Your Longest Game

moofrank wrote:

25 hours over a long weekend is my record. The game is Star Saga I, which isn't STRICTLY a board game. More of a computer moderated multi-player paragraph game.

We also did Star Saga 1 and 2 in sessions over a few months a 4 or 5 years back. We logged perhaps 40 hours.

And I'll be ready to play again in a few years. After I've forgotten enough.

As to traditional games, we did actually complete a game of City of Chaos in 11 hours. It woefully outlived its fun.

Both games are actually fairly close in structure. They are like giant, terrifying versions of Tales of the Arabian Nights, with a more focused plot consisting of fewer repeating elements.

Star Saga I and II include (collectively) 30 Tales-sized booklets. Some of the paragraphs go for a page or more. Combined with this is a diceless combat system where any of the attack and defense weapons have a mystery value for each combat. Obtaining the weapons becomes an obsession that involves complex Settlers style trading with the other players

wow Star Saga sounds like wild stuff.

Ftf the longest one was a all the way to the end game of POG with a friend of mine. Like 8 or 9 hours I'd say? PBEM... well let's just say that's a different story.

Michael Barnes wrote:

I don't see how people are hitting such long playtimes with modern games like STARCRAFT or TI3...I understand if everybody's new and it's kind of a casual thing, but most new games have timing elements that sort of cap how long they can go. I've never played a game of TI3 that went over six hours and I don't see how it could- particularly if you play with the accelerated early turns.

But that's exactly it. In the age of the "cult of the new" games only get one chance to prove themselves. Bunch of new players sit down to TI3, only one or two of them have read the rules and before you know it it's 2.a.m., the leader is only on 6VP, everyone's fed up and the game is pronounced "unplayable" and "broken", and taken off the shelf to be replaced with "Ticket to Ride XXMMIVI: Starfarers of Steam". They never find out that once you've got a game or two under your belt the play time becomes much more manageable.

MattDP wrote:

But that's exactly it. In the age of the "cult of the new" games only get one chance to prove themselves. Bunch of new players sit down to TI3, only one or two of them have read the rules and before you know it it's 2.a.m., the leader is only on 6VP, everyone's fed up and the game is pronounced "unplayable" and "broken", and taken off the shelf to be replaced with "Ticket to Ride XXMMIVI: Starfarers of Steam". They never find out that once you've got a game or two under your belt the play time becomes much more manageable.

I don't understand why people would try to play a learning game with near the max number of players. Most complaints about BSG have been people trying to play a 6 player 6 hour learning game. I can't imagine sitting down with 6 or 8 players trying to learn Ti3. I think the best way to learn a game is to solo it first. Then play with close to min. number of players as your learning game. Then add it extras.

Longest completed game - Advanced Civilization with 6 players (20 years ago) over 6 hours.

2 years ago - My first game of Ti3 (6 hours with smoke breaks)

Last year - Arkham Horror with every expansion and 7 players (5 hours with smoke breaks)

Coming up - Probably Here I Stand

Felt like the longest game ever - Outpost

Played the whole of the WWII Russian front using the GDW games Drang Nach Osten! and Unentschieden!, we had 3 permanent players on each side plus a couple of 'floaters' who filled in for holidays/sickness etc.

Something like 25 square feet of map and 3000+ counters, we played for about 10 hours/week in 1 or 2 sessions and it took us about 6 months.

I half wish I still had the stamina & space to do it again

KingPut wrote:

Last year - Arkham Horror with every expansion and 7 players (5 hours with smoke breaks)

Oh yeah, at a local convention last July, we had a 8-player game of Arkham Horror with every expansion (except Black Goat) that lasted something like six hours. We started with five players, and then I kept inviting spectators to jump into the game. Some people couldn't stay for the whole thing, so when they dropped out, I would recruit another spectator into the game. Most of the spectators that joined in hadn't previously played. It was great. My character got the killing blow during the final battle, but we couldn't have won without the courageous sacrifice of one of those new guys.

I think my longest game was the game of 2nd Fleet that I played where we started sometime in the afternoon and ended sometime right around Midnight. The armistice came to fruition as my Carrier Battle Group was about in position to pound the commie bastards mercilessily (isn't that just like the diplomats too....Give up the ship just as the ship is about ready to lay some serious hurt on folks). The game did make for a pretty good action report on the other site though.

I think my second longest game was the game of Axis and Allies that lasted through the night.

Not my longest but it felt like was the second game of Trivial Pursuit that we played in a night. It was late, we probably shouldn't have started the game but we knew the end was near when the question, "What grows in paddies?" was answered by, "Dead Marines".

Longest for us was one of our earliest TI3 games. I think it ran just over 8 hours.

If poker tournaments count then well over 10 hours.

Most recent longish game was a first play of Android that went a touch past 4 hours.

-MMM

Probably Axis and Allies though I can't name a specific session. We often started around 6 or 7 and play through until midnight or 1 a.m. Usually 5-player games.

Wikipedia has a nice article on it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Saga

And most important:

Go here:
www.resonant.org/games/starsaga/
and pull all of the .zip files. Includes the original DOS program, as well as an HTML directory, and a basic CGI so that you can read any paragraph in both games by typing in the number.

You could run a game online like a PBM if you had a web-based Dosbox that could stay on and run the interface.

I should add there was complimentary pizza, raffles, and vendors hawking their wares at TABSCon when we were playing/learning Starcraft that one time. So that cut into it.

With all the latest and the greatest in the board game industry hitting us (and my pocket book) weekly, unless I am playing Euros, I am in a constant state of rules learning. After all you only need to learn how to auction once and thats 2-3 pages of every Mayfair and Alea produced rulebook.

And since I'm the only one buying these things in 3 separate social circles, I am the Keeper of the Rules. I gotta figure out a way to rework this...