Short answer - yes in my earlier GalCiv days. Now, no - rarely longer than five years.

Longer answer - Personal View - nothing is absolute
Ignoring the artificial tactics of prolonging games for metaverse points, an easy thing to do, I believe it can be the result of GalCiv being a "Balanced" game. It will tick along and react to what you are doing - sit still and build up irresistable huge force levels, and by the time your ready to rumble, the bad guy is sitting there drumming his fingers on his Armagedeon Fleets muttering 'bring it on'.

Flippancy aside, I felt I was hitting a similar kind of stalemate once, and decided to change totally the way I played, not being totally concerned about overwhelming victory yaddie yadda, or worrying too much about how they could easily zap me. Ouch, did I hit some big Crash & Burns, but I learnt a lot. Eventually it settled, and I realised that I needed to be be 'bolder' and strike early. To do that, I needed to think more deeply about what I had, and more important what the other guy really had - the AI is very good at throwing up a smoke screen, a venier of strength and activity, when in fact there was squat behind it. Kind of like todays Politicians or wannabe well known celebrity number one, all brash and bluster, but no lasting substance.

I enjoy the game much more now, as it represents a better challenge - think my way out of trouble, not blow my way out of trouble five years later. If I havent taken out at least one - sometimes two Civs in the first 18 months, I am scratching my head wondering what I missed, what clues/indicators did I miss this time. An early strike by two fighters and ten transports will take out a civ in the early months (hit his planets, ignore his fleets) - by year two you'll need 20 times that. I forced myself to build fleets ahead of perceived need, knowing it would soon come. I get predatory, lurking on the edges of others wars with constructors prepositioned, patrolling, waiting for resource stations to be zapped, next turn the resources are mine etc.

As always with a Balanced game there is no "solution" or "best strategy", one is as good as another, which is best for you all hangs on play style. However, there is little doubt much of the longevity of a game will depend on how boldly you tackle it. Think about how you can win (and do it, dont wait, be bold, opportunities surface only for short periods), push out of the mind the many ways you can lose, would be a loose phrase I would use.

An opinion, not an absolute...

Regards
Zy

hello my game has been playing now for 37 years. I have had 22 wars and no Alliances one war has been going on for 8 years now. when the game is done i will post it so you can see what i have done. I don't know if i will win the 8 year war but we will see.

We are the borg. lower your shield and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. your culture will adapt to service ours. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

I will be there soon But im hoping to wipe them all out. unless the 8 year war go's bad for me.    

The longest game I ever had was about eleven years, at least. The reason was because the Acreans ended up digging in real good within their turf and went to war with me, and the Iconians suddenly attacked me due to the leader assasination event.

yes yes yes i have won my 12 year war with the Acreans. only 6 more civ to go for i love this game.  

Holy shyte ! The longest game before this has been at most 6 years because I usually just kill everyone ! I made alliences this time and the game I thought was really long but man a 46 year game and 55 year game ..ohh hell no ! I am going to break my alliences one by one and kill them all wish me luck ...lol

god I'd hate that - a 62 year game would drive me insane. But thats the beauty of GalCiv, as another remarked on another thread, its a testiment to the depth and quality of design that it can react to player's individual style preferences and needs, without falling pray to a "magic solution". The latter, fortunately doesnt exist, allowing players to try different play styles and still enjoy it.

Regards
Zy

a game for me will last as long as it is challenging, once i break the back of the AI i get bored and start a new game. as a result i don't think i have ever completed a game? except those times i forgot to disable victory conditions and would suddenly loose unexpectidly mid game!!! lol

Interesting....in a current game I'm going on 17 years, been fighting with Drengin for close to 9 years as Terrans....haven't even got my decent ships built yet. I usually steal a bunch of planets with influence during the first half or so of the game before I start researching the weapons, etc very much. Maybe this is why all my games drag on so long. But this is why I think this is a great game, the variables are incredible and a completely different game everytime.

Military victories on gigantic maps with several hundred planets don't take more turns than a medium but each turn (sometimes over an hour if you need to do a lot of micromanagement on hundreds of planets!) takes much longer to play! The more planets/population you have the more troops transports you can build and fill quickly. So you can blitz an AI player with several dozen planets in a half dozen turns or less! Setting the research rate to very quick does reduce the number of turns.

Wait a minute are you guys talking about real time or game time?

I'm playing on a HUGE map btw. Many games are much quicker, but this particular one is really going on and on....research rate is normal. Habitable planets uncommon, man require research to colonize.