Using pause actually makes you faster in-game time because you can do multiple things at once.
Kahuna, you've completely missed the point. Of course pausing makes you faster in "in-game time". It's also kind of the first point in the OP too. "1: For shorter unpaused time, use pause a lot and do multiple things at once."
But, my comment aimed to give you the benefits of NOT pausing. By playing while not pausing, you're learning :
- to play faster (more clicks and so on).
- to automate tasks. Whatever is requiring your attention (and therefore pausing) might just not require it.
- to think faster (because you have to take your decisions faster)
- to multitask more efficiently (because it happens in real time).
Therefore you're reducing both the play-time and the paused-time. Would the unpaused-time be reduced as well ? Yes, it would. If a situation does not require your attention you can focus on something else, and obviously if you trained to think and play faster, you'll be faster.
If you want to experiment "how" this works outside of AI war, I'd suggest playing dungeon of the endless. While it requires to keep track of less variables, it does require multi-tasking and one of the main skills of the game is when to pause. Then you unlock a game mode where you can't pause. When you come "back" to the "regular" game... you're wondering why you paused so much in the first place.
