What speed do you play on?

Just a simple question, I was curious at to what the most popular speed to play on is and why.

I myself am partial to Epic, it just feels right. You get a decent window to use units like muskets and the eras seem to pass just when they should. I also like it because you have more time to pull off warmongering if its your style yet the peaceful times still pass quick enough that things don't feel bogged down.

I enjoy Marathon as well, its just that the early game gets a bit too tedious clicking end turn constantly while waiting for your worker to build or researching those first few tech's and cities. Late game marathon is fun however. The main problem for me is that I rarely have time to finish a Marathon game in 1 or 2 sittings, and whenever I have to walk away from a game in progress its always a pain to come back to it and try to remember all of the little micro goals I was pursuing when I quit.

Normal just seems to move to fast for me, and units become obsolete too quick and I just don't get the same satisfaction of finally getting that crucial tech researched or building/ wonder completed when it only took 5 turns.

Same problems as above but compounded on quick.

Whats are the community's thoughts?

I posted a similar poll a while back, perhaps the preferences haven't changed much since then.

Quick looks balanced......................

There's a reason people don't play it, and if you think it's "I want the game to be more epic and take longer" for >90% of all players, you're extra naive.

It gets some play in the MP scene, but that's it. Broken gamespeed .

Normal and epic are the most balanced gamespeeds, with marathon being ridiculously favored to war abuse, faster tech/year, and generally outperforming other speeds by miles (pun intended?). What one picks is mostly a factor of how they prefer their games to go.

what's broken about quick? I've played it. It's not the best, but it works.

OP: I tend to agree with you.

I like Epic for the reasons you stated. Game is still balanced. Marathon is imbalanced in favor of warmongering and is SO tedious. Very few people like Quick. Like Automated Teller, I am unsure what TMIT's additional criticism of Quick is. War is nasty on Quick - units obsolete so fast.

When I play OCC, I prefer Normal but do some Epic. Nice thing about OCC is the game only takes 2-3 hours so Normal lets you get in more games. I usually do Space on OCC, so I don't need to worry about offensive war.

Epic. I like having the option to fight a war in a given period without feeling like my units obsolete before the war even begins.

I would play marathon but I just don't have the patience for it.

I don't mind normal but I find whenever I play it, I tend to just default to going for a space victory and that gets boring.

I've honestly never even tried quick, maybe I should sometime.

Normal. The slower ones favor war too much.

Epic. I like the pace - I can build wonders, units, buildings, and tech at a decent rate without not noticing the clock for 2 turns and see that you have gone from 550 BC to 2600 AD over the course of 2 Enters.

Marathon. It's probably not the best speed but it suits my gaming needs. Imo it really lets me settle in and build an empire. As in build it. Really build it and defend or expand it.

I do agree that the first few years can get a bit tedious but once Im totally immersed in the game it is- for me- a fairly quickly paced game. Sometimes too quick.

But that's what I play,

I totally agree with bitplayer. Marathon is my preferred speed for the same reasons. However, I don't find the beginning tedious because I enjoy manually controlling my exploring warriors, scouts or who-ever and seeing what there is to see. I usually play fractal maps so I won't have any idea what is out there until I explore it.

I usually play on normal, because I think it produces good game times, and I think it's probably the most balanced game speed. But I also play around 1/5 games on epic, which is also pretty good. The main thing I don't like about normal is that it's so easy to "max out" productivity of cities, so that they can build pretty much anything in 1 turn, and thus waste a lot of productivity. Epic improves that situation.

karadoc said:

The main thing I don't like about normal is that it's so easy to "max out" productivity of cities, so that they can build pretty much anything in 1 turn, and thus waste a lot of productivity. Epic improves that situation.

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This is the #1 reason why slower games are generally preferable.

Here's an odd fact: Construction, research, and the Great Person Rate are all 50% faster on quick, but culture thresholds (like Legendary) are achieved twice as quickly. This makes it the ideal speed for the "sit on your butt, build Wonders, culture-flip enemy cities, and win a Cultural Victory" style of gameplay. On Epic, all four take 50% longer. On Marathon, build times are 200% of normal but research times, culture thresholds, and the time between Great Persons appearing are 300% of normal. Ergo, Marathon is the ideal speed for zergzergzerg-style gameplay. Get a few crappy techs, then throw hordes of weak units at everyone before they can prepare a defense. I LOVES IT.

This is all not considering the fact that unit movement costs and the one-attack-per-turn rule are not affected by game speed, giving even further advantage to warmongering on slower speeds and peaceful victories on faster speeds.

Marathon; as already stated, I like the fact that units built actually have a usable era before they are obsolete. I also like the early stages of exploration and discovery, and the game speed gives me time to build an empire and decie muy victory conditions.

Also, suits my time; with family and work commitmenst, I only get to play a few hours a week tops so Marathon lets my plan my game well ahead of playtime which for me is half the fun.

So, Ragnar, you think putting that city right where I was heading was a sensible idea eh.......

Normal.

Quick and Marathon unbalance the game and reduce the number of viable strategies to an extent I feel I'm not playing the full game. Epic still gives the human too much time to exploit a temporary advantage imo; barbarians can also be a little obnoxious.

I've always spoken for marathon eventhough I do realize that warring is very easy when compared. I occasionally try to balance this with aggressive ai which in turn leads to slower research but overall makes the ai war better.

I'm still a normal person.

EDIT: Apart from the enormous shrine to Lemon Merchant I have in the spare room. Some might consider that a bit weird I suppose.

Marathon for a few reasons.

A) World history should take more than a few hours
B) Units should never become obsolete purely as a result of how far they are travelling.
C) It is forgiving in terms of micro. A turn or two with the wrong squares worked or the wrong worker orders are far less damaging on marthon than normal.

ParadigmShifter said:

I'm still a normal person.

EDIT: Apart from the enormous shrine to Lemon Merchant I have in the spare room. Some might consider that a bit weird I suppose.

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Yes, that's very weird indeed. You hide the shrine in a spare room instead of making it the center of your home? How shabby is that!

On topic: I rarely play anything else but Marathon. I realize that it puts the AI at a disadvantage and I regret that, but the other game speeds are still too quick for me to create the epic atmosphere I like in my games.

TheMeInTeam said:

Quick looks balanced......................

There's a reason people don't play it, and if you think it's "I want the game to be more epic and take longer" for >90% of all players, you're extra naive.

It gets some play in the MP scene, but that's it. Broken gamespeed .

Normal and epic are the most balanced gamespeeds, with marathon being ridiculously favored to war abuse, faster tech/year, and generally outperforming other speeds by miles (pun intended?). What one picks is mostly a factor of how they prefer their games to go.

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well it is balanced when you're playing against humans. It's only imbalanced when you play against AIs, because their super discounts to research and upgrades will make any invading army obselete before you can even reach their capital.

but yeah i always play at normal, it seems like the game was clearly designed to be played at normal speed (hence the name :/) and the other speeds were added later as an afterthought.

Just to be clear. On the slower speeds (epic and marathon) techs take longer to discover. Unit creation and movement remain basically the same? Or is it just movement? What about workers? Does it take longer for them to build improvements?