Does this speed slow down everything? Or does it just slow down the technological advancements? I've always played on quick speed so I never really experimented with it.

yes it does

Slows the game speed about three times compared to normal (or thereabouts? I think?), dunno how it compared to Quick speed. The slowdown is balanced in terms of production, techs and food, so the only thing that gets upped is military power. Which is great if you're a warmonger but sucks if you're not.

I love Marathon speed, incidentally.

It slows everything accept unit movement.

Basically

Normal = 1
Epic = Normal X 2
Marathon = Normal X 4

I always play Epic, I find it has a great balance of "Let me fight a war without all my units going obsolete" AND "having to hit the space bar hundreds of times in the early game"

Cheers

Adam.

I understand that it slows everything down, but does it increase the number of turns available to play?

Basically

Normal = 1
Epic = Normal X 2
Marathon = Normal X 4

In fact, it is more like

Normal = 1
Epic = Normal X 1.5
Marathon = Normal X 3


@ChicagoCubs: Yes, each speed has different number of turns.

I find that when you get a tech advantage, you have it a little longer. It really helps an aggressive warmonger...

Normal = 1
Epic = Normal X 1.5
Marathon = Normal X 3


Indeed.

Just a side note: the forest chop yield is not proportional to this ratio.
Normal = 20
Epic = 45
Marathon = 90

You can see that at Epic and Marathon, chopping forest gives out more than they should (30 and 60). Epic and Marathon does not waste more than 1 turn for the walker to walk in the forest, so the bonus is even larger. :cool:

I think epic is unbalanced in favour of warmongers for human vs AI play, you have forever to exploit a tech advantage.

Marathon is even more broken, and in addition the timeline isn't even synched properly with the other speeds so people get finish dates hundreds of years earlier.

I think epic is unbalanced in favour of warmongers for human vs AI play, you have forever to exploit a tech advantage.

Marathon is even more broken, and in addition the timeline isn't even synched properly with the other speeds so people get finish dates hundreds of years earlier.
This is true in some part, but yet you have first to get to a tech advantage - otherwise you are on the "receiving end" of the equation. But the biggest part is played by each one's preferences: for many (me included) Normal isn't "civ enough": there is no time to use your units, so it's just an endless rush and a final battle in modern age. In Epic or in Marathon you really have the chance to play in all eras, and you must be very careful not to be left with a tech disadvantage. Still, overall the slower speed helps wars - my opinion is that it does that because humen have a much better strategic feeling than AI, and more time=more chances for strategy.

Additionally, there are several "technical" differences. While in Normal you always go with big quantities (since there is so few time), in slower speeds you go more with "quality" and care more for your losses (you can't replace units easily). For that same reason in Normal you usually just build new units (it's so fast) while in Marathon you upgrade much more units (it's so slow to wait for them to be built).

As for the finish dates, they say absolutely nothing by themselves. Judging from my experience, I think that the earlier date is achieved not so much due to Marathon speed, but due to the larger map (usually these two go together) and accordingly the much bigger empire. It's another thing to do research with 8 cities and another to have 25 cities.

@maltz: I'm almost certain that the chopping value for normal speed is 30 hammers, even though it's a long time since I last played in that speed. If I remember well, there was another kind of balancing problem, due to some "curious" and unbalanced values for workers and settlers.

Just a side note: the forest chop yield is not proportional to this ratio.
Normal = 20
Epic = 45
Marathon = 90

You can see that at Epic and Marathon, chopping forest gives out more than they should (30 and 60). Epic and Marathon does not waste more than 1 turn for the walker to walk in the forest, so the bonus is even larger. :cool:

Normal Forest chop yeild is 30 hammers, not 20. Epic and Marathon multipliers of 1.5 and 3 apply as expected. You're quite right about the lower impact of the turn spent moving onto the forest, though.

I understand that it slows everything down, but does it increase the number of turns available to play?

Yes it does, Marathon has 1200 turns. I believe Normal only has 460.