How long was your last game?

[Anaximander]

Could it be city and land development? You can finish the game real quick through conquest at times. Horsie/Cavalry rush. However, if you want well developed citys and terrain I imagine it would take longer.

[joncnunn]

A lot of game time speed depends upon how carefully you watch diplomacy deals. If you check every single turn on a huge map where there are 16 civs around, it's going to take a while. And the diplomacy screen screen that shows active deals only fits 8 civs (1 locked as yours) so past 8 civs, it really takes additional time to check active deals.

A conquest oriented player will wipe out a civ or two before he even gets all contacts, and continue to wipe out civs. Plus there's a lot less to check about a civ that your at war with than one your at peace with. (Along with the 5 turn won't speak to you at all)

The above gives strong incentive for a micromanager to wipe out any civ that's doing a one city challenge just so they don't have to be checked.

It is however noteworthy that late industrial and especally modern era wars involve so many units that a turn could take more than an hour.

So the peaceful early game -> war mongler late game is perhaps the most time consuming option.

While warmongler early game that achieves domination sometime in middle ages is the least time consuming epic option.

There are however some conquests that don't need much fighting that can fly by on a low enough level to where the AI won't attack you. Classic of these is the very first conquest. But also you can win without fighting in Age of Discovery and Meso America.

And some people take a OCC / 5CC that also tends to cut down time by reducing number of units you'll ever have to manage.

[Anaximander]

Thats true, I remember playing some very short OCC games. Although to earn a diplomatic victory you need the U.N. Isn't that a modern wonder? It must take some time to get that far in the tech tree. I would be curious to know the tech path for those who are scoring these quick diplomatic wins.

[joncnunn]

OCCing for UN involves very quickly moving to 1 beaker in 50 turns reserach for low priority AI techs and reserach off when there is no tech the AI wouldn't get anyway in 50 turns.

This is also coupled with if theres any scientific civs more backwards than you when you cross an era, granting them gifts of all those techs so they get their free tech.

Almost all time will be spent reseraching the best deals. Heaven knows that Micromanagement of only one city plus the units you have from it is going to take almost no time at all.

I think that OCC Culture victory is more popular than OCC Diplomatic.

Originally posted by Anaximander
Thats true, I remember playing some very short OCC games. Although to earn a diplomatic victory you need the U.N. Isn't that a modern wonder? It must take some time to get that far in the tech tree. I would be curious to know the tech path for those who are scoring these quick diplomatic wins.

[Anaximander]

ahhh...I was refering to a general diplomatic victory and not an OCC one. I would imagine a diplomatic victory in OCC would be quite difficult! I figgured that it would take longer to win a diplomatic victory in the general game than some of these people were saying. I was wondering what strategies they used to cut time.

[inca911]

Just finished:
29 hours for Domination Victory on Deity (Pangea, Tiny map). Took me 30 minutes more to eliminate the last civ entirely.

[Anaximander]

What strategy did you take with the conquered territories, pillage and salt or rebuild and develop? Also, what era did your victory come in?

[inca911]

Originally posted by Anaximander
What strategy did you take with the conquered territories, pillage and salt or rebuild and develop? Also, what era did your victory come in?

I was in the early industrial era, under Republic, when the last civ was killed. My factories were completing without rush-buys and the production ramp was just starting. I had two pollution squares just appear in the game.

As far as conquered territories, I had mostly my own developed continent and incited war (me and the Mongols) vs. the Indians (2 small cities on my continent) who had a large presence on the other continent next to the Mongols. I staged settlers with defensive units and waited on the other continent until the Mongols took a city. I then founded cities in the culture gaps to grab desparately needed luxuries. Those new cities I culture-grew to grab some space (and some luxuries outside of the city borders) so I had a mini-empire hold on the other continent. In an oscillating war with the Mongols, then the French, I held the cities I captured as I needed more luxuries. Many were Indian cities, and the Indian civ was dead, so unhappiness wasn't a big issue. Once I was set for luxuries, I razed most cities, only keeping some for the barracks.

[Anaximander]

Now, if the Indian civ had not been dead would you still have kept the citys, or destroyed them and rebuilt your own? I imagine if you had kept them unhappiness would have been pretty bad in those cities.

[inca911]

Originally posted by Anaximander
Now, if the Indian civ had not been dead would you still have kept the citys, or destroyed them and rebuilt your own? I imagine if you had kept them unhappiness would have been pretty bad in those cities.

It's a toss-up. I probably would have kept a couple fewer cites, but still most of them. I try to pick targets I can completely eliminate. In addition to needing luxuries badly, I also don't want to raze the cities and give additional tiles to the other AIs. Not highly applicable in this game, but I'll change to entertainers and starve a city to keep it happy in the interest of not letting the AI gain additional production. In this game, had I razed many cities, the French and Mongols would have settled that land and I would have needed to retake their newly-founded cities.

[joncnunn]

Fastest way to Dip victory.

1. Stay out of wars but if you must enter one completely wipe out the civ so they can't vote against you.

2. If you don't get Fission as the free modern era tech yourself, upon reaching the modern era grant every scientific civ enough techs to enter the modern era so you have the highest chance of being able to buy it.

Originally posted by Anaximander
ahhh...I was refering to a general diplomatic victory and not an OCC one. I would imagine a diplomatic victory in OCC would be quite difficult! I figgured that it would take longer to win a diplomatic victory in the general game than some of these people were saying. I was wondering what strategies they used to cut time.

[joncnunn]

Latest time:

12 hours 25 min something seconds
Age of Discovery as Spain Emperor level

The Iberian kingdoms were unified under my rule.
The three Meso American kingdoms were taken over by my Conquistors.

I hit the VP limit shortly after finishing Counter Reformation. Wasn't intereted in milking it, which would have been easy to do.

[Dis]

I'm playing a game on a huge map right now. Holy cow are the turns getting long. I just reached the modern age. It's been kind of fun though. I had a huge war the Inca. They sent up 2 stacks of doom. Luckily I had enough Sipahi (I'm the Ottomans) to take out their humongous stack of cavalry. An later I took out a large stack of infantry, rifleman, guerrillas, and longbowman.

I played about 12 or 13 hours last night to get to the modern age. I probably have 5 hours left or so. I don't plan on getting in any protracted wars. I've always found the modern age annoying. I just want to build the space ship and finish the game.

[akulla]

Have a 1.5 year email game still in progress.

[Anaximander]

How do you keep interested in a game that goes on for that long? Also, since it is a PBEM game, do you put extra time and thought into your moves, or do you play at your normal Civ pace?