Board Game Arena

My friend and I were playing a game of Space Empires 4x last night and got about 2 hours into it. We got tired and called it for the night and when I checked back this morning, I couldn't figure out how to join that game again. Lo and behold it has been abandoned because the "Game has been closed automatically because no move has been completed for a long period of time."

What a waste of time.. There was no time limit on the game either. What's the deal here?

I figured it out. I should've read the fine print on game creation, "Note: A real-time table is closed automatically if more than 4 hours have elapsed since its creation and if all players at this table are now offline."

As you probably now realize, there is a difference between "training mode/real-time" and "training mode/turn-based". It usually doesn't matter, except in cases like this. (This seems to be an artifact of recent changes to the game creation process.)

If you find yourself in the position of wanting to take a break from a real-time game (training or not), there is an option to change a game from real-time to turn-based (in the menu in the upper right corner). (Since you can't change the setting once another player has joined, our group ends up using this feature all the time. It's helpful if you find you need to take extra time to explain a game, or if a player has to step away.)