Understanding the Timer

[Remkar]

Say a real time game with fast game speed for Pax Renaissance have each player start at 8 minutes (I forgot what its actually is, but lets say its 8 minuites).

What I cant figure out is, how much time does a quick turn awards you? And how quick do you need to be on your turn to be awarded this bonus time?

I just went to Pax Renaissance, set it to fast real time, long held over the total game time (I'm on an mobile android device, so it's probably just placing the mouse cursor over the total time on a desktop/laptop), and it says 3 minutes max time (which I believe is also your starting time) with 1:21 added per turn.

That means if you always take 1:21 or less each turn, you'll always get reset back to 3 minutes (the max) every turn. If you take more than 1:21 on a turn, your next turn will start off with less than 3 minutes available, but by playing future turns faster than 1:21, you'll get more time (but never getting more than 3 minutes for a single turn). Does that make sense?

You basically just have a 3 minute toilet that counts down, and at the start of each turn it adds 1:21 to your timer (but can never go over 3 minutes) for Pax Renaissance on fast-real time.

Can I see how much time it adds? Or the difference? so if I finnish my turn in exavtly 1 min, I get 21 seconds added to my time?

You ALWAYS get 1:21 added at the beginning of your turn, with the exception that you can never have over 3 minutes available for a given turn. Does that make sense?

[Jellby]

It's always the same principle (except in tournaments): You start with X time, and every turn you get +Y, but capped at a maximum (which I believe is always X too). It doesn't matter how much time you actually used in your turn, or how much time you have left, you just add +Y. The may be some issues in what is considered to be a "turn" in some games, or a developer forgetting to put the function to add the +Y, or some other bug. But otherwise it's as simple as that: start with X, at the beginning of your turn (usually) you get +Y, clock ticks during your turn, until you finish it.

[ViktorKM]

But this also mean there isent any real countdown, like chess have?

So if you keep within the 1.21 you can keep on playing forever? Is this normal?
Why not just give both player say 25 min each. Then you know the game will end after a maximum of 50 min, instead of going on forever?

[Jellby]

Like which type of chess? Because according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_cont ... ay_methods something like G/90;inc30 is almost exactly like BGA, if you keep within 30 seconds you can play forever (except for the other rules of chess that have nothing to do with time).

[Remkar]

But this also mean there isent any real countdown, like chess have?

So if you keep within the 1.21 you can keep on playing forever? Is this normal?
Why not just give both player say 25 min each. Then you know the game will end after a maximum of 50 min, instead of going on forever?

I assume for multiple reasons, my best guesses would be:

1) It is more robust for different game types.
Example:
Some games have the same starting setup and rules every time (like Chess)
Some games have a set number of turns (like Castles of Burgundy)
Some games have both (having trouble thinking of one off the top of my head, haha)
Some have neither (like Kingdom Builder)
And within each of those categories, there is a lot variability within how drastically the game play, turn numbers, and game length can change based on those variables.
Imagine a game that could be over in 5 minutes with certain setups, early draws/moves, or take 45 minutes with others. Where do you set the time?
The way BGA is setup, it can generally handle different game types in a mostly automated fashion, so takes the guesswork out

2) Consistent play/disconnecting/intentional stalling, etc.
Right now, if someone gets upset at their starting hand, or doesn't like the opponents first move, and they just stop playing, you just have to wait a few minutes for their timer to run out on the current turn, then you can boot them. If they had a 45 minute timer, you're now locked into that real time games for the next 45 minutes with no option to leave (that doesn't really in ELO and Karma penalties).


Having said that, I would assume someone has suggested adding a time clock option IN ADDITION to the current real time options, so you can probably search for that and up vote it if you'd prefer to play that way, and with enough votes, maybe BGA will add that as an option as well.

But if you're just concerned about games going on forever, that is not possible (at least in most games), as it usually only takes 1 player to force the end of the game, so unless everyone is stalling (and the game has no turn limit), you can get the game to the with just your play, right?

[Meeplelowda]

So if you keep within the 1.21 you can keep on playing forever?

What games are you playing on here that have no end game conditions? For those games, yes, there is effectively no time limit as long as everyone plays within the increment. But are there really so many of those games that is a real concern?

I suspect that you didn't literally mean that you can play forever, but instead meant that they can go on longer than you anticipated. In that case, yes. You start to get a sense of how long each game will last, but some plays of a game do go on much longer than other plays of the same game despite having the same time setting.

[Ceaseless]

Say a real time game with fast game speed for Pax Renaissance have each player start at 8 minutes (I forgot what its actually is, but lets say its 8 minuites).

What I cant figure out is, how much time does a quick turn awards you? And how quick do you need to be on your turn to be awarded this bonus time?

I just went to Pax Renaissance, set it to fast real time, long held over the total game time (I'm on an mobile android device, so it's probably just placing the mouse cursor over the total time on a desktop/laptop), and it says 3 minutes max time (which I believe is also your starting time) with 1:21 added per turn.

That means if you always take 1:21 or less each turn, you'll always get reset back to 3 minutes (the max) every turn. If you take more than 1:21 on a turn, your next turn will start off with less than 3 minutes available, but by playing future turns faster than 1:21, you'll get more time (but never getting more than 3 minutes for a single turn). Does that make sense?

You basically just have a 3 minute toilet that counts down, and at the start of each turn it adds 1:21 to your timer (but can never go over 3 minutes) for Pax Renaissance on fast-real time.

Huh, didn't know there was a feature that told you the starting time and increment if you held over the total time. Turns out it even defines friendly mode's real time features too. Neat.

I'm guessing the 3-minute toilet was a typo and not some exciting feature of life I haven't heard of, lol.

[Ceaseless]

But this also mean there isent any real countdown, like chess have?

So if you keep within the 1.21 you can keep on playing forever? Is this normal?
Why not just give both player say 25 min each. Then you know the game will end after a maximum of 50 min, instead of going on forever?

Yes, it's normal. Sometimes individual games take longer due to having more turns than usual that time. The increment prevents one player from just timing someone else out despite them playing at a reasonable pace. Even without an explicit turn limit, games tend to have completion requirements that get met eventually, infinite turns are rather unlikely.

[Remkar]

You basically just have a 3 minute toilet that counts down, and at the start of each turn it adds 1:21 to your timer (but can never go over 3 minutes) for Pax Renaissance on fast-real time.

I'm guessing the 3-minute toilet was a typo and not some exciting feature of life I haven't heard of, lol.

I'm not going to directly answer that. Gotta keep the mystery alive!

[nik592]

Why not just give both player say 25 min each. Then you know the game will end after a maximum of 50 min, instead of going on forever?

Tournament games work this way, and this causes other problems (though mostly in turn-based play rather than real-time, I would assume - I never play real-time tournaments). In fact, some people would like the time/turn model to be available for tournaments (though there would still need to be a maximum time most likely, otherwise tournaments can run very long).

But Remkar is probably right and there may be a suggestion to adopt fixed time for non-tournament games too.