A common challenge for a 4X community is finding time to play together and actually finish a game.  Part of this is simply due to the involved, complex nature of 4x games and part of it is simply due to the inherent lengt of time one game needs to run to completion.  In such a game, this is most easily measured by the number of turns AKA game speed.  We all know that changing the game speed scales several factors with it, increasing the pace of some parts of the game while, strangely, ignoring others--but that's beside the point for now.

My line of questioning is thus:  Should we have a lower turn setting?  We have 300(standard) 150(fast) and 600(endless,) but I wonder: why 150?  Why not 100?  Why those particular numbers?  Is there a reasoning beyond "half of standard/double standard?"  why do some things scale appropriately with game speed, yet others do not?  Is it intended that a faster or slower game favors certain playstyles over others or is it incidental?  As one of the various galaxy settings that can heavily favor certain factions and strategies, I find it to be quite vexing that game speed affects far more than just the speed of the game.

Even a 150 turn game can feel like a marathon when a group of players only has so many hours in the day and days in the week to actually play.  I'm not advocating putting nitrous on the speed of a 4x because that would forcibly dilute a few things that give it its unique charm; I AM thinking some things need to be re-evaluated with a critical, objective eye if continued growth of the genre (or even just this franchise) is desired.  So why is the game speed designed the way it is?  Is it critical to keep it that way?  Is the nature of game speed something we're firmly attached to (at least in the Endless franchise) or is it something future content/expansions/titles could handle differently?