Time Scale

from Sins Forums
I'm sure its a moot point but Im always curious in strategy games what the general time scale is. Even though it's a "real time" game, it's obviously impractical to build an interplanetary empire and conquer vast star systems in however many hours it takes to play a game.

So just for fun, what are some opinions on the game's time scale?

*edit:  I wasnt clear on the topic, I guess.  I was not wondering how long it takes to play a game, but rather how long the little men in those spaceships perceive the game to be.  Does one minute of play time equal one year in the game, or something like that?

Im not asking for a definite answer, just some opinions on how it might work.
15,555 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
This one is going to be difficult to answer because the player has a lot of control over the game length from the option menus, play style, # players, maps, pauses, etc.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Somewhere between one and twenty hours.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
gess my original post wasnt very clear. edited it to fix that.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
since nothing in the game is exactly to scale it would be difficult to estimate how the people in the ships see the time.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Ok...
Somewhere between one hour and twenty years.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
First you'd have to define what the "1 unit of pop" really is equal to. 10 million, 100 million, a billion? This would let you decide the reproduction rate of the populace of a generic terran planet inhabited by the TEC, and thus determine how long in years every game second, minute, or hour is.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
that, is a good idea.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think you can really assign a time scale to the game, no matter what you base it on it won't make sense in one way or another. Like most games, it's abstract to make it easier on the player.

If you want to make something up, that's fine, but you might as well pick whatever timescale you like best and forget trying to base it on anything in the game.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I don't think you can really assign a time scale to the game, no matter what you base it on it won't make sense in one way or another. Like most games, it's abstract to make it easier on the player.
End of quote


This is true.

To be fair, though, it seems like there is a fairly consistent (but different) timescale on the strategic and tactical levels. Clearly the population does not grow within the timescale that the battles take place, but then if it *did*, how long and boring would the game be?! Either it would go on forever, or the battles would be viewed as instantaneous within the strategic timescale, like with a turn-based 4x game.