SP late game boredom?

[jutetrea]

So, what do most folks do around late game - you have the game won, its just a matter of time. I generally have magic superiority, troops quality superiority (maybe not #'s), and a well carved area. Then its just a matter of finishing off the remaining opponents.

I've found myself abandoning the game frequently, which is a bit sad after all the effort put forth. I just get too bored with the micro, its great fun to get to that stage but after its just advancing troops.

I wish when you turned it over to the computer you had the option for it to actually play out - maybe just show a colored map overview to see if your nation advances and when it wins. Keep track of how many turns maybe. Can that be done via MP? start a game, turn your nation to computer and keep hosting?

[NTJedi]

jutetrea said:
I've found myself abandoning the game frequently, which is a bit sad after all the effort put forth. I just get too bored with the micro, its great fun to get to that stage but after its just advancing troops.

Try playing the maps with victory points (not cumulative) and winning VPs at 35% of the total on the map... then you'll find it more feasible for you to finish the SP games. Huge SP maps without VictoryPoint provinces can become tiresome once you've conquered 55% of the map.

[PvK]

Sounds like you've won but with no fanfare. I often tend to declare myself victorious, and/or keep the save games as fun/interesting references that I go back and look at from time to time, and sometimes play another turn (or a few).

If you want the official program-endorsed victory before world domination, you can set victory conditions.

One can also decide that one's empire has become too large to micro-manage, and finish the game by being sloppy with most of it, retiring the elite veterans to home guard, partying, feasting, and glorious opportunities, and doing the mopping up with clumsy mass armies. If one can resist the compulsion to micro-manage, and roleplay the mopping up, it can either lead to a fairly quick official win, or let the enemy build up a more interesting challenge by giving them some breathing room.

PvK

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I hate that feeling when I become sloppy though, it really puts me off. This is actually one of the main reasons I prefer MP, I can't help becoming sloppy in SP, and then I get annoyed with the inefficiency of my empire.

Setting VPs sounds like a good idea though.

[Kalin]

I find myself setting up elaborated wishing wells in every game... it's kind of funny seeing an army of Jarls under human banner. Or an army of nothing but hero wannabees. Eh, it's something to do while you clean up...

[JayThomas]

I sometimes use the dominion victory condition and then take a pretender with a dominion of one.

Sometimes though, I'll miss set the victory condition and the game ends in six months.

[jutetrea]

Agreed, I'll try out VPs I guess. Plus increase the difficulty of the AI. I usually find its a bit tough early going as I play defensive to dominate magic, then break out. I'm hoping that if its VPs I won't be able to sit back as long, although does the AI know about VPs and will prevent other AIs from winning that way?

Agree on the sloppy - I've done it but its kind of annoying. Have an SC or two conquer everything, then have sloppy armys and 30+ PD hold it.

I've got a faerun game where I had a perfect corner start position, Dom 10, so i killed the first guy by dominion and then everyone tried to gang on me. Took the neighbors out, then just had micromanagement hell and abandoned it.

[Actuarian]

I have yet to see a true 4X turn-based strategy game that doesn't suffer from this end-game micromanagement slowdown. Smaller maps will definately help and lower resources and gold settings should help too.

[thejeff]

Smaller games has been my solution.

I usually only use 3-4 opponents.

Sine the AI doesn't handle the late game all that well, this tends to keep the focus where the AI is more competent.

[Nick_K]

I use victory by vps, no random vp provinces, 1 vp per capital. On a 12 faction map, I might set victory for owning 7 or 8 capital provinces, for example