How long a wait between turns?

[Turbo823]

The 8 out of 8 review mentioned a 3 minute per turn wait. Is this correct? I hope not.

[Owl]

Seems about right, in my experience. Depending on your AI settings and whether you activate replays or not, your mileage might vary slightly.

[John Sedgwick]

With so much to do between turns, a few minutes processing doesn't bother me at all in this game, not like the grand campaign in Pride of Nations, which I wish would run just a bit faster on my laptop. I wouldn't factor it into the decision at all - it's a great game, nothing quite like it, except maybe WW1 Gold, but EAW wins out for me because it's more intuitive and runs a lot faster on my old laptop =P

[H Gilmer3]

Yes, 3 minutes is not unusual. The game runs in the back ground, though, so I usually update my AAR while waiting. You might not have an AAR going, and might want to check out forums. I think the turn length might be a drawback to some people, but it "feels" better than the Pride of Nation turn times.

[Taciturn Scot]

The 8 out of 8 review mentioned a 3 minute per turn wait. Is this correct? I hope not.

Wow! If I were playing a board war-game of comparable size against a human opponent, I doubt my opponent would be able to 'do' a turn in less than 30 minutes even with all the advantages of having the 'meat computer' doing all the work. And there are three players in this game. The AI is playing two sides in most single-player games. AGEOD games are war games and a reasonable amount of time should be expected. IMO, three minutes is very, very reasonable for a game of this scale.

[Merlin]

My turn processing, excluding the replay, takes about 45s-1m. That's on a gaming machine with hardware that was top line five years ago.

[ohms_law]

It gets longer as the game goes on, but the turn processing time is hardly problematic.

I love turn based games, personally. I'm seeing why most of the industry has given up on them, though.

[H Gilmer3]

It gets longer as the game goes on, but the turn processing time is hardly problematic.

I love turn based games, personally. I'm seeing why most of the industry has given up on them, though.

That's OK. If everyone gives them up, you and I can go into business developing them!

[DrPostman]

4 to 5 minutes is the average. If that sounds like it's too long then I can only tell
you that the AI has a lot of crunching to do. I usually have a TV show going on a
small screen and I focus on that more during the 5 minutes. I have an old laptop
so 6 minutes isn't unusual, and then another 2 to 3 minutes watching the moves
made and battle plan screens.

Strategy games aren't designed to be real time like gaming experiences. Many
years ago I used to play TOAW and it wasn't unusual for a turn to take 30 minutes
to process! A few minutes time is the price to pay for having a game done right,
and this game is done right, and still getting better!

Here's what I mean about watching something while playing:

[Pocus]

Here is a repost of my Steam reply:

You are not waiting doing nothing most of the time, past the AI processing which can indeed lasts 30 secs (tutorial), 1'30 mn (start of war) and 3 mn (later phase), you are seeing the enemy moves and watching battles unfold.

If you remove with the option 'focus on move' the map focus on the region entered by AI forces, remove the extra battle delay and don't check 'give AI more time' (more on that later), then turns are very acceptable in length.

I checked how much time is needed on my computer to process tutorial turn 1, AI and moves included:
Ended Hosting Phase 30184 ms
it's 30 secs

and then turn 2, there was a battle unfolding between a Russian army and a small German garrison, for a good 15 secs in there:
Ended Hosting Phase 45068 ms
it's 45 secs, minus battle time, we are still at 30 secs.

My rig is a desktop from 2011 with a SSD drive. Nothing unusual or pricey. It's far from being a beast and the vast majority of betas have something better.

About the option 'give AI more time', don't check it if time is of any importance to you. For a gain of 15% AI performance, you might double the time, so this is definitively not worth it for most people. End all Wars has a very complex AI, it creates virtual threats maps and others things rather intricate to see what can be done (even if as an AI it can never dream reaching the level of a good player).
I would like to know what is the config or the option of the player having done videos. If he has a fragmented 'classic' hard drive or if he checked 'give AI more time'. This would be interesting to know.

Somehow playing against the AI of EAW might also be seen as playing a boardgame against someone. This someone, how much time would you give him? 30 secs, 2 mn, more? Should the AI be neutered and debilitated to reach this time allowance? if you were to print (80 lines per page) the AI code, you would have something just under 1000 pages. Sure, the AI will do dumb things, but you'll also find that many a time there will be surprises, counter-moves and attacks that will put your on your toes.

[DrPostman]

In my old boardgaming days it was nothing to spend half an hour to an hour plotting moves.

[caranorn]

In my old boardgaming days it was nothing to spend half an hour to an hour plotting moves.

Sometimes annoying but indeed quite usual. Then again waiting could also mean you became annoying to the other player. So the best thing to do was often go grab some drinks (for you and your opponent), fix a meal or some snacks etc. while the other one was playing (you have to trust your opponent). Combat resolutions both players would of course be present. Some systems of course required almost constant presence of both players (reaction moves/fire etc.)...

So never had an issue with Athena taking some time to plan, or for the turn itself to execute...

[Taciturn Scot]

Of course, you could actually, you know, talk to your opponent while waiting for him to plan and execute his turn

[ohms_law]

I just read in between turns. Or watch tv. *shrug*

[Templer]

Hey, come on.
3 minutes, 5 minutes isn't unbearable.

I understand your impatience.
The game is new, you are excited and you would (at once!) see how it goes after your turn.

While waiting, you could study the manual.
Or be active in the forum.
Or make notes for forum posts to support AGEOD to improve 'To End All Wars'.

[Stelteck]

Or be active in the forum.

Yes, you could use the free turn time to rage on the forum about the turn time

[Merlin]

I love my fellow gamers.

Oh, that's nothing! I used to wait ten hours in the rain for my turn to process!

We all find different ways to cope. Turn processing is an inevitable part of math-heavy games.