Marathon is nice... BUT...

Socratatus

Socratatus

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Jul 26, 2007
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I like Marathon mode because you actually have time to spend in the ancient and Classical eras. You even actually have wars using units like the Trireme and melee troops. On other levels, even epic you`re in the renaissance or modern era before a military weapon even comes out to play, but I like to see the ancient stuff first!


However, I thought Marathon just made Research take longer to extend how long you have period stuff, but it makes EVERYTHING take longer. Workers take an eternity to build a road. units take forever to build.

I get bored just clicking `Next turn` and sometimes I wish i had a special thumb switch connected to the keyboard `enter` to change turns. Just waiting for a worker to build is crazy!

I don`t see why Units and even Workers needed to take any longer to do stuff than say on the Epic level; all we needed was just Research take longer that`s all.
 
I see marathon as a bit of a crutch, because it's mostly balanced, except your units have much longer to win wars, and don't need to fly across the land like you do on standard. Thus, the domination condition seems too easy to me.

Slowed research is not for me, but if that's what you want, I think there are rebalancing mods which may be able to help you.
 
Socratatus said:
However, I thought Marathon just made Research take longer to extend how long you have period stuff, but it makes EVERYTHING take longer. Workers take an eternity to build a road. units take forever to build.
Click to expand...

It makes everything take the longer, and is balanced to do that. However, it still takes too longer to build anything relative to how long it takes to research a new tech. This has been a problem for me since near the release of the game so I've taken to just going into Gamespeeds and lowering values.

I don't much mind how long it takes build infrastructure though. It is mainly the units and buildings.
 
Socratatus said:
I get bored just clicking `Next turn` and sometimes I wish i had a special thumb switch connected to the keyboard `enter` to change turns. Just waiting for a worker to build is crazy!
Click to expand...

Switch on the Auto End Turn and go make a cup of tea. If a decision is needed (like a new worker order or city build) it will stop and wait for you.

But yes, I understand the frustration of Marathon (I play on Epic). As mentioned by Crafty Bison, there are mods to fix that, but I've not used them.
 
I think I may have once heard of a mod that made it so that units build(at normal speed, was it?)on slower speeds, but that research still took longer.

I'm not sure if I will ever try a slower speed unless I can find a mod that does something like that.
 
there is definitely a mod that extends research times but lets build times stay the same. i think its called era extension or something like that
 
I would love to see something like this in the advanced options. Something that keeps research rates the same in Marathon, maybe keep about 50% of the penalty for buildings and wonders, and maybe 25% for units. This seems the most 'realistic' that I can think of.
 
i love playing on epic, it's a nice balance between normal and marathon. playing normal feels like you don't have much opportunity to fully immerse yourself in the game, unless you're playing small maps you simply don't have enough time to do vast conquests before your units are outdated and need replacing/updating. i guess it's a 'crutch' if your main goal in playing is trying to get fast domination official victories, but for pure fun and immersion the slower speeds are where it's at.. though I doubt I could handle the end of turn thing on marathon.
 
There are a number of mods out there that address this. Im currently playing a game on normal speed, but with a mod that increases research by 200% (therefore trippling beakers). It is awesome. I often have no buildings left to build in my cities, and get to build units etc.
 
Marathon simply keeps the balance. If production (or workers) were faster while research stayed the same, it would end up hurting the balance of the game.

In fact, a big reason I play marathon is due to the slow production. It makes my game much harder (I've beaten Deity on fast but only up to Emperor on marathon), due, I admit, to my play style. Marathon research and normal everything else would throw things way out of balance, and likely make the mode too easy, particularly with how the AI tends to get a big military as their major advantage (and as such the human being able to make units more quickly makes things easier) while they can be out teched later regardless.
 
I don't mind the slowed production. The problem is that production scaling in CivV is somewhat wonky compared to CivIV, leaving you almost no time to play around in an era because your'e spending most of the time building a unit or two and a building or two before the next tech pops.
 
Sonereal said:
I don't mind the slowed production. The problem is that production scaling in CivV is somewhat wonky compared to CivIV, leaving you almost no time to play around in an era because your'e spending most of the time building a unit or two and a building or two before the next tech pops.
Click to expand...

And those units that you built with the old tech aren't even close to useless until you finally finish building that next unit (at only 2 per era, that leaves a lot of time, though I generally get more than that).

I play on marathon most of the time, and it's really not a problem there. When I play on quick, I must admit my army is generally very small due to the fact the standing army becomes obsolete quickly. On slower speeds, you get a heck of a lot of turns running around with some units before you can build one of the next tech up.

Keep in mind that in Civ4, you had stacks of doom, so you could have more units. If you had 50 units, but only 1 per hex...well, that's a very good reason to keep unit build times longer in Civ5.
 
Rooftrellen said:
Keep in mind that in Civ4, you had stacks of doom, so you could have more units. If you had 50 units, but only 1 per hex...well, that's a very good reason to keep unit build times longer in Civ5.
Click to expand...

I agree it's good to not have too many units. It's boring moving them around. Perhaps increasing the production and lower the supply limit, so that you actually can reach it in a normal game.

I've only found out about the supply limit after a OCC surrounded by Genghis, Alexander and Suleiman.
 
one thing i find on epic (which would presumably apply even more to marathon) is that you have to be far more careful with your units due to the increased production time. You can't carelessly throw your units around because one loss can be devastating since replacing one unit will take multiple turns - so the consequences of wars are felt far more than on normal or quick where a loss in war can be made up relatively quickly.
 
Socratatus said:
I might try this and look for Mods.
Click to expand...

The mod is actually quite easy. You only need to add one SQL statement:

Code: 
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = 2*Cost;

and that's it. Your beaker costs are now doubled. In place of 2 you can, of course, use 3, 4, or even 5 depending on how much you want to stretch the playing time. Only the research is affected. Everything else stays the same as it was.

If you don't like the year counter getting "too much" out-of-sync with the technology level you can adjust those, too, if you like. The relevant table is GameSpeed_Turns where you can set the values of MonthIncrement and TurnsPerIncrement. Search in the mod forum for examples and experiences for "good" values but you probably have to try what settings work best for your preferred setup choices.
 
My problem is not the beaker costs are too cheap, it's quite the opposite. It is too expensive, and I barely could get out into the G&K modern era by the 20th century.
 
I have always played Marathon. In fact truth be told I have never even tried the other speeds.
 
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