Talk:Hourglass/@comment-140.254.77.170-20180420140256/@comment-45.56.46.26-20180826190547

Yeah, he just didn't want to sit there for another couple minutes looking like he was just having a pretty light show with almost a third of a million people watching.

In game terms (and tactical level CQB) minutes are a long time, but for a large battle they totally aren't. The most observent command elements of the enemy army barely had time to become seriously alarmed, communicating orders to retreat (and forcing those past the obstinance of nobles convinced that it was just a light show and some skeletons) and actually getting a quarter million troops moving would have taken a lot more time. So there was no compelling reason for hurry.

We know that the casting time of Super-tier magic is longer than a minute, it's probably more like three-five minutes, which is too boring to animate. Long enough to have a short conversation and send someone back into a building, not long enough to give a large army orders that contradict the entire reason for assembling them in the first place.