[eia] need to speed things up

According to my email records, we began the month of Sept. 1805 on March 23. Today is April 25, and if we continue at our current speed, it could easily be another week before we are done with the month of Sept.

Taking 5 real weeks to finish one game month is not a sustainable rate of play!!! We need to brain-storm some strategies for speeding things up. As of right now, we've been waiting 2 days for Jim to decide whether to burn his depot at Brest-Litovsk and retire into the city or stay out and fight. I think we waited 5 days for Mike's decision whether to take a +1 in the first round of 2nd Nemirov. That's an entire week of waiting right there, just for two *tiny* decisions.

My point here is not to embarrass Jim or Mike, but simply to point out that little decisions which should take no time at all are really adding significant lengths of time to our game. Perhaps we could add a house rule or two to eliminate some of these little decisions that end up taking up so much of our time. I'd hate to do that, but I'm currently at my wit's end. I think we're getting to the point where we need to start considering some drastic solutions.

Secondarily, please do let the group know when you will be away from your computer for a while. For instance, JJ announced that he would be gone for a week on his honeymoon last week. Because he had told us he would be gone, none of us had to wonder why we weren't getting responses from him. I would encourage others to do the same: when you know you will be away from your computer for days on end, please warn the rest of us.

But back to the problem at hand... Does anybody have a suggestion for how we can reduce the amount of time each turn takes? I'm afraid we are at the point where we have to start considering drastic solutions.

Suggestion #1: I know some people play Empires in Arms with simultaneous movement. So each land phase is broken up into 5 segments/impulses. Each person sends out movement orders simultaneously, and each corps's movement from one space to another along its movement path is assigned to a segment/impulse. Battles are only fought when forces occupy the same space at the same time. (Obviously, battles interrupt and halt movement.)

Suggestion #2: People could be given a time limit for responding to inquiries. It would go something like this: if a player has not sent out a warning that he will be away from his computer for an extended length of time, then he has 24 hours to respond to make any game decisions. If no response is received in this time, then a pre-designated ally could make the decision for him. (Or we could simply roll a die to determine the decision.)

I'm just trying to throw out some ideas here. I would like to actually finish this game sometime before my 40th birthday, but that won't happen at our current rate of speed. Please let me know whether either of these suggestions is appealing. Please also let me know if you have any other suggestions. But one way or the other, we *need* to find a way to speed things up. If that changes the character of the game somewhat, then so be it. (If I had to choose between not finishing this game, and finishing a game that is slightly different from this one, I'd choose the latter.)

Let me know what you think.

kdh