I am amazed

[Deornwulf]

After perusing the strategies forum , I am amazed at the amount of effort some people put into their games. I wish I could be as disciplined. When I sit down at the computer, I just play the game. Whatever happens, happens.

[Encomium]

Considering how much time it takes to play a game, some people may not have a life!

[PerpetualNewbie]

I was thinking the same thing the other day, Deornwulf. I can't stand to sit and micromanage everything perfectly. (But then again, I come from an RTS background, where the winner is not the one who makes the perfect decisions, but the largest number of good decisions.) So for instance, I just finished a game at Monarch in a tad under 4 hours. Yeah, I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but what the heck. It doesn't bother me enough to mess with save/restore.

[notyoueither]

4 Hours!!????!

I can't plan my next war in 4 hours! OK, maybe just.

I must admit. I am cursed by the twin bugs of "bigger map is better" and "MUST control everything, yes even that little detail" and "Peace and Building are for Wimps, must have War and Building".

Did I say 2 bugs? I lied. Heh. Sue me.

[Giovanni August]

Uhmm..
Well.... generally 1 game take me at least 2 weeks. minimum.
Playing it like 2-3 hours a night (why waste nighttime sleeping if you can use it playing Civ3 ).
So i must say that I'm really really slow....
and as Notyoueither would say.... I'm slow, sue me

Saluti

[Nym]

4 hours seem me very, very short. Maybe on a tiny map...
As I play on rather big maps (minimum standard) and like micromanaging (I'm really a builder ) I need almost four hours to get out of Ancient Era.

[punkbass2000]

ditto

[DrFell]

4 hours? You must have a very quick PC.

[CRAZY]

I don't think it is a matter of having a fast PC. I have just recently started using standard maps cause I have played 1 game on a huge map and it takes forever between turns. I couldn't stand all the waiting. I have a good PC too, no worries of it being slow.

[PerpetualNewbie]

It doesn't take a fast PC. I usually play on my work machine (self-employment has its benefits -- when there is nothing to do, you don't feel guilty about playing games.) which is a P2-300 with 64 megs ram. I play on only default maps, whatever that comes up as, (standard size, obviously) and avoid all-out war. My Ancient and Middle Ages "wars" are really just sending a stack of 3-4 guys to each AI Civ I find to pillage, then fortify on the city's best tile. I grow to around 20-25 cities or so, and go for win by space race, score or culture. It usually turns out to be space race. I only control around 10 workers, the rest are automated to leave improvements. I almost never have to fight a late war, simply by maintaining a decent army and ok relations, and with rails, I can fairly quickly mobilize to fight a defensive holding position. And it is pretty easy to buy an alliance late in the game, so a civ declaring war tends to be kept pretty busy fighting my mercenaries...

[Fitz]

Originally posted by PerpetualNewbie
I only control around 10 workers, the rest are automated to leave improvements.

Here's the reason for a four hour game.

[civman2000]

I can't stand to NOT do all the micromanagement...MUST HAVE TOTAL CONTROL!!

[Playa del Carmen]

Originally posted by civman2000
I can't stand to NOT do all the micromanagement...MUST HAVE TOTAL CONTROL!!

Me too. Just as soon as you automate them to do something, they're going to do it wrong, so why not do it wrong yourself?

I find time for games whenever I can. Sometimes that's at 10 in the morning, sometimes that's 10 at night. I play until I get tired of it, then I save and play the next time I get a chance. If the game's going south, I scrap it and start anew. If I do keep it going for a while, then I may stop playing that game when I feel my empire's going into decline.

[DrFell]

Originally posted by Fitz


Here's the reason for a four hour game.

Lol, no kidding, I move all my workers round manually and it takes me about 8 hours to finish a tiny map 4 civs game. I only micro at the start too so that doesn't slow me down much but it's horrendous the amount of time I waste with worker moving (usually all slaves too).

[Herr David]

Urgh, workers.
Late in the game, I just sell away the foreign slaves because it's so annoying to move twice the amount of workers around when your own units could do it with half the number, and thus half the micromanagement.