Two thumbs up and 5 stars, this game is great! Our epic battle lasted 5 hours (partly, some learning time). Humans vrs undead. I think the next game will go much faster. Rules seemed very easy to follow, very few mishaps. I am convinced the game's designers are of a genious level IQ. Lost two allied giants in year two due to a random card. Then won in year 6 with a rune stone granted by an objective card for the loss of the giants. Good times!

excellent. The game will get much faster... I finish 3 and 4 player epic games in about 3.5 to 4 hours.

mateooo said:

insanely fast. how many games have your group gone through then?

ishinken said:

Doesn't seem that insanely fast. The 3-player games I've played have all been in the 3-hour range, too. It just depends on the players and how prone they are to "analysis paralysis". I've found a typical season in this game is about 5 minutes (regardless of the number of players). The "slowest" parts are the picking of the cards, and the battles, and once you get the rules down, both of those seem to go pretty quick alos.

Ive played probably around 7 or 8 times,, usually with 3, a few times with 4 players.

We recently went to epic with exploration markers... we occasionally forget to trigger those markers, but they are fun

ive played a total of 4 times now.

2 three player games

2 four player games

I have yet to see a complete game round go under 5 hours

My guess is either you guys are doing something wrong, or you are taking a LOOOOONG time per turn If your group has a lot of "thinking"-prone folks, I can see it taking that long. But even then, 5 hours is pushing it...

I've yet to see a regular game go much beyond 3 hours.

Five hours is a lot for a normal game, but not for epic. Also, I think when most people actually try to think out what they are doing, it will take a little longer. Certainly some people take a lot of time to think poorly, but just because you are taking a little longer than average doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

True, but there are a lot of people who do tend to "overthink" things a lot. Not necessarily bad in itself, though it can annoy some people who want a more fast-paced game. It just depends on the group and the dynamics therein

I really believe we could have finished the game faster If I thought more about rune stones and less about kicking the snot out of my oppenents army. Then again it was worth the extra time grude it out a bit.

The majority of my games have been three-players (my first was a two-player game that got cut short). I find the lengthiest part of any game is the setup, but even with that, my friends and I are getting games played start-to-finish in about three hours - enough time for us to get a couple games in a night, which is actually kind of new for us.

We've been playing with Exploration Tokens for a couple games, and have a nasty habit of forgetting about them, but we're working on it. Outside of setup, our big slowdown is one player who doesn't plan ahead EVER and frequently forgets to lay down an Order card at all.

The majority of my games have been three-players (my first was a two-player game that got cut short). I find the lengthiest part of any game is the setup, but even with that, my friends and I are getting games played start-to-finish in about three hours - enough time for us to get a couple games in a night, which is actually kind of new for us.

We've been playing with Exploration Tokens for a couple games, and have a nasty habit of forgetting about them, but we're working on it. Outside of setup, our big slowdown is one player who doesn't plan ahead EVER and frequently forgets to lay down an Order card at all.

Arkade said:

We found that planning all 4 orders for the year, makes the game a lot faster. And lets you adjust order sequence to optimise "superiority bonus" & other synergies.

If an opponent does something you didn't expect, you can always revise your later orders...

Our two biggest slowdowns were;

1) Recognising hero figures from their cards. Suitable painting of the heroes should improve that (even something as crude as a different base color for each faction)

2) rechecking the spring turn sequence to move heroes in summer.