Hosted Eclipse Second Dawn for three friends who are not shy about heavy games — Terraforming Mars, Brass, the usual suspects — and we still spent the first hour just touching components like raccoons.
By round three someone built a ship wrong, someone else forgot you can't just waltz through ancients, and I had to re-explain discovery tiles twice while the pizza got cold.
The game is great once it moves, but the teach feels like launching a spaceship with sticky notes.
What's your actual teaching script? I'm especially curious how you handle the economy without people getting scared by money conversion.
Also realistic time for first full game at 4p — we budgeted 5 hours and needed 7 with breaks.