weltenbrand
Chieftain
Even Epic is too fast for me. I like 20 - 30 hour games. But thats just me ... 
Quick vs. Normal vs. Epic: Pros and Cons?
- Thread starter Dr. Rosenrosen
- Start date
Modified game speed is the only way to go. There's a nifty little program in the mod forum that lets you change the tech costs for each era. Crank up the cost a bit in the eras you feel fly by and you'll have a much more fun game, regardless of game speed.
Lord Chambers
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2001
- Messages
- 1,004
Since so many people seemed puzzled by this, here is my attmept to explain how an epic game is different from normal or quick.
The number of turns
The number of turns is what changes when you select a different speed. Got it? Still goes from 4000BC to 2000ad or whatever.
Now, if you were just to add a bunch of turns to the normal game, you'd reach tanks in 1000ad or something. So to make the progress of the game scale throughout the added turns research is slowed down. Got it? When you start a game on normal your first discovery is around nine turns or something. On epic that same research takes 15 turns.
Production is also scaled. I think the growth rates of cottages may be too, although that could be related to difficulty. The point is, everything about a game in epic is scaled to occur slower than on normal or quick. That's all you need to know.
Except unit movement
This is the only thing not scaled (that I know of). A horse archer moves 2 squares per turn on epic, normal, and quick. The consequence? You get more use out of units before they're obsoleted by technology.
Example:
You build an archer in 10 turns while reseaching your way from Archery to Feudalism, lets say that takes 100 turns. In the 90 turns your Archer is a valuable unit, it can march across the continent 25 squares and battle 5 units. Then it can sit and defend the new territory for 30 turns. Then it can get marched 25 squares back to the homeland and still have 5 turns of non obsolescence.
The same unit on quick has something more like this life.
You build an archer in 5 turns while reseaching your way from Archery to Feudalism, lets say that takes 50 turns. In the 45 turns your Archer is a valuable unit, it can march across the continent 25 squares and battle 5 units. Then it can sit and defend the new territory for 15 turns. It's obsolete at this point. Now, marching a unit around doesn't sound like such a great reason to play epic over quick, but technically you got more use out of the unit. If it were a swordsman that means it could serve in two campaigns on either side of your territory, rather than only one in a quicker game.
The number of turns
The number of turns is what changes when you select a different speed. Got it? Still goes from 4000BC to 2000ad or whatever.
Now, if you were just to add a bunch of turns to the normal game, you'd reach tanks in 1000ad or something. So to make the progress of the game scale throughout the added turns research is slowed down. Got it? When you start a game on normal your first discovery is around nine turns or something. On epic that same research takes 15 turns.
Production is also scaled. I think the growth rates of cottages may be too, although that could be related to difficulty. The point is, everything about a game in epic is scaled to occur slower than on normal or quick. That's all you need to know.
Except unit movement
This is the only thing not scaled (that I know of). A horse archer moves 2 squares per turn on epic, normal, and quick. The consequence? You get more use out of units before they're obsoleted by technology.
Example:
You build an archer in 10 turns while reseaching your way from Archery to Feudalism, lets say that takes 100 turns. In the 90 turns your Archer is a valuable unit, it can march across the continent 25 squares and battle 5 units. Then it can sit and defend the new territory for 30 turns. Then it can get marched 25 squares back to the homeland and still have 5 turns of non obsolescence.
The same unit on quick has something more like this life.
You build an archer in 5 turns while reseaching your way from Archery to Feudalism, lets say that takes 50 turns. In the 45 turns your Archer is a valuable unit, it can march across the continent 25 squares and battle 5 units. Then it can sit and defend the new territory for 15 turns. It's obsolete at this point. Now, marching a unit around doesn't sound like such a great reason to play epic over quick, but technically you got more use out of the unit. If it were a swordsman that means it could serve in two campaigns on either side of your territory, rather than only one in a quicker game.
weltenbrand said:Even Epic is too fast for me. I like 20 - 30 hour games. But thats just me ...
sure I love longer games too, I would dream for an epic or longer but with reduced production times - to be able to wage larger and longer wars etc.
Also I like the idea of nursering a unit to get maximum promotions. But it is hard in current game settings as even on epic sciences are discovered much faster than you manage to produce and optimize buildings. Thats why you had to upgrade the unit soon and start the promotions all over again.
I played epic and stop doing that because i wanted to trest a the game before starting huge epic games. But i will go back to it in short time. It´s a much better experience for me.
Of course units become more usefull and decisions more valuable, every error is relevant [you let a enemy pillager through your defenses and he destroyed your gold mine is more than 9 turns of gold lacking for your civilization]
Of course units become more usefull and decisions more valuable, every error is relevant [you let a enemy pillager through your defenses and he destroyed your gold mine is more than 9 turns of gold lacking for your civilization]
I've wondered what the differences are between these myself, so I took it upon myself to dig into the XML files and look up the values and compile the list. Here I'll even share my results with you.
Epic Setting Effects
An epic game allows you to make every turn count, especially the start of the game as there are a lot more turns to compound the effects of having a established civilization early on. Epic games would be hard pressed to finish in 1 sitting, though I pulled it off my first time, but I never went to war and was on an easy setting just learning.
Modifiers. Generally 150% applied to build, research, growth, barbarians, ect... values other than 150% are:
Golden Age = 125%
Inflation % = 18
Inflation Offset = -150
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during an epic game are 650
Normal Speed Effects
As the name implies, everything is pretty much 'normal' about this setting. This is a good speed for people learning and those who want to try to finish a game in 1 sitting.
All modifiers are 100%. Inflation % is 27 and the offset is -100
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during a normal game are 430
Quick Speed Effects
Quick will let you experiance a little bit of everything about the game, like the techs and wonders, but you won't be able to dweel on any aspect for too long. Another good choice for beginners and people who want to play through a quick, almost RTS themed game.
Quick speed has a great majority of the multipliers at 67% (2/3 rounded up) with the following exceptions:
Golden Age Effect: 80%
Hurry % = 150
Inflation % = 40
Inflation Offset = -67
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during a quick game are 300
So far I've completed about 6 games, as well as playing through a handful halfway through and then not saving
Most have been normal, but I think I will go back to epic now that I have learnt more about the game. Hope this info helps somone if they were looking for it.
Epic Setting Effects
An epic game allows you to make every turn count, especially the start of the game as there are a lot more turns to compound the effects of having a established civilization early on. Epic games would be hard pressed to finish in 1 sitting, though I pulled it off my first time, but I never went to war and was on an easy setting just learning.
Modifiers. Generally 150% applied to build, research, growth, barbarians, ect... values other than 150% are:
Golden Age = 125%
Inflation % = 18
Inflation Offset = -150
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during an epic game are 650
Code:
Ancient to Classical 4000 - 2000 BC (40 yrs / 50 turns)
Classical to Medieval 2000 - 1000 BC (25 yrs / 40 turns)
Medieval to Renaissance 1000 BC - 400 AD (20 yrs / 70 turns)
Renaissance to Industrial 400 - 1000 AD (10 yrs / 60 turns)
Industrial to Modern 1000 - 1650 AD (5 yrs / 130 turns)
Modern to Future 1650 - 1850 AD (2 yrs / 100 turns)
Future to End 1850 - 2050 AD (1 yr / 200 turns)Normal Speed Effects
As the name implies, everything is pretty much 'normal' about this setting. This is a good speed for people learning and those who want to try to finish a game in 1 sitting.
All modifiers are 100%. Inflation % is 27 and the offset is -100
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during a normal game are 430
Code:
Ancient to Classical 4000 - 1000 BC (40 yrs / 75 turns)
Classical to Medieval 1000 BC - 500 AD (25 yrs / 60 turns)
Medieval to Renaissance 500 - 1000 AD (20 yrs / 25 turns)
Renaissance to Industrial 1000 - 1500 AD (10 yrs / 50 turns)
Industrial to Modern 1500 - 1850 AD (5 yrs / 70 turns)
Modern to Future 1850 - 1950 AD (2 yrs / 50 turns)
Future to End 1950 - 2050 AD (1 yr / 100 turns)Quick Speed Effects
Quick will let you experiance a little bit of everything about the game, like the techs and wonders, but you won't be able to dweel on any aspect for too long. Another good choice for beginners and people who want to play through a quick, almost RTS themed game.
Quick speed has a great majority of the multipliers at 67% (2/3 rounded up) with the following exceptions:
Golden Age Effect: 80%
Hurry % = 150
Inflation % = 40
Inflation Offset = -67
Turns and Timeline:
Total turns during a quick game are 300
Code:
Ancient to Classical 4000 - 1000 BC (50 yrs / 60 turns)
Classical to Medieval 1000 BC - 1000 AD (40 yrs / 50 turns)
Medieval to Renaissance 1000 - 1500 AD (25 yrs / 20 turns)
Renaissance to Industrial 1500 - 1650 AD (10 yrs / 15 turns)
Industrial to Modern 1650 - 1900 AD (5 yrs / 50 turns)
Modern to Future 1900 - 1990 AD (2 yrs / 45 turns)
Future to End 1990 - 2050 AD (1 yr / 60 turns)So far I've completed about 6 games, as well as playing through a handful halfway through and then not saving
Most have been normal, but I think I will go back to epic now that I have learnt more about the game. Hope this info helps somone if they were looking for it.KAuss said:
How does one manage to play a "peaceful game" on Noble? The AI is *so* aggressive, and they seem to watch for any sign of weakness in military terms and respond with really brutal invasions. Did you just luck out and get the less aggressive Civs?
Puzzlinon
Insomaniac
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2003
- Messages
- 270
Peace through strength. It's a matter of calibrating how much military you build. You do have build it, and keep building it. You don't want enough to invade, but you do want enough to repel an invasion.
Keep your border cities well-garrisoned with modern defenders; keep some mobile counterattackers on the back lines; pop a state-of-the-art defender on any military-related resource near the frontier to discourage pillaging.
And give Montezuma whatever he asks for unless you're a couple of eras ahead of him, unless you enjoy having vast swarms of catapult/rifleman/cavalry materialize out of the empty ocean at the door of your favorite GL city.*
(Generally, be cooperative about demands, even if it feels wimpy.)
* Monty really isn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver. I've seen him kill 12 cavalry in an attempt to land from a transport on top of a Modern Armor that was just having a nice day at the beach. Do-do-dee! Do-do-dee! Victory music, 12 times over. They didn't even scratch the paint.
SamE
Warlord
Well, first you have to get past the barbarians. Once you establish your borders, it's a bit easier. Of course, it all depends on your location. If you're in the middle of five or more civs, it might be harder, but if you're on a peninsula, it's quite a bit easier. Those have been my two games. The first one was the peninsula one, and even though I didn't have that much room, I got along with Persia well (until we went against each other for UN), and he was my only neighbor. In my other game, both Mansa Musa and Tokugawa declared war on me, and I had to build a lot of military units. I guess my problem there was not building walls in any of my cities. As Puzzlinon said, be ready to repel an invasion, not give one. Civ IV makes it much harder to attack cities.Arcturus said:
Gufnork said:
Except you're not playing the same game anymore. You can't even compare your play to other people's anymore because it's entirely different. If you beat deity with modded turn speeds then you can't say you can beat deity, because you didn't do it with the standard ruleset. This is why I dislike and refuse to use mods that change gameplay. Visual mods are great, though.
Silver Marmot
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2005
- Messages
- 239
I usually play at normal, because I don't have much time. I've just graduated from Warlord, and the games I've played were all way under three hours (standard size map). I look forward to the noble and prince difficulties, because Warlord is a complete joke. No one ever declared war on me, and no one had even completed the Appolo Project when I won the space race.
kobo1d
Chieftain
Quick FTW!
At this point, I like to be able to hammer through several games a week.
On quick, you can MM and still finish a game in one sitting.
A small sample of an epic game = End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. Warrior. End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. End turn. etc.
Normal is perfectly fine. Quick is good for learning and multiplayer.
At this point, I like to be able to hammer through several games a week.
On quick, you can MM and still finish a game in one sitting.
A small sample of an epic game = End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. Warrior. End Turn. End Turn. End Turn. End turn. etc.
Normal is perfectly fine. Quick is good for learning and multiplayer.
jeremiahrounds
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2003
- Messages
- 404
This thread got me to try my first epic. I really didnt find it took longer then a normal game except during the fighting.
The reason is everything that i give orders for takes 50% longer too. (production/tile development/research). So other then clicking through more turns i give orders about the same amount of times as a normal game. Giving orders is what takes up time not turns.
So why play the epic? It felt better to me when it came time for the fighting. Thats when it could in theory take longer cuase you actually have time to do some brawling.
So epic will be my choice from now on. I think the mix feels better and its not really longer in real time.
The reason is everything that i give orders for takes 50% longer too. (production/tile development/research). So other then clicking through more turns i give orders about the same amount of times as a normal game. Giving orders is what takes up time not turns.
So why play the epic? It felt better to me when it came time for the fighting. Thats when it could in theory take longer cuase you actually have time to do some brawling.
So epic will be my choice from now on. I think the mix feels better and its not really longer in real time.
