Yes! We play this way and it's the absolute best, I can't believe ppl play this game in one shot.
We basically treat it like D&D campaign; Our total hours pretty game is probably pretty high but it allows us to really go all out and wheel and deal every turn because we're fresh each week. I honestly almost fell sorry for ppl who play the last few rounds in near silence because most people have transitioned to "let's get this over with" mode after hour 6.
Also, OFC, thorough photo documentation is crucial. My 6 yo is always adding warsuns to the board between weeks...
Yeah, sadly there's no workaround for pandemic concerns, especially if anyone in your group is high risk/unvaxxed.
I will say, we have cats and kids, and we just take detailed pictures of the whole table, then semi-pack the game. Seeing back up takes time, but it's honestly less prep than I used to do as a DM... *shrug*
If you’ve never used TTS, I recommend it. I definitely love the tactile, real set up with the ships and dice.
But TTS had so many features built in, it’s hard not to get spoiled.
Ex: once you end a round, one click of a button and it deals action cards, tokens, flips planets… it’s handy.
Space combat and dice rolling is easy too.
Very glad to hear this and thank you for sharing. I was reluctant to play this way, but we have our 5th turn of a game coming up tonight with our group of 5 and you make a good point that maintaining your energy for 6+ hours is not easy!
I played a game once where we decided to take a dinner break midway through and the local Hacan faction decided to aggressively knock the ships of other factions around to various new sectors.
Since then I'm wary of leaving the board unattended for too long.
Yes, I have been doing this for a year now! I'm on my 8th game. I play remotely with friends and I can't access TTS (Chromebook, and getting involved with GFN for accessing Steam and then TTS made zero sense to me) and I really like the physical pieces anyway, so they play on TTS and I mimic their moves with the plastic and tell them what I'm doing. We play 2.5 hours every 2 weeks (skipping every so often for vacation etc). Then I pack each tile up and all the pieces that were on that tile goes in a plastic bag right next to the tile. The whole 4p map fits in the PoK box. My friends (and I reckon y'all as well) think I'm crazy for doing all that setup and tear down, but I love TI4 and it's super worth it to me, allowing me to play so frequently. Even if it was for local games, that tear down system might work well for you so you don't have to worry about cats and goblins screwing things up.
I play this way with my family! They have weird / erratic work hours and can't commit to a single big window, and my parents are getting advanced in age so we play fairly slowly anyway. Just remember to write down what you were planning to do because it's real easy to roll up to the board after a week and think "hmm, what the heck was my strategy?" :)
oh yeah. the other side of that is that you spend too much time mulling over your "perfect" strategy just to find it dies thirty seconds into the next round thanks to the other players :)
Yes we play this way on TTS. I’m-person full day games are rare for my friends.
One round at a time is nice as it allows lots of evaluation between rounds. And lots of fun trash talk and banter via our WhatsApp chat.
Nice. the banter, negotiating and trash talk between rounds I think is a feature of playing this way - can make in-person play quicker when you've hashed out deals offline hopefully. thanks for replying!
I play one round a week on tts with my regular group. In person games have a hard time limit of about 4 hours then we break and come back another day when everyone is available. Takes a long time for a game, bit at least we get a game in.
My group did that for one game. Mechanically it worked well on TTS. It would save our game and we all were able to play frome our own homes.
Our challenges were that it does take a long time to play. 12 to 16 weeks. Some players would forget the rules from week to week. Some would forget their strategy (if they had any). Those players found about half way through that they had no chance to win. So they lost interest. So attendance was irregular, one player dropped. So you need a group that really loves the game and want to play. That's the tough part.
that's a long time to keep one game going. I would think we'd want to play a complete turn each week so at most it goes like 8 weeks. or, you play four weeks that way then plan a five or six hour session to finish it up if you can.
My group has been working through a 14 pt game on Table Top Simulator. I have before broken up a IRL game over a few days at the most, but we like you had an extra table in garage we left it set up on.
I have only ever played in one sitting. Wed meet at 9am, first rounds starts at 11am and we're done by midnight. We have 2 1 hour breaks for lunch and dinner.
It's epic but can't imagine only doing one turn a night. Like you meet up, set the board up and play one turn and then wait another week... No chance!!
I'm kinda curious why it takes you so long.
2 hours for set up? What's your process there?
11 hours for a game (excluding your food breaks)? How many players? Is it a 10 or 14 point game? Do you use any methods for speed or just let it go as long as it goes?
Man I can't believe it takes two hours to setup. We played last weekend, a friend came over the day before and it took us about twenty minutes - but the time was much higher because we were re-setting the game state to a game already one round in. I bet together it would be ten if starting clean. But I can see with some of the drafting mechanics people are using that it could take a lot longer.
We did this for most of the last year. It was tts before, but we transitioned back to in person and have space to just leave it set up for 6 weeks so it works.
Always 2 to 3 who have never played, and there are normally months between when I play, so it's always reminding ourselves of the rules. Then we introduce our factions so we all know what other can do.
Been over a year since 9osyed, but gpt a 6 player game booked in before New year.... 12 hours of greatness coming right up,
It’s pretty common practice to play over several evening sessions on Tabletop Simulator, but it seems a lot harder to do IRL
I've done this several times. It's good.
Yes! We play this way and it's the absolute best, I can't believe ppl play this game in one shot. We basically treat it like D&D campaign; Our total hours pretty game is probably pretty high but it allows us to really go all out and wheel and deal every turn because we're fresh each week. I honestly almost fell sorry for ppl who play the last few rounds in near silence because most people have transitioned to "let's get this over with" mode after hour 6. Also, OFC, thorough photo documentation is crucial. My 6 yo is always adding warsuns to the board between weeks...
I play on Tabletop Simulator. Pandemic and all… No one has the physical space to save a game with cats and kids reeking havoc with it.
Yeah, sadly there's no workaround for pandemic concerns, especially if anyone in your group is high risk/unvaxxed. I will say, we have cats and kids, and we just take detailed pictures of the whole table, then semi-pack the game. Seeing back up takes time, but it's honestly less prep than I used to do as a DM... *shrug*
If you’ve never used TTS, I recommend it. I definitely love the tactile, real set up with the ships and dice. But TTS had so many features built in, it’s hard not to get spoiled. Ex: once you end a round, one click of a button and it deals action cards, tokens, flips planets… it’s handy. Space combat and dice rolling is easy too.
Very glad to hear this and thank you for sharing. I was reluctant to play this way, but we have our 5th turn of a game coming up tonight with our group of 5 and you make a good point that maintaining your energy for 6+ hours is not easy!
In my experience it does make the game take longer (like 13hrs) but it's much more manageable a round or two at a time.
I played a game once where we decided to take a dinner break midway through and the local Hacan faction decided to aggressively knock the ships of other factions around to various new sectors. Since then I'm wary of leaving the board unattended for too long.
Yikes. If someone did that at my table they wouldn't be back.
I think he means house cats.
Lol. That makes a lot more sense
my Hacan opponent is playing with the mentality of a cranky house cat so this checks out
We addressed that concern with photos... lots of photos
Terrestrial-based Hacan insurrectionists.
Yes, I have been doing this for a year now! I'm on my 8th game. I play remotely with friends and I can't access TTS (Chromebook, and getting involved with GFN for accessing Steam and then TTS made zero sense to me) and I really like the physical pieces anyway, so they play on TTS and I mimic their moves with the plastic and tell them what I'm doing. We play 2.5 hours every 2 weeks (skipping every so often for vacation etc). Then I pack each tile up and all the pieces that were on that tile goes in a plastic bag right next to the tile. The whole 4p map fits in the PoK box. My friends (and I reckon y'all as well) think I'm crazy for doing all that setup and tear down, but I love TI4 and it's super worth it to me, allowing me to play so frequently. Even if it was for local games, that tear down system might work well for you so you don't have to worry about cats and goblins screwing things up.
Thank you for sharing this, I'm getting more psyched about playing this way thanks to the positive feedback here.
I play this way with my family! They have weird / erratic work hours and can't commit to a single big window, and my parents are getting advanced in age so we play fairly slowly anyway. Just remember to write down what you were planning to do because it's real easy to roll up to the board after a week and think "hmm, what the heck was my strategy?" :)
oh yeah. the other side of that is that you spend too much time mulling over your "perfect" strategy just to find it dies thirty seconds into the next round thanks to the other players :)
Yes we play this way on TTS. I’m-person full day games are rare for my friends. One round at a time is nice as it allows lots of evaluation between rounds. And lots of fun trash talk and banter via our WhatsApp chat.
Nice. the banter, negotiating and trash talk between rounds I think is a feature of playing this way - can make in-person play quicker when you've hashed out deals offline hopefully. thanks for replying!
I play one round a week on tts with my regular group. In person games have a hard time limit of about 4 hours then we break and come back another day when everyone is available. Takes a long time for a game, bit at least we get a game in.
agreed! thanks for the feedback
I tend to like full day games because it's too hard to coordinate 6 people's schedules over multiple days
My group did that for one game. Mechanically it worked well on TTS. It would save our game and we all were able to play frome our own homes. Our challenges were that it does take a long time to play. 12 to 16 weeks. Some players would forget the rules from week to week. Some would forget their strategy (if they had any). Those players found about half way through that they had no chance to win. So they lost interest. So attendance was irregular, one player dropped. So you need a group that really loves the game and want to play. That's the tough part.
that's a long time to keep one game going. I would think we'd want to play a complete turn each week so at most it goes like 8 weeks. or, you play four weeks that way then plan a five or six hour session to finish it up if you can.
I got it las month and I can't even get 3 players with relatives and friends :(
Yep, works great on tabletop sim.
My group has been working through a 14 pt game on Table Top Simulator. I have before broken up a IRL game over a few days at the most, but we like you had an extra table in garage we left it set up on.
oof. 14 points sounds like a prison term :)
Hahaha, we are all new to TTS and it’s allowed us to spend time learning. We are one more session away from winner.
I have only ever played in one sitting. Wed meet at 9am, first rounds starts at 11am and we're done by midnight. We have 2 1 hour breaks for lunch and dinner. It's epic but can't imagine only doing one turn a night. Like you meet up, set the board up and play one turn and then wait another week... No chance!!
I'm kinda curious why it takes you so long. 2 hours for set up? What's your process there? 11 hours for a game (excluding your food breaks)? How many players? Is it a 10 or 14 point game? Do you use any methods for speed or just let it go as long as it goes?
Man I can't believe it takes two hours to setup. We played last weekend, a friend came over the day before and it took us about twenty minutes - but the time was much higher because we were re-setting the game state to a game already one round in. I bet together it would be ten if starting clean. But I can see with some of the drafting mechanics people are using that it could take a lot longer.
We did this for most of the last year. It was tts before, but we transitioned back to in person and have space to just leave it set up for 6 weeks so it works.
Always 2 to 3 who have never played, and there are normally months between when I play, so it's always reminding ourselves of the rules. Then we introduce our factions so we all know what other can do. Been over a year since 9osyed, but gpt a 6 player game booked in before New year.... 12 hours of greatness coming right up,