We are looking at playing a game with colleagues. Just wondering how long a typical game takes? We are going to do real-time, and use the standard earth map. I guess we put a five minute timer on moves. Maybe 4 to 6 players.
But any idea how long a game would take? We are hoping for an hour or two.
If everyone is present it should take a lot less time than it would take to play the game with the physical pieces. The armies move for you, the defender doesn't have to throw their dice. If you learn to use the T and A buttons, much more than 3 die can be rolled with one button and battle results are instantly adjudicated.
It really is a matter of how much time each player decides to use to take their turns. Five minutes to take a turn should be more than enough time. If everyone is actively engaged.. say on Zoom, most turns won't take more than a few minutes. So given all that, I'd say in a game with 4 or 5 players, an hour seems like more than enough time under reasonable conditions. Just my opinion. Your results may vary.
I agree with M57. An in-person game with an actual board would dedicate a lot of time just for setup, and the setup here is almost automatic. And as M57 said, throwing dice is a lot faster.
If you play an open game where anyone can join, you may have a player or two who stalls on purpose, and the game could take longer, but as long as you're playing a private game with people who know each other, want to have fun, and can be reminded of their turn (via zoom, whatsapp, etc), an hour or two is definitely doable
For sure the longest amount of time that goes into a 'typical' real-time game is where I play my turn and then go to do something else while I wait, or just get distracted, and don't check back for a few minutes. So as the others said, if it's a truly live activity where the group is fully engaged with the game, there will be little to no downtime and an hour seems reasonable. Certainly two hours would seem out of the question.