Advantages of marathon speed?

[gnome]

The main reason I play marathon is because it increases my feeling of the epic scale of the game. Shorter would probably do me some good as far as becoming a better strategist, but I play for immersion and enjoyment, mostly. Right now the AIs at Noble level are good enough to give me a serious challenge, so I have to stretch myself strategically to win, but I still feel a lot more "into" the game than when I'm concentrating on wringing the maximum advantage possible with micromanagement and intensely disciplined specialization.

 

[Earthling]

About the free military academies... it's basically just TMiT's way of saying "Marathon is cheating." And it is, because units are cheaper than they should be... but I agree wording it this way can confuse people. (In fact, it is actually strictly BETTER than free military academies Reducing base hammer cost means you get more relative benefit from forges, factories, etc... since these factors would only add, not multiply with a regular military academy).

 

[Agent327]

For a non-warmonger what advantages are there to marathon speed?

It's the Civ way to keep the unemployed busy.

 

[sydhe]

Main difference I see is that travel time is effectively speeded up relative to years passing, so there's less black space. Marathon build times move to slow for me, so I'm quite happy with epic. I don't like meeting 10 civilizations by 100 AD.

 

[PieceOfMind]

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.

About the free military academies... it's basically just TMiT's way of saying "Marathon is cheating." And it is, because units are cheaper than they should be... but I agree wording it this way can confuse people. (In fact, it is actually strictly BETTER than free military academies Reducing base hammer cost means you get more relative benefit from forges, factories, etc... since these factors would only add, not multiply with a regular military academy).

I'm not sure you need the word "strictly" but I agree. Since TMIT is an advocate of not giving advice that hurts new players (CE vs. SE names etc.) I find it interesting he makes claims like "Marathon gives MA in every city." As you said, it would be more powerful than a MA because the bonus would be multiplicative with other bonuses. It's far simpler to just say Unit and Building costs do not scale equally, and as a result, it's effectively easier to build more units than on other speeds.

I remember one of the Marathon games I played... I was in an odd situation that I didn't really have any buildings left to build in my few cities, and I didn't want to build more cities just yet, so I was having to produce units, and they were coming out faster than my economy could handle. In that awkward situation I really didn't want the reduced unit costs. It's my opinion that the reason they did not scale the unit costs the same way is that they did not want people to start a game on Marathon and see their first scout they wanted to build was going to take nearly 50 turns (45 turns if 1).

I would be prepared to say that Marathon changes the early game economy enough (and probably mid-late game too) that it feels like a different version of the game. Whether it's easier or not depends on how you play, but it's definitely different to the 3 other speeds in a fairly unique way.

 

[IAM]

I like the feel of marathon games. If they are easier OK, but it seems like a quicker unit build would also benefit warnuts like Monty and Shaka.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not sure you need the word "strictly" but I agree. Since TMIT is an advocate of not giving advice that hurts new players (CE vs. SE names etc.) I find it interesting he makes claims like "Marathon gives MA in every city." As you said, it would be more powerful than a MA because the bonus would be multiplicative with other bonuses. It's far simpler to just say Unit and Building costs do not scale equally, and as a result, it's effectively easier to build more units than on other speeds.

It's not a bad point, but strictly speaking it is the closest you can get to describing it without going into the nitty gritty #s ---> that it doesn't scale properly doesn't mean anything to newer players. When you see free MA it's like "whoa" (and face it, compared to what SE or CE implies, it's not anywhere near as inaccurate). But, as you say, the bonus is actually stronger by a bit.

As for "marathon is cheating", I never said that. It will definitely yield higher scores, but the rules apply to everyone. Sometimes a bad draw on marathon can make a game that was possible on faster speeds a losing approach (aka the runaway AI thing I mentioned before). A good example was LHC Sury ---> shaka would snuggle all the barb cities on slower speeds, get huge, and have 2 vassals before the player met him. A 30 city super warmonger is problem enough already, but guess where the AP tended to go?! A shaka vassal in his religion. A lot of losses on that map to UN or AP to shaka .

On normal, I met him with 1 peaceful vassal, MUCH easier than my attempt on epic. In other words, marathon makes the odds of a high score much higher, but doesn't necessary make the game easier unless you get rolling militarily early and the AIs that are actually competent at beating other AIs don't manage it.

But, to correct myself a bit then, units get a 50% bonus, after all multipliers.

 

[ABHPage]

As far as I'm concerned, even though on marathon I can produce more units than I would on normal, the AI can do so as well.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It's not a bad point, but strictly speaking it is the closest you can get to describing it without going into the nitty gritty #s ---> that it doesn't scale properly doesn't mean anything to newer players. When you see free MA it's like "whoa" (and face it, compared to what SE or CE implies, it's not anywhere near as inaccurate). But, as you say, the bonus is actually stronger by a bit.

The bonus is stronger by 50% of every modifier. A Beauracracy capital would be +150% , a forge would be +37.5% , a powered factory would be not 75% but 112.5% etc. Stronger by a bit? Stronger by a fair bit I'd say.

Whatever the case, I think saying "It's like getting a free military academy in every city" is definitely going to be less confusing than "You get a free military academy in every city". One word makes a lot of difference.

Honestly, I think if you don't want to go into the nitty gritties it's easiest to just say unit builds are 1.5 times faster than they should be for the speed. You'd be surprised how well people understand basic maths like that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Honestly, I think if you don't want to go into the nitty gritties it's easiest to just say unit builds are 1.5 times faster than they should be for the speed. You'd be surprised how well people understand basic maths like that.

. You're assuming that I understand basic math .

Ok. Jokes aside, I'll be a bit more clear from now on, since that wording can potentially lead people astray, just as you say. I'll probably say something along the lines of the 1.5 production speed of units (aka stronger than MA in all cities). Adjustments FTW!

 

[Willem]

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.

I only play on Marathon and I've seen the AI pull off a cultural victory a number of times. I've also had games where I just managed to beat them out of one by the skin of my teeth.

Oh, and I guess there may be more barbarian spawns, which can be a good or bad thing.

There's actually quite a bit more Barb spawns with Marathon. Though most things take 300% longer at that speed, Barb activity is set at 400%. Playing on Marathon the Barbs can be almost as bad as if you were playing with Raging Barbs enabled.

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.

Huh? Since when do you get Military Academy in all your cities? Great General production is scaled just like everything else so you don't get any more GGs than you would at Normal speed. And it's just as easy for the AI to build units as the human so civs like Monty or Shaka can become alot more formidable opponents. They have alot more time to build up their SoDs.

 

[Dan Quale]

Marathon lets you actually win huge 18 civ maps on higher difficulties. On quick your units would be outdated before they reach the target.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Huh? Since when do you get Military Academy in all your cities? Great General production is scaled just like everything else so you don't get any more GGs than you would at Normal speed. And it's just as easy for the AI to build units as the human so civs like Monty or Shaka can become alot more formidable opponents. They have alot more time to build up their SoDs.

Read the rest of the thread.

But, in summary, the units costing 2/3 of what they would relative to other speeds is (before modifiers) the exact same as a military academy. It stacks in MULTIPLICATIVE fashion with other modifiers, however, making the unit bonus in marathon stronger than a MA, actually. But, from turn 1 every unit you build except settlers will have a MINIMUM hammer bonus relative to other speeds of a MA. Ouch.

By the way, the fastest HoF wins for culture are ALL marathon, despite quick being scaled so that culture is easier. The unit production bonuses and movement speed are that important.

 

[oranges]

I only play on Marathon and I've seen the AI pull off a cultural victory a number of times. I've also had games where I just managed to beat them out of one by the skin of my teeth.

Strange, a couple of people said so as well. The closest I've seen is futile attempts to run 100 percent culture when one city is already legendary, one close and one won't be before 2050 in any case unless they somehow pop 5 or 6 artists. Is it a corp thing? I almost always snatch the Sid Sushi.

 

[Woody1]

I play exclusively on marathon now. I found that normal is just way too fast on tech. On normal, units are already obsolete by the time you build enough of them to wage war.

On marathon, armies remain useful much, much longer. Wars are much more fun.

 

[Tephros]

The build speed for units as exploit is inaccurate because all civs get that advantage. It doesn't mean the human has an advantage over AI, it means the warmonger has an advantage over peaceful civs, whether human or AI. Leaders with a higher build unit probability will do better because you can get more out of the units you build, both in terms of them being cheaper and not being upgraded as soon. When facing a warmonger their 200-unit stack can be hard to deal with.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can still out unit-prob the AI. For 200 size stacks just hit them with a ~150 stack with siege initiative then something to flank, and they'll be left with around 75 badly damaged units and no siege. Sucks to be them.

Or, nuke.

 

[DaveMurray]

Marathon is best played on Huge maps, and maybe large if you're just starting out. On standard or lower maps though, it's def somewhat like cheating.

Courthouses cost 360 on marathon except for the Sac Alter and Ziggarut which are 270.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I play exclusively on marathon now. I found that normal is just way too fast on tech. On normal, units are already obsolete by the time you build enough of them to wage war.

On marathon, armies remain useful much, much longer. Wars are much more fun.

Well, if you don't mind marathong then ignore the following, but if you want to play shorter games:
Don't build such large stacks. Use spies as reconnaissance units to find out what the enemy SOD looks like and build only enough counter units to guard your stack. Then a ton of siege and a few city raiders along with a couple city defenders.

Smaller stacks on Normal speed (at least in pre-industrial eras) FtW.

 

[Pitman]

I always play marathon games on huge maps. I usually subtract one or two AI opponents, so that the "exploration" phase is longer, but not always. I like it because it you don't get that jarring constant tech development; it also gives you some long term planning abilities. It does, however, weaken certain civilizations, as it makes an early conquering rush harder to achieve sometimes (because it takes you time to find opponents, and you need one or more near you). It also somewhat constrains your tech development early on, in the sense that building the Great Wall becomes immensely important, as the barbarian rush on a big-ass empty map is huge. Because it takes so long to get to certain tech levels, some of the civs with late game UUs, etc., may be disadvantaged as well.