Having trouble figure this game out

[Gumbolt]

On Monarch level techs come a lot quicker. Huge size maps will make techs take longer. You seem to be well ahead of the AI tech wise but you should be on Monarch level.

You only have 6 cities on a huge map.Hannibal is up to 19 cities. Long term that is an issue if you don't spam cuirs or another unit soon. The AI on other continents will be spamming cities.

Not sure you need Great Library. Adds very little after liberalism is gone. There was no point taking nationalism from Liberalism as no one was close to it. Looks like you didn't GS bulb liberalism as you already had machinery. Which means you self teched it. Pretty sure a great scientist would of bulbed much of that.

For me I seem to spend a lot of the BC era fighting at least 1-2 wars which is usually why I am bit later to CS. On Marathan speed you could of easily abused HA/Axes or phants with such a strong commerce start. Don't get comfortable on 5-6 cities on huge maps. My recent Joall game on a normal map i had 16 or so cities by 1ad. Land=power. If you stick to a small empire you want a break out strategy as you won't win a huge map with 6 cities. I guess with cuirs you can capture much of the nearest 2 AI land. Aim for 20-25+ cities before taking any vassals.

Not sure point of playing marathan speed if you are going to stick to 5-6 cities. You pretty much are clicking enter each turn if you have no worker moves.

 

[sampsa]

One thing I forgot to mention - you should settle every seafood. Even if it's the only good tile the city has. It can grow on coastal tiles and for example run specialists later.

 

[pigswill]

With a more aggressive mind-set you could have dominated your home continent with axepult/elepult rushes while heading for astronomy for intercontinental trade.

 

[floydmcw]

Can someone please come to my house and make me stop playing this marathon game?

On a more serious note, is worker + worker a standardish opening for marathon speed? I can see how workers being cheap compared to settlers and buildings would make 2 of them worthwhile.

 

[Core Imposter]

Can someone please come to my house and make me stop playing this marathon game?

On a more serious note, is worker + worker a standardish opening for marathon speed? I can see how workers being cheap compared to settlers and buildings would make 2 of them worthwhile.

I can't help you. My current game time is 1565.32.

 

[sampsa]

On a more serious note, is worker + worker a standardish opening for marathon speed?

I think it makes sense. Marathon doesn't.

 

[Core Imposter]

The great flaws of the game are that the maps are too small, and the game is too quick. It is barely playable on huge maps at marathon speed. I don't know if any of the mods address these issues. It is all too simple and prone to formulaic play geared to immature goals like fastest to win some unrealistic victory.

Still, it is the best game of its type I have played. No one is going to make a better game because if someone did who would buy any of the lesser products that roll off the assembly line like students drink beer at uni.

 

[antimony]

The great flaws of the game are that the maps are too small, and the game is too quick. It is barely playable on huge maps at marathon speed. I don't know if any of the mods address these issues. It is all too simple and prone to formulaic play geared to immature goals like fastest to win some unrealistic victory.

Still, it is the best game of its type I have played. No one is going to make a better game because if someone did who would buy any of the lesser products that roll off the assembly line like students drink beer at uni.

Based on your comment maybe you would enjoy the Realism Invictus mod if you don't know it already.

 

[Core Imposter]

Based on your comment maybe you would enjoy the Realism Invictus mod if you don't know it already.

That's on my to-do list.

 

[sampsa]

Perhaps it's due to huge flaws in game design, but I think the game would be at it's best on quick speed, because then the human player would not have a massive advantage. I just find it a bit hard to get a hang of the timings.

 

[awost1]

In my short time playing some normal games, it feels like faster speeds punish teching and macro mistakes, but slower speeds punish unit/building construction and micro mistakes like unit movement.

 

[antimony]

I don't think it's macro vs micro necessarily because, for example with micro wasting a worker turn is less a big deal in marathon but losing an early unit to a barb due to a misstep is more serious.

Most things scale with speed except unit movement doesn't scale at all and unit costs in marathon specifically scale less (are relatively cheaper) than on other speeds.

Also, in addition to that, slower speeds (epic, marathon) make any acceleration mechanics like great people bulbs, chops/whips much stronger. So for example, if you do the classic great scientist bulb path towards liberalism, get military tradition with liberalism and whip 2 rounds of Cuirassiers in your cities, then the amount of time (in terms of "historical years" in the game) you save compared to when you would have gotten that army without those acceleration methods, that gap is much greater on slower speed. That's before even counting the fact that your army moves relatively faster (in historical years) on slower speeds. And the AI is worse than the human on using those methods, so usually the human player benefits from the larger gap from having such a plan, even if the plan is not executed optimally (it is lenient on micro mistakes in that sense). Any strategic advantage you get lasts longer. I suspect that's also why units scale differently on marathon, to give the defender against a timing attack a bit more leeway.

Larger map sizes partly offset the movement bonus of slow speeds, which is why they are often paired together. But one way in which larger map size and slower speed both push in the same direction is increasing tech costs. I suspect crashing the economy due to spamming too many units or settling/taking too many cities (very easy to do given unit costs scale less than other things on marathon) is more difficult to recover from until your empire is large enough. So that's the kind of macro/planning mistake that slower speeds could punish more.


More discussion here:

Game speeds: Pros & Cons

Hello fanatics, That's my first post and definitely not the last. I've been roaming the Civ IV forum for some time now and I recently signed up to be able to ask those questions that I only found partial answers to etc. My observation is that people mostly play on Normal speed. My experience...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[pigswill]

I've been playing out your original save (Mao, huge marathon) and it is possible to expand and keep some kind of economy. I attached the 625ad save for comparison, I've played a bit further, chopping/whipping courthouses and letting cities grow helps push up the research slider. Bulbed optics and exploring the world c 750ad.

 

[Gumbolt]

How many hours did that take? You would think with that number of cities the game should be won. Take out Mansa. Maybe it will get easier when you have astronomy and can actually build an army. Marathan should allow a huge window for cuirs. Maybe drafting rifles but could take too long to move them all.