Game length?

[scon101]

I keep reading it is a quick game and I have a few questions before i buy it
1. how long is the average game?
2. I like playing games on big maps and long drawn out city building and war of conquest- can you do that in this game?
3. Any crafting?

Thank you in advance for any answers.

[Gilmoy]

It's a classic game, easily worth a sale price of ($25 - 40% discount or so).

1. There is no "average" game, because you choose:
- map size: Enormous is about 5x larger than Small
- number of AIs: from 1 to 10+, but usually 4-8 is an interesting struggle
- AI difficulties (you can set them all different), from pushover to you're-a-gnat

Default Medium map size vs. 4 AIs on a low difficulty level might take ... a few hours?
(Except for the learning curve, as you learn the hard way which attacks don't work :)

Enormous map size vs. 7 Emperor AIs can take 500+ hours, over many, many sessions. But if you've chosen that game, you must know you're ready for it. It's always up to you.

2. Enormous map, yes. War of conquest, yes. City building, no.
There are no buildable parts. It's not that kind of 4X. Instead, you do this:

+ hire more units (up to siege engines) -- but anybody you hire with gold is weak as glass
+ promote your spellcasters to L2 and L3 rituals
+ cast L2 and L3 rituals for game-changing summons

Generally, endgame showdown battles are your medium (or huge) army full of L3 summons, vs. an AI's army full of hired humans, and you crush them. Some of the most visually enthralling combats are your A-group full of L3s, vs. an enemy A-group full of AoE damage-casters, with 200+ units on each side. Dial up tactical battle speed to 6 or so (by pressing s s s s s s), watch the sheer carnage for 3+ minutes, sip coffee. You may wish to avoid taking the gruesome casualties, so usually you avoid those fights (and so do the AIs), but it's worth it to watch it once, because you've never seen anything like it.

Ironically, you could consider the strategy of summoning immobile L2/L3 units into your citadels to be a form of city-building. Most classes can't do this, so they don't bother. Most AIs do this, and so the subtask of capturing enemy citadels may involve ... bringing your own siege engines.

3. No crafting. Instead, you randomly find magic items, out of a list of about 300 different ones. Every game will give you a different set. Generally, you kill the owner(s' army) to take all of its magic items. So they migrate from the weaker neutral armies, up to an AI's army, and finally to yours. Sometimes you find them on the ground.

No class has a ritual to create a new magic item.

[Mali Belizec]

What I like about this game is that classes play very differently. Some clacsses require more defensive play so they need more time to finish the game.

Last game I played was with Troll King. My first couple of games ended with quick loss until I found some advices how to play this class. I played it heavy armoured tank while it should be played like guerilla squad.

Avoiding big enemy armies and taking out small ones. Spreading everywhere troll forest while hiding your armies in the woods.


Most amazing is that my Troll King had over 1000 kills during the game including one battle for dwarw mine where 1 Troll King with invulnerable skin being casted on took out 200+ dwarves! Because none of them had magic weapon that could hurt him.

On the other hand I had my main stack of 20 Rock Trolls with invulnerability being decimated by army of 15 units from witch class. That is because they had couple of will of wisp or something like units that stolen 7 of my expensive Rock trolls.

In my experience game with troll king will be much longer than some more straightforward class.

This is a great game. :)

[Flap]

Indeed, I have a game where I play the dwarfs. It is fun to build their network, but it takes ages (well 15 hours is already pretty long to my standard...)
While I have had games which only lasted a few hours.

[BATTLEMODE]

The last Let's Play I did, with a Large map and 7 AI opponents lasted about 10 hours

[Terminus]

I just got this game after watching Battlemode's excellent YouTube playthrough video, which I highly recommend if you want to learn more about the game. It was on sale at the time for $6, but I have already played it as much as my other $25 games.

Graphically the game is pretty basic but it offers tremendous nonlinear gameplay with lots of strange units and unique mechanics. The different combinations of unit types and map styles create a large amount of replayability. There are also a bunch of extraplanar dimensions you can visit which just add to the fun.

The game is mainly about finding and owning the different types of resource nodes (of which there are many) and using them to build interesting combinations of units. There is a bit of a midgame slog as you manage several different armies with many units each. But it is worthwhile when you find the AI's main army and hit them with your own. Sitting back and watching the apocalyptic battle play out (which may take several minutes for large battles) is really satisfying.

It is a nice little indie gem that you will get many hours of enjoyment from when you are looking for something different.

[Outis]

Not sure why this game is described as "quick"..it can last a long time

[meglobob1]

Originally posted by Outis:

Not sure why this game is described as "quick"..it can last a long time

I think its described as quick vs Illwinters other game Dominions.

CoE 4 can be quick on small maps just like other 4x games in general and take a HUGE amount of time on the biggest maps jus tlike other 4X games.