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After my last post about Dominion, in which I was talking about how it's pleasingly easy to fit into small gaps of time, some of y'all were unconvinced by my claim that it's consistent timewise, and I was given a challenge.
"Try one game with Witch, Militia and Village, another with Chapel, Mine and Smithy. Then try one with Throne Room, Workshop and Gardens.
I would expect them to play out utterly differently, and for the first to take at least twice as long as the other two!
...
How about these eight cards: Woodcutter, Chancellor, Market, Adventurer, Moat, Village, Workshop, Mine; then add Witch+Militia,Chapel+Smithy or Throne Room+Gardens for three contrasting games?"
I timed only the game play time, not the set up or scoring time, and in fact we played two of the games back to back so that was a good decision. In all three games, we got to the first reshuffle at 20seconds in, indicating that there's some consistency? I'm not sure how interesting that is.
Our first game, with Witch & Militia, took 8 minutes 36 seconds. Second, with Chapel & Smithy, took 9 minutes 41 seconds. Our third, with Throne Room & Gardens, took 6 minutes and 26 seconds. In all games there was a gap of 5 minutes between first Province purchase and end of game, that was consistent.
So, one of the games was about 50% longer than one of the others, but it wasn't the predicted game! And set up/scoring is a significant proportion of the time, hence my feeling that it's a 20 minute game rather than a 10 minute game. But the predicted long game really wasn't.
"Try one game with Witch, Militia and Village, another with Chapel, Mine and Smithy. Then try one with Throne Room, Workshop and Gardens.
I would expect them to play out utterly differently, and for the first to take at least twice as long as the other two!
...
How about these eight cards: Woodcutter, Chancellor, Market, Adventurer, Moat, Village, Workshop, Mine; then add Witch+Militia,Chapel+Smithy or Throne Room+Gardens for three contrasting games?"
I timed only the game play time, not the set up or scoring time, and in fact we played two of the games back to back so that was a good decision. In all three games, we got to the first reshuffle at 20seconds in, indicating that there's some consistency? I'm not sure how interesting that is.
Our first game, with Witch & Militia, took 8 minutes 36 seconds. Second, with Chapel & Smithy, took 9 minutes 41 seconds. Our third, with Throne Room & Gardens, took 6 minutes and 26 seconds. In all games there was a gap of 5 minutes between first Province purchase and end of game, that was consistent.
So, one of the games was about 50% longer than one of the others, but it wasn't the predicted game! And set up/scoring is a significant proportion of the time, hence my feeling that it's a 20 minute game rather than a 10 minute game. But the predicted long game really wasn't.
