What percentage of a game should be spent doing upkeep?

How often are players waiting on one another to finish upkeep? Are there any decisions and can this be done in between turns to make things even faster?

I think that the answer to your headline question is that 0% of the game should be spent doing upkeep. In an ideal world, that is, but obviously you can't always have that, so I think that in general it is a matter of reducing the time spent on upkeep as much as possible.

A few thoughts on this...

Experience of playing and playtesting suggests that players like things that gain them stuff, so an income phase can be fine, or even positive. Paying costs (particularly when it is just outgoings and you are not directly getting anything back) can be a downer, and feel like an undesirable part of the game. So if you are able to refactor the upkeep phase some way (this may just be rephrasing something, or it might need re-engineering) so that players only get income, it can make the whole phase more palatable.

Having to do maths during an upkeep phase can be hugely offputting for some players, so if you can find a way to avoid any arithmetic, it is a good thing. If you want to see a clever approach, take a look at either Eclipse or Terra Mystica, which both use neat player board designs that effectively calculate income for you and your status is visible at a glance.

Another approach is to break up the upkeep so that there are small amounts of upkeep activity taking place more often. Say, something on each player's turn rather than at the end of each round. I have no idea how viable this would be for your game, and trying to do this might end up making turns drag rather than allowing everyone to do this admin at the same time which it sounds like is the current approach.

From what you have said, though, it sounds like the main concern I would have is with the maths, as if everyone is acting at the same time to collect resources, etc, that means that the admin would not create downtime, but may create confusion for some players.

Anyway, good luck with your game.

Are all the players doing upkeep simultaneously? Is there a reason players would want to watch their opponents' upkeep phase? If it's sequential and people are sitting around watching OTHERS do upkeep, that's going to be a problem regardless of how fun the upkeep is for the keep-upper.

I don't know WHY... But every time I demo a game, there is always someone who will invariably cheat. It may be by confusion or by accident... Like I said: "You buy from the TOP of each pile." Well one player forcibly had to check half the cards from one of his piles... (As an example).

When players figure out they are not going to win, they also find ways to be less than honest. Some figure: "Hey I'm not going to win... might as well try to get closer to the leader..." And do something wrong next.

It also has to do with how competitive the player is too. The more they WANT to win, the more likely they will find ways of making things turn in their favor...

I've never played 7 Wonders. Tell me: is it possible to play more than ONE (1) card from your hand each turn??? If the answer is YES, well then I don't like this style of game... If the answer is NO, you can only play ONE (1) per turn... Well then maybe the rules are more clear and there is less room for "cheating"...

Or perhaps there is a rule, you can only play THREE (3) cards from your HAND. Something like this is OKAY. I'm just not a FAN of concurrent play when it is not defined with rules that restrict play.

Exactly if the nature of a turn is that you can EACH play a VARIABLE amount of cards... TOO MUCH confusion and possibility to cheat on a player's turn. Plus you never get the opportunity to SEE what your opponent's are doing... You have to figure things out while you work on your own CARD DRAFTING...

I personally don't think I would like the game... because of concurrent play. If it was more orderly like PLAY ONE (1) card from your HAND... Well then everyone plays one card and it is much more "civilized". (Eh, that's a PUN!)

No but seriously it's hard after a player's turn to figure out all the ways you need to BLOCK a player, etc.

Really think that I would PASS on such a game... Not for me.

Simultaneous play seems okay (as I said, if it's a simultaneous reveal). That's fine... I was more thinking RTS TableTop games where everyone is doing their own thing at the same time.

If you read my earlier comment (the one with the update), I clearly state that if it's simultaneous play followed by simultaneous "reveal", that style of game is okay. Because when you REVEAL what cards you have played, that's when "resolving" your cards occurs.

And like you said, it's hard to cheat.

Now that you've explained how the parallelism works in your new game... I think that it is fine. Not at all about PURE concurrent play.

My take is that if upkeep is how I learn my status in the game then it doesn't feel like upkeep at all (unless there's a ton of it). If I'm moving markers/counters or shuffling my deck that has a variable number of cards (not always the same quantity) or similar actions that help me figure out what to do on my next turn then it just feels like gameplay.

If, on the other hand, it's really cleanup work and I'm not really learning anything, I'm just setting up/resetting the game state, it feels like overhead on top of my enjoyment. I want that to be minimal.

One example where upkeep works for me: in Agricola after everyone has taken their turn there's an upkeep phase where more goods are put out. This could feel like drudgery, but if I'm doing it (or watching it being done), it's a great time for me to see which goods are piling up and which are barely there. It feels like part of playing the game, an essential part of my strategizing. Sure, I could do it after the upkeep was done, but that "live" state ensures I stay on top of it and don't miss anything.

Because I'm not sure anymore, I figured I'd ask a QUESTION.

So play goes sequentially round the table from Player #1 to Player #4.

After the round is OVER, all players do housekeeping SIMULTANEOUSLY???

This concerns me... As I feel like everyone will be able to cheat to get ahead and there is probably very little "evidence" once everything is tallied and reset to zero (0) for the NEXT round...

If this is the case, I would not like to play such a game. I know I fail to see an ALTERNATIVE.

Perhaps if EVERYONE PLAYED their TURNS concurrently... AND THEN each player would do housekeeping one player at a time. Could that be even possible???

I mean if YES, well that's super. I'd try the game even if there is concurrent play. My problem is with CONCURRENT HOUSEKEEPING. That's very likely and open to "creative" upkeeping.

How could this be possible??? (Concurrent PLAY, individual HOUSEKEEPING)

Actually very easily: you use BIDDING mechanics for pooled items. Like IF during CONCURRENT PLAY both Player #1 and Player #3 want Card #1 (available in the pool of cards), each player BIDS how much GOLD they want to spend on the item... If Player #1 bids 1 GOLD, Player #3 can bid 3 GOLD and then Player #1 may say: "That's too rich for my blood..."

This is an example about HOW you could using bidding to resolve concurrent "buying" of resources from a COMMON POOL.

Anyhow I just wanted to show that IT IS POSSIBLE. Just needs some re-thinking to allow for CONCURRENT PLAY.

Cheers!

Note #1: Obviously this means each player needs to "RESOLVE" their turn individually to figure out who "outbid" who and other things like worker placement (what happens when two players occupy the same LAND area...), etc. Things like that can be figured out DURING the individual HOUSEKEEPING turns (or phase). But the idea is that it works only ONE (1) player at a time.

Note #2: For worker placement, there could be various ways of resolving this: which player has the stronger military force get the challenged position, all other opponents retreat to adjacent spaces. OR to occupy a challenged position, you need to PAY Victory Points to each competitor wanting to get that position, etc.

So the game is already played concurrently with bidding?! Cool... That's kind of interesting. Perhaps leaving the "housekeeping" to whichever play group choose (concurrently or taking turns) means that the game is much more flexible in design ... and that's something honestly a PLUS for the game. The more flexible the design, the more dynamic the game play and it allows people to find what works best for them.

That's real positive in my judgement and impressions.