Have you ever finished a game?

[Neomega]

I was just thinking... I don't think I have ever finished a FFH game. I played a huge map game, that I thought I was going to win, but I also thought it would take another 2 weeks... so I just opened the world builder and added stuff until I killed everything in about 2 turns.

 

[xalien]

A couple of times when I didn't felt like playing anymore I had slave-rushed the ToM.

 

[Demus]

i have, but then again i don't play huge maps. Expecially when gathering trophies, i just go conquest-razing everything in sight with my heroes

 

[HadesScorn]

I finish about 33% of my games.

About 20% of the time I find its becoming an increasingly uphill battle to stay in the game, usually resulting in a restart.

About 20% of the time I've effectively "won" by the first third of the game. With no serious contenders, I tend to restart.

The remaining 23% of the time a new patch comes along and I decide to break my savegames in return for whatever is offered.

I play Huge Maps on Marathon settings. I am a sucker for punishment. I also have a completely modern gaming PC, so I don't hit turn slowdown til around 1500 turns or so.

I am most likely going to finish a game if its the first time running a civ a certain way - my first game as the Illians I attempted a domination victory, with Auric nuking every civ off the face of Erebus. It was epic. Odds of doing it again all the way through? 5%.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Usually when I feel that the outcome of the game is decided I stop playing and consider that game a loss/victory. Although sometimes I play it to the end as well.

 

[Rystic]

Back in the day, I was a big fan of religious victory. That and domination. I think I've beaten the game at least once with every team.

 

[Worm4life]

I think only about 10% of the time. Turn slowdown is the main factor is just restarting.

Another factor is that sometimes it becomes apparent I can only win through a turtling victory like Altar or religion, and at that point I stop and remember that the AI has no idea how to pull those off so it's like I'm not even competing any more, just riding out the turns.

 

[Snuis]

I have yet to win a FFH game.

The only time i was close (one of my first games, just one or two towers to build) i built the Mercurian Gate, without knowing what it would do, in an amazing City of Thousand Slums and somehow chose to play on as Basium. When i saw what happened i quit.

In fact, that was the only game i ever built archmages or highpriests. And i play a LOT. I just don't like the endgame in FFH (and fighting AI's feels like cheating, especially with Khalid or Cultists). The beginning is wonderful though.

 

[Seventh Child]

I've won a ToM victory and I think a Religious Victory.
I often end up in a massive standoff against someone like Basium, Hyborem or some other Religious Superpower and in a war with no end in sight and no respite. They tend to get old after a good 900 turns or so.

I'm starting to play to win now though, instead of just playing around with a role or theme in mind. Got a good shot at a Domination victory in my current game.

 

[salaminizer]

long time since I posted here (and even played FFH), but I loved this thread and logged in. IIRC it was back in 2006, in a game that I summoned Basium and won a conquest victory using him.

 

[readercolin]

I actually finish only about 1/4 of my games. Since a good half of my games are multiplayer with my girlfriend (both of us teamed against the AI's), we tend to play until either one of us is bored, or we reach a point of "Victory is inevitable - do we want to play it through or go to a new game". As we usually don't have much trouble at that point, we usually only finish if its a close race between getting domination/conquest or finishing the altar or ToM. Its amusing when it becomes a race of "can we win domination before the ToM is complete in 10 turns?" Usually we win the domination victory... maybe I need to start stockpiling GE...

As for the rest of my games, they tend to be me messing around with new civs or trying something specific with one civ or another, not really a quest to domination. That being said, sometimes I do actually complete them... sometimes...

-Colin

 

[loocas]

Rarely. It has to be really exciting to pull me through the late-mid-game milaise. Then it's a matter of whether I feel like cleaning up the map for the trophy, depending on the victory. My playstyle and habits don't really require me to finish games to have fun, though.

 

[kumquatelvis]

I've found small maps make the end game a lot less annoying.

 

[zbelg]

I'm with the camp that it's often more fun just about sandboxing a game than busting my balls trying to win, but I still usually strive for victory. In FFH I'm only really good with ToM wins, though.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I finish about 75% of the games I start playing as "games" - that is, games where from the start I intend to be "the ruler" of whatever civ.

I rarely finish "experimental" games - those are games where I'm just testing out ideas and playing 200 turns. I play a lot of these games because I love the opening when everything seems possible and because I like trying out different ideas. It really helps to learn a civ's strengths quickly and makes me aware of how dramatically the map effects play. Everyone knows that, of course, but we forget and make strategy/tactics suggestions as if the map was a minor thing.

Things that make me play a game to the end: losing (I like to make the AI earn victory), amusing map (once I was rolling up X shaped island like tic-tac-toe), finishing a certain victory condition (everyone FoL).

Things that make me not finish: winning (if I know I've a win, I don't need to have every enemy's head on a pole), going into the endgame in 3rd or 4th place (if they can't crush me or me them, what's the point), too big an empire (the huge map games can be dreary).

 

[travathian]

Huge Mountain Coast with a few extra civs, even break down between G/N/E, religions modified to reduce spread. It is tough not to go for a ToM victory because once I secure a decent sized area it becomes trivial to build each tower in turn and just flip a few nodes, but as was noted earlier, the AI doesn't grasp this and it feels cheap. Domination/Conquest are winnable, but bleh, at some point it becomes obvious I am gonna roll the others and I don't feel like dealing with the tedium of going through the actual process. I wish there was a way to turn over a huge chunk of my military to a military AI that I could instruct which civ to attack and just let it do its thing while I manage the rest of the empire and feed it more death bringers.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I've finished a lot of them. Would probably finish all of them if some of the victory conditions were toned down, or the quick/lightning optional ones from FF were put in the main mod.

 

[Opera]

I finish them sometimes. But usually, I think of an idea for a new tag or a new unit. I quit the game, mod a bit and break my saves in the process
But I'm only playing standard maps, so I'm easily near end-game each time

 

[mmmrrrr]

I rarely finish "experimental" games - those are games where I'm just testing out ideas and playing 200 turns. I play a lot of these games because I love the opening when everything seems possible and because I like trying out different ideas. It really helps to learn a civ's strengths quickly and makes me aware of how dramatically the map effects play. Everyone knows that, of course, but we forget and make strategy/tactics suggestions as if the map was a minor thing.

I recently had an experimental game like that where I tried play Clan of Embers combining warrens and Prophecy of Ragnarok to see how fast that would get the horsemen out. I ran AV as well to increase the effect. Fairly soon I had the first horseman out razing enemy cities, and then the next one, and then the next one... then I thought that "hey, since it's only an experimental game, maybe I should switch to Infernals since I've never even looked at them before".

20 turns later the horsemen have destroyed every other civ on the (mapsize Large) map except me (Infernals) and my old Clan of Embers civ... who of course win a religious victory over me.

Ooops.

 

[Worm4life]

I recently had an experimental game like that where I tried play Clan of Embers combining warrens and Prophecy of Ragnarok to see how fast that would get the horsemen out.

I thought building effects didn't apply to the second warrens unit?