Convince me about playing on any speed lower than Quick

[ense7en]

Don't play Quick because you hate your real life job. You need to quit your job and play Civ5 full-time, on Marathon.

LOL.

I agree with the post about standard being the most balanced.

Quick is fine for MP, but it feels off in balance compared to standard.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Still, it seems like Quick is all but ignored by most players, and also that Marathon is favored more than Standard.

I seriously doubt it. Personally I'd rather play quick than epic and have no real explanation for this. I played epic with Civ4 but with Civ5 it seems too boring. Maybe I'm getting older. Don't know.
I think quick is suited for MP and small maps. I have no idea how many players that play on duel/tiny maps are actually choose quick but I'm pretty sure most of MP games aren't played on standard. On the other hand, to have a chance at domination on large/huge map and higher levels you have to play epic/marathon. You'll never win otherwise. In single player on standard sized maps standard speed does feel right.
What I'm saying is all settings have their niche. As long as you use them accordingly it's all good. And if some players use them to create cheese (e.g. England, duel, tiny continents, Renaissance era start, Marathon speed to say they've beaten deity) so be it. Why would anybody care?

Hmmm...I think the best argument against Quick is that civilizations tend to become less distinctive due to how quickly their unique units become obsolete.

Makes an elegant form of sense, I guess. I was playing Quick Washington games for awhile to get the Land Baron achievement, and in each game I was actively delaying the discovery of Rifling so that I could get more Minutemen out. Same goes for my favored Aztecs, in almost every game, I'm actively delaying the discovery of Metal Working to get more Jaguars out.

Not really. Some of the UU's are never built anyways. I almost never build persian UU/german UU/musketmen replacements/CA replacements etc. It really is a balance thing.

Is this behavior understandable for Quick games? To those that don't play Quick (everyone but me, I think. ), do you still find yourselves delaying technologies that obsolete your Unique Units?

I can only speak for myself but rarely. I guess it can make sense on lower difficulties. Playing on higher ones you don't have a luxury of delaying techs. You're in the race, catching up and loosing. I prefer to have smaller and more advanced army than bigger one that has to fight in tech parity. I can delay bulbing Chivalry, for example, if CA are about to pop out from cities, however it's more bad timing on my behalf than specifically planned strategy.

 

[mintcandy]

And if some players use them to create cheese (e.g. England, duel, tiny continents, Renaissance era start, Marathon speed to say they've beaten deity) so be it. Why would anybody care?

Actually, I played the Deity Mongol scenario to a stalemate to get the Deity victory achievement. It doesn't net me the Deity Mongol scenario victory achievement, but them's the breaks.

I can only speak for myself but rarely. I guess it can make sense on lower difficulties. Playing on higher ones you don't have a luxury of delaying techs. You're in the race, catching up and loosing.

Yeah, I know what you mean. For my domination victories, I tend to have wide puppeted empires (I call it the PCS Metro plan...Puppeted City Sprawl, ha) and I really value the cheap to produce, happiness inducing Scout garrisons...so much so that I'll be delaying Scientific Method just so that I can make sure to have an excess supply of Scouts. I'm finding that this tactic drags the game out unnecessarily.


In a related topic, I'm having a blast with my King Standard Standard Mongol game. I'm really liking the amount of turns my Keshiks have been effective for.

 

[Atlas627]

To further what I said earlier, because it seems to have weight (it's nice to have people actually read and think about your posts! )...

I used to play Civ4 on Marathon. I liked playing on that speed because I liked having more time to relax and enjoy the themes of the game. You know, that great feeling of 'building a civilization'. Civ4's gameplay was...well, meh. Stacks of death are stupid, hexes are SO much better, the civic system had neither depth nor interesting decisions (it was always obvious what to do, and there was nearly no penalty for changing your mind), and diplomacy was all about religion.

Was it a good representation of history? Sure. Was it fun? Absolutely. Was it a game? Hmmm.

Civ5, on the other hand, is certainly about the gameplay. Culture has long-term planning, no more stacks of doom, ranged attacks, both units can survive combat, upkeep costs for buildings (don't build the ones you don't truly need), less superfluous techs, hexes(!), flanking, etc. I could go on and on.

Is the flavor still there? Yeah. Is that why I play this game? No. I play it for the interesting decisions. These decisions are balanced for Standard speed. And as someone else said, the game's pacing just feels right on Standard.

Somebody else said that MP is played on Quick. I know this to be mostly true, and I find it sad. A game of Standard can take 3 hours. I know I've completed games in that time. And I've completed MP games of standard in 30 minutes. Granted, I won on turn 67...

On the other hand, I have completed MP games that lasted 10 hours. Straight. So maybe you want to play on Quick. Personally, I like Standard and the game is balanced for it. So playing a MP game on any other speed would be a waste of time. All the decisions are skewed! In ways I might not realize.

 

[The Pilgrim]

and I really value the cheap to produce, happiness inducing Scout garrisons...so much so that I'll be delaying Scientific Method just so that I can make sure to have an excess supply of Scouts. I'm finding that this tactic drags the game out unnecessarily.

Don't take Honor. It sucks anyway. But seriously, delaying ST to spare few hammers when the game is mostly done is an overkill in my opinion.

@GamerKG
I honestly don't see how you can play MP on standard with more than 2 opponents. Assuming of course you all are at the same skill level and no chances for 67 turn wins. Back in Civ4 with all the click fest and magically disappearing huge stacks duel maps took sometimes more than one several hours long session. Is it quicker for Civ5?

 

[Danei]

I play quick when I want to finish a game within a day. Otherwise I play standard, because of the balance reasons already mentioned. It's true that units go obsolete sort of quickly even in standard speed, but that doesn't bother me too much; a lot of the most advanced weapons technology that exists in real life doesn't see widespread use yet, because it takes a lot of testing and production to get those things into actual combat.

And in early wars this makes even more sense; just because someone in my civilization just theorized chemistry doesn't mean my front line hundreds of miles into enemy territory is instantly going to receive a bunch of cannons in the mail during the same year.

 

[Atlas627]

Don't take Honor. It sucks anyway. But seriously, delaying ST to spare few hammers when the game is mostly done is an overkill in my opinion.

@GamerKG
I honestly don't see how you can play MP on standard with more than 2 opponents. Assuming of course you all are at the same skill level and no chances for 67 turn wins. Back in Civ4 with all the click fest and magically disappearing huge stacks duel maps took sometimes more than one several hours long session. Is it quicker for Civ5?

Well there are less units now, so less things to move. And it really doesnt matter how many players there are except that it increases the chances that someone will have a lot of moves to do.

I have played games with 6 people. And we played from 10 pm through the night to 6 am. And someone won (on like turn 400 or something like that).

I don't know if 5 is faster than 4, because I only played 4 on marathon.

 

[cryptnar]

Yeah I play on quick I find it too long to play on other ones.

 

[mintcandy]

Something else I've noticed playing on quick speed...

I'm having some difficulty pulling off massed Research Agreements, mostly because of the cash problem on lower difficulties, but I'm willing to accept that my warmonger tendencies have a huge influence as well.

However, when I've actually tried to stay peaceful, research progresses so quickly at this speed that it doesn't seem like RAs are worth it. Jumping ahead half a tech in 20 turns (or whatever) doesn't mean that much when I'm probably researching 2-4 techs minimum in that timespan.

Is it a fair statement to say that the potency of RAs increases as game speed decreases?

 

[DaveMcW]

Jumping ahead half a tech in 20 turns (or whatever) doesn't mean that much when I'm probably researching 2-4 techs minimum in that timespan.

Is it a fair statement to say that the potency of RAs increases as game speed decreases?

RAs take 31 turns on normal and 26 turns on quick, which doesn't compare favorably to the tech costs of 100% and 67%.

But you are doing RAs wrong if you only get half a tech from them.

 

[mintcandy]

RAs take 31 turns on normal and 26 turns on quick, which doesn't compare favorably to the tech costs of 100% and 67%.

But you are doing RAs wrong if you only get half a tech from them.

Well, half a tech without the Porcelain Tower and Rationalism, yes? With those, it's a full tech, yes?

It changes the ratio, but it hardly affects my argument. It takes 26 turns on Quick to complete a single Research Agreement, and under the correct circumstances, I jump ahead by one median tier tech?

At Quick speeds, I'm able to get out three or four techs in that same span for the cost of upkeep on my science buildings and without the hassle of making sure I don't advance to the next age. I'm just not a fan of the Bizarro logic of holding off tech research at an arbitrary point because the costs of RAs increase if I don't hold off tech research.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Whoever says RA's aren't worth it just doesn't know how to use them. I couldn't care less about the speed settings. Show me how to achieve science victory in less than 150 turns on quick speed without using them and I'm yours.

 

[mintcandy]

Whoever says RA's aren't worth it just doesn't know how to use them. I couldn't care less about the speed settings. Show me how to achieve science victory in less than 150 turns on quick speed without using them and I'm yours.

:: shrugs ::

I guess I still don't know how to maximize RAs to my benefit then.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Hopefully they'll get a serious overhaul in the upcoming XP, so you won't need to waste the energy on learning it.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Sounds like every time anyone brings up the advantages of slower game speeds, you counter with "I can do that in less real life time on quick". So if you have very limited time, like you are dying or something, quick will let you play more games I guess.

Longer game speed means you can savor the value of a tech beeline longer. You could have a monopoly on rifles for 120 turns instead of 30, and they still move two spaces per turn.

I was thinking about putting an absurd real life threat down there to bully you into playing a slower game speed in jest, but I suspect the mods would make a federal case out of it.

 

[Gough Whitlam]

One advantage that playing on quicker speeds has is on high difficulty levels (emperor and above) where the aim is a peaceful victory (ie, anything other than domination).

The AI seems to constantly spam units when they're at war with you, which is quite a large proportion of the game. When you're playing on quicker speeds, you spend less time defending yourselves relative to the time spent researching etc.

 

[Grubsnik]

I recently went with a quick-speed culture game, and i believe i spent significantly longer on that game, because the AIs were constantly at war with me, meaning every turn I had to spend time on unit micro.

Had I been playing on Epic speed, the AIs would had come in waves, gotten killed and then sued for peace... Instead I got to spend ~7 hours in a constant war before I got my culture win.

 

[mintcandy]

Sounds like every time anyone brings up the advantages of slower game speeds, you counter with "I can do that in less real life time on quick".

Not EVERY time.

Longer game speed means you can savor the value of a tech beeline longer. You could have a monopoly on rifles for 120 turns instead of 30, and they still move two spaces per turn.

Yeah, it's a pretty convincing argument that unique units and substantial tech advantages are more advantageous on slower speeds than they are on quick.

I'm still not a big fan of how monotonous the early Ancient game is on Marathon though.