Epic Speed vs. Standard Speed

[meteo63]

I was just playing a standard speed game on a large map and time just seems to move so fast! I've barely conquered one or two of my nine AI opponents and I'm almost at the industrial era already. I only had enough time to use/build only one or two of my unique units (Legions and Ballistas) and then very soon had to upgrade them, losing the unique road building ability.

So for my next game, I was considering an epic speed game. But what exactly is the difference between standard and epic? How much slower is the science and culture? How do the gold costs of luxuries/embassies/open borders scale in epic speed? What about happiness? Anything else I should know about before jumping up to epic speed?

 

[Kwami]

Most things don't change. You'll still get the same science, culture, faith, gold, production, great people points, and happiness per turn. You'll have the same city-state bonuses, the same resources, the same number of spies, and etc.

What really changes is the amount of those things that you need to get something done. You need more culture per policy, more science per tech, more happiness per golden age, more faith per profit, and more production per building and unit.

For example, I created a standard game with Alexander on three different speeds. Each time, I started with 4 beakers per turn. The first few levels of techs had these turn numbers:

Standard: 10/15/29/48
Epic: 15/23/43/72
Marathon: 29/45/87/144

So, epic is approximately 1.5x standard. To be honest, I didn't feel much of a difference when I switched from standard to epic. Now, I play almost exclusively on marathon. Marathon is about 3x standard.

 

[gozpel]

And marathon is such a drag, until you get the momentum. And that takes looooong time!

But I play it anyways, now and again. I think I prefer Epic though, even if most of my games are on standard.

Am I confusing enough?

 

[Hamsterdam]

I only play on epic speed now.

Can't give exact ratios to show the difference but if 12 turns to research pottery at the start of the game, it will be 26 turns on epic speed. Wonders that take 30+ turns now are 55+ turns to build. Everything is about 55% longer to complete.

 

[Sonereal]

Marathon is three times the cost for everything.
Epic is 1.5x the cost of everything.
Normal is what the numbers are based on.

The nifty thing about Marathon is that everything is already expensive, leading to situations where techs are still going by faster than what you can build. I usually end up beefing up Research cost to 900 instead of 300. I probably should also beef up SP costs, but I don't really care at the moment.

 

[meteo63]

Okay, thanks everyone. But what about gold costs for trading with AIs? If epic is times 1.5, does that mean luxuries trade for 320 gold instead of 240? What about embassies/open borders and everything else like research agreements?

 

[Zanarkin]

Okay, thanks everyone. But what about gold costs for trading with AIs? If epic is times 1.5, does that mean luxuries trade for 320 gold instead of 240? What about embassies/open borders and everything else like research agreements?

I play marathon exclusively and the gold for luxury trades seem to be varying. Hard up broke countries will trade for 100g where others want 200-300. As far as research agreements its always been in the range of 900-1050 gold.

Agreements last 90 turns, peace treaties 10. I've never played slower games so don't know if they are the same.

90 turns with a giant earth mod map with 20 civs and 45 city states in the atomic era or thereabouts is a entire evening or more of game play for me. The games usually last 2 weeks.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Marathon is three times the cost for everything.
Epic is 1.5x the cost of everything.
Normal is what the numbers are based on.

The nifty thing about Marathon is that everything is already expensive, leading to situations where techs are still going by faster than what you can build. I usually end up beefing up Research cost to 900 instead of 300. I probably should also beef up SP costs, but I don't really care at the moment.

That's a really good idea. Did you mod it or go into the config files? I get so fed up with having giant building cues that continue to grow as you tech that I end up cheat-gifting them to myself most of the time.

Also, no one has mentioned how even though golden ages take longer to reach in marathon, they last much longer as well.

Edit: And when you've got the 'momentum' that golden age makes a huge difference.

 

[Glassmage]

I play on Standard and set tech cost to 125 in the gamespeed.xml file. Get to use units more and not have to deal with slowness of building stuff.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

thanks

 

[Kwami]

Okay, thanks everyone. But what about gold costs for trading with AIs? If epic is times 1.5, does that mean luxuries trade for 320 gold instead of 240? What about embassies/open borders and everything else like research agreements?

Everything that's 30 turns on standard (such as AI trades) is 45 turns on epic and 90 turns on marathon. The gold costs scale the same way (1.5x for epic, 3x for marathon). For example, a luxury resource from a friendly AI will cost you 240g for 30 turns on standard, but 720g for 90 turns on marathon. One thing that doesn't seem to change is the added cost for research agreements when you're in a different era than the AI; it's still 100g per era.

As someone else mentioned, golden ages also scale as you would expect (1.5x for epic, 3x for marathon).

Why don't you just try a game?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Why don't you just try a game?

I suspect because he wanted to go on a CiV disscussion forum to discuss it and get input first.

 

[Sonereal]

That's a really good idea. Did you mod it or go into the config files? I get so fed up with having giant building cues that continue to grow as you tech that I end up cheat-gifting them to myself most of the time.

Also, no one has mentioned how even though golden ages take longer to reach in marathon, they last much longer as well.

Edit: And when you've got the 'momentum' that golden age makes a huge difference.

I just went directly into the XML. If I wanted to change it back, its really easy just to change the 9 back to a 3.

 

[PreLynMax]

I don't have the patience to spend the first 2 weeks on a boring ancient/classical game, so I'll stick with Standard.

 

[droberts97470]

It takes me ten days to play a game on quick. (domination only). It must take months on epic or marithon.

 

[Kwami]

I go through a marathon game every 1-2 weeks, depending on how much time I have to play. An epic game is 2-3 nights. Standard games are over in hours, unless it's domination on a large map.

 

[n00bxqb]

Luxuries usually sell for 720 gold on Marathon (depending on relationship)

I can't stand playing on Standard. It goes way too quick. Epic is okay, but still goes too fast for me.

 

[Ellye]

Epic is my favorite game speed, but Standard is nice too.
Marathon drags a bit too much for me, especially during peace.
Quick is way too quick.

I'm also experimenting around with a mod that adds +30% beakers cost to all technologies, slowing down research while keeping everything else at default pace (for whichever game speed). Quite enjoyable, so far.

 

[PreLynMax]

I tend to scale the map size to the game speed:

Quick Speed -> Small Size
Standard Speed -> Standard Size
Epic Speed -> Large Size
Marathon Speed -> Huge Size

Note, I don't play Tiny or Duel sizes. Right now I'm playing a Marathon/Huge Emperor game as Harun al-Rashid.

 

[Jabberwockxeno]

Is there a mod that makes the game speed not affect production times for units/improvment times for workers or something like that?