How long

[stormbind]

A civ3 gave vs the PC can take 24 hrs of playing time, how long does a PBEM game take?

 

[DogBoy]

That's a tough question. My fastest PBEM game took about 3 hours. Me and a friend (he lives in Japan and I lived in California) set up a power session one day. We started a new game, everything random, but we ended up on the same tiny island. I had iron, he didn't, I did a swordsman rush and killed him. However, this was very unusual in my experiences. It's really difficult to say how long a PBEM games takes. If you have 2 people, it will most likely go faster than if you have more people. If you have 8 people, you can usually only do 1 turn a day, or 1 turn every other day. Since there are 540 turns in a game, one game can take well over a year. If you want to start playing PBEM games, my recommendation to you is start will a small game, say one or two other people. That way you probably won't lose interest if you are not a dedicated civ3'er.

 

[stormbind]

Well I would like to try and see how it goes...

Are there ways to increase the convenience, say by having my email client save the attachment straight into the civ3 folder?

Do I have to keep restarting Civ3?

 

[DogBoy]

There is no way to do that that I know of. Here is what I do. I leave my e-mail open, my save folder open, and civ3 open. As soon as a save comes in, I put it in the save folder. Then I hit the windows key and civ3 comes up. I play my turn. When you finish your turn you have to save it. Then I hit the windows key again and bring up my e-mail, I put the save file in the e-mail, then send it. It's really quite simple.

 

[Goober]

I have not reached an end to any of my PBEMs. But then again, I find they go fairly slowly . . .