[GS] Optimal Play Time Per Session

[BTSeven7]

There are a lot of smart people on this board and probably someone who can even offer a professional level opinion but what is the optimal sit and play time for a Civ session? Any science behind ability to focus and optimal break times?

I have a weird schedule and with travel I am all or nothing. I get large blocks of free time and some pointless nights in the hotel so usually hammer out a 200-280 turn game in one setting but it takes I think about 2.5-3 hours per game.

I feel exhausted afterward like I don’t want to play for a month but by the next day I am thinking about a new game. However, I feel like I should break my games up efficiently so I can focus better and, well, play more efficiently. To get through a game in one sitting you quit caring somewhere in there and it’s click spam until end turn.

So what is the optimal session time?

 

[Bibor]

5-15 min break every hour and you can go on forever

If you are really concentrating, 4 hrs in one sitting is my optimal mental capacity. this is trained, though.

 

[Mahi]

It really depends on your setup of the game. I'm not a 200 turn guy so my "milestones" in my games are probably not that valid for you since my games usually takes around ~5 hours to complete. I usually like to take breaks between certain eras. Usually when shifting to medieval era and industrial eras.
I still struggle a bit on choosing the right policy cards so it usually helps taking a couple of minutes away from the game at that point and evaluate the best approach further in the game, when I come back.

 

[UWHabs]

I find planning around 2 hours in a sitting solid. Less than an hour I feel the "overhead" of loading and remembering my game is not worth it. And longer as mentioned can be taxing. Although more than once that 2 hour sitting turns into a bit more, as you just gotta finish up that tech, and then it's only a couple turns to the new era, and then you gotta remember to change policies, but oh can I swap tiles to get this wonder a turn sooner?

 

[Uberfrog]

I think "optimal" depends too much from person to person. But whoever you are, it's always a good idea to take a short 5–10 minute break every hour (e.g. going to make a cup of tea or something). Of course that can be hard to remember when the compulsion for one-more-turn sets in.

Personally, I think two hours is a good session length.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I go through bursts of giant play

I play for like 5 or 6 hours in a row every day for about a week, finish a couple of games, and then don't play civ for a month or two.

It "helps" that I'm between full time jobs at the moment though. When I had a normal schedule I'd play for an hour or two

 

[Janskey]

There are a lot of smart people on this board and probably someone who can even offer a professional level opinion but what is the optimal sit and play time for a Civ session? Any science behind ability to focus and optimal break times?

The research isn't conclusive at all so far. You've got the gist of it, which is summed up in this quite recent theory (Thomson et al., 2015):

It really depends on how taxing the task is for you (and several other factors), but performance seems to start declining quite rapidly. A couple of examples:

Spoiler :

(Mackworth, 1948)

(Veksler & Gunzelmann, 2018)

There's also been some talk about whether smartphone use is decreasing our attention spans, but nothing conclusive on that front yet, either (though everything we do does have an effect on our brain, there's just not enough data so far):
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00605/full

 

[Phoenix1595]

I play marathon/epic, so my exact times will differ from standard players, but I often play for 2-3 hr stretches, which is roughly 1-1 1/2 eras at those speeds. I don’t take too many breaks, but I do not speed through my turns either. All in all, it takes me 4-5 plays to finish a game.

 

[WillowBrook]

I will typically play about two hours at a time, with a short break or two in there. But I play slowly apparently. Each session will get me through one era or less at standard speed.

 

[Takfloyd]

I get large blocks of free time and some pointless nights in the hotel so usually hammer out a 200-280 turn game in one setting but it takes I think about 2.5-3 hours per game.

I feel exhausted afterward like I don’t want to play for a month but by the next day I am thinking about a new game. However, I feel like I should break my games up efficiently so I can focus better and, well, play more efficiently. To get through a game in one sitting you quit caring somewhere in there and it’s click spam until end turn.

So what is the optimal session time?

Your experience seems absurd to me compared to how I play. In 2.5-3 hours I get through about 10 turns!

I generally spend a real time month or more on each game, on Standard speed. In that time I mostly play 3-5 hour sessions a couple of times a week, but if I don't have pressing work at the moment I can often play 10 hours without a break, and it doesn't reduce my focus at all. My efficiency in terms of time vs turns is obviously low to begin with, but I only play on Deity and usually without doing any conquering, so I do need to optimize every move to perfection. To me it's like solving a complex puzzle - every city is planned so it has the optimum adjacency bonuses for every district it will have and so on.

This attention to detail makes me get far more invested in that one game, rather than quickly spamming through game after game with increasingly reduced interest. Even after I'm in the lead and obviously going to win, I keep making the best possible moves until the moment of victory. After I'm done with a game it may take a year or more until I play a new one, since I'll feel pretty satiated. It's like the end of a grand adventure, I have no interest in going back to scratch. I'm still on my first pair of Gathering Storm games, one single-player and one multiplayer, and it's likely to be my only ones this year.

I realize most people don't have this kind of patience and dedication to perfection, but I couldn't imagine playing Civ any other way - it wouldn't feel "meaningful", which is something I seek in all video games I play. If a game is just a way to pass the time, it's not worth the investment. It must make me feel like I accomplished something of value by overcoming great hurdles through my own skill, brainpower and utmost dedication, even if a game is just a bunch of numbers in the end.

 

[dagriggstar]

A lifetime

 

[Breadsmith]

I used to work at a full time job that afforded me about 6 hours of playing games while there. So my sessions used to be about that. I found that I burnt out on games far more quickly than what I have available to me now. While I can't account for performance, I've certainly started enjoying my playtime more.

 

[Victoria]

When I teach I am told to give at least a 5 minute break every hour. However that to me is a little long for concentration, I would go 40 minutes/5 minutes for optimal concentration but sometimes I will do 3 hours at a stretch so am a bit hypocritical.
However there is also a when and how. Concentration is better in the morning a couple of hours after waking as long as you had a good night sleep. Hunger and water both help.

 

[Disgustipated]

you are supposed to stop?

I prefer long sessions. Which has run me into trouble before (see the 2000 hour thread) because of my desk/chair setup. I was taking short breaks, but honestly even that wasn't enough. My knees just don't like being bent. Doesn't matter if I take a break every hour or not, they are still going to have that stiff feeling, which I stupidly ignored last year. Not sure if it's just an issue with my knees or what. Regardless, I don't play with my knees bent anymore, which means no chair. Never had issues during heavy WOW sessions 12 years ago, but then I was younger then.

If it's an after work session it's usually at least 3 hours. I've been better lately about not staying up too late when I have to work. Pro tip: Don't start a game 1 hour before bed time. You won't make it. I have a hard time stopping my games when I'm still "behind" and not in a position of dominance (either in tech or score). So it takes a little time to achieve that, sometimes I never do. And on my weekends, well I'm reluctant to admit I don't have much of a life right now. Haven't been interested in looking for a SO. So I've had some quite long sessions. Ideally I like to finish my game (I started the previous day- epic speed of course) and that's an ideal stopping point for obvious reasons.