Are there ANY advantages to playing on something besides the Quick setting?

[prolefeed]

Quick setting gets you faster game play, only 37 horses and guns to equip dragoons, and fewer turns and thus fewer chances for tax increases, allowing you to get to independence with a tax rate of 40% or less.

 

[HermannLombard]

Well, it's simply a case of YMMV.

If you want to get through the game as quickly and easily as possible then Quick is the right setting. For some players that's the most fun.

For some players Marathon is the way to go with lots of time to develop and lots of time to Do Stuff. Yes, it takes a lot of food, tools, guns, and horses, but you have plenty of time to get them.

Personally, Epic is about right for me, or Normal if I want a quick game. I have played once or twice at Quick and the game seems to be over before I really get into it. It also felt really weird to need only 37 guns when I'm expecting to need 75, and I keep popping out new colonists accidentally.

So play the settings that are fun for you!

[BTW, I think the frequency of tax increases is scaled to the game length, so increases come closer together on Quick than on Normal, etc.]

 

[prolefeed]

I apparently have a different playing style than Hermann. My current game is closing on on declaring revolution, and so I have lots of units moving manufactured goods around, capturing colonists using privateer/merchantmen combos, etc. Each turn takes 20-30 minutes to complete, so even the Quick setting is slooooow. It would take forever to complete a game on the Normal level with this playing style, much less something like Epic.

Personally, I would prefer a game setting even quicker than Quick.

 

[HermannLombard]

Affirmative on long turns! I remember describing the Avalon Hill game Civilization as a simulation of 4,000 years of history...in real time.

I think my default style of play tends toward prolefeed's so fairly often I'll do something quicker as a refreshing change of pace, like going for a 45-turn win or a quick, minimalist game.

 

[Droknar]

I have played on all speed settings, and the game play is different, but the differences seem only subjectively better or worse. I have no particular preference myself. If you want to finish the game within a few hours then go for a quicker speed. If you have a weekend to blow away, then go for Marathon.

Map size may have a bigger impact on gameplay than speed, imo. Speed seems to be more about convenience than strategy. In general, no matter what speed you use, you will still need to declare before the game reaches the half-way point in my experience, because beyond that point the REF gets pretty large and it may take more turns than you have remaining to destroy the King's troops.