Finding the time to NOT have fun

[PvK]

I think my typical main suggestion for when the time to play gets too long, would be to reduce the frequency of turns. 12 hours is too short for late-game on a big map.

If as you say Zap, you also weren't enjoying it... well you can try to find a replacement, since different players enjoy different things. Meanwhile, consider Gandalf's advice of not doing everything every turn. Put as much as possible on repeated behaviour, do the important and easy stuff only and send in the turn. Another idea is look for things that would be fun for you to do in the game besides micro-managing everything, and do those things.

PvK

[alexti]

Few months ago I've found myself in a similar position. Being inexperienced, I've join too many games (and 2 of them on Orania) without realizing the time commitment (or maybe I hoped to be eliminated quickly). Fortunately, I had found a sub for one of those games (Norfleet was eager to try his skills without castles, VQ and clams ;->). In another game, I've decided to radically cut on micromanagement and allocated myself 40 minutes per turn. This way I've ended up starting from doing important things and gradually moving to less important tasks. For example, I've stopped watching taxes every turn, once every 5 turns was ok too. I've stopped ferrying blood slaves and built labs in all bloodhunting provinces. I've stopped trying to forge items ahead (meaning ones that I expected to need the next turn). Instead I was forging them as needed. Rather than building a castle regular way, I'd cast a spell, etc. It wasn't as optimal, but this way it was more fun than work. Fortunately, I was winning in that game anyway, so I didn't need to squeeze every opportunity.

But the lesson was learned and I'm not joining games on huge maps anymore. While they may be ok in the beginning, as players getting eliminated remaining empires become too big and require too much micromanagement for my taste.

For me the loss of fun factor is not due to high level spells, but rather due to big empires. Two best games went well into the late game with the research finished (one was on Karan with 7 strong nations remaining) and another was inland map with 5 major players remaining.

[Norfleet]

You just need to realign your sense of fun: Once your concept of fun is aligned such that it is no longer fun unless you are giving and/or receiving pain and suffering, it becomes much easier to handle games, and life in general.

After all, no pain, no gain. You stand to gain a lot in life if your tolerance for pain is above and beyond anyone else's.

[ July 20, 2004, 08:28: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Pickles]

You stand to get more pain for sure.....

Pickles

[Aikamun]

Post Deleted

[ July 20, 2004, 10:30: Message edited by: Aikamun ]