How Long Does It Take You To "Finish" A Game?

[BrotherJonathan]

I was just wondering how long it takes everyone here to actually "finish" a game (by "finish" I mean going from whenever you start until the game officially ends in 1453)? What settings do you use in terms of time, messages, etc.? I've heard the average playtime for a full game is 30-40 hours, but that figure is several years old by now.

 

[Admiral_Obvious]

Depends on the start date.

A start from the high middle ages probably takes anywhere from 30 to 60 hours or more depending on the person.

If you start from the Charmelagne start date, and plan on going all the way through to the end, it takes about 50 hours to up to 100 hours or more.

If you play on speed 5 and never pause, except for popup events, you can probably finish in a quarter of the estimated time (assuming you don't game over along the way).

 

[SgtSmuckers]

I have rarely ever played to the end date except for when I feel like doing an ironman campaign that has me wondering if I am an M. In those cases I max out the speed, ignore messages and pause only if absolutely necessary. Societies increase pop up events but add good stuff, so I'll skip a generation when it comes to joining a society to move things along.

Normally I never actually get to 1453. In regular campaigns I set goals to accomplish for a game and RP, then done as I really don't enjoy the mega empires that gobble up continents.

 

[TheRealRemus]

I am relativly new to ck2 currently with a total of 250 hours. I am playing my 3rd serious campain which I started with HF release, this one is my so far longest which I will finish until the end. Usualy I always play on sleed 3, sofar I believe that I have played 80 hours and still have 300 years to go. I have to admit that there are lots of afk hours as I tend to Pause and Think alot about what I should do, further more everybody knows that it takes so long to find brides for everybody and managing all titles etc.

my first big game as William the Bastard was a real fun Time but turned out to bore me as I lacked deeper knowledge about managing a real effectifly and mirko became to much.
my 2nd sadly had to end as I ended in an endless loop where I as deamon child was killed by my loyal servant, so it is an actual game over, sadly.

 

[Serenity84]

I basically never play to the end date. You can accomplish a lot in just 100-400 years depending on your goals (reform a certain faith. Conquer a certain amount of territory)

 

[BrotherJonathan]

I have a feeling that I should rephrase this question: how many people actually play the game through to the end to begin with?

 

[TwiddleFactor]

I have been playing CK2 since before the release when the demo came out, and have racked up thousands of hours.

In all those hours, I have yet to complete a single game. The closest I have ever come is finishing the playable time in the demo.

I usually play at speed 1 or 2, 3 when I'm waiting for a siege sometimes, and I usually only play once a week for a few hours. Most of the time I get a few hundred years into a game, and then I restart because a new dlc has come out by the time I get there. I played the same charlemagne game for 2 or 3 years before finally deciding to restart after a several month break from CK2. I was only only my 7th or 8th ruler at that point.

Most games test your reflexes or knowledge of the game in order to win. CK2 on the other hand just tests your patience an perseverence.

 

[Duskwave]

I almost always play 769-1453 unless something goes really wrong and I basically write off the playthrough. On average, each playthrough ends up around 100-120 hours I guess, if I do the math correctly? Something like that. I spend a lot of time paused checking the status of certain things around the world. Had a certain period when I first started the game where on several occasions, I played more than 100 hours per week. I extremely do not recommend doing that, by the way, though it had less direct consequences than the time 20ish years ago I literally lost an entire summer, from last day of school to first, to Civ II...

I tend to be a thorough and detail-oriented sort of person who has trouble letting things go, you could say. I think for someone less obsessive than me, 10 hours per century of play sounds like a decent rule of thumb.

 

[MentziaIII]

I have a feeling that I should rephrase this question: how many people actually play the game through to the end to begin with?

I have never gotten further than 8 reigns. The mating game , educating heirs , micro-managing favorite vassals families , the AAR in my head , working up fan art in GIMP , the game slows to a crawl.

A fun , absorbing , obsessive -compulsive crawl though.

 

[Jayavarman]

Never.

 

[Serkanner]

I am only in my fourth campaign and have 526 hours in at the moment. Every game is a story to me which needs to be fully played out. I pause a lot to marry off characters and build their stories in my mind. Great fun.

 

[MrReaper182]

Forever. My last game was played from 1080 to the end date on one speed through the whole of the game and I only played it on Sunday's. So as you can guess that to me many months to complete.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

I'm thinking of playing on speed 2 with minimal pop-ups and pausing (I think this is how they do multiplayer tournaments).

 

[jonjowett]

I've owned the game practically since release, and I've never reached the end date. The closest I ever got was my recent de Boulogne achievement run, where I got to the early 1400s. (I had to wait for two kingdoms of Jerusalem to fall before I could win my own crusade and switch character as required for the achievement.)

Basically, I find the game to be really uninteresting once you get big enough to take on the entire world at the same time (via defensive pacts) and win. (Depending on where you are in the world, this is usually approx 2-3 de jure empires.) At that point, wars are just tedious and you can tell that there's no-one on the map who can stop you.

I've tried several different tactics to get me past this stage, but none of them really worked. As noted above, the new crusade mechanism got me closer than ever before (because you can start again with a threatened kingdom rather than a massive empire). Releasing kingdoms around the edge of my empire is just annoying because they almost always disintegrate. If anyone has any other ideas or tactics for prolonging their interest to the end of the game, I'd be glad to hear them!

 

[makaramus]

4 of my runs in a row had 15 minute length counts? (yea you know what happened)

 

[vicbus]

I have only done a single campaign up to the end date, and I started it in the 1200's. I tend to get bored of my characters after the 4th generation or so.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

430-plus hours on my first and current game to 1385 so far...

 

[peleliu]

Forever. I always use the 769 start and an average game year for me runs about 2 to 2.5 hours IRL. So, about 9-12 months IRL for a full campaign, but of course the fates are rarely that kind to my dynasty. I micro pretty much everything and run with all message pop ups turned on so I know what is going on pretty much all over the world. I also check in on everyone in my court on the first of each month just to see how I can best exploit...I mean care for them.

 

[Toleora]

Im a absolute map painter and its the only reason i play this game

So i play every game until enddate and trying to paint it all in my color and hold it together it's so much fun

I usually play on speed 5 without pausing and minimal pop ups because I don't give a shit about the flavor texts and only have interests in fast wars.

 

[afrodius]

Never made it all the way through. I usually get too powerful and become bored, or a new dlc comes out. I think I've started 6 campaigns so far since holy fury dropped just to explore different aspects of the dlc. One time I kinda got to the end by going into observer mode when I got bored and just letting the game play itself for like a week on speed 5 to see if my empire would still survive. I have a much better rig now though so it would probably be faster if I were to try that again.