Battle Length

[Garnier]

Here we go again.

So, I think the battles we play are too long, overall. Say you have under an hour. You basically know you can't play SOW -- you have to have a 2-3 hour chunk of time in the evening if you want a game, generally.

Most games I play I can just get on and play whenever if I want to.

It might be a circular issue, people don't want to start a game until everyone is there, because if you miss the beginning of the game you basically don't get to play for an hour or two. Because of this, we expect only to have one or two games a night, and because it's such a time investment, we're reluctant to just start a game any time.

I imagine I'm not the only one who doesn't have 2 hour chunks of time open most days. It's possible people don't mind having a few large games a week.

I think there are things we can do to have more games, if we want more games, which I do. The easiest is just to have the armies start fairly close together and have a shorter time limit, but it depends on whether we like that.

I do enjoy the long battles over big area, but usually just don't have the time for them, so I decide I can't play at times when if it was a 40 or 50 minute game, I could.

So what do you all think?

[KG_Soldier]

I think we should have 8 hour games. :woohoo:

I haven't played many "short" games (under an hour), but I'm willing to try anything (in the context of GBSOW).

[Mr Custer]

I think you would be very wise not to buy "War in the Pacific Admirals Edition".

[Blaugrana]

My two-penny worth:

To encourage people to try MP, IMO it would be good to have shorter games, starting & finishing at a range of times, including early evening in Europe. I enjoyed the few games I have played in but it did result in me dedicating a few hours of the evening to each game - an hour or so chatting in TS waiting for the players to gather and then the game itself. On a school night too !

HTH the discussion.

Jeff

[Garnier]

I haven't played many "short" games (under an hour), but I'm willing to try anything (in the context of GBSOW).

You played lots of close combat, games there were usually between 15-30 minutes for me at least. Obviously 15 minutes is too short here, but it's way different from 90 or even 60 minutes.

@Blaugrana
I agree

[KG_Soldier]

I meant SOWGB games that were under an hour.

[Garnier]

Oh I know, just pointing out how long our SOW games are in comparison.

[SouthernSteel]

I agree it is problematic and can be a real PitA if you miss a start time. Nowadays if that happens you have to resign yourself to not playing SoW for that night.

I am fine with close battles, but then we're going to need to stick to random because they are absolute bloodbaths (as with our Battle on Kansas a week or two ago).

I personally didn't even take issue with the objectives being clustered together either. If there's not going to be time to maneuver, no sense in spreading things out at all. Honestly, it might be easiest to just have it so that the # of objectives = players/2, put them along a line between the armies, and let 'em loose. I know it's simplistic, but if we are going to reduce the time for battles we have to simplify everything.

I have a habit of "making" time for SoW, which has gotten my arse chewed plenty. So this might save what little there is left of me arse. I honestly like the longer battles fairly well, because honestly under 60 mins is pretty dang short in the scheme of SoW. Still, sometimes 90 is unnecessary, because the two sides bludgeon each other into oblivion well before the time limit. Dropping below 60 pretty much means that will happen every time - there won't be enough time to try and conserve your men or anything or maneuver.

[Jack ONeill]

Okay, split the difference and have them be 75 minutes long. I am one of those lads have a very narrow window of MP time, when I can play at all. Missing the start time is a killer for me. The time to get things going on or off teamspeak is another issue, but really can't be avoided.

My ha'pennys worth

Jack B)

[Garnier]

Yeah, with under 60 minutes there isn't really time to do multiple long flank marches.
But we've had lots of 90 minute games where at least 30-40 minutes were spent sitting around before anyone attacked. With one hour or less, it forces action sooner if it's going to happen at all.

Having tons of time to maneuver is fun and realistic (since in real life they had full days for battle and did more long marches) but I don't think it's practical for us in a game that you can't save or come and go during. If most people want to do long games that's great, but I don't think that's the case.