no offence taken.
I too (as you can tell) like the long posts like just like I like the long games of A&A…BOTH show the kind of thought I like to put into things…but than again I’m a game geek as my wife so often and fondly calls me and something about the written word brings out the talker in me (I can’t’ figure that one out yet since I cant spell to save my life and if anything I’m under educated when compared to most people). ANYWAY…
The points you make (as well as several others that have been posted on this topic) about “flow control” of the game do help. I’m not saying they don’t. When you get in a check out line at any store, the line that has “the best checker” is always the faster line in comparison to the other lines regardless of how many persons are in line and how many items they have. in other words how well, the assembly line works is as important to how many parts need to be put on and how complicated it is to put each part on.
The more Powers you have in a game, the more parts in the assembly line. The minor powers are well…just that…minor parts in the assembly line and in the case of France they take seconds compared to the several minutes that the BIG powers take to do their turn.
However, when you lay out the game in an assembly line with each power (no matter how small or BIG they are) in a line (as the turn order is “out of the box”) that makes the LONGEST critical path possible.
If you can cut the game into two halves (Europe and Pacific) and make them into two separate critical paths, you can shorten the time it takes to play each round by half or more (depending on how many “BIG POWERS” there are in each assembly line). Its a the over lapping of critical path activities where ever possible that will save you the most time.
Example:
If Germany takes 15 minutes to do their turn
And if Russia takes 10 minutes to do their turn
And if Japan takes 15 minutes
UK takes 10 minutes
ANZAC takes 5
Italy takes 5
USA takes 10
China takes 2
France takes 1
Because everyone has to wait in line for each other in one assembly line that’s a critical path of 73 minutes per round (give or take several minutes for slow play or fast play). Now a good checker could clear that check out line in maybe 70 minutes just buy their skill, so having a banker, a task master and a chess clock to help keep everyone moving through the assembly line can obviously help. But it can only do so much.
Now, multiply that by the number of rounds it takes to play the game of tug-o-war in the examples above at IF the shortest tug of war is 10 rounds, that’s a game that last…700 minutes or 11.66 hours.
Now, break the critical path into two assembly lines and it would look more like this.
Europe Pacific
Germany, 15 Japan 15
Russia, 10 UK, 5
UK, 5 ANZAC, 5
Italy, 5 USA, 5
USA, 5 China, 2
France, 1
41 minutes 32 minutes
You still have the 73 minutes to play “each round, but you did it in 41 minutes on one board and 32 minutes on another board. You just shorted each round by 32 minutes (73 – 41 (the longest critical path) = 32 minutes).
Now, multiply that by the number of rounds it takes to play the game of tug-o-war in the examples above at IF the shortest tug of war is 10 rounds, that’s a game that last…410 minutes 6.8 hours.
Breaking the game into two critical paths IS more than possible in this EPIC game (IMO) because there really is that much of a separation between the two theaters of war in this game when compared to any games before it.
Players on the pacific should probably wait till the round on the Europe board is finished before starting another round (this will probably help with any “overlaps”). But in short, by having the tow half played at the same time (overlapping critical paths) you just shaved an approximate 4.86 hours off the game compared to the 30 minutes that you could shave off by keeping them in one critical path chain and having a good “system” to get everyone through the check out line faster.
BUT…while this idea has plenty of merit…like in construction, the more tasks you have running at the same time, the more crew you need. So having both half’s of the board being played at one time would require a minimum of 4 players compared to 2 players, so for some people, this idea just wont work because they don’t have the available players.
