What should I do now (for fun?)

Redaxe said:

Try some of the Meso/south-American civs - they're always fun

Maya's, Inca's, Aztecs - the music is awesome.
Emperor/Immortal is probably your skill level. You can probably handle a lot of Immortal games, where it gets disappointing though is that once you play Immortal/Diety many strategies and Wonders are no longer viable so you have less and less choices in how to play.
For instance if you are used to building the Great Library to slingshot to Philosophy for an early National College that strategy is almost completely impossible to achieve above Emperor and if you fail at it, then it will probably cost you the game.

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I'm probably just as happy to conquer cities with wonders as I am to build them myself. Now that I'm on Emperor difficulty I focus on the national wonders, and once my production gets up to around 70 or more I can build stuff like the porcelain tower and the pentagon - especially with a handy-dandy great engineer standing by. I'm a little miffed that Wu Zetian beat me to the hubble telescope, though.

I will probably stick with Babylon until I beat the Earth map on deity (I will probably need to beat the pangea map first). After that, I might just set it to random civ. Another possibility is, I might do a game with Alexander or one of the other CS-oriented civs and go for a diplo vic, since I've never done that yet.

Another thought: I bet a science victory is actually a challenge on Deity. I will probably do that if and when I beat immortal with a domination victory on either continents or Earth.

Science victory is by far the easiest victory on deity (if you don't count diplo where it's easy always)

KevinLandwaster said:

Another thought: I bet a science victory is actually a challenge on Deity. I will probably do that if and when I beat immortal with a domination victory on either continents or Earth.

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Not really, it's the level it which the AI is most likely to win a science victory.

In addition, it's the only level in which the AI can win a cultural victory.

Sclb said:

Science victory is by far the easiest victory on deity (if you don't count diplo where it's easy always)

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Peaceful Cultural victory is hardest on Deity.
A conquest induced Cultural victory though can still be done and is easier than domination (if you've not yet won by the time the modern era arrives).

joncnunn said:

Not really, it's the level it which the AI is most likely to win a science victory.

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SV feels is very legitimate at Deity. (1) You have to unlock almost all of the tech tree. (2) You can’t take too long.

I finally won domination on Emperor level - Earth map. It was fun; I only wish I could have played with 24 or more civs (my comp is too slow ). I think the next thing might be diplomatic. I have to look at a few strategy tips about diplo - like which wonders to shoot for, and which religion and ideology bonuses to look for. I imagine money is the key to this, and filling out the Patronage tree ASAP. The mechanics of building a financial empire is kind of intriguing and might take some actual planning.

You don't need to fill out patronage tree for diplo. The strongest SP is the opener as it saves you gold on maintaining alliance. On low difficulty level you can also get the one that increase influence you get from buying and the one that increases the base influence. Forbidden Palace is a nice wonder.

yeah Patronage is really good but ultimately not crucial

beetle said:

The problem with shifting to marathon, or even with using smaller maps, is that you will not experience the complete game as designed. Getting through most (or all) of the tech tree implies that you have gone through all the phases of the game and had a full experience. The pacing really is interesting. But you will pretty much only get that from standard settings when you are not running away with the game. The developers have done a very nice job with the play balance.

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Can you expand on this a bit as it's been bothering me lately - I've always played Marathon but have seen a few comments recently that it isn't the 'right' or 'best' way to play, or that it is somehow 'cheating' or 'easier'.

Last night I won a cultural victory on approx turn 1200 (out of 1500), had reached half way into the Information age (it was 1990 and I'd researched the Internet and Globalization but not a couple of others further back, so pretty realistic) and had completed three policy trees as well as most of an Ideology. Should I have done more or less of either of these to mean that the game pacing is 'as intended'? And what is the average for those at Standard game speed?

Back on topic, I agree about the choice of civ. Playing mainly as one, and one of the better all-round ones at that, will get tedious. Without a different type of map or civ to force you you'll find yourself choosing the same policies and building the same buildings.

meatpardle said:

Can you expand on this a bit as it's been bothering me lately - I've always played Marathon but have seen a few comments recently that it isn't the 'right' or 'best' way to play, or that it is somehow 'cheating' or 'easier'.

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Rubbish.

There is only one question that you need to ask:

Do you enjoy this setting?

And only one Authority that can answer:

Yourself.

I guess, but the point about about not experiencing the game as it was designed makes me think I'm missing out on something or playing an inferior/skewed version.

meatpardle said:

Can you expand on this a bit as it's been bothering me lately - I've always played Marathon but have seen a few comments recently that it isn't the 'right' or 'best' way to play, or that it is somehow 'cheating' or 'easier'.

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I agree that the point is to have, so no problem there. And full disclosure, I have not tried anything but standard pace myself. You are getting to Ideologies, and towards the end of the tech tree, so that does sounds like the full game. For me, it comes does to if I would rather play one Marathon game or two (or is three) regular games. The other difficulty is being able to compare your experience with what other people are posting. You suggest using the year as a reference point, but that is close to useless. There are many more technical commenters than I who can explain better than I how changing the speed breaks the game mechanics.

This board probably magnifies the complainers, but my perspective and prejudice come from reading Marathon players complain they rarely experience ideologies and end-game techs. Also, I am quite skeptical that the developers did sufficient play testing, let alone anything beyond standard size, standard pace, standard number of civs and CS, and beyond a middling difficulty level. With the standard settings, I experience the rhythm of the game, the shifting friendships, and especially how Ideologies really have a distinct impact. It all seem very tenuous though. Fewer civs, a smaller map, or different speed all seem like they would flatten all those effects.

Supposedly, slower pace makes easier because the player has more time to overcome the early AI advantages. Also combat is easier because it puts more emphasis on tactics than unit spawning.

There are a lot of game settings to experiment with. But first I have to would have to get tired of the built-in civs before I would try changing the speed options.

Ah OK. I definitely get the issue with not being able to compare turn-based experiences posted here (and I know using the year/calendar is worthless, I just put it here to show that the game advances were progressing at a reasonably realistic pace), but I've never failed to get to ideologies or the end of game techs (maybe as I play Emperor and not Deity).

I'll probably play a few games at standard setting to see if I can notice a difference.

The thing is, on Marathon military conquest is stronger.
If you start a war at tech parity, the is very little danger that you suddenly run into advanced units.
If you have defeated the initial units your enemy has, only few new ones can be produced in the time it takes you to roll his cities over.
And since the general pace is so slow, you will have enough time to get to every civ that threatens to win with a peaceful VC.

So yes, if you decide to win via conquest as quick as possible, you can do it well before Ideologies, on single landmass maps probably before industrialisation. Heck, I have won one game on a huge map with 15 AIs (Immortal) in the classic age, but it was modded.

But this possibility does not stop you from choosing to win a peaceful victory, and then the game will go into later eras.

I must contradict what a lot of people seem to think about marathon or epic games. In reality, if you had control of all aspects of society and scientific progress, you should be able to far outpace the timeline of history. The reason it took 6500 years to get from the bronze age to the information age is because of religious dogma, wars, famine and pestilence - otherwise it probably would have occurred during ancient times.

My view of the game speed is that things actually should progress faster when you slow the game clock down. It's like if you were in a boxing match, and you were experiencing it in milliseconds, while your opponent was in real time. You would knock him out in a fraction of a second. Likewise, if you began building an empire with a few settlers in the real world, and had control of every aspect of social policies, science, economy and religion, you should - in reality - be able to reach the information age within a dozen generations or so (maybe 300 years).

So, I think marathon is actually meant to be a a closer to real-time simulation of the passage of time, while standard paced games are meant to offer a shorter game that forces you to progress at the pace of Earth's history - even though you should have the power to far outpace Earth's history.

I don't think that information age was possible in the ancient world. We need a world that is very specialized to be able to have time to achive the technological things we can do now. Not possible in the ancient time. Perhaps in areas like Greece that could have a few people with enough time to be theoretic but hardly enoughth.
And war and pestilence can have very positive results. And sometimes be necessary to progress

liv said:

I don't think that information age was possible in the ancient world. We need a world that is very specialized to be able to have time to achive the technological things we can do now. Not possible in the ancient time. Perhaps in areas like Greece that could have a few people with enough time to be theoretic but hardly enoughth.
And war and pestilence can have very positive results. And sometimes be necessary to progress

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The thing people don't realize about ancient times is, ancient Greece and Rome were nearly at the level of the Renaissance era scientifically, and a lot of the things from ancient times were rediscovered many centuries later. Recently they have discovered that the ancient mathematician, Archimedes, invented calculus, and it was not reinvented until Isaac Newton about 2000 years later.

Also, the industrial revolution, which was the catalyst for all the scientific advancements in the 20th century, was made possible by a sudden abundance of the food supply in Europe, which created a level of prosperity that never existed in history. Famine, war, pestilence and religious dogma are definitely not ever precursors to more advanced eras.

If you look at how much different the world is today compared to 200 years ago, it is easy to imagine an ancient empire like Greece or Rome speeding through these scientific advancements in a few centuries.