SP benchmark

[brxbrx]

It took me twenty-seven years as EA Abysia to beat the game via domkill on the map Glory of the Gods.
How long does it usually take other people to beat this map in SP? I have to admit, a lot of the time I don't even consider winning when I start a game. I just pick a concept I like and I go with it until I want to do something else. I have dozens of long-running SP games, and this is only like the third or fourth I've won since I bought the game so many years ago.

I'm kind of curious to see how other players do in SP.

[bbz]

I play SP quite a lot but mostly to test or small games.(most I've beaten is 8 opponets with Bandar log making loads of rudras and PD laming don't remember how much time it took me though) Games with 10+ opponets can get really tedious. I quite like playing new maps with 5ish more opponets which I can finish.

Although I do like setting up epic battles and playtesting them in the debug mod aswell.

[parone]

i always made mega SP games(12+ opponents, huge maps) and i almost finished one, once, in DOM2.

i have never finished one. well, i've lost a few in the early game, but never finished.

at some point, im always like, "i don't really feel like spending 30 minutes on a turn here"

[legowarrior]

See this is why I play with victory points. A lot of victory points, but still, it means that I can stop the game without crushing all in my path.

[parone]

not a bad idea, lego. i also like bbz's idea of smaller games that are actually finishable.

mostly, i start a game with an idea, see if it works, then lose interest. i think MP has absolutely ruined SP for me.

[rdonj]

Glory of the gods is *way* too big for me to play on. In SP I stick generally to maps that are 200 provinces or less. And 200 is TOO BIG for me to finish. I don't think I've ever conquered more than half of Shahrivar, which is a mere 165 provinces. Anyway. Right now I have an SP game on Riverlands (235 provinces) where I own ~80 provinces and am basically invulnerable, so I've largely given up on that game. It will take a while to win, but I have 0 possibility of losing at this point and literally thousands of gems and blood slaves sitting around that I'm too lazy to use. This is with Sylvania, which I consider a very slow nation in SP. I've also got a game on a 60 province map in about mid year 3 where there's only 16 enemy provinces left and I'll win eventually, but I probably won't finish it for a while because I'll be artificially delaying the computer's demise. And I recently won a game conquering everything on sixlands (90 provinces) in year 5 or 6, despite at one point basically not playing for something like a year trying to let the AIs advance a little because I had been crushing AIs left and right for most of the game and wanted more of a challenge for my armies. Sadly I didn't get it. (I also was waiting for them to attack me, which is something of a house rule I have for fighting the AI, I always wait for them to attack first. It could be noted that I waited until year 3 to attack any AIs in that game as a result of that rule)

A 480 province map like glory of the gods I would never, ever finish. The multiplayer version would be pretty similar to riverlands, except I hate all of the mapmove 1 terrain on that map so I'd probably give it up earlier :P

[samoht]

I have the save file on an old computer of mine of the huge version of Glory of the Gods where I was playing LA Ermor. Sooooo much micromanagement. I found that I was only able to play a couple turns a day before I had to do something else. Never finished it, but I think I owned about half the map (including under water) by the time I moved on to something else.

From a RPing perspective I really like Glory of the Gods, whichever size.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by legowarrior

See this is why I play with victory points. A lot of victory points, but still, it means that I can stop the game without crushing all in my path.

What I find works is playing with victory points, where each capital is worth 1, and everything else is worth 0, and all capitals must be captured. Granted, I pretty much only use SP for testing at this point anyways, but I remember that being somewhat fun.

[Makinus]

I play exclusively SP games since Dom2 (tried a 2 or 3 MP games but my RL schedule is inimical to MP playing), i normally like to play maps with 150-200 provinces and max AIs for the era. To be able to finish the games i do something like Knai does, with all capitals worth 1 VP, but i set that you only neet 7 VPs for victory, as i imagine that if i manage to knock out 6 AIs i´m probably unbeatable anyway, and it gives a chance that one of the strong AI empries (MA or LA Ernor for example) will beat me to the victory...

I also made a rule that i only attack an AI if attacked first...

[legowarrior]

The problem I have with capitals having victory points only, is you can automatically tell were all the capitals are. I usually do a ratio of 2 victory points per nation, with 1 victory point for each capital.