As the Fire Dies is a hybrid between real-time and turn-based gaming.
Time travels in a constant flow, where 1 day passes in the game world every 2.5 minutes (or 150 seconds).
On top of this, however, the political machinations of the Colony operate in government Terms. Each Term is defined by the occurrence of Reconciliation, rather than the period of time a certain Creed has been in the Office of the Curator.
Terms pass by every 10 days in the game - that is, 25 minutes in real time.
It’s important to keep the passing of time in the back of your mind during the game, as it can have significant impact on certain game mechanics.
For example:
Events and Expeditions will always take a certain amount of time to resolve. That being said, resolution does not begin until an action has been decided on and all relevant resources have been gathered and allocated.
Therefore, an Event which would usually take 2 days to resolve (5 minutes) could very well take 6 days (15 minutes) if those involved are unable to agree on or adequately resource the chosen action appropriately.
Especially at the ‘end of days’, time does not pause for debate.
Note: all components of the game which rely on a rigid timeframe (Events, Elections, Reconciliation, Expeditions, etc) are monitored closely by Moderators using stopwatches.