The ideal length of a game

[balparmak]

Recent tech cost changes have been mostly great, but they brought up the issue of game length. Everyone has their own preferences, but we need to find a common ground before further rebalancing the era lengths & victory conditions.
For me it's around 400 turns on Standard/King, +/- 25 turns is acceptable, +/- 50 is tolarable as the upper and lower limits (upper limit isn't really that important here). Basically a bell curve that peaks at 400.

What's yours?

 

[CppMaster]

So that would be expected game length for standard settings? I guess it could depending on difficulty too.

 

[balparmak]

Oh yeah, forgot to state that

 

[Tekamthi]

personally my favorite games are the ones that remain competitive right through to information era on marathon. i think its close to 1000 turns... these games span months IRL, usually ends before this though

 

[Slyceth]

I only play Epic Speed, Standard Size

 

[nekokon]

I think balancing victories condition based on in-game length (turns) isn't a good approach. It would be better if we balance it based on the amount of work needed (aka real-time game length, not in-game turns).

For example victories that constantly give you more things to do like domination (manage warfare) or science (both research and production of new building/units that come with new techs) should come earlier than victories with less things to do like culture or diplomatic (mostly just passing turns while repeating the same thing/waiting for specific timing like GM bomb or next congress), and the slowest one would be the most boring ones (time).
Reason being the more active victories should give faster result in perfect condition, but since they're usually harder to achieve they will get delayed and end up with similar timing of other easier but slower victories (plus civ aiming for easier but slower victories can spend more time trying to sabotage civ with earlier victory instead of sitting tight passing turn)

Based on score/time victory at turn 500 standard speed, I would say if we can balance culture/diplomatic/science victories around 450/425/400 it would work best. Domination would need the new proposal passed, but aiming for 375 would be reasonable. Reminder this is perfect condition (when you're running away), the actual turns to get the corresponding victories would get delayed and generally would happen around the same time for all victories (450-500).

 

[pineappledan]

As I understand it, OP should have specified how many turns does the community think it should take to win 1 specific victory on standard: Science Victory? ie, if you focused on it, how long should it take to finish the entire tech tree (plus maybe 10-15 turns to build the last spaceship part)?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Considering we want to broaden the late game, alongside the recent and continued tech increase/tweaks, I think it makes sense to have standard games settle around an even 500 turns (SV/DipV/CV). Most players will call their games before that point anyways, but I think it's easier to balance everything off of that number as opposed to the 350-400 turns people are accustomed to now. Maybe that's too big a change though -- I barely get time to play as it is. But, then you have guys like Stalker that can run through several games in no time, so...

 

[Jdoug312]

I agree with @nekokon 's method for this, but I'm with @Kim Dong Un in that bell curve so to speak should be closer to 500 than 400. Science/Diplo/Culture being aimed around 470/480/490 respectively seems like a good window to me. So a science steamroll gets you a win 30ish turns before a time victory.

 

[ma_kuh]

I mainly play on Epic speed. Translating for Standard, I think Culture, Diplomacy or Science victories should aim to finish around 400.

I don't really see a need to have varied "target times" for these three victory types, they're all basically the same win profile: sitting back while spamming one of the core resources -- culture, production/gold, or science -- while hoping desperately that you don't get rolled over by some number of militant neighbors. I can't help but feel a lot of the suggestions that culture should take longer are bad feelings about how culture has been the "easy win" for a while. I'd much prefer a balance where a focus on science completes the tech tree at the same time a focus on culture completes an ideology.

 

[t99KJwEd]

In theory they shouldn't be the same win profile though.
SV is supposed to be slower because it's solitaire. You don't have to interact with anyone and war is a purely economical disruption (it doesn't stop you from researching). CV and DV aren't like that at all.
CV with no wars and open borders should be faster than SV, and with repeated wars/closed borders should be slower than SV.
If that kind of thing isn't the case, then that's just an indication that VP's victory balance has degenerated at some point on the road.

 

[rkkn]

As long as time victory is at 500, then average game length should be no longer than 400, or else there's no room for slow non-time victories to exist. Having to either get your victory out fast or fall to the timer is not ideal.

 

[CppMaster]

As long as time victory is at 500, then average game length should be no longer than 400, or else there's no room for slow non-time victories to exist. Having to either get your victory out fast or fall to the timer is not ideal.

Huh? The room is exactly 400-500 turns.

 

[ma_kuh]

I'd argue science is about as solitaire as culture because war also doesn't stop your progress towards ideology completion, and you need to be on good terms to benefit from research agreements, just like you need to be on good terms to push tourism. I guess if the point is that CV should have higher variance than science, that makes sense to me. More games that are faster than science, and more games that take longer is still a balance.

 

[nekokon]

In theory they shouldn't be the same win profile though.
SV is supposed to be slower because it's solitaire. You don't have to interact with anyone and war is a purely economical disruption (it doesn't stop you from researching). CV and DV aren't like that at all.
CV with no wars and open borders should be faster than SV, and with repeated wars/closed borders should be slower than SV.
If that kind of thing isn't the case, then that's just an indication that VP's victory balance has degenerated at some point on the road.

We're only speaking of perfect condition (run away), so I think SV should come way before CV since as a victory condition it doesn't give a lot of advantage on the way compared to CV. In real game situation, tech advantage isn't as strong as policy advantage because of spy and bonus researched tech, and it's only realized through production which is a lot slower, while policy advantage takes effect immediately with snowball effect of happiness against other civ not following the same ideology (thus already provide constant pressure against non CV competitor), thus SV would get slowed down a lot more than CV would be if both got constantly disrupted.

 

[ma_kuh]

Science definitely gives you a very strong advantage by being ahead. Units gain about 17% more base CS per tier (around 12% for new eras and 22% for half-eras) (meaning it's multiplicative with itself and promotions), and that's not considering the buildings you have access to that will accelerate your growth. You can access this benefit with gold, no production necessary. There's also plenty of techs that give baseline bonuses to tiles, specialist, etc.

 

[nekokon]

Not saying it's not strong, just not as strong as having policy advantage. There're rubber band mechanics in place for tech leader and the effect isn't immediate without other investment (gold/production), meanwhile policy leader gets snowball effects and the effect is immediate, it's the complete opposite.

 

[t99KJwEd]

We're only speaking of perfect condition (run away), so I think SV should come way before CV since as a victory condition it doesn't give a lot of advantage on the way compared to CV. In real game situation, tech advantage isn't as strong as policy advantage because of spy and bonus researched tech, and it's only realized through production which is a lot slower, while policy advantage takes effect immediately with snowball effect of happiness against other civ not following the same ideology (thus already provide constant pressure against non CV competitor), thus SV would get slowed down a lot more than CV would be if both got constantly disrupted.

True, but there are still more ways (and earlier ways) to interact with/compete/hinder a CV before it becomes inevitable. SV is much less well-supported for that: you pass Spaceflight Regulations and... kill them? The only games where I've successfully flipped a rival via ideological pressure were ones I was going to win imminently anyway.

 

[nekokon]

While overly simplified, yes DoW on SV civ slow them down much more than CV civ. You don't need to conquer anything, just trading units and taking war weariness is enough as they have abysmal happiness and can't use production to realize the gain from better tech. Compare that to DoW on a CV civ you can only slow them down a bit (and it's only passive tourism, not active bonuses), or DoW on a DipV/DomV civ and get rolled with tons of units/sanction.
And attrition war is actually the first thing AIs turn to if both sides are roughly equal.

 

[rkkn]

Huh? The room is exactly 400-500 turns.

yes. if the average is 400, then it's fine. but if it's, say, 450, then there's only room for a game to be at most 10% slower than average