Poll: How fast do your 'turns' go?

[Obadiah]

(Sorry about two new threads in a row, but I think they're pretty distinct...)

I read about people zooming through campaigns, and even apart from whether someone turtles or rushes, it seems there's a lot of people here who are crushing through "turns" at a rate light-years ahead of mine. I'm into my second month in a campaign! So: how many turns, on average, do you take in an hour's worth of game-play?

(First poll-post - in case I screw up the poll set-up) Choices are:

1) >10 turns/hour or <6 min/turn = I rush, autosolve everything, and have a great efficient system of reviewing agents, armies, taxes, etc.
2) 5-10 turns/hour (6-12 min/turn)= I'm pretty fast, don't fight many long battles.
3) 2-4 turns/hour (15-30 min/turn)= I have fast turns, offset by long battles
4) 1-2 turns/hour (30-60 min/turn= I never autosolve, really look at all my agents, etc.
5) Gah- time ceases to exist when I play, and then its dawn...

[supadodo]

I think I'm at 3. But then I play at 0.5 years per turn so my campaign is damn long.

Well depending on the situation, I can either just rush through or stay and scan.Rush through is when there are no important events and when I have nothing to build.

[MStumm]

It varies for me. In the beginning I take my time building and fighting battles, since I need to make every florin count to get ahead. Later in the mid game things slow down even more. My good neighbors attack me and I takes a long time to carefully move all those full stacks to fight all of them. Finally at the end I just occasionally check that all building queues are full and move my legions in the general direction of my backwards surviving enemies, so things speed up considerably.

[Obadiah]

Forgot to vote in my own poll! I'm 2-4 turns/ 15-30 min per. And thats probably being optimistic. I love the game, but feel like I'm moving slower than a slug! I think I need to 1) get a system down for reviewing agents, army budgets, etc., and 2) I need to get used to the idea that its ok if I leave some mgmt task undone. It'd be nice to get through a campaign fast enough to be able to try lots of campaigns before the expansion arrives, and then the next game, etc.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Well let me see: I manage all cities at the beginning of a turn. Then I move characters. Next I fight battles but I auto resolve all sieges if i besiege a city/castle. My last duty is to train new units. So on average I think that turns don't last that long.

Since a lot of field battles are against veteran siege engines accompanied by hardened peasants/town militia's they don't last that long.

The only time when a turn would take some time is when I am besieged or when I fight a nice field battle.

edit: I voted 2

[Kobal2fr]

Total war would be the epitome of the time warp game for me :) What's even worse, I'm a hugely disorganized player, meaning I'll check what this city builds, then move a diplomat, then a fleet, go back to the city to make sure I'm building the right thing etc...

But I'm the opposite of MStumm : the first 10-20 turns go super fast, especially if I'm playing one of my regular factions like Spain or Denmark - for which I know exactly what to do and when, and I've fought the first rebel battles a couple hundred times each

[Hermann the Lombard]

OK, why can't I vote in a poll that was started today?

Anyway, you asked the wrong question. With me it's a question of how many hours per turn. I sometimes wish I was joking about that. Anyway, you now know that I would have voted "high field" and I think my average time per turn is about one hour.

[Edit: TODAY it let me vote. Go figure. Naturally I picked #5.]

[Foz]

I suppose it really matters if we're supposed to consider the battles in with this or not. I'm assuming yes. Battles can lengthen turns considerably, and I prefer to play them all out unless there's some reason not to (like it'll be boring because one side is a 10:1 favorite). So a typical turn for me is probably in the 5-ish minute realm for management, but then there can be battles on top of that to make it so much longer.

I'm also with Kobal2fr about the turn length - the early ones go incredibly fast. Once you play early time period a few times it becomes completely obvious what to build to kick-start your economy, and you just sorta do it naturally. The middle turns come into all the less obvious choices. You've also usually got only a few rebel fights to deal with in say the first 30 turns as you grab up all the rebel provinces, where later on factions attack you out of the blue and you can count on pretty much constant war. That IMO is what really bogs the mid-years down - all the fighting of battles.

Anyway that should give some idea for now. I'll see if I can remember to record my turns and the passage of time when I next play to see how much I'm actually getting done, and how quickly. Should be pretty revealing.

Of course I'm not really worried if I discover it's taking me forever: time and progress are measured entirely differently when you're on the battlefield, which IMO is how it's possible to play such time-consuming campaigns and still enjoy them the whole way. The duality of the game in campaign map vs battle map is so great that it actually creates interest where you would otherwise become bored of either one independently. You finish a battle... but suddenly, you have to rule! You make executive decisions, and now you have to defend your territory. They're so vastly different that playing one makes you appreciate the other anew when you finally get back to it.

[alpaca]

Well for me the turns have such a huge variance I don't even want to give a mean, just a range:
2 minutes to one hour

The reason for this is that if I don't fight battles and don't have anything much to do (and not too many settlements), I can just zip through turns, whereas if I have to fight two or three difficult and important battles in a turn it can take really long, and I usually need a break in between two large battles.

[DVX BELLORVM]

I voted for #2 (6-12 min/turn), most of the turns would be in the lower end of this range.
But this is without battles. When I have battles, it may last up to one hour, since I never auto-resolve.

[phunkbot]

im between 3 and 2 myself (excluding battles), but when I own half the map and still try to manage everything and use lots of agents I've ended up playing a single turn over 2 days or so, especially when i dont have that much time to play

[crpcarrot]

on avarge i probably take 30 mins a turn or thereabouts but it depends on the situation on the map i guess. if i'm low on cash so not many building to do or concentrating on one battle front where most of the recruitment etc takes palce i might take as little as 5 mins a turn (excluding any battles)

[Obadiah]

My intention was "inclusive of battles" (although its an interesting question either way). I guess what this leads me to is the follow-on question, "how many hours /week do you play"? Because I'm only on my 3rd campaign, and I wish I was on my 10th. Lots of posts about units, etc., that I've never even started!!! I play pretty slowly, and only a few hours on Sun night usually, so I guess its not that surprising.

[CMcMahon]

Late in the game, I'm going to say three per hour, not including battle time.

[phonicsmonkey]

I'm only on my second campaign, and I started playing in February! I just don't get enough time to play.....I'm torn at the moment because I want to start a new one, but I just got the "world is round" and I haven't been to the New World yet...so I think I'll hang on for that...

[TevashSzat]

Yeah like some above me have said, it really depends on the situation in the campaign and how far you are through it. I have had anything from 2-3 minute turns to 3 hour turns due to fighting large critical sieges. On average I would say about 5-10 turns a hour.

[Didz]

I find you get quiet periods when nothing much is happening except crusades marching etc. and those can go pretty fast.

But then if you're using all the game elements to the full, including Merchants, Spies, Diplomats and Princesses it needs quite a bit of time to actually check through everything and make sure you haven't missed an opportunity.

I suspect that those who blitz the turns are relying heavily on military conquest for income and success and only involve the other elements when they are needed to overcome an specific problem.

[_Tristan_]

I personnally try to make the most of every signle turn, being a micro-mgmt freak...
Turns when i'm fully militarily-engaged can last about 2 hours or even more...
A Battle lasts almosts 20 minutes and sieges may last as much as 30 minutes with the clock on...
I like to make the most of my diplomats, spies and so on...

PS : One thing that buggers me is why can't a diplomat try to negociate with more than one faction at a time like it did in RTW... Seems logical that you could have a MTW2 "G-8" with plurilateral talks....

[PseRamesses]

I must say I´m a bit maticulate and thourough. I also do all my battles and never auto-calc. Some turns may take several hrs due to this.

[magnum]

5-10 turns an hour is what I selected because I'd say that was the normal (not the average.) There have been times where I sat down when I got home from work, played 1 turn and noticed the clock said 11pm, bed time. Means I took 4 hours or so for 1 turn. Thats not normal though. Usually a turn goes by pretty quick and then I just need to factor in the time for battles (usually fairly small and quick.) So yea, 5-10 turns/hour is normal for me.

[pete101]

3 turns in 8 hours

no kidding ...


im up to turn 17 and i've conquered northern europe and everything above the crimea , playing as the danes

[Kaidonni]

I end up spending perhaps 30 or so minutes, excluding battles, on turns. I'm somewhat OCD, so I check a settlement's value over and over just to make sure. It doesn't even occur to me that when I get to the bottom of the agent's list that I should confidently leave it...I might check it again when I reload, or go back to a previous agent or army I checked mere moments ago 'just in case'...I'm not as bad as I used to be, though.

[andrewt]

I voted 6-12 in an hour. It really depends on how many battles I fight during the turn. I'm also one of those "must move everything that can do something worthwhile in a turn" people and I would reload if I forgot to move something.

[Matt_Lane]

Once the campaign is well under way I would average about a turn every hour or two although turn 186 took three nights to complete. I prefer the sure and steady approach, micro managing my economy and avoiding the auto resolve button unless its time for work.

I'll usually play the game about two or three times a week and most of that is on the campaigns with the odd foray into a historical battle or multi player game.