Advantages of marathon speed?

[UWHabs]

Marathon sounds like it'd be fun, but my problem is I'll start a game, be like, "let's try out marathon", and then 5 minutes in, I see that Animal Husbandry will take like 45 turns to research, and it's like 180 turns to build a granary. Then my initial scout dies to a freaking lion, and now I have to press end turn for the next 30 turns to get another unit. So long to do anything.

I think my perfect speed would start out like normal, but switch to marathon late-game. Early-game tech is fine, since there's so much that you need. The problem is mid to late game, often you're teching and beelining at a rate that you do out-tech your needs. They just need to scale the late techs to like 3X their costs, and then stuff will be more balanced, IMHO.

 

[Crusher1]

The speed which I am comfortable with is Normal because it flows nicely. The speed which I think offers the most game balance is Epic, which I play 35% of the time, but, it is really slow.

Marathon! Yikes. It takes 2 real world days to research Alphabet. No thanks! The advantage of Marathon is imbalanced WarFare resulting in 2 levels of difficulty. I.E. Playing Immortal at Marathon is equivalent to playing Monarch at Normal.

 

[Learningciv]

Marathon sounds like it'd be fun, but my problem is I'll start a game, be like, "let's try out marathon", and then 5 minutes in, I see that Animal Husbandry will take like 45 turns to research, and it's like 180 turns to build a granary. Then my initial scout dies to a freaking lion, and now I have to press end turn for the next 30 turns to get another unit. So long to do anything.

I think my perfect speed would start out like normal, but switch to marathon late-game. Early-game tech is fine, since there's so much that you need. The problem is mid to late game, often you're teching and beelining at a rate that you do out-tech your needs. They just need to scale the late techs to like 3X their costs, and then stuff will be more balanced, IMHO.

It really makes you focus on what you need and waste little. Production cities for production, commerce for commerce, early tech choice is important as you need to judge very well what you need. A bad tech choice can cause you to waste a lot of turns.

 

[Crusher1]

A bad tech choice would hurt more at a quicker speed .

 

[Woodreaux]

Playing Marathon games is what allowed me really appreciate the whip. On Normal speed, a dozen or so extra turns to build something didn't really seem to call for an urgent expedience. Marathon really makes long build times really long build times.

Also, I totally agree with the previous posts about Marathon giving units a decent life span.

 

[Learningciv]

A bad tech choice would hurt more at a quicker speed .

Probably so but I think it is more painful to watch a worker sit idle for 30 turns then for 5

 

[IAM]

Marathon sounds like it'd be fun, but my problem is I'll start a game, be like, "let's try out marathon", and then 5 minutes in, I see that Animal Husbandry will take like 45 turns to research, and it's like 180 turns to build a granary. Then my initial scout dies to a freaking lion, and now I have to press end turn for the next 30 turns to get another unit. So long to do anything.

I think my perfect speed would start out like normal, but switch to marathon late-game. Early-game tech is fine, since there's so much that you need. The problem is mid to late game, often you're teching and beelining at a rate that you do out-tech your needs. They just need to scale the late techs to like 3X their costs, and then stuff will be more balanced, IMHO.

If you go to custom game menu and pick 'advanced start' it gives you and the AI gold to start. The amount varies depending on the level you play but you can buy techs, buy units, workers, build improvements etc. It gives the game a jump start on marathon speed.

 

[eris]

Marathon! Yikes. It takes 2 real world days to research Alphabet. No thanks!

Is this true, or is it some sort of exaggeration to make a point? I play Marathin, dither over decisions, take breaks, etc, and it only takes 2 to three hours to reach Alphabet. Based on what play time I allot myself per day, I may take several days to finish a game, but that is either patience or stubbornness depending on how you spin the description of my obsession. I am just curious as to how Alphabet takes days in real time when it only takes centuries in game time.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

In 2 - 3 hours on marathon, I'm usually grabbing CoL or Feudalism. I think that was more than a slight exaggeration!

 

[ranger101]

In Marathon, it is really important to pick your early techs and build choices. Al doesn't seem to do this so well, so you can gain on them in the early game. Of course, those Cows/Pigs surrounded where your capital is surrounded by forests and a leader who starts with Mysticism/Wheel can be painful. You need your food, you need Bronze Working to chop the forests to get some commerce and check for Bronze - but you really need Pottery and possibly Archery if no metals/horses nearby.

As a sidenote, if you want your units to last longer, Epic with No Tech Brokering can offer a somewhat similar experience.

 

[Learningciv]

Marathon doesn't take as long as it seems. I just finished a huge, fractal (gave me a continents map), marathon speed, emp difficulty game in ~8 hours. By no means a speed game like TMIT's matches but as an average player 8 hours seems fair for huge domination.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My average for huge domination continents is 11-14 hours.

One game took 38+ hours LoL. That was with only domination vic turned on, Aggressive AI, no tech trading, continents. It was one of my first CIV games. Took me until 2300 AD lol

 

[Conqistador]

I just won a 57 hour marathon game. Although that was a conquest only game on a 200 * 90 giant earth map.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Conquest only is a killer, too. And a giant map... yeah... it probably would have taken me upwards of 50 hours as well.

I can't imagine conquest only on a Giant continents map if you turn off vassal states. That would take way too long lol.

 

[Crusher1]

Yes it was an exaggeration lol . Don't get me wrong - Marathon can be fun if your new to a level and are trying to gain confidence. I know when I was a lowly Monarch player back in the day I could totally own Immortal on Marathon speed - caught me off guard because I didn't realize game speed effectively adjusted the difficulty level to such an extreme. If I had the time I would love to abuse some heavy warmongering games on Marathon at Deity but I just don't have the patience. I suppose I could do it at Immortal too, but I don't feel like playing "Monarch" anymore.

 

[Danielos]

I might be insane, but has any modder made any mod that add a game speed that is even slower than Marathon? I´m an slow-minded, slow-moving old fart so I like looong, slooow games...

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Yes it was an exaggeration lol . Don't get me wrong - Marathon can be fun if your new to a level and are trying to gain confidence. I know when I was a lowly Monarch player back in the day I could totally own Immortal on Marathon speed - caught me off guard because I didn't realize game speed effectively adjusted the difficulty level to such an extreme. If I had the time I would love to abuse some heavy warmongering games on Marathon at Deity but I just don't have the patience. I suppose I could do it at Immortal too, but I don't feel like playing "Monarch" anymore.

A monarch player playing immortal because of game speed? Sounds like the only thing that was holding you back was having a good amount of military. I'm a Noble-Prince player. I can pretty much win every game I play on Noble Normal speed, but have only achieved 2 wins out of 8 or 9 games on Prince Marathon and I continue to struggle.

That's pretty nuts that you could move up 2 levels b/c of the unit build speed (which really is the only un-scaled difference). 3x the # of turns, 3x the # of for buildings, 3x the # of for techs, but 2x # of for unit builds. I could never move up 2 levels just for that kind of boost.

 

[Learningciv]

2 difficulties doesn't seem at all normal due to speed unless you stack the map in your favour heavily for a easy warmongering game (i.e. playing standard size pangea with 14 civs on marathon as Rome). The differences are more noticable in finish date then difficulty when changing speed.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

2 difficulties doesn't seem at all normal due to speed unless you stack the map in your favour heavily for a easy warmongering game (i.e. playing standard size pangea with 14 civs on marathon as Rome). The differences are more noticable in finish date then difficulty when changing speed.

That's what I thought. To move up to Monarch, I'd have to choose Julius Caesar/Rome, standard 14, and hand pick peaceful AIs

 

[IAM]

That's what I thought. To move up to Monarch, I'd have to choose Julius Caesar/Rome, standard 14, and hand pick peaceful AIs

The only peaceful AI is a dead one.