I don't think saving the game and continuing a week later is a viable option... It could only work with a dedicated group of loners (no social life outside of video games), not with people who have responsibilities irl. Even if, say, 5 out of 6 would show up, it'd be a bummer for that 6th missing player to be dropped out of the game (as obviously he'd fall too far behind to come back after the AI's mismanagement of his Civ over one play session). Imo, we must aim to shorten the games, so that one game can be finished in one sitting. If the 7 hours would've been the *total* length of our game, I think that would have been ideal. I'm showing my age (I guess), in that I was beginning to get a bit of a head-ache from staring at the screen and concentrating for such a long period of time, with very little breaks. So for that reason as well, 7 hours is a good 'max' play time imo.
@ManojTheKing: Keep in mind that we had (or were supposed to have, at least; I can't recall if he showed up) a player from the US as well. Unfortunately, it's impossible to accommodate the wishes of players from more than two continental time-zones at once; someone will always have to suffer from a too early or too late play-time. The best thing to do is to mention early on in the pre-game thread as to what time the game will likely be played at, so that people know to prepare in advance, or to drop out if the time really doesn't work for them. (As I am the proverbial loner nerd, I can always stretch the hours as needed, so that's good to keep in mind.
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@markoivezic: Unfortunately, due to the too-powerful nature of unbreakable alliances, as well as the realization that early war mostly serves to weaken the belligerents while the peaceful players zoom ahead in development, there was only one conflict in our game, and even that was a misunderstanding that ended before it even really begun. We didn't use sequential war turns in our game though, so it wouldn't have shed any light on that even if we had engaged in more wars. When we tested that setting, we only had three players and the game froze on us after a small while of playing, but it seemed to work by dividing the players into two 'blocks', i.e. those at war and those at peace, and then assign the warring players' turns sequentially, while for others it was 'business as usual'. Another test-game with more players would be needed to truly figure out how it works, though.
I'm actually partial to using this setting (sequential war turns), and having only 4-6 players in the game. That way, there'd be enough time to wait for the war turns, and people would have more time to role-play as well, without the chat being flooded with a barrage of talk and 'hurry up, slowpokes!' type of statements. With a smaller number of players, they'd have to be very dedicated, though, because if even two players left in the middle of the game, it would suddenly become much less interesting.
@LzPrst: Oh wow!
You truly were hemmed in by the City States!
Luckily, this sort of issue can be solved by the proposed amendment to the conquest rules ('may conquer City States with a Tier II government').
@Everyone: As I have found out about an extraneous map editor (a program called 'Hexographer'), I could start crafting a world map specifically for use in our games. It would have the advantage of balanced starting locations (and a better and better balance as I develop it
), and the adding of 'historical feel' by playing on a real map of the Earth. The map size is a bit of a question mark atm, as ideally, I'd want the map to work in single-player as well. I welcome any ideas or suggestions as to the size and shape of the map, as well as any other attributes (I'll reserve final judgement in all cases, ofc).
EDIT: As to when we could have our second Immersioneer game, I'm tied up on this weekend, but the next one is again free for me. I'll revise the rules with the few things that have been noted so far, and then we can start thinking about the setting for the second game. Ofc, in the meantime, if anyone wants to play an 'unofficial' game (so to speak), just by inviting people on Steam, they're free to do it ofc. (It seems that Stroganov has already done this with some folks. We've been talking across each other a little bit, as he favors Steam for communications, while I favor CFC; but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, as it's all a casual and fun experience here.
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