Also my problem isnt with the fast pace, its with how shallow the multiplayer campaign is.
Well, it's almost a "digital board/table-top game". You don't have to like it for what it is but I wouldn't call it shallow. It's simplistic, yes, but shallow is misleading imo.
My apologies, let me rephraise that sentence and take it apart.
1, The main part of this game, is the single player, which makes this a 4x game (or a game with 4x elements), and not a table top/digital board game.
2, The multiplayer campaign part, is extremely dumbed down compared to the single player part, so much so, that there's ALMOST no strategy involved whatsoever. Since all you have to do is capture territory, and spam units towards you enemy to win.
3, Since there is no need to wait turns to make a lot of units, you can create over 15-20 units in a single turn if you have enough territory, not to mention, i always finish every one of my matches with 150+ unused cards(in one it was over 250 unused cards). Also, no wait time for research means, that you can also spam techs in the enemy's face, completely overwhelming them(with enough territory).
So please tell me, which part of this isn't shallow?
To surmise:
-all you need to win is spam units
-you don't need to use cards if you have enough units
-you can spam research if you have enough territory which can make you op
-ALMOST no strategy involved, all you need to do is send your huge army against the enemy.
-I myself don't even feel the need to take charge of the armies myself, since even with a 50-60% chance i usually win.(autocombat)
-So far, i've only felt the need to play cards before a battle 4-8 times during my 7 playthroughs (against normal, hard and insane ai).
With enough territories you:
-get gold way too fast
-get research points way too fast
-get cards way too fast(most of it doesn't even get to be used)
--If you own over 70% of the map the enemy cant do anything, because you get gold and everything else at a much higher rate than the enemy, allowing you to build a LOT more units than he can, which allows you to overwhelm him.
Note: The ai performance update helped the game but it's still too easy, i just spam armies in its face because i can.
Note 2: I know that pvp is harder, but still, the campaign map phase almost doesn't require any strategy at all, due to the fact that you can spam stuff, and there's no trade, diplomacy and politics involved which improves the inner workings of your empire. Also, no defensive buildings, that would help create a perimeter, blocking clear access to your territories. Also you can go around with transports, capture the enemy capital and get all their territories, and by the time they can react, they dont have enough units in the vincinity destroying them completely.
Note 3: before the patch:
-against normal ai it took me about 34 mins to win.
-against hard ai about 54 mins.
After ai performance patch:
-against normal ai about 43 mins
-against hard ai a bit more than an hour
-against insane ai about 1 hour 30 mins
PS: The game is/looks/plays very good on the whole (watched single player vids), but the mp campaign needs a lot of improvements.
