10 ticks per day too slow?

[Jak9090]

does anyone else think this is too slow for a literaelly GRAND scaled strategy game set in space, i think the tempo should atleast match that of Eu4 and CK2, rather then a world war conflict which lasted like 10 years, unless i'm misunderstanding and this is used only for combat? idk can any dev clarify what the pasage of time will be like, cause it's critical for immersion and will be a make it or break it point for myself, and probs others, thank u

 

[King Ari]

Well when they said x ticks it wasn't set in stone yet... So they probably won't say anything again till its balanced out

 

[VI Imre]

The game time-scale is supposed to be a few thousand Earth-years. I mean that's a lot of ticks...
Even one tick an Earth-week results in a longer game than Eu4.

 

[EU3NOOB]

The game time-scale is supposed to be a few thousand Earth-years. I mean that's a lot of ticks...
Even one tick an Earth-week results in a longer game than Eu4.

Except that there isn't an end date, so that could theoretically be infinite.

 

[VI Imre]

Eu4 is (1821-1444)*365 ticks at the moment. It takes roughly 30-50 hours for one playthrough. That is about 2 hours of gameplay for 3 weeks.

If Paradox can't achive something similar, most games won't even leave exploration phase. If you play 3000 Earth-years that is 3000*365*10 ticks. A tad more...

 

[Jak9090]

Well when they said x ticks it wasn't set in stone yet... So they probably won't say anything again till its balanced out

yeah, i just wanted to make sure this issue was raised before it was set in stone haha.

 

[Gaussia]

10 ticks per day would make the games span maybe around 100 years. Personally I had hoped for something like 1000 or better still 10,000 years. History on a galactic scale just can't just be limited to the life span of an old human.

The only problem is that you would have tp replace character of low life span species quite often if you have a couple of 1000 years.

 

[Thure]

10 ticks per day would make the games span maybe around 100 years. Personally I had hoped for something like 1000 or better still 10,000 years. History on a galactic scale just can't just be limited to the life span of an old human.

The only problem is that you would have tp replace character of low life span species quite often if you have a couple of 1000 years.

There is no end date. So you can play even 1000 years if you have the time for this.

The point is... galactic warfare is fast. You have fast weapons and can travel fast in a star system. So it has to be small/slow ticks.

 

[aitaituo]

There is no end date. So you can play even 1000 years if you have the time for this.

The point is... galactic warfare is fast. You have fast weapons and can travel fast in a star system. So it has to be small/slow ticks.

Bullets are fast. Much faster than 2.4 hours. Most bullets can kill someone in that time. If we want to really see the individual lasers, we'll need nanosecond turns.

 

[Peppiniello]

They could design a system where, at faster speed, the timespan becomes faster. Say, speed 1= 10 ticks per day, speed 2= 1 per day, speed 3= 1 per week etc... this way you could play space warfare on a speed that makes sense (hours) and colonization on one that makes sense too ( years).

edit: I realize that this could make things really complicated by event and mechanics design point of view.

 

[BeauNiddle]

They could design a system where, at faster speed, the timespan becomes faster. Say, speed 1= 10 ticks per day, speed 2= 1 per day, speed 3= 1 per week etc... this way you could play space warfare on a speed that makes sense (hours) and colonization on one that makes sense too ( years).

edit: I realize that this could make things really complicated by event and mechanics design point of view.

I agree with this idea, or at least add more speed options. I just upgraded my computer and EU4 on 5 speed is too fast to respond to things so I either run at speed 2 (battle) or speed 4 (peace). The differences between speed 1-3 don't seem very noticeable to me. 4 is manageable for time passing but slightly slow and 5 is too uncontrolled (I was in the practice of hitting space any time I saw a popup - so turning on auto pause just meant I unpaused the game.)

 

[Jak9090]

I agree with this idea, or at least add more speed options. I just upgraded my computer and EU4 on 5 speed is too fast to respond to things so I either run at speed 2 (battle) or speed 4 (peace). The differences between speed 1-3 don't seem very noticeable to me. 4 is manageable for time passing but slightly slow and 5 is too uncontrolled (I was in the practice of hitting space any time I saw a popup - so turning on auto pause just meant I unpaused the game.)

That would be good but i wonder if the game would be balanced running at so many different time spans, eg hours, days, weeks, cause i don't think this is done with a paradox game before?

 

[QueenoftheIsles]

Isn't there sort of a soft "end-date" with the end-game disasters though? At some point, due to technological advancements, various disasters will occur, and if you haven't progressed enough... they essentially equal end-game. If you beat them, woohoo, you can keep playing I guess... but the total number of average ticks before disasters start occurring is important, because that is how much time you have to prep for said disaster to attempt to not die from it.

 

[Finnway]

IMO each tick should last at least a week. But then you get into the problem where space battles last for months. But that's no different from CK2 and EU4 where even small battles last for weeks. Either way, this is something that can easily be changed later in development. So there's no pressure for them to change it now.

 

[Velorian]

Except that there isn't an end date, so that could theoretically be infinite.

There may not be an end date as such but there is still a limit to how long a player could reasonably play the same game, even those that like marathon-length games (I do).

It's mostly the issue of whether there'll still be new techs, and whether things realistically avoid getting "settled" into someone winning without the player intentionally prolonging things.

Also populations need to increase at a good pace compared to real world time for the sake of gameplay, without causing the game to have populations double each decade because time just had to go slow.

 

[Harle]

The slowest speed of the game doesn't say anything about the fastest speed of the game. Just because there is a higher granularity doesn't mean it's going to be a slow game, it just means it can be slower when you want it to be slower, and faster when you want it to be faster.

I don't particularly want fleet battles to take weeks to resolve. I mean, we're talking about futuristic high-tech weaponry, in a super hostile environment that is very friendly to long-range engagements. Things are gonna get real, very fast.

The system is fine. Especially since whether you call it 'hours' or 'days' or weeks' it doesn't really matter. if they changed it to '10 ticks per week' instead, the only thing that would change would be the date in the top of the screen, the rest of the game would be entirely unaffected. Unless you are suggesting they make adjustments to how quickly things like ships move in order to make up for the change. At which point, ehhhh no.

 

[aitaituo]

The slowest speed of the game doesn't say anything about the fastest speed of the game. Just because there is a higher granularity doesn't mean it's going to be a slow game, it just means it can be slower when you want it to be slower, and faster when you want it to be faster.

I think the high granularity does mean it's going to be a slow game. Each tick is essentially a turn, so even if you design the length of important actions to occur, say, every 100 ticks on average, it doesn't mean you get to ignore ticks 2 to 100. You still potentially have an individual important action occurring every turn. If you're a very meticulous player like me, then you may pause to intervene 30 or 40 times in what's supposed to be the equivalent of an EUIV month.

 

[Jak9090]

I think the high granularity does mean it's going to be a slow game. Each tick is essentially a turn, so even if you design the length of important actions to occur, say, every 100 ticks on average, it doesn't mean you get to ignore ticks 2 to 100. You still potentially have an individual important action occurring every turn. If you're a very meticulous player like me, then you may pause to intervene 30 or 40 times in what's supposed to be the equivalent of an EUIV month.

that's my fear tbh, and like someone mentioned if the game is DESIGNED around hours passing rather then weeks, then we got that strange situation we see in things like distant worlds where like in a couple of years millions or billions of people have been born on some planets...

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I think the high granularity does mean it's going to be a slow game. Each tick is essentially a turn, so even if you design the length of important actions to occur, say, every 100 ticks on average, it doesn't mean you get to ignore ticks 2 to 100. You still potentially have an individual important action occurring every turn. If you're a very meticulous player like me, then you may pause to intervene 30 or 40 times in what's supposed to be the equivalent of an EUIV month.

It's very likely that the only actions that occur at the shortest time scale are battles, over which we have little control. So the small time ticks are only there to watch a battle unfold and decide if you need to attempt a retreat. If you aren't fighting a battle, there really shouldn't be a need to intervene at this time scale.

Put it this way, if everything except space battles is only updated every 10 ticks (or more), then apart from the nice explosions, it's the same timescale as EU4.

Edit: I will say that Paradox games have a terrible habit of encouraging abuse of the pause in single player. A lot of the levers in the game are like little clocks that count down until you are allowed to pull on that lever again, and the game rules are set up that you are wasting resources unless you pull on that lever *immediately*. There not enough support for queuing actions or enough benefit for letting the lever be in a rest state. I find that when I am in a mood to maximize things, it results in a very disjointed game flow.

 

[ThatJamesguy01]

It's very likely that the only actions that occur at the shortest time scale are battles, over which we have little control. So the small time ticks are only there to watch a battle unfold and decide if you need to attempt a retreat. If you aren't fighting a battle, there really shouldn't be a need to intervene at this time scale.

Put it this way, if everything except space battles is only updated every 10 ticks (or more), then apart from the nice explosions, it's the same timescale as EU4.

Bear in mind casualties happen a number of ticks per day in EU4, what I expect is something like this.

Lowest speed - ticks 1/10 of a day - matches combat damage ticks
Next speed - Ticks 2/10 a day or 5/10 of a day - more like euiv on speed 1 ish
next speed - ticks daily and has combat tick at the same as euiv
next speed - same as speed 3 for eu
next speed same as speed 4 for eu or speed 5

Generally you'd use the two highest for peace time, and the two lowest for combat in Singleplayer, and in multiplayer youd play at speed 2 or 3 most of the time, and speed one for major wars.