The Long Game
September 19, 2009 by Robert
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Id say The Longest Day could be a contender, it can take up to 100 hours to complete a game. More info here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5651
My guess would be one of the “****** engulfed” series of games (you know, europe engulfed, asia engulfed and so on).
Interesting. But is it the campaign that takes that long? Or is the game the campaign?
I bet there’s one longer than 100 hours. I BET.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Campaign_for_North_Africa
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4815
Pretty famous this game, especially the remark about the Italian troops needing more water. If you can find a copy, I’d love to see you try and play it
I’d have to second the vote for TCNA. I believe the game recommends you deligate play to four or five players (for one side, remember).
Isn’t TCNA a campaign game, though?
I dunno but if you’ve got to keep a track every bullet, shell, jerry can and Pot Noodle — the accounting of which is, I believe, the game’s sine qua non — it hardly bloody matters whether it’s a single game or an entire campaign. It’s a triple layer slice of gaming pie, no matter which way you cut it.
Oh my, I’m thinking “World in Flames” or as my buddy’s now ex-wife used to call it “Family in Flames”. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1499
I’d say 6000 minutes is an underestimation.
My dream game is one which combines Warhammer and these ridiculous, insanely granular WWII simulations.
“Wait, Altdorf is out of munitions? The entire city?! I’ll have to order a thousand more sellswords from Bretonnia, then strip them of their equipment when they arrive…”
Because when you break it down, the Empire versus a Chaos invasion makes a pretty good ludic analogue for World War II.
Hi Robert, great site. Loved VideoGaiden so nice to see you back again.
Never played anything longer than 5-6 hours but I’ve been told at length about War In The Pacific. Not sure it’s as long as TCNA but I’ve seen headstones smaller than that box.
But I suspect that’s also a campaign, so if that doesn’t count I’d guess at Twilight Imperium with a full set of players. No-one’s going home from that before dawn.
It’s a bit of a hard one eh, I mean if you’d accept World in Flames … “A Strategic level recreation of the Second World War.”
Why could you not just pick up a generic rules for everything wargame and play “A Strategic level recreation of the evolution of humanity/history of the universe.”
I mean I’m by no means knocking World in Flames or its crazy 6000 minute or longer play time but something like that would kinda come under “campagin” to me.
Maybe the better question to ask is ‘What non-wargame takes the longest to play?’ But I don’t know whether Rob wants to restrict his choices like that. Well, Rob?
On a kind of related theme…
There a bound to be a number of games that could “theoretically” last forever, like if you were to play mousetrap and never land on the final space. I’m sure there are others that have a similar potential to become some never ending limbo should fate really decide to take the piss.
Cheers, Jim.
Good discussion here. I wouldn’t necessarily eliminate wargames, but certainly many of them seem to be of the campaign variety. If we were including campaigns, you could easily call Space Hulk, for example, a 12+ hour game. But it’s not.
There must be something that has the one game/one play/long game thing we’re looking for.
Keep em coming. I’m researching it too.
World in Flames is probably the champ under your criteria. Single game – many, many hours to play.
I’ve been advised by a few people (via email) to eliminate wargames, as they are usually campaigns, and even if not, people seem less interested in the notion of playing a long wargame (which are often long as a matter of course anyway) than the notion of playing an unusually long board game.
So with wargames out, stuff like Diplomacy and Blood Royale are popping up. Any more?
Some of the lads in the gamers group I go to had a go on A Game Of Thrones with the expansions that ended up taking around 20 hours (run over the space of a few weeks) – I know they had a try of the game on it’s own that ended up taking most of a weekend, so I’ll nominate that.
Diplomacy, as mentioned, can take bloody ages, but it’s not in the 20+ hours league. The longest one I’ve probably played was Die Macher, which had me wanting to rip out my brain after 6 hours…
Diplomacy was naturally the first thing that came to my mind after watching the video, I just reckoned it was too obvious to be worth mentioning.
With a lot of players and a lot of secret dealings it could last a very long time.
Descent, would probably be similar, if the adventurers had lots of discussions/arguments over what to do.
18C2C – 10+ hours for a single game. Takes up to 6 players. You would proabably have to contact the designer for a copy.
Info here.
http://boardgame.geekdo.com/boardgame/9132
James
The answer is (imo) Empires in Arms.
It’s a Napoleonic era Avalon Hill style game. Some friends of mine used to play it every Sunday. Not individual sessions. One long continuous game (one of them kept the board in a hallowed corner of their flat which, if you went near it, you would be yelled at).
How long did this go on?
Over a year.
Truly ridiculously epicly long game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empires_in_Arms FYI
My wife and I used to keep a World of Warcraft Boardgame session going over the course of a week at a time, with both the Shadows of War and Burning Crusade expansion. I’m convinced that this game, played thoughtfully and with a real intention to win, could take somewhere in the 20 hour range to complete. Ridiculous.
the guns of august. played this once at university. ran out of food. then ran out of the will to live.
I wanted to point out a couple of games that may not be the LONGEST ever designed, but might make an interesting read when all is said and done.
First theres “Freedom in the Galaxy.” This one is a wargamish kinda game who’s basic theme is a direct rip off of Star Wars. One player controlls the small band of rebels setting out to defeat the evil galactic empire (controlled by the other player). It seems a little more than your basic wargame with each side having special characters and events occuring throughout the galaxy.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1717
Then theres 7 Ages. Basically Civilization but takes forever to play. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3870
I wish you the best of luck. The game you’re looking for is:
The Campaign for North Africa.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4815
quote: “Playing time with 10 players is listed at 1200 hours.”
Probably ‘Empires in Arms’ or ‘A World at war’- dude you’ve got no chance.
Anyway – there’s a list to peek through: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/29097/
To be honest it’s hard to really include war games in this with no firm limit.
I mean given limitless resources you could easily make a single warhammer game go on for years. If you’re a millionaire there is nothing really from stopping you renting out a large building and buying every space marine and tyranid in the country before embarking on an epic game. Obviously no one would do such a thing, but it is in theory at least it’s possible. You should therefore set a limit of say… “A single game which can fit on a 6 by 8 foot table” or something like that.
I’m going to throw Twilight Imperium in there, though in order to play it to the fullest you need 8 players. It takes about 8-10 hours and is probably the longest board game I have ever played except Diplomacy which took about 3 days the last (and only) time I played it.
A lot of games can reach extraordinary length due to the styles of the players participating. Any game which involves open ended negotiation between players is open to an extended play time. Diplomacy could be finished in a very fast time if players made their negotiations very simply, but then that’s not really the point of the game.
woops sory i didn’t notice that you had already removed wargames! my bad.
I second World of Warcraft Boardgame with the expansions on the table also. I have easily played and couple 12 hours sessions and loved it.
Thanks for all the advice, folks.
I’ll be updating soon with the game of choice.
I second the vote for 18C2C. Not a wargame, but definitely long.
Excluding wargames
Twilight imperium with 5 players is supposed to take a whole day
I would love to play it but no way would i get enough people to spend the amount of time needed to play this epic game.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/318308
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/318308
Star Fleet Battles, The Assault on a Star Base Scenario?
Played Source of the Nile today, seemed to last 45,000 years. We managed to move about 6 hexes between us in 5 hours. It’s almost like it’s a real-time simulation of actually crossing Africa.
You’re going to hate me for this, but it is a board game rather than a war game, and I doubt you’ll find any longer. Europa Universalis. There, I said it, now read about it and weep.