1/3 of my games end like this.

[AbsoluteZero]

Sury goes into WHEOOHRN mode in like 1500 BC. He's way across on the other side of the map. He hates Cyrus more then me, and he's right on Cyrus's border. I saw his stack at Cyrus's border and assumed he was going to declare on Cyrus. But NOOOOO he doesn't declare. Cyrus did not have OB with him so he couldn't get to me for a long time. But he waited.... And eventually got OB with Cyrus and marches ALL THE FREAKING way to my territory to DOW me

Not much I could do, I didn't have IW untill late. I was just about to hook up the iron. Just lame and I swear 1/3 of my games end like this. Not being DOWed by someone on my border, but by someone at the other side of the freaking map!

Spoiler :

 

[Rathgul]

Damn, thats too bad! Happens to me as well. I have no idea what the AI is thinking sometimes. I love watching TMIT Lets Plays and listen to him vent about stupid RNG and AI shennanigans.

 

[Yoshi1]

let me guess, you built no units?
Well that is how the game prevents you from only building peace stuff sometimes, don't see what is wrong with that.
Can scout his stack out too when you realize something fishy is going on, and if you cannot stop it then after all the time he needs to reach you..well...you know.

 

[oranje willem]

mistake

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When you play deity, you risk a loss beyond control. Combined with the extra precision micro I rarely want to bother with, that is why I rarely play deity even though I've won every VC except time on that difficulty. I prefer the very slight chance of a loss on immortal to playing very well but still having a large chance of being insta-gibbed on deity, or crippled/set back too much.

Below deity you can generally wall even early DoWs though the game can catch you off guard sometimes.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

I think the worst early DOW I ever saw was on diety / marathon.

A bunch of AI's went to war at around 1500 BC or so. I was on small out of the way spot at the edge of the map.

Then the war ends and I guess alex had nothing better to do so he marches his stack of catapults + elephants + swords / axes / spears from the other side of the map and rolls right up to my front door. I think his stack was like 20 units strong. It was 1000 BC when he got to me and declared

 

[Grashopa]

If someone took out the barb AI 'improvements' from Better AI you'd want to use that. The AI actually plans its wars for its own benefit so you won't see things like that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think the worst early DOW I ever saw was on diety / marathon.

A bunch of AI's went to war at around 1500 BC or so. I was on small out of the way spot at the edge of the map.

Then the war ends and I guess alex had nothing better to do so he marches his stack of catapults + elephants + swords / axes / spears from the other side of the map and rolls right up to my front door. I think his stack was like 20 units strong. It was 1000 BC when he got to me and declared

People have been hit from 2000-1800 BC on deity/mara by around 6 metal units+. Rarely is it possible to have more than 1-2 strategic resource guys by then, not to mention the amount of expansion you'd have to cut to have enough archers.

Basically if it's someone like shaka pulling that (say 4 axes and 2 swords) it's a guaranteed kill shot.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Sury goes into WHEOOHRN mode in like 1500 BC. He's way across on the other side of the map. He hates Cyrus more then me, and he's right on Cyrus's border. I saw his stack at Cyrus's border and assumed he was going to declare on Cyrus. But NOOOOO he doesn't declare. Cyrus did not have OB with him so he couldn't get to me for a long time. But he waited.... And eventually got OB with Cyrus and marches ALL THE FREAKING way to my territory to DOW me

Not much I could do, I didn't have IW untill late. I was just about to hook up the iron. Just lame and I swear 1/3 of my games end like this. Not being DOWed by someone on my border, but by someone at the other side of the freaking map!

Spoiler :

What difficulty level is this?

 

[AbsoluteZero]

What difficulty level is this?

deity.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

deity.

Aww... That's beyond my league.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hehe, I could tell it was deity just by looking at it (I didn't just "assume" earlier). The scores in the screen coupled with DoW time and knowledge of AbsoluteZero and his advice made it too obvious to me that he was getting scr00d by deity here .

 

[ColossusXXIII]

being someone who played a great deal of deity/marathon/huge map... I often have a hard time understanding when people say it's so much easier. Ever try raging barbs/marathon/deity/huge? they arrive around turn 45 in numbers and don't stop for a while... And on a huge map, it's a bit harder to spawn bust them. It can really be a shock to your system, and will almost certainly convince you not to go worker first. Also on marathon, the tech rate is very different. For example on normal you tech AH + build worker, both take roughly 15 turns. On marathon the worker is about 30 turns and Ah is approx. 45 turns. so you'd be stuck with nothing to do for 15 turns potentially. Also lib goes way sooner in my experience and is tougher to leverage anything good from. there seems to be an inbalance in beakers vs. hammers in the conversion between normal and marathon speed. Micro management is also more important on marathon, as small yield differences make a bigger overall impact on production, research etc. On normal speed, cities with a much wider range of production levels can still make things in the same amount of turns. On marathon, every minute difference can alter the results drastically.

Of course there is the other side of coin, on normal you get less turns, so less room for error. Less turns to march to the war drums. Units become obsolete much faster, as techs go much, much quicker.

There's arguments both ways that are valid, but I feel people might simply be dismissing marathon as too easy without really appreciating it's unique challenges. Personally after having switched to normal speed, not only am I playing better and winning more, but I'm having more fun too. Waiting 15-20 turns for a worker to build a farm just kills me...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

there seems to be an inbalance in beakers vs. hammers in the conversion between normal and marathon speed

Not "seems to be". There is. Units cost 2x normal on mara, while buildings/techs etc cost 3x and the game has 3x the turns. It's an effect that starts off as strong as a military academy in every city, and is functionally stronger as you add more multipliers. Coupled with unit healing time and movement rate relative to #turns, marathon completely distorts the balance.

Micro management is also more important on marathon, as small yield differences make a bigger overall impact on production, research etc. On normal speed, cities with a much wider range of production levels can still make things in the same amount of turns. On marathon, every minute difference can alter the results drastically.

No. Micro management is at its largest impact on QUICK, not marathon. Fewer turns = each micro mistake does more damage and has less time to notice it. Not to mention quick is easily the hardest speed to play in the game as it breaks the game almost as bad as marathon in the opposite way (it even buffs culture relative to other VCs).

Mara is *the* premier HoF speed because early finish times/high tech rates are absolutely, undeniably stronger on marathon than any other speed. The AI also struggles to protect itself at war on marathon and is less capable of regenerating units the human player kills (diety/quick is one of the biggest jokes out there, the AI can literally throw SoDs faster than you can heal in a city with a medic so you have to play completely different from a normal game). Basically, after the early-game struggles, mara puts priority on the single weakest aspect of the AI game, and gives the human more time to intercept the only ways the AI knows how to win: culture and space.

That doesn't mean deity/mara is easy. Deity anything is hard. But deity/quick is definitely the worst.