually spend an hour or so on the "smaller" ones.

The larger ones, such as Steel Shield or Supercharge, I might not finish in a day.

With a campaign I try to limit myself to one battle per day. Now the thing about campaigns (at least for me) is that once I have finished a battle, I say, "Well, I can set up the next battle."

Then I do that, and I want to play at least one turn..then another...then another. Argh!
I'm captured by the campaign and want to keep on.

It takes some will power (and voices hollering from another room

) to make me finally shut down.

Mumdaan · Post by **Mumdaan** » Tue May 29, 2001 1:06 am

Hehe.. heard that WB

I can play certain battles for days.. ie the first battle inside Stalingrad (the train station i think)- I got 25-30% casualties from the opening rocket bombardment by the Soviets (gasp) then house to house the whole way with wounded squads. It took me several sessions over about 4 days time to finish it.. what a fight!

- got a draw btw =(

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Tue May 29, 2001 11:00 am

That is a tough one, Mumdaan! You did just fine. I think the Germans would have been delighted to get a draw at Stalingrad!

Wild Bill

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Tue May 29, 2001 1:13 pm

Thanks guys! There're some good ideas and points in there. It's also good to know that I'm not as slow as I thought.

One thing that no one's touched on yet is C&C. I get the impression that once you learn the ins and outs of this, you'd end up playing faster - spending extra time planning, but saving more time by issuing fewer orders. Does this sound right?

And all I can say about "4 days for a battle" and "2 months for a campaign" is Yikes! Suddenly that big scenario I'm looking at seems a little smaller

Gloo · Post by **Gloo** » Fri Jun 01, 2001 3:40 am

Originally posted by ectizen:
...It's also good to know that I'm not as slow as I thought...

Well, speaking for myself I would say I spend between four to six hours as an average timing on a 25 to 35 turns battle. On the more complexe battles, it easily spreads to 10 or more hours (never really calcultated it though).
Regarding the C&C option, I always play with it on since it (hopefuly) appeared in SP3. But I disagree with your guessing about it, saving time of gameplay. Honestly, I think it takes much more time of thinking. You must pay more attention in the setup, about displaying your units on the map, then keeping them in contact and issuing orders to formations or particuliar units. I think it takes much more time than only moving units without caring about how much orders you still have to use. You must constantly think ahead and that's great but it takes time!

Imho, the main ways to save time of gameplay are achieved with turning on fast arty, speeding up the movement animations and reducing the messages delays. No need to say it'll also ruin greatly your gaming experience...

ectizen · Post by **ectizen** » Fri Jun 01, 2001 11:58 am

Thanks Gloo. Having not played with C on (the things I've read about it scare me

), I didn't realise just how much extra thought it required.

[ June 01, 2001: Message edited by: ectizen ]

Gloo · Post by **Gloo** » Mon Jun 04, 2001 12:24 pm

Originally posted by ectizen:
...the things I've read about it scare me ...

No real reason to be afraid!

Go for it and you'll find it's really a lot of extra fun! You might be a bit confused with your first battles but it won't last too long and you'll quickly learn how to take advantage of this option. It's really a plus to the gameplay.

mogami · Post by **mogami** » Mon Jun 04, 2001 3:22 pm

Hi, With C&C on remember while deploying to assign objectives. If you forget it will take many turns just to get your units moving. I once played an online battle where C&C was on (but I did not know it) My opponent kept asking me where I was at when 5-6 turns into battle he had not encountered any of my units. I had deployed well back and none of my Soviet units could make contact with the A0 HQ so they just sat there. Around turn 12 (of 20) I had less then half of my units moving. (It was disgusting to watch the Germans over run my formations one at a time) But C&C does add much to the realism (stops those players who just want to zoom units all over the place)

Gloo · Post by **Gloo** » Mon Jun 11, 2001 6:27 pm

Originally posted by Mogami:
...stops those players who just want to zoom units all over the place)

A rude experience you had with that battle!

It wasn't very fair from your opponent, not to agree about the preferences before starting the game and not to restart it, after discovering your problem! Don't think it's really interesting to win such a Pyrrhic victory! About the units zooming around the map, C&C doesn't prevent a player to use recce units or command cars to do it... !