Advantages of marathon speed?

[Learningciv]

For a non-warmonger what advantages are there to marathon speed? It is often talked about how the slower speed makes unit production quicker, and armies don't go obsolete so quickly. However I am wondering what advantages there are to a cultural or space victory?

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The less turns you have to work with, the fewer mistakes you allow yourself. So on marathong, you can mess up a build queue or put the wrong improvement down, etc etc without hurting yourself too much. There are enough turns to send workers to fix the improvement or to assign the correct building and the collateral damage won't be too bad.

Now on normal, if you put down a wrong improvement, automate workers accidentally (without remembering to correct it), build the wrong building, or other such mess ups, the turn counter is much less forgiving.

 

[ABHPage]

But does it takes more turns to build thing on marathon than on normal, like goldens ages that last more turns ? Is the only use of marathon to do more micromanaging ?

 

[Conqistador]

Build costs on marathon are 3* those on normal. However, you get 3* the amount of turns, so you get things at the same rate, also the AI is apparently optimised for normal speed, and struggles to cope with marathon. For instance, a Courthouse costs 90 hammers on normal, and 270 on marathon. I think unit costs are less than 3* though, as warriors cost 15 hammers on normal, and I've never had to build a 45 hammer warrior on marathon.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Build costs on marathon are 3* those on normal. However, you get 3* the amount of turns, so you get things at the same rate, also the AI is apparently optimised for normal speed, and struggles to cope with marathon. For instance, a Courthouse costs 90 hammers on normal, and 270 on marathon. I think unit costs are less than 3* though, as warriors cost 15 hammers on normal, and I've never had to build a 45 hammer warrior on marathon.

Build costs on Marathon are 3 x for buildings but only 2 x for units.

 

[ABHPage]

Build costs on marathon are 3* those on normal. However, you get 3* the amount of turns, so you get things at the same rate, also the AI is apparently optimised for normal speed, and struggles to cope with marathon. For instance, a Courthouse costs 90 hammers on normal, and 270 on marathon. I think unit costs are less than 3* though, as warriors cost 15 hammers on normal, and I've never had to build a 45 hammer warrior on marathon.

How would having more turns be working against the AI ? It gets as much turns as us...
In my game it does pretty amazing feats. My stack of 16 super elite seals has burnt down 30 cities and killed almost 400 units yet the AI is still shipping huge stacks of cavalry. I don't know how they manage to do that AND almost keep up with me on the space techs. Maybe its because they're 6 against me, I guess they share stuff.

 

[oranges]

One of the most significant ones is that tech advantage has greater impact, both because it takes longer to research and because you actually have time to bring your dandy new units somewhere before they are halfway obsolete. If you have calendar 30 turns before your opponent, you're working those nice resources that much longer, which helps increase your tech advantage more than it does on normal speed, etc.
Cultural victory is harder on marathon, I've never seen any AI pull it off and it requires focus on your part early on if you want to go for it.

 

[Earthling]

Most of the potential differences, other than unit cost, and war actions, come on the diplomacy side of things. More turns means more time for war declarations and demands by the AI on the one hand. But on the other hand it means more time to trade techs, peace treaties/trades obsolete quicker, and of course change civics (especially with spiritual, this is much more abusable when the time to wait between changes is much less significant). There's also those minor things like workers are comparatively faster because the time they spend working vs. moving is greater. Oh, and I guess there may be more barbarian spawns, which can be a good or bad thing. So my conclusions would be that in a few cases worse barbs or something may be harder, but generally a good player should be able to abuse marathon to their advantage.

TBH I never play marathon games simply cause I find the unit exploit to be broken - that said I really wish it wasn't because I do enjoy longer games, for instance works fine when balanced in a game like FfH2.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I had to stop Brennus winning a cultural victory in my last marathon game.

 

[Scoottr]

I have won a cultural victory on marathon once.

I have a bad habit of not deciding my victory condition until late in the game and culture was the only option. Grabbed a couple of religions and all kinds of buildings, pumped up on artists when I got them. Went quite awhile though just passing turns since that was all i really needed to do to get there.

 

[budweiser]

I dont like the longer speeds. Your civ isn't meant to shine or 'get the most' out of every age. Each civ has a specific set of advantages and part of the challenge is to bring those to bear at just the right moment to get a win. Some civs are strong up front, some in the middle, some at the end.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I dont like the longer speeds. Your civ isn't meant to shine or 'get the most' out of every age. Each civ has a specific set of advantages and part of the challenge is to bring those to bear at just the right moment to get a win. Some civs are strong up front, some in the middle, some at the end.

Sounds like a pretty one dimensional way of looking at each civ. I don't think that anyone but the developers really can say whether or not your CIV is "meant" to shine at any particular moment since the whole game is about writing a new history each time.

If every time I played as Rome, I should be sailing to a win after my Praet rush or after playing England I was expecting my time to be strong during the late Renaissance/Industrial era I'd get pretty tired of CIV pretty quick.

 

[nadeem]

i definitely like how long units last on marathon, i play it 90% of the time. i just like longer games.
funny thing is that sometimes, depending on how i tech, i find that even still my units are going obsolete quickly especially in renaissance.

 

[Rusty Edge]

More turns to move helps with exploration, particularly in the hut-popping scouting phase, and the caravel phase races. Success there can be leveraged.

Beyond that, and what's already been mentioned, I can't think what advantages it has when pursuing a Space or Cultural victory, other than to use the additional turns to disrupt your rivals with spies or outright war.

 

[Yzman]

I enjoy marathon the most because I find it the most enjoyable. Battles last longer, units are around longer and advantages actually seem to be there for getting to something first.

 

[ABHPage]

I like marathon too. I always thought it was stupid that a tank unit would need 1 year to move a few kms in years 2000 like it did in civ 1 and 2 (never played civ3). Or a big production city needing 2-4 years to build a unit. Right now my Washington, New York and chicago can build tanks and Seals in 2-3 turns, which is 6-9 months. More realistic (except that SEALs take way longer than that to train in real life).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The major advantage available to marathon is the free military academy in all cities, coupled with the fact that the AI doesn't adjust its unit builds accordingly. This essentially nerfs away some of its advantage on higher difficulties, and makes it much harder for the AI to overcome being caught out of position.

Diplo is more certain, though, in that if someone can declare they probably will, etc. Also, marathon lends itself to runaway situations on other continents more readily.

Marathon is easily the fastest speed in game years, so it dominates the hall of fame. Most of the advantage for just winning, however, stems from military, and whether it's easier or harder will depend on the map.

 

[Supr49er]

I think the main advantage is that it allows you to say you are a marathoner - unless you're CCRunner who probably really is an actual marathoner.

 

[Learningciv]

Thanks for the responses. My question stemmed because I really do enjoy marathon speed the most but I did not want to feel that I was "cheating". Even epic speed for me feels like the game is moving to quickly. I think I will be content to play marathon in the knowledge that my game scores will be higher then they should be and that military is a bit more powerful then it should be.

Lately I have been putting in a lot of effort to improve my overall Civ4 ability. I originally just played crowded pangea maps with conquest/domination victories on marathon speed (settings I liked before I ever found out they were easy) but lately have been changing maps, trying all victory conditions, trying different leaders and trying different speeds. The one change I could not adjust to was speed changes because I did not enjoy quicker speeds.

 

[Yzman]

What is this about free military academies? I don't remember getting those, and I only play marathon.