My friends and I usually end up ditching the game once we have an inkling of who is going to win.

How long does it usually take you to finish a game with full number of players?

Don't do that! The person who gets to 6VP first is rarely the person who wins...

A 6-player game can take a while, but we play 10-5 with a one hour lunch break and finish a game. You'll get faster as you go - learn to keep track of whose move it is; if someone is building, start your move!; set a time limit on PC negotiations; all these things speed up your game.

I agree with Possumman.

There's a lot to be said for playing a game through to the end, I've seen really massive point swings be effected by the inevitable diplomatic disasster that tends to strike the first winner. There are also some objectives that are instant wins which means even if you're massively behind by points you can still win the game if you play your cards right.

My group usually play with 4 players and the game usually takes 3 hours and half. Under normal circumstance (a.k.a. balanced luck) there are at least two players struggling during the last turns to find a waty to get the last VPs.

I've played one game to completion. It was 8 players and it took us 13 hours (including meal breaks.) Generally we play for as long as we can - about 4 hours usually - and then we call it based on who's winning at the time. We still have fun playing the game though, and that's what counts!

Most of my games take about an hour per person. I have on accasion finished a 6 player game in under 5 hours but it is usually 6 hours not including set up and cleanup.

We played a game recently with 6 players, 4 of whom had never played before, 1 who had played half a game, and me. I've played about 6 times but only finished twice. We played for 16 hours before finally throwing in the towel only because most of us needed to be in bed before our wives got up for work. I have the expansion and use all the more aggressive event cards. We're gonna play again this weekend and hope that we play faster this time.

For me the tough part is getting enough people to take the time to play. Once we get rolling we normally finish. I think my main problem is I always try for six players.

Sartan said:

I'm sure fewer players would speed things up, but TI is - to me at least - a game which is better with more people. I also always try to get as many as I can when I pull it out, and I rarely bother to even suggest it if we have fewer than 5.

Steve-O said:

But you've only ever finished one actual game...? I think I'd prefer the odd 4-player , or even 3-player, game, to never being able to finish

oldthrashbarg said:

I've had good success with four player games, fewer players means less trouble tracking turn order and everyone gets two strategy cards which makes managing strategic action easier.

Caliban said:

Props to you man.

In my experience practice will familiarize your players with the game players who plan when it's not their turn and think many moves ahead speed play, as well as players who don't need to read every card or rule to know what is going on. I've also taken time to learn the complete rules in my spare time, this way I rarely have to pull out them out when we play. It also helps to look up rule questions using the PDF's instead of the books which are woefully lacking in order and a table of contents.

My current record on finishing a game was 4.5 hours, though this was an Imperium Rex end at four victory points at the start of round five. One hour per round seems to be the limit on how fast the game can move though I'd love to hear any tricks that anyone else has used to speed up play.

New game recently, finallly with 6 players, it took us about 5 hours. Generally I noticed that the trick to play TI3 with certain speed is to use the downtime between turns to plan ahead, one of ours doesn't do so and generally took him three time as long as anyone lese to finish his turn.

oldthrashbarg said:

That's fair, everyone has their own tastes. For us, playing is the fun part, and we get that experience whether we go all the way to 10 VP or not (yes our famous 13 hour game was to 10 VP, not 14.) More players is more social though. I've played one 3 player game, but it just felt like the universe was so... empty. We ended up stopping before the end more out of boredom than anything else.

Personally, I quite enjoy 4-player games. 3-players makes the galaxy a little large for my tastes, but still fun. 6 is definitely better though.

Don't forget the game only plays to 9VP with the expansion, which does actually do quite a lot for shortening the game.

There's always a great group playing this on Thursdays at the FFG Event center. With 5 players, the game starts at 6:30-7 pm and moves close to Midnight.

I feel lucky to join their group of the times I've played.

yes can be done in few hours if you are all good at rules. with my friends we started a game at 8 am and finished at 10 pm, at once we started another one directly and finished it at 7 am... (of course we had lunch and dinner brake during the day and we slept very late in the following day...)

Bye

I agree, on the 1 hour per person rule for experienced players, and while the 5-6 player games have been fun (and epic) I actually really enjoy the 4 player game. I find it moves much quicker than any other amount of players and there is a lot of action. We just played this last weekened and had 1 new player who had never played before and after a slightly longer set up (including rule explanation) we were done in 4.5 hours.

I've completed over 100 games down through the years. This game is really not worth playing unless you have 6 to 8 people imo. The paradox is that makes it take longer naturally. I hate to say it but certain races really screw up the flow of the game thru delay like the terrans(1 CC = 1 Ground force for their action), and the racial skip from the Yasril(ok, I suck at spelling scifi names). That usually means the person going after them in order has to work that much harder to know what they are doing because they don't have the extra time of that persons turn to plan. The people of the Sun(whatever their names are I forget atm) have the same ability as terran to generate fighters instead of ground forces using 1 cc as their action. God help you if you have all three of those races together in a game and have any new players after the delaying races.

Be smart and make sure everyone has read the rules THOROUGHLY. A mid week short game to 6 VP for new players helps as well.