Constant incremental cost increase for religious units.

[CaptainPatch]

I see those prices in the Great People panel and think, "I gather I'm NOT supposed to buy them." As there is literally no way that a player would EVER be able to afford such a price tag. Not unless he deliberately went without spending the more reasonable increments of gold or faith to buy useful things. Saving up such a HUGE amount just to purchase ONE thing is like shooting yourself in the foot. You actually injure your position by NOT spending smaller amounts. About the ONLY thing you get by saving up for a BIG purchase is to have bragging rights to say, "I once spent _50,000_, just to rush a Great Person acquisition!" (And then probably lost the game to some other AI civ.)

 

[Midgardsormr]

Any civilization that has not founded a religion should be ignored

Except Kongo. I made the mistake of ignoring him once, and his danged Apostles spread a religion back into an area I'd already pacified. I didn't realize there was a problem until enemy Apostles started attacking my outgoing units. If the AI had been at all competent I'd have lost that game. I nearly did, anyway.

In general, I have to agree that there's not really anything wrong with the balance of the game. The colossal map you describe is a mod. Firaxis has no obligation to consider such maps in their testing. I won't say the game is perfectly balanced—there is plenty that could be improved. And really, 'balance' isn't something that I think is necessarily desirable in a game of this sort. Personally, I like it unbalanced. But I digress. With effectively infinite possibilities, just in the settings, it's impossible to anticipate the effects of every combination. Add to that your idiosyncratic way of playing (not a wrong way, but certainly one that is unique to you), and I think it's unreasonable to expect that the game designers could ever come up with a system that would be workable for you and still provide those who play with more moderate environments with a challenge.

The answer, of course, is to make use of the suggested mod that would rebalance for both your existing modded play and your play-style. That's why mods exist, after all.

Oh, and that wonder-building Pantheon is really not great since it shuts off in the Middle Ages. Any of the pantheons with effects that last the whole game are going to be much more advantageous. I'm not sure how the chops scale in Marathon, but in a Standard speed game, a single Copper with Goddess of the Harvest in the Modern era or later will often buy an Apostle by itself. To say nothing of the large sum of gold.

 

[Halcyan2]

I see those prices in the Great People panel and think, "I gather I'm NOT supposed to buy them." As there is literally no way that a player would EVER be able to afford such a price tag. Not unless he deliberately went without spending the more reasonable increments of gold or faith to buy useful things. Saving up such a HUGE amount just to purchase ONE thing is like shooting yourself in the foot. You actually injure your position by NOT spending smaller amounts. About the ONLY thing you get by saving up for a BIG purchase is to have bragging rights to say, "I once spent _50,000_, just to rush a Great Person acquisition!" (And then probably lost the game to some other AI civ.)

It's certainly doable.

I mainly play King/Emperor because I like the more casual pace (as opposed to the stressful pace of playing higher difficulties).

In my current Marathon King game, I bought plenty of Great People for 50,000+ gold. I even bought several for 150,000+ gold. Right now I am netting 3000 gold per turn and I have 20+ cities all doing Commercial Hub projects. (Just grinding it out the turns to get a Diplomatic Victory). My current treasury is 314,000 gold.

I also have 100,00 faith and am getting 1000 faith a turn. So 2000+ cost Apostles is not an issue.

In fact, regarding your prior complaint about the cost of Apostles, when you first get Rock Bands, your very first Rock Band (on Marathon speed) is 1800 Faith and your first Naturalist is 4800 Faith. Thus a 2000 Faith Apostle is actually very much in line with that....

Meanwhile, gold purchase prices:
Machine Gun, Aircraft Carrier, Destroyer: 6480 gold
Helicopter: 7200 gold
Mechanized Infantry: 7800 gold
Nuclear Submarine, Rocket Artillery: 8160 gold
Giant Death Robot: 18,000 gold

Purchase price of districts (variable. this is for my current game):
Aqueduct: 4320 gold
Most other districts: 6480 gold
Canal or Dam: 9720 gold
Spaceport: 21,600 gold

I share these numbers so that those who do not regularly play Marathon can see what the baseline cost is for purchases. As a result, I think the Apostle faith costs you listed are very reasonable....

 

[Halcyan2]

In general, I have to agree that there's not really anything wrong with the balance of the game. The colossal map you describe is a mod. Firaxis has no obligation to consider such maps in their testing. I won't say the game is perfectly balanced—there is plenty that could be improved. And really, 'balance' isn't something that I think is necessarily desirable in a game of this sort. Personally, I like it unbalanced. But I digress. With effectively infinite possibilities, just in the settings, it's impossible to anticipate the effects of every combination. Add to that your idiosyncratic way of playing (not a wrong way, but certainly one that is unique to you), and I think it's unreasonable to expect that the game designers could ever come up with a system that would be workable for you and still provide those who play with more moderate environments with a challenge.

The answer, of course, is to make use of the suggested mod that would rebalance for both your existing modded play and your play-style. That's why mods exist, after all.

I agree that players who use mods do so at their own risk and can't expect the game to be properly balanced around mods.

Truth be told, the game isn't even really balanced around Epic or Marathon. You can see in that some turn lengths are modified (often x 3 for Marathon) but not everything is. In particular, certain Civilization abilities (get a certain bonus for X turns, like with Australia) are not modified in Marathon. Also, I think some Great People (like the Great Admirals who give you a pittance of gold) might not be modified either.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Alright, people. You've made your point(s). Mod a game, endure the complications those parameter changes brought with them.

 

[Halcyan2]

Alright, people. You've made your point(s). Mod a game, endure the complications those parameter changes brought with them.

It's not just about modding. It's about playstyle. If someone has a fixed playstyle and imposes internal rules on how they play, then you can't really expect the game to cater to that one person's specific playstyle.

 

[CaptainPatch]

It's not just about modding. It's about playstyle. If someone has a fixed playstyle and imposes internal rules on how they play, then you can't really expect the game to cater to that one person's specific playstyle.

Or cater at all to ANY playstyle. The rules are the rules and apparently it is the player that must adapt to the limitations of the game rather than the game to the player's desires.

 

[GreekSpeak]

Or cater at all to ANY playstyle. The rules are the rules and apparently it is the player that must adapt to the limitations of the game rather than the game to the player's desires.

I can only speak for myself. I have at least 8 different play styles that I enjoy playing. (I've seen many other types posted by people who were recommending their particular style.) It clearly caters to many play styles.

However, you should make your suggestion elsewhere if you want it in-game and not from a mod. Good luck on that.

 

[Haggbart]

Or cater at all to ANY playstyle. The rules are the rules and apparently it is the player that must adapt to the limitations of the game rather than the game to the player's desires.

If all strategies were equally good to achieve all things, what is the point of tactics, or victory conditions? Would it even be a stretegy game? Even in traditional builder games like Sim City, if you didn't get enough power plants parts of your city would be without power. If your desire is to build a power plant-free city, you would have to take the consequences.

The incremental cost increase of units and districts is there to solve a specific problem, namely that if 10.000 faith could buy you 5 times as many prophets (or unit X in currency Y if you want to make another example) as 2000 faith, the ones with much higher faith production (and hence probably allready at a huge advantage) would just snowball away from everybody else and win the game quickly. So it's a bit of a rubber-band effect and also to control victory pacing. And of course to encourage diverse play since many currencies in the game have alternative uses. In your example it also challenges you to toss up your playstyle a bit to increase faith output. It might not be the most elegant sollution out there, but it does the job and is also a fairy easy variable to adjust for the devs to adjust pacing.

 

[Midgardsormr]

apparently it is the player that must adapt to the limitations of the game rather than the game to the player's desires.

That is, generally, how games work. Calvinball being the notable exception.