If you want a fast paced game, it'll be map based more than anything else.

1 Star + X planets , something like Grindstone which is probably the best map out of all of them.

Within the first thirty minutes, out of the eight players present four will be eliminated.

Well I'm still waiting for the people in my 4 person multiplayer game to show up. We saved at a great time, but can't fine a good time for all of us to show up IRL. If the game woulda gona faster it would have been done already.

HEY OP I CHALLENGE YOU TO AN AO3 MATCH

Playing on all the fast/high settings the only times I have a problem with the pace are in the beginning and the end. considering nothing ever really happens in the first 30 minutes they really feel like wasted time, people pretty much know what they want to build in by 15 and the rest is just waiting and fending off pirates. As for the end, it can be blatantly obvious who is going to win, but for some reason (troop movement cross system I think) it still takes forever to fully wipe people out duriong the mop up.

I think that adding an option for even higher initial resources would solve the first problem, as not having to force people to wait on those resources would allow smoother initial teching/building/planet acquisition. As for the end, the ideas being tossed around about (hopeful) inclusion of some alternate victory conditions all sound good. Victory at __% of total planets captured, victory when all homeworlds are elmiminated, etc.

If it takes too long, you're too old!!!!

If you play the right maps, you can have intense conflict as soon as the game starts and you rush to expand. I think you're just whining and you should go back to company of heroes, or whatever you play.

Company of Heroes is probably the best RTS game to come out in a good long time you should at least try it before outright dismissing it as another StarCraft or C&C clone. It looks like they're adding more speed options in the next update though, so now all us young turks and you old geezers should be able to play at the speed we want.

omfg its a 4x strategy game i actully like that its soo slow more time to think and when i play i have to keep spending resources without thinking about what i really need them for otherwise they just stockpile and i feel like one hel of a loser but no this game is epic get used to it i have one game right now i custom made it with about 250 planets im already about 15 hours into it and its still super awesome diplomacy is acyully useful now because not everybody is shoot on sight anymore anyway if you want a fast experince go play stracraft and learn to zerg that should be pretty awesomely boring. so now go play warcraftFT and come back when you have have learned to play newb ( haha i love flaming)

I think the game is paced accordingly. I think even on normal speed and fast resources, its fairly quick enough. If there was a way to increase the pirate raids, that would buy some time and change strategic moves depending on pending pirate raids and attacking other players. You would have to balance defense with offense that way. Other than that, the game is perfect. You knew it was a 4X when you bought it suggesting you know what your getting yourself into. Unless your completely new to the term and style. I personaly love Company of Heroes but it can't be compared to any game like this. I compare this game to a good game of Chess where it takes time and patience to achieve a good victory. Yes there are times where your just sitting there doing nothing but you could think of things to do like strategies and what not. What I would love implemented is an in game browser so you can surf or browse user made pages. Much like EVE Online. Or a chat section for discussing strategies with other players not necessarily in the game your playing. Just my thoughts.

I thin kthis is a great idea, I can jsut picture you surfing the net while my fleet sneakily destroys half your planet before you realize it's too late.

This is the multiplayer section of the forum duders. A 20+ hour game is perfectly fine singleplayer, but nearly impossible to complete with real, living people who have lives outside the game.

Then this game is obviously not for you.

If you can't put aside a few hours for a game, then you arn't a gamer.

dictionary.com  

In military usage, a distinction is made between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the utilization, during both peace and war, of all of a nation's forces, through large-scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security or victory. Tactics deals with the use and deployment of troops in actual combat.


i Reiterate
long-range planning

how exactly is a 8 player game meant to be just a few hours.. have you even tried to play an 8+ player game.. it can take days even weeks/months to finish.. even if they cant put a few hours for a game doesnt mean they arent a gamer.. please dont be so stupid..

Did you even read what I typed out? Just because I can find the time to play the game doesn't mean that the other people in the multiplayer game have that time free as well. I don't care if they arn't gamers.

#1: Learn how to spell and use proper grammar.

#2: This is a 4XRTS. If you wanted Starcraft, play Starcraft. You cannot get angry at a game developer for not exactly immitating another game.

#3: There is an option that allows you to greatly increase the game speed.

#4: Get off the forums.

Ummm, you do have the ability to SAVE in multiplayer?

This game is NO Starcraft/C&C/Homeworld/etc! And never will, I will NOT let this game get dumbed down so that the few players can have a quick GAME.

Ummm. Having the ability to save doesn't help if you can't find a good time for 4+ people to come back to the savegame. How does playing the game faster dumb it down? If Starcraft could be played at the 10th of the speed it would still be the same game. A ponderous pace doesn't mean that the game requires more intelligence, all it means is that you need more time. I UNDERSTAND THAT THE GAME IS NOT STARCRAFT OR LIKE ANY OTHER CONVENTIONAL RTS GAME. Also it looks like they're planning on adding more speed options anyway so your plans for not having a 'dumbed down' game have failed.

Yes it does, thats the whole point of a Save in Multiplayer, to continue ON a previous game thats already in progress.

Also, there are plenty of options within the game to make the game shorter?

I'm fine with adding faster speed options, but that will probably won't solve the problem will it?

EDIT: adding an AI to overtake the players if there not there would probably benefit more than adding "more speed options"...

I hear a lot of "Its a 4x game, so it should take awhile", when in reality its a mix of 4x and traditional strategy, so in trying to cater to both crowds it must address this concern. It needs a faster game speed meaning quicker build times, research times, lowering resource costs...and only slightly, unit movement and fights because too much on this ruins it.

Faster speed also turns it into a moronic clickfest. Half the point of the game is it's more STRATEGIC, and spam doesn't get you far.

What's the other half.

Really though how does increasing the speed turn it into a 'moronic clickfest'? In the time it takes you to just spam as many low level units as you can a good opponent can level up his capship a few times, create enough infrastructure to support a bigger fleet/better ships and research enough to make the first confrontation a losing proposition for the other guy. Just because it doesn't take an hour to do this doesn't make the game any less STRATEGIC. In fact it adds another dimension to the game, because you've got to make you're decisions in a timely fashion.

If you ever played the other RTS games, then you'll know.

Company of Heroes, Starcraft, C&C 3 etc are known as "clickfests".... spamming thousands of clicks within minutes, just to get a couple of units to do something.

So you're saying it's cool if the clicks are more spread out then.

Yup,

I was never against adding more speeds, I just didn't think it would benefit making the game go more quickly, and would dumb down the game.