To Many Game Turns

[Truman Doctrine]

I hope that in the patch for PON will permit a flexible time scale for the Grand Campaign. I realy would like to play the entire game from 1850 through to 1920 but at 1800+ moves!! that makes the campaign game unplayable.

Why not allow standard turns of 1 year slowed down to small bits of time when a player wishes to command forces in combat or otherwise assign that chore to the AI

[Sir Garnet]

For warfare, a half-month turn works but more would lead to too much happening between command inputs.

Other colonial activities and economic construction would not suffer by having queued orders and contingencies on up to a quarterly basis. Production and trading decisions would seem to require more frequent adjustment at times.

With the Crisis mechanism handling fast-paced events, routine diplomacy could also be on a quarterly basis.

So something like a quarterly turn with a shifting of gears down to more frequent turns (or turns relating only to specific matters, such as military planning) when military or other events require could in theory work. With fewer turns, there would be some time savings in turn processing.

It would, however, involve a major reworking of the game with reconception of the flow of play in most of these areas. I don't expect there is a budget for that.

Much of the same benefits can be obtained in the game now by a player organizing play in a similar fashion and not running through everything every turn. More information screens and reminder mechanisms and the ability to queue things other than moves would help with this.

[Ironchancellor]

Could do with a few more starting points for the campaign periods. Like say one from 1870 with the new German empire. Then another one from about 1901 with the end of Queen Victoria up to the end of the game. All of these would be ideal with the emerging power of Germany in Europe and cut the game turns a bit. Hope someone can think of this.

[PhilThib]

We shall have a 1880 campaign...the project is under way right now

[teufel0331]

We shall have a 1880 campaign...the project is under way right now

awesome!

[Ironchancellor]

Thats good. But i only suggested those dates as the new imperial Germany was becoming a dominant issue in the world power play. And it would have been an interesting idea of how the other major powers would have coped with it.

[nemethand]

I have no problem with the game length.

First, it is not necessary that play the full 70 years period, should a country reach dominance prior to that.

Moreover, I am not in a hurry. If a game lasts till several years, the more fun I can have!

If there are more options, I personally always choose the earliest possible date: then I have the possibility the shape the country (game) as I like (and avoiding historical mistakes while making other ones)

Of course, several Grand Campaign starting dates will probably satisfy more people.

[Truman Doctrine]

For some reason this game dosnt include time compression which is a standard feature games such as Cold War and AACW.

This should be a question of personal preferance so if you want to spend years playing a single scenario fine just as their should be the option to speed up play and also reduce the number of game turns

[Florian Von Zurowski]

I like that the Great C. start in the 1850, your can play many historic events: Italian Unification, Germany Unification, Crimean War, ..., it's a great option.

[Ironchancellor]

I agree with one of the previous threads. Whats the rush in any world strategy game however long? I just do my turns when i can. I guess because i dont play any game 24/7 i rarely last a couple of years anyway. So carry on add another thousand turns if you like.

[yellow ribbon]

" I just do my turns when i can. I guess because i dont play any game 24/7 i rarely last a couple of years anyway. So carry on add another thousand turns if you like."

thats the spirit! its about strategy, development!

however, a lot of players are used to this kind of games that give them a fast experience of success and i claim, some of the most destructive comments come from players who need or are distinctively eager for this emotion of success.
who does it frequently, just playing hours and hours, will be angry with this kind of game, what is not about design or bugs, but about TURNS.

(if you want to feel slow games, remember Talonsoft campaign series, turnbased, whole Army Corps calculated on base of each platoon, battery of group of vehicles... 30 minutes and more, sometimes over 30 turns.)

I run PON on a 8 years old machine,but with plenty of cache and virtual RAM on the HDD.
CPU is not at 100%.
so what i do? running PON as a background job. 3-5 minutes between turns. sometimes only 1 o 2 turns an hour. sometimes about a year of gametime a day. never saw this mysterious 10 minutes and more, not even in the 1870s with the "vanilla" 1.01.

*****************************

here the problems, why people want different start dates:

you pick up countries which need unification,needs time, no fast success.

you pick up a "retarded" country. needs time, no fast success.

resource shortage for too quick building operations. no fast success.

limited buildings, limited military, limited colonial option, limited diplomacy... all makes sense, but lacks experience of success.


i played 15 years with the "vanilla" patch OSCAR despite all my anger about the economic system.

1857 out of buildings
1859 out of colonial actions

whoever claims that would be too fast to turn everything to US american MC, forget it, problems are huge independent of the fact whether it is protectorate or territory.
as long tribal rebels can seize a city and destroy everything while leaving of being annihilated, as long you have to count with them, despite they have not "national" ground.

1861 70% success of fleet mission, no success of cotton mission (did not invest, no buyers, nor shops, sunkcosts only),
50% success of merchants mission (build them as soon as possible, but with the wrong president, you have malus on units total number and thus a bottleneck)

American Civil War, not able to sustain supply for all of your units (artillery, cavalry and marine brigades before the ACW plus scripted Units and rushed corps after few months)...
bad luck? and a strategical problem!

1850s no coal, but cannot sustain production as US with imports of steel for more than 8 months. annoying, but i have a reserve of 1200 units coal, 900 wood, ACW givesme new structures and i gain over 25% efficiency in th early 1860s... STRATEGY but no fast success...

people just dont differ between scenario and campaign any longer

[Truman Doctrine]

Iam looking for a game with campaign scenarios of about 100 – 200 turns maximum which I think is the norm for PC Strategy games. But if Iam wrong then perhaps AGOED should emphasis in its sales literature the 1000+ turns for that surely would be a significant selling point that would attract gamers who represent the majority and seem to they prefer 1000 to infinite number of turns,

In fact any game and AGOEDS AACW is an excellent example should be able to cope with all preferences which is why they have the TIME COMPRESSION software. There isn't a right or wrong way to experience PON there only the way the person who having bought the game wishes to play it which is a pleasurable experience for them and for them the right way to experience it. The rest is someone else's preference that gives them pleasure for them only.

[yellow ribbon]

[color="Red"]"Iam looking for a game with campaign scenarios of about 100 – 200 turns maximum which I think is the norm for PC Strategy games. "[/color]

well, your preferences are clearly covered with games like AACW, with the PON DLCs, witht the POn scenarios and certainly with further official support and unofficial mods.

"[color="Red"]But if Iam wrong then perhaps AGOED should emphasis in its sales literature the 1000+ turns for that surely would be a significant selling point that would attract gamers who represent the majority and seem to they prefer 1000 to infinite number of turns,[/color]"

well, you are not wrong, but claiming the both statements above and talking about the importance of PREFERENCES in the remainder, at the same time, is somewhat odd.

PON was never sold as real time game, i got a boxed version it clearly states turn for turn action.
Scenarios were always given and DLCs given even before game was close to stable.

smack me on my ass and call me Judy but all the different PREFERENCES were covered (after battle scenario you can even keep on playing, thus different start dates. and the 1880 GC will close a furhter gap)

as i tried to explain, one can sum it up that most people dont have a problem with design, nor with the interface and even not with the bugs (good support from the company, parts are easy to mod and some part are that much rejected in the original design, that mods wait only for a stable basis to nil the original code)...

most people have a problem with the TURNS whenever they dont get the experience of fast development, symbolizing fast experience of success.
lad, i saw even complains that the battle report should be summed up, for you want to see your war history.
there are people even too lazy to use the hotkeys and look for the total number of KIAs in F10, but claiming all would be too slow, too many turns and so on...

regarding your interest in different turn time length.

look at the paradox forum, first mod to use monthly turns was given months before and just believe me, a lot of unofficial work is on the way or just under preparation...
oh, and dont wonder to find it there, Paradox is the official tech support forum (due to their understanding of fighting software pirates)

PS:

obviously i speak only for myself and this is a private opinion. no reason of offense should be taken.

[Kensai]

1850, 1880, 1900... these should be the three starting ages.