during last month i feel more and more annoyed by the fact how SLOW games go in MA.
currently i have like 7 games which are newly won be me but the can not be finished due to opponent sending turns so slowly so that would takes a month to finish a game.

Having played alot of parties in hotseat i should say that i like hotseat gameplay MUCH more that online because it FASTER.In hotseat opponent can not delay turns so small map takes less that a hour to play...medium map like 2-3 hours large may be 3-4 but anyway game is finished within a day.

Playing online i had only a pair of games which was finished within a day.this is VERY annoying because it's difficult for me to remember again what the heck was going in party which was delayed a whole week or more.

Such delays annoy me so immensely so i even thought about quitting the online gameplay completely - only reasons why i stay is that i dont have enough really strong players to play hotseat with.

I send messages to several players remembering them that they should play faster and i get responses like "i am busy man i am busy with work i am busy withfamily i am busy with children" and alot of such ramblings.Dammit what a lame casuals...Maybe that is so but i as a player am not obliged to hear such pathetic excuses.So if you cant play fast dont bother sending challenges to me and btw you you are so busy why dont you go play poker instead of MA.

Now i am adressing to the hardcore players who enjoy fast games like me.I offer to make an agreement to play a map within one day.For example player who want to play with me send me a message via email or ICQ and we make an agreement : something like "this sunday from 16-00 to 20-00 we will be online all the time and lets play Anubis (for example).So it will be played like in hotseat -you make turn - i make turn..I also find it useful to send messages like (turn completed) via ICQ so the opponenet has not to check mail.Basically this will allow to play one turn (for both players) within 10-15 mins and 3 hours will be more than enouth (game might finish even faster in some cases).

With me, hotseat would take 2 hours on small, and something like 7 hours on medium map. I guess you are lucky playing me by email rather than hotseat!

Btw, "hardcore" doesnґt necessarily mean "fast!". Have you ever heard of Poastal Chess? That is Chess by snail mail. 1-2 moves/month, a game takes a year or longer, a tournament at least half a decade. Now *that* is what I call hardcore.

Also remember that opponents can be from all over the world. I have been playing MA for a couple hours at least each day, but usually when I can play (evening my time), doesn't mean that my opponents are online at the same time. So your opponents could be spending just as much time online as you, but just at different times during the day (or night).

2 wasabe - you not understood
first -if we decided "play fast" we can find optimal time for both players for example for me it will be 12 am - 3 pm for him 7 pm - 10 pm
solution can be found on sundays and holydays for example
and... the players who delay turns for 3-4 days or even a week obviously do it intenlionally not because of different times.

that's why you surrender when you have like 40% dominace. Gets the game over faster.

Is there a way to surrender? In my game vs Mrakobes it came to a point where it was very obvious that I was going to lose, and the rest was just dragging it out. But I wanted him to get credit for the win so I continued to play it out even though the outcome was certain. Hopefully in the games that I'm playing and winning, my opponents will give me the same courtesy and continue to play through to the end. But if there were a surrender option that would make some games that the outcome was obvious end more quickly.

By the way, thanks for the game mrakobes, I learned a lot!

2 Wasabe there IS option give up - you should press MENU button and choose "Surrender" option from there.
though in our WW you dont need it - i already brought you down to 30% and war is finished.btw you tactics were very good for the beginner.
2 Dryfire - only thing you ever think about is surrendering?
lol just joking
actually it not takes much time to make few extra turns to finish game if opponent sending them in time.Here i was speaking about those @#$%&s who dont send turns if they see they losing.

I fully agree with Mrakrobes... I'd love to see a game be finished in one sitting when I have the time.

The Devs have spoken about a couple things that will make it possible to have a quicker MA game (as well as alleviate the problem of dropped players). I believe they will have an optional turn timer that can be set when you challenge a player. That way you could set it really low (15 min) to insure that the game doesn't take more than an hour, or you could set it to 24 hours to make sure the game keeps moving day to day. I think that will be a big improvement. Dropped players wouldn't be a problem anymore because they will lose if they don't complete their turns in time.

I still don't know how they plan to make it fair though... what happens if you don't finish a turn in time? Do you just lose? Ouch. Maybe have a 3 strikes you're out policy... Or have a buffer clock set at the beginning that shows how much total slip time you have. This clock would count down whenever you don't finish your turn in time. It it reaches 0, you lose. For a quick game, it could be set to like half an hour. For a long term game, it could be set to 48 or 72 hours. That way if you do have something come up so you can't finish a turn, you still have a chance to play.

There are a couple other issues that would make it difficult to keep a game going that quick... one being that you have to check your email frequently. Thats a good idea to have an ICQ chat going and send a message whenever you're done with a turn. That should speed up the response time. If MA had a way to send you that message automatically, it would be even better.

Another issue... how do you know who is ready to play a quick game? There needs to be some kind of matchmaking service. Here's one idea... how about having a website where you can state that you are ready to play, and how quick you want a game's turn to be? It would be nice if it was linked to the game (clicking on that game on the website would automatically send a challenge to the player with the specified turn timer), but it wouldn't have to be. If nothing else, they could start with an IRC chat, where whoever is online can look for other people that want quick games.

How about a Fisher Clock? Each player gets a certain amount of time -could be 3 hours or 14 days- for the entire game, plus, there is some time added for each move, so you get 3 minutes or 6 hours or whatever added to your time budget whenever you move.

So, the entire time you have for all your moves combined is [x + (y*number of moves)], where x is relatively large and y is comparatively small.

I like that idea coffeedragon, it makes a lot of sense and would be fair. Hopefully everyone knows what that is (it's the type of clock used in Chess matches).

I like that idea too. =)

As for fast games, once I'm done moving (in two weeks) id be more than willing to do that as well. Warning though, I'm a newbie, lol.

so we tried this way of playing with Vano on emerald planet.We were talking via ICQ and playing in same time...started game in 11-10PM (my time GMT+3 his GMT+2 ) and finished it in 8 turns at 0-15 (my time) so actually it took exactly hour with turns being sent with 4-5 minutes pauses sometimes even less.

One of the problems we talked about is making sure you keep up with your game (checking for turns by email). One thing that could be done is have two games being played simultaneously by the two players. That way you're each doing a turn at any given time. It would last prolly just about as long as one game, but you're able to always be doing something, and you'll get two in instead of just one. I'd like to try that out sometime.

You need to press "Menu" button and then press "Surrender" button.

It works only while playing Internet game.... doesn't work in the games agaist A.I.