I like the idea of having a configurable range of hours where the game is paused, set at game creation. As it is now, it can get tough for people who have to work and sleep to be able to stay abreast of their games. You don't want to lose them as players, so give them the option of joining games that work better for their awake time.

I'm also keen on the idea of a multiplier for passing game time. Let people choose something like 1x, 2x or 3x, or maybe even a "Speed" option that could end a game in a couple days.

Both of these options, if used together, could help people find a sweet spot for their playing styles.

I think pausing the game is a bad idea.

What I think would be cool, is a "Quick Game" option. Where the game could be played in one sitting that takes 30-90 minutes to play.

So for example, every 12 hours of current game time would equal 2 minute in "Quick Game" time.

Bigredsk10 wrote:If someone is threatening your queen, you can almost always move it away when you wake up in the morning
...
I think in general, though, it's usually really easy to see big attacks coming well in advance. Does someone have 100+ drillers headed towards your border? Is someone assembling a queen hunter sub (nav/pirate/assassin). Since you can see everything around you, the game is more about predicting your opponents moves than anything.

"Almost always," yeah. But not every time!
http://youtu.be/4uu8w02Ck1w

I seriously think it's part of the strategy, though. I for one won't be joining any games that have a nightly pause. However, I'm in favor of it being an option.
Ya know, for the faint of heart

I agree with roadkiehl, it's part of the game. You just need to make sure you have planned well enough to not get caught out. I have been caught out before where I thought I had planned well enough only to find I had been eliminated over night but I learned from that and it hasn't happened since.

I also think it has the potential to drag games out unnecessarily long.

I think having the option is a good idea as more choice means more people playing the game but I for one won't be playing any games that have a nightly pause.

It wouldn't be nice for people who live in other countries - they might have their day-night cycle reversed, so it would be paused for them during the day and not during the night.

I still really dislike this idea. I hate waiting 4 hours for a game to start, imagine my fury if I had to wait 4 hours because someone else was indulging in the luxury of sleep. There would indeed be ructions!

I work shifts, and I like that my personal life can give me an edge over my opponents. Its part of the 24/7 experience and you could use it to your advantage with some imagination.

Four days ago, one of my friends saw this game and suggested we play it, and we started up a game. Yesterday, deep into some epic combat, the 8 of us were all talking about how amazing this game is and how obsessed and addicted we all were, and we also talked about how the stress and the interruptions during the night were actually making our out-of-game lives so much worse.

Today, one of my opponents resigned, at the peak of the action, because he couldn't handle the demands of the game. His leaving shifted and unbalanced the entire game. A few hours later, another resigned.

Personally, I've been obsessed about this game the past few days, and I could hardly fall asleep because I was so addicted and excited about what was going on in the game. Add that trouble to being woken up in the middle of the night, and the resulting exhaustion has made my out-of-game life pretty terrible. I'm resigning now because I'm just so worn out from the lack of sleep the last few days, and it's really affecting my work.

This game is so amazing, but we've all concluded that we're not going to start another game like this. A couple are throwing around the idea of playing the game in shifts, or perhaps agreeing not to issue orders except in a 6-10pm window, but nothing comes close to the simplicity and effectiveness of the obvious solution: the ability to pause the game.

I came online looking for a way to pause, and was actually surprised to find people saying that you don't lose that much if you don't act or react for 8 hours. Already three times across the last two nights, I've been attacked while asleep and had to react immediately, or else I would have lost a factory or large chunk of my army, and I sure know that some of my scheduled night orders have caught my opponents off guard.

I know you guys will say that we're just taking the game too seriously. Just playing the game more casually is a counterintuitive thought that means intentionally doing worse in the game, which hadn't even crossed my mind until reading it here. And consider this: if this game is set up in a way that people who take the game seriously are literally exhausted and stressed into giving up the game, then you're losing quite a chunk of really motivated, engaged players.

It would be interesting to see some numbers on how many players check the game every 30 minutes for the first couple days, and then resign and never play again, that number might give a good clue as to the extent of this problem.

This is my new favorite game by far, but I can't play again. If I had to guess, I'd say there are undoubtedly many, many players in my situation. I pray that someday soon, I'll see a new "pause" feature rolled out, and I can bring my friends back in and we can have some more crazy times, without the addiction exhausting us.

I think its good idea to add game timezone and overnight pause as an option for rating games.
At this moment smuggler + helmsman + assassin is deadly cocktail at night.
Smuggler carry them all to the border and helmsman + assassin get to the queen.
Attack start point can be outside your sonar so u can't handle it.

War doesn't stop just because you are asleep.