How many PBEM games is enough?

duMa · March 23, 2002, 06:21

I was just wondering... and would like to see some advice from some of the veterans out there:

How many PBEM games are you playing and how many PBEM games do you think is 'enough' for one person to handle?

Do you stagger your games? Start one in January, another in June, instead of 4 in January?

I want to play more, but I don't want to make SMAC a full time job in a year when the turns require that much more attention. So, I reach out my floppy ears to the voices of the aged.

Thx.

(Heh, would a moderator be so kind as to add a '0' option to the poll? Thx)

Radman · March 23, 2002, 10:15

How many SMAC games are too many?

Two quick opinions, first, you have too many if you can't meet your obligations of movng at least once per day!

Second, you have too many games when you can't meet your obligations in your daily life!

Radman

mark13 · March 23, 2002, 10:44

Pretty much what Radman said. Googlie holds the all-time record, I think, with about 28, but that's going a bit far - I'm in half a dozen at the moment, but a lot of players I know are around the 16-18 mark. Guess it depends how much time you have on your hands

spartak · March 23, 2002, 17:02

Never having played PBEM I can't really say.

Darsnan · March 23, 2002, 19:59

I've had as many as 19, and am currently in 17, with 2 more forming up (CGN10 and "Attack of the Greenies").

John Paul Jones · March 24, 2002, 00:01

Radman summed it up for me too.
I'm currently playing 6 (although one seems to have stalled), and averaging 1 or 2 turns a day from these.

Shai-Hulud · March 24, 2002, 03:29

I don't know what else do people with 15+ games do but for me 5-10 games is more than enough. At the very beginning turns are played smoothly but if you have twenty mature games in your hands...then you can't have a job or any real other hobbies if you want to play a turn per day.

SITS · March 24, 2002, 11:56

I'm currently playing 10 at the moment and sometimes it is hard to get the turns out if they all come at once. I have two very mature games at the moment so they take up a fair bit of time. I might start a couple more when they are finished...

Darius · March 24, 2002, 18:50

As long as you're having fun with the games you're already in, go ahead and start another one if you want to. When you start stressing out, or not getting your turns out within a day or so, or not seeing your family, then that's too many games. Just try not to start a bunch of games at the same time, because then later on you will have a bunch of advanced games at the same time.

I was recently in eleven games, now ten, soon to be eleven again. As SITS said, if they all come at once, that's a lot. But with ten or so games, it usually averages out to 2-3 turns per day which is pretty manageable.

I keep hoping that if I play enough games, I will eventually become a decent player.

Googlie · March 24, 2002, 21:52

Currently I'm in 17

2 are two-player parallel games, and they sometimes turn 3 or 4 times on a weekend day (parallel games are where you start 2 games with another player simultaneously, say as the Hive and Morgan, with the other player playing, respectively, Morgan and the Hive)

5 are seven-player games, which are fast if they turn more than once a week.

Prolly, though, more than a dozen is too many. I often find myself rushing a turn to completion if it's the last one of seven or eight in the one evening, without doing due diligence (e.g. I might inadvertently leave a base stockpiling energy, or even worse, with drone problems - I once lost a defecting base to the drones under those circumastances)

G.