I've been wondering lately, with all the discussions on economy balance and T2 rushes, how people think a game of PA should play out. I have no idea on Ubers final vision of the game but I am curious to what the rest of the community thinks. A few questions to consider would be: How long should an average game go for; 1v1 single planet, multiple planets, 2v2's? At what stage should t2 and orbital be viable. When should expansion and economy management become redundant to full combat focus. There are plenty of other threads on unit balance, this one is getting an idea of what people want the pace of the game to be.
He covered that: "How long should an average game go for; 1v1 single planet, multiple planets, 2v2's?" It's a multiple-answer quiz.
Exactly, you can have a quickie 5 minute game under the right starts, but you can also have 3 hour epics where the number 1000 means a standard infantry division, one of 10 in your interplanetary empire. But as for the standard games I have seen, 1v1's are usually 30 mins long barring a rush to orbital that can stretch it to over an hour. 2v2's are usually about 45 mins to an hour and a half long. Based on my experience.
I think it's really down to personal preference. I quite like 20-30 minute 1v1s but 30-50 minute 1v1s can be really fun if you're in the mood for it. Similar or + 10 minutes for 2v2s. Multiple planets I would like to be short and sweet around 30 minutes but also really epic battles 1.5-2 hours.
Consolidation vs expansion should always be an ongoing issue with no clear cut bias towards either. That basically sums up my answers to the questions of the OP.
As far as 1v1 goes I prefer playing and watching games of about 15-25 minutes in length. Ideally for me a single planet 1v1 game would go like this. The first 5 minutes would be economy, scouting and t1 raiding forces. 5-10 minutes: Battles with t1 armies trying to expand and deciding when to build my t2 10-15 minutes: Mixing in t2 units and starting t2 economy, t1 battles on multiple fronts 15-25 minutes: Have lots of t2 eco and t2 factories, focus is entirely on the battle and trying to slot a nuke or two somewhere in there. 2v2 and orbital games would go longer of course. The pace of the game is tied in heavily with system design, in particular metal distribution, as to how fast the armies are built and the transitions to t2 etc.
-2 minutes: Look at the starting planet. Decide if where you want to start and what strategical implications that have if you are weak to ship bombardment, can defend easily and in which directions you can expand. 0-1 minutes:Send out the initial scout that you got with the egg and start working on energy plants and mexes. Good luck! Have fun! 1-3 minutes: If the enemy started right next to you, you would have found him by now so when you make your first factory you at least know if you started close to your opponent or not. Send out potential initial harassment forces. 3-6 minutes: Send out harassment forces and decide if you want to go for light and mobile forces or go for heavier and slower tanks. 6-15 minutes: Decide if you want to focus heavily on t1 forces, map control, go orbital or go t2. If you caught your enemy with the pants down you can end the game right there with a massive push of t1 tanks. 15-25 minutes: If you haven't gone t2 or orbital by now you are seriously starting to have trouble now as the enemy t2 economy is kicking in and you risk being left behind alone on this planet. What initially might have been a stand off between armies of tanks and defensive turrets are now fully engaged in battle as advanced bots are kiting and flanking the massive armies of t1 and t2 tanks are located centrally where their concentrated firepower is best put to use without risking to be overrun by lighter tanks or bots while long range artillery rain down fire from behind. Nukes starts to come online and a successful anti-nuke snipes can open up bases to nuclear strikes. 35-45 minutes: The fighting continues on other contested planets. Orbital units can potentially snipe commanders unless the player have orbital presence or serious ground to orbital defence. The best defence for the commander is keeping him hidden on a controlled asteroid. Halleys starts to go up and players have the option to start smashing asteroids into planets or put them in orbit around other planets to rain down nukes or use unit cannons. If a planet is bombarded with a big enough asteroid or many small asteroid it turns into an inhabitable lava planet and is essentially put out of play. 45-60 minutes: Economies starts to diminish as asteroids smash into planets, destroying all the economy on those orbital bodies. 60-80 minutes: Both players are left with a few habitable asteroids. The asteroids can enter orbit around each other to allow nuke and unit cannon bombardment or they can smash into each other with the destruction of both of the asteroids. The player that manages to keep their commander alive on the last piece of space debris win.
Some people will get very bored playing hour long games, but I think it would be admirable to have a game that can last both five and fifty minutes depending on the map that you play on. Though personally I can't concentrate too well in longer games because it can be repetitive and aimless.
I, on the other hand, enjoy 1-3 hour games. I like how more strategy is required to break defenses once players have established themselves and economy becomes an non-issue. You have to wear each other down until the other is exhausted and overwhelmed. I favor the total annihilation mode of game play that does not currently exist in PA; this eliminates commander sniping as a game wining strategy and forces games into long battles.
I simply want the pace of the game to be slow enough so that I can still keep track of what is going on, but fast enough that it does not take too much time. Therefore I have to say that the pace of the game depends entirely on how demanding the micro and macro management is, how fast units move and how fast I am expected to make decisions. I'd like to keep the hour maximum for matches, if possible keep it around 30-40 minutes average. All throughout the game you are making critical decisions, but about half of the time you are making strategic decisions and gathering information, but the other half of the time you should have room to make tactical and economic decisions because the strategy and information gathering evolves as time passes and, for the most part, doesn't require constant attention. I don't want to need to make a decision more than once every 10 seconds; too much of that and I get overwhelmed and lose simply because my opponent has a higher APM than me, or I win simply because i have a higher APM than my opponent.
