Distinctive Features of Marathon Games?

[Rambuchan]

Ima lovin' the Marathon setting.

I've always been a sucker for the huge maps, plenty of victims competitors, a long strung out game, with plenty of time spent on the details and each little thing being important. Civ4's Marathon setting is buffing that all up nicely for me.

But, being so long, I haven't played many Marathon games yet and am still feeling my way. So let's put together our observations, any observations, of what features rise up. I'll start with some, please feel free to post your own and discuss:


~ Longer to produce everything = Addicted to slavery. Yup, the marathon production times pushes a leader like moi to use the whip more often than not. Bad habit?

~ Each unit counts for more. When it takes longer to produce each unit....duh!

~ Nice long medieval and colonial era. This is my favourite period of history. Marathon games string these ages out very nicely, rather than rushing through them on normal setting.

~ Engineers for wonders. I've found myself getting impatient with wonders in marathon and often burn engineers to rush. I get the impression this is also a bad habit..?

~ Being unaware of how the AI research rates should be running. Any tips on this? A friend mentioned that Marathon setting introduces the possibility of the AI making surprise come backs and sprints down the tech tree. Is this true?

 

[Pounder]

The thing I like about Marathon is you can have a war that can go the duration without having spearmen at the start of the war and riflemen before the war is over.

I like that there may only be one tech advancement during a war.

 

[girtholomew]

~ Nice long medieval and colonial era. This is my favourite period of history. Marathon games string these ages out very nicely, rather than rushing through them on normal setting.

I agree - on epic this period just flies by; by the time you've updated your units they're out of date and it's too dense.

I have to say I am massivley impressed, so far, with how they've balanced the game in terms of time this time around - the game just feels better and there's never a dull moment. Civ 3 had some serious filler (the 'build as many cities as you can' phase that opened every game) and a lot less thriller at times.

 

[Rambuchan]

I'm also discovering that founding and spreading religions becomes a much bigger deal with more game turns. That's a good thing!

 

[Zebra 9]

I have asked this question in other places & gotten no answer, "How Do You Turn On /Find Marathon. I would like to try it but I don't even know how to turn it on.
Please. Please, Please, Help.

 

[theimmortal1]

Single Player>Custom Game>Then Marathon setting (it would either be set on quick,normal,or epic..so you have to change it)

 

[nullspace]

I agree - on epic this period just flies by; by the time you've updated your units they're out of date and it's too dense.

This is the reason I don't like marathon speed. It makes offensive wars much easier because the movement rate of units is much higher compared to research and build rates.

Keeping your military units up to date during an offensive campaign should be a challenge. On normal speed, there is a real danger that during a war, your enemy may develop a new military technology and build some of the new units to counter you and turn the tide of the war. But on marathon, if you attack when you have an advantage (which is common sense) you'll keep that advantage through the whole war.

In marathon war, the power of the standing army is the only thing that matters, a civ's production and research capacities are irrelevant. It's a huge advantage for the attacking civ, because they choose the time of the war. The defender must react by researching military techs, building units, and maybe changing civics, but because these take so long on marathon, the defending civ will be dead before they make more than a few units.

Marathon makes offensive war simpler and easier, so if you like easy warmongering, go for it.

 

[evirus]

i got the marathon setting on the play now section, probably need to patch your game zebra9

i dont like the increased production times all that much, id much rather just have the research take longer, maybe the buildings a little as well, but not the whole game, cause then it just gets to hitting the turn done butten several times while waiting for buildings and stuff

 

[garric]

Yes, you must have the patch to unlock this hidden game mode.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

This is the reason I don't like marathon speed. It makes offensive wars much easier because the movement rate of units is much higher compared to research and build rates.

Keeping your military units up to date during an offensive campaign should be a challenge. On normal speed, there is a real danger that during a war, your enemy may develop a new military technology and build some of the new units to counter you and turn the tide of the war. But on marathon, if you attack when you have an advantage (which is common sense) you'll keep that advantage through the whole war.

In marathon war, the power of the standing army is the only thing that matters, a civ's production and research capacities are irrelevant. It's a huge advantage for the attacking civ, because they choose the time of the war. The defender must react by researching military techs, building units, and maybe changing civics, but because these take so long on marathon, the defending civ will be dead before they make more than a few units.

Marathon makes offensive war simpler and easier, so if you like easy warmongering, go for it.

I only play marathon, huge maps normally monarch or so...

Always have aggressive AIs settings on, this way, its often you who's on the receiving end of a surprise attack, and if you haven't kept up with your military production then you're going to suffer..Also the barbs on huge maps, marathon are much, much more of a threat than on normal, purely due to the amount of turns and the fact that eventually they will win some less than 10% chance combats, from the sheer number you have to endure, and the fact that under recent patches, they no longer just auto attack the first
unit they come across, instead actively attempt to pillage everything possible.

Until recent times (which is a tiny part of history) wars that began with spearmen finished with spearmen, ones that began with muskets finished with muskets (and ok some tiny innovations were made in wars but most were irrelevent)...having most people accurately comment that it isn't worth building musketmen on normal speed because they'll be obsolete before they can be used, just proves how pointless normal speed gets with regard to wars after the middle ages.

To the op, I wouldn't overuse slavery, because the time for cities to grow back is tripled as you know, but with unit production at only a multiple of 2, you could be losing out(but don't get me wrong, slavery is useful).

You didn't say what lvl you were playing, but generally the AI is pretty steady with its research (but don't underestimate their abilities to trade almost anything with each other)..my general tactic is to be larger than anyone else, in which case I'm the one generally way behind in tech, but the larger amount of land (if used correctly) generally allows you to catch up and overtake...its simple really, if you disregard no of cities penalty and dist from palace etc...then if you have 10 cities, most well developed, then changing research from 70 to 80 % isn't going to make that much difference..but if you have 20, some well developed others developing then your science slider can go up as the lesser ones develop and eventually your 70% is generating a whole lot more than their 80%.

If you are worried about the AI beating you to a wonder you really want, and have a grt eng handy, then use him, otherwise, I tend not to worry if beaten, as the cash can be a real boost to your science for a long while

 

[Zebra 9]

If I need a patch which one is it & where is it. I would have thought that I would have already had it seeing as how I bought the game 2 months ago.

 

[MrCynical]

If I need a patch which one is it & where is it. I would have thought that I would have already had it seeing as how I bought the game 2 months ago.

It was brought in with patch 1.52, which has been out since before Christmas. Just use the ingame update checker to ge thte most recent patch (1.61).

 

[King Flevance]

If I need a patch which one is it & where is it.

Load up the game to the Main Menu and go to Advanced>Check for Updates. The patch will begin downloading.

 

[AndreasS]

I love the marathon option too. I'm happy the building time for units are set higher too, or you would end up with all too many of them, and to seldom have the hard choice: building a unit or an important building? It also makes it really important to have a decent standing army, because its hard to rush one when first attacked......

It's just a pitty nobody want to play with the marathon speed with me online.....

Someone here interested? My nick is Luckystrike77, I'm often in the multiplayer lobby.... but must be a weekend with lots of time then...hehehe.... and no quitters of course..... a fight til last man standing.......

 

[Zebra 9]

The computer thats got Civ4 on it is not online. Can not do it that way. Is there another way.

 

[King Flevance]

The computer thats got Civ4 on it is not online. Can not do it that way. Is there another way.

On the home page of CFC is a link to the patch in the same row as "forums". I believe you can download the patch from that link. Save it to a CD and then run the patch through on the computer with civ 4.

EDIT: or just get it from Firaxis directly here

 

[Weird Piggy]

^^^

You just told him how to get it from two websites, which he cannot access.

 

[King Flevance]

He uses the computer that he uses to post on here to download it. Then he must save it to CD or Jazz or some kind of disc above 3.5" and then run the install program on the disc on the computer he has Civ 4 on.

 

[joesf35]

This is the reason I don't like marathon speed. It makes offensive wars much easier because the movement rate of units is much higher compared to research and build rates.

Keeping your military units up to date during an offensive campaign should be a challenge. On normal speed, there is a real danger that during a war, your enemy may develop a new military technology and build some of the new units to counter you and turn the tide of the war. But on marathon, if you attack when you have an advantage (which is common sense) you'll keep that advantage through the whole war.

In marathon war, the power of the standing army is the only thing that matters, a civ's production and research capacities are irrelevant. It's a huge advantage for the attacking civ, because they choose the time of the war. The defender must react by researching military techs, building units, and maybe changing civics, but because these take so long on marathon, the defending civ will be dead before they make more than a few units.

Marathon makes offensive war simpler and easier, so if you like easy warmongering, go for it.

In the speeds slower than marathon it is much easier to negelct your military until you are attacked, and make those financial gains from having a small standing army. Once you are invaded it only takes a couple of turns to produce a unit in each city and counter any attack. With marathon the pace of a war is much more realistic.

 

[Mutineer]

The only feature of slow games is a boredom.