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I've noticed that too, I only play one game a year over a couple of days in a single weekend, usually, because of the time commitment. How long of a CIV game w

I've noticed that too, I only play one game a year over a couple of days in a single weekend, usually, because of the time commitment. How long of a CIV game would you like to play? What do you think is worth streamlining out of the experience? What do you think absolutely needs to stay in to get the feeling you want from these types of games? (This goes to anyone who feels it's too long, btw).

dragontamer 6y ago
You don't play a long-form game in one sitting. Take "Axis and Allies", a long-form boardgame that typically takes ~12 hours to play in my experience. I usually play it broken up between three different weekends when I whip it out. There's been a renaissance of long-form games recently. D&D is the most popular (5th edition. Pathfinder, Etc. etc.), but also Gloomhaven, and other "Legacy" games. I do realize that long-form games aren't in everyone's cup of tea. But its no different from say... trying to watch Game of Thrones together with a group (or Sports-ball games). Its an excuse to form a regular social gathering with your group of friends once-a-week for months (or years) at a time. The secret to long-form games is that the group-gathering is the primary goal, the gameplay is almost secondary. But having a good game helps (much like how a Game of Thrones watch party is better while the show is good).
bllguo 6y ago
I don't mind the length, but I think a lot of things are tedious and worth streamlining. Two that immediately jump to mind: Worker micro is not very fun to me, I don't like the Civ 6 system. At least in Civ 5 they didn't have limited uses and could be automated. The biggest thing is combat. It's mind-numbing having to move all the units and work out the positioning. It's so _slow_ both in real-time and game-time (should it take decades to move across the empire?). Maybe my roleplaying perspective is flawed, but if I'm supposedly the leader of the nation, why do I have to micromanage army tactics? Ideally a lot of that would be abstracted away
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
I recently realized Civ is perfect for playing during long transatlantic flights.
mgolawala 6y ago
I prefer my Civ games to be very long. Like so many, I spent countless hours of my childhood playing Civ 1 and 2 as a kid. These were single player experiences that I would play out over several days. Much later in life, I remember there was a competing game that came out "Civilization: Call to Power" from Activision. It wasn't perfect, but it was some of the most fun I had. You see, that game had support for a type of play called "Play by Email" (PBEM). You could hang out on the Apolyton forums (https://apolyton.net/forum https://apolyton.net/forum) and co-ordinate a PBEM game with other civ players. Each player would play their turn, mail it on to the next player, and post an update on the forum. Posts would often be role play .. often with diplomatic messages, declarations of war, expressing outrage, or overtures for peace, or just listings of grievances or demands. People would email each other directly to scheme or perform diplomacy, form secret (or open) alliances and non aggression pacts. If a player went inactive for too long, we'd get a new player to join the game and take over the helm for their civilization. These games would go on for many months start to finish. Players could be engaged in multiple such games at the same time. I don't know if the new Civilization games offer this type of gameplay (I do not think they do), but I would love this type of game structure.
29athrowaway 6y ago
It is a turn based game, and it can end early if you are conquered. However if you make it to 2050 in quick mode, assuming you have a modern computer, a game on Earth2 / Huge may take you 2 to 3 hours if you are familiar with the game and you do not get into many conflicts. However this is not the way Civ is meant to be played. You are supposed to inspect your cities, make sure citizens are healthy and happy, emphasize culture, science, population growth, economy depending on what is best, build a balanced army, conduct diplomacy, spread your state religions and corporations, keep an eye on your allies and adversaries, spy on adversaries and sabotage their stuff, etc. The game pushes you to take sides and if you don't you will piss off everybody.
cableshaft 6y ago
To be clear, I enjoy a long Civ game from time to time too and wouldn't want Civilization to be a different game. But I'm wondering, as a game designer myself, if there's something worth exploring that's shorter format. There's a lot of those in board game form, but not so much for video games, at least not that I can think of.
- tgb 6y ago
  What about something taking inspiration from the "roguelike" fad? Some of those intend for runs to take < 1 hour and yet still have interesting choices and variation due to randomization. Seems like a plausible fit for a civ-quick. There you often have some randomized choice of features to exploit and don't get access to all of them every run, thereby streamlining the game process.
- mcphage 6y ago
  There's a game called "The Battle of Polytopia" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Polytopia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Polytopia which plays like a quick version of Civ. It might scratch your itch.
Termious 6y ago
Recently I've been playing Warhammer Gladius, which is the bare essentials with a heavy focus on combat. With the right settings, matches will last 1-3 hours, which I think is perfect. I no longer have the time or the patience for 10-20 hour Civ matches, and honestly, I feel more drained and empty when a long match ends than satisfied. Whereas a finished match in Gladius is satisfying and leaves me wanting to start a new match (maybe not today, but the next day). The combat design coupled with the relatively short matches also means that it's nowhere as micro-heavy as any Civ game past the early game, which I generally would find very tiring.

dragontamer 6y ago

You don't play a long-form game in one sitting. Take "Axis and Allies", a long-form boardgame that typically takes ~12 hours to play in my experience. I usually play it broken up between three different weekends when I whip it out. There's been a renaissance of long-form games recently. D&D is the most popular (5th edition. Pathfinder, Etc. etc.), but also Gloomhaven, and other "Legacy" games. I do realize that long-form games aren't in everyone's cup of tea. But its no different from say... trying to watch Game of Thrones together with a group (or Sports-ball games). Its an excuse to form a regular social gathering with your group of friends once-a-week for months (or years) at a time. The secret to long-form games is that the group-gathering is the primary goal, the gameplay is almost secondary. But having a good game helps (much like how a Game of Thrones watch party is better while the show is good).

bllguo 6y ago

I don't mind the length, but I think a lot of things are tedious and worth streamlining. Two that immediately jump to mind: Worker micro is not very fun to me, I don't like the Civ 6 system. At least in Civ 5 they didn't have limited uses and could be automated. The biggest thing is combat. It's mind-numbing having to move all the units and work out the positioning. It's so _slow_ both in real-time and game-time (should it take decades to move across the empire?). Maybe my roleplaying perspective is flawed, but if I'm supposedly the leader of the nation, why do I have to micromanage army tactics? Ideally a lot of that would be abstracted away

Florin_Andrei 6y ago

I recently realized Civ is perfect for playing during long transatlantic flights.

mgolawala 6y ago

I prefer my Civ games to be very long. Like so many, I spent countless hours of my childhood playing Civ 1 and 2 as a kid. These were single player experiences that I would play out over several days. Much later in life, I remember there was a competing game that came out "Civilization: Call to Power" from Activision. It wasn't perfect, but it was some of the most fun I had. You see, that game had support for a type of play called "Play by Email" (PBEM). You could hang out on the Apolyton forums (https://apolyton.net/forum https://apolyton.net/forum) and co-ordinate a PBEM game with other civ players. Each player would play their turn, mail it on to the next player, and post an update on the forum. Posts would often be role play .. often with diplomatic messages, declarations of war, expressing outrage, or overtures for peace, or just listings of grievances or demands. People would email each other directly to scheme or perform diplomacy, form secret (or open) alliances and non aggression pacts. If a player went inactive for too long, we'd get a new player to join the game and take over the helm for their civilization. These games would go on for many months start to finish. Players could be engaged in multiple such games at the same time. I don't know if the new Civilization games offer this type of gameplay (I do not think they do), but I would love this type of game structure.

29athrowaway 6y ago

It is a turn based game, and it can end early if you are conquered. However if you make it to 2050 in quick mode, assuming you have a modern computer, a game on Earth2 / Huge may take you 2 to 3 hours if you are familiar with the game and you do not get into many conflicts. However this is not the way Civ is meant to be played. You are supposed to inspect your cities, make sure citizens are healthy and happy, emphasize culture, science, population growth, economy depending on what is best, build a balanced army, conduct diplomacy, spread your state religions and corporations, keep an eye on your allies and adversaries, spy on adversaries and sabotage their stuff, etc. The game pushes you to take sides and if you don't you will piss off everybody.

cableshaft 6y ago

To be clear, I enjoy a long Civ game from time to time too and wouldn't want Civilization to be a different game. But I'm wondering, as a game designer myself, if there's something worth exploring that's shorter format. There's a lot of those in board game form, but not so much for video games, at least not that I can think of.

tgb 6y ago
What about something taking inspiration from the "roguelike" fad? Some of those intend for runs to take < 1 hour and yet still have interesting choices and variation due to randomization. Seems like a plausible fit for a civ-quick. There you often have some randomized choice of features to exploit and don't get access to all of them every run, thereby streamlining the game process.
mcphage 6y ago
There's a game called "The Battle of Polytopia" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Polytopia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Polytopia which plays like a quick version of Civ. It might scratch your itch.

Termious 6y ago

Recently I've been playing Warhammer Gladius, which is the bare essentials with a heavy focus on combat. With the right settings, matches will last 1-3 hours, which I think is perfect. I no longer have the time or the patience for 10-20 hour Civ matches, and honestly, I feel more drained and empty when a long match ends than satisfied. Whereas a finished match in Gladius is satisfying and leaves me wanting to start a new match (maybe not today, but the next day). The combat design coupled with the relatively short matches also means that it's nowhere as micro-heavy as any Civ game past the early game, which I generally would find very tiring.