How Do You Shorten the Game?

[gperson2]

I’m at college and play this once a weekend, but it always starts at 4pm and goes til 5am when nobody has won and we all call it quits. We’ve been playing often enough that we know the rules, everything just moves very slowly. Are there any tricks out there for speeding things up?

[Spendo02]

Cut the table talk. 
Agree on breaks between entire game rounds (or any point) instead of discussions and debates before each country goes.  Form your strategy and then react to the best of your ability as the landscape changes.

Try to pre-plan your purchases when it isn’t your country’s turn to cut down on the decision making time when it is your turn to make purchases.

[barney]

try ozteas 41 setup

[BJCard]

You can play what I call ‘near simultaneous’.  It only works if you have 4+ people that know the rules and how to play.

Rules:
1. Prepare your buy early so everyone is not waiting on you.
2. Have plenty of dice and dice boxes to throw in.
3. If someone is not at the table for whatever reason and they have to roll dice for defense, his/her allies roll for them. 
4. One banker on Allies or Axis responsible for exchanging IPCs
5. One IPC tracker manned by a person on the opposite team of the banker to track how many IPCs each player gets in real time.

Turn 1: ‘The Axis turn’ -> Germany AND Japan do their turn together.  Japan waits for Russia to move its far east army.
Turn 2: ‘The Allies turn’ -> Russia AND USA AND UK go.  In matters where combats take place, ensure they are in correct turn order-> Russia, US, UK
Turn 3: ‘The Minor turn’ -> Italy, ANZAC, France.  Of course there are times where Italy fights ANZAC and/or France, so Italy declares its combat first.

The key is to KEEP THINGS MOVING.  Even with a couple new players our 6-7 player games can do round 1 in about 90 min with subsequent rounds in 1 hour.  With breaks when needed, we can finish a game in under 8-9 hours.  We have gone as short as 6 hours and as long as 12 hours.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[Kingpin2010]

I would say table talk is the big difference in making things take long. People lose their concentration and what not. Having your purchases made early would also be tremendous in speeding it up.

One thing to the OP is when you guys call it quits find a place to put the board where it won’t be moved or anything and pick up next week. Or you could do the long way if that’s not an option and write the pieces down and set up from that. Me and my friends are in college as well and we play once a week on Saturday nights. We have it set up on a pool table that doesn’t get touched throughout the week. It’s actually kinda cool, because those of us on each side have group chats set up on our phones where we discuss strategy all week.

[Karl7]

Crush you enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of the women… by round 4 and have both Moscow and London in your grip.

[TexCapPrezJimmy]

Maybe try Candy Land?

Man up.

[Cow]

Declare war round 1. Be aggressive. Be aggressive. BE AGGRESSIVE BE BE AGGRESSIVE BE AGGRESSIVE BE AGGRESSIVE.

You can do a game faster if you are AGGRESSIVE. There should not be this “I am thinking bullshit” If it is even a thought, then you should just do it and attack. BE AGGRESSIVE.

[oztea]

Shorten what game? 1940 games or other games (spring 1942?)

If you want to shorten global try my 1941 setup, it moves the clock forward 2 turns and everybody starts in the action.
Takes a bit of getting used to but its still A&A

[ancient history]

Add nuclear weapons to the game.

[dedo]

Just an idea, never tried this but it should work: put the “collect income” phase form the end to the beginning of the turn. Right now the rule book tells, that you have to collect income at the end of the turn, where you receive money for all countries you just conquered. It’s the widest expansion of your force in a certain round and for that reason associated with a “maximum income”. In the course of the round, when the other parties start their combat moves you probably lose previously conquered terrain and hence IPCs you just have “earned” in your turn of the round. Starting a turn with the collect income phase would let you earn less money a turn in comparison to the collect income phase at the end of the turn. Eventually that’s the logic behind the idea:

rules: collect income at the the end - widest expansion - maximum income - more units could be bought - prolongation of battles -more time invested
idea:  collect income at the beginning - smallest expansion - only minimum income -less unit could be bought - shortening of battles due to less resources - less time invested.