We try to get a game in once a year or so, and this year we actually finished the whole game for the first time in what seems like forever. There were only 6 of us this time, which may have speeded things up a bit — though it still took half of Saturday and a couple hours on Sunday to finish.
For those interested in the final results (I lost; Lane didn’t win) here’s the Excel spreadsheet we used to track the game. (There are tabs that show the final scores, empire size over time, and other interesting details.) If you think tracking a boardgame by spreadsheet is geeky, you have to realize that it saves a lot of time moving cardboard chits and counting up stuff. This spreadsheet is one I found on the Web many years ago that we’ve used ever since — this particular version actually has a number of modifications of my own that I made this past week in anticipation of next year’s game.