Epic or Marathon?

[JustinianVII]

Chalk up another vote for Marathon. Some waits to get things can be a little annoying, but the game has a nice, slow, easy feel to it, and you have more time to do what you want.

 

[Vanor]

Newbie question

Why are wars different in Marathon vs Epic or even normal speeds?

I can understand that things like axemen, swordsmen or rilfemen for that mater would be effective longer, as it takes more time to research the tech's that lead to the next type of unit...

But is there more to it then that?

 

[6K Man]

Newbie question

Why are wars different in Marathon vs Epic or even normal speeds?

I can understand that things like axemen, swordsmen or rilfemen for that mater would be effective longer, as it takes more time to research the tech's that lead to the next type of unit...

But is there more to it then that?

My understanding is that because units are cheaper to build (relative to buildings and wonders), a warlike approach is more successful at Marathon speed. And has been said, humans are better at battle tactics than the AI is.

 

[Zello]

My understanding is that because units are cheaper to build (relative to buildings and wonders), a warlike approach is more successful at Marathon speed. And has been said, humans are better at battle tactics than the AI is.

I've never really thought about it, but I suppose build times / move speed would come into it - ie declaring war and rolling your 100-unit SoD up to your enemy's capital takes the same number of turns regardless of speed. But setting up defences takes much longer.

Also, I imagine units heal 'faster' in marathon mode, in that they take the same number of turns which means less 'time'.

You'd also be able to draft/buy units a lot faster than building them.

(i play normal speed nowadays, because i'm currently confined to a laptop. Never really tried marathon, might give it a shot when my desktop gets up and running again)

 

[Jaybe]

Marathon (BtS 3.13 + Bhruic's unofficial patch), huge maps.
50-70 hours of actual game time for a single game!

 

[Shadzy19]

Epic player here , games already last between 15 and 20 hours a game and thats long enough for me

 

[nikusha_marx]

my vote to epic.....

 

[smallstep]

Used to play on normal all the time but converted epic few months ago.
I always play same settings, 18 civs, Pangaea and huge.
Tried marathon but was too slow for me, epic is just perfect IMO.

 

[TheTemplar]

Epic is definately my choice, if time victory is turned off. I find it easier because you don't have to press enter as many times to end your turn.

 

[el toro loco]

marathon for me. i like being able to capitalize on military techs and enjoy the beginning game far more than the rest of the game. and it feels a little more real.

 

[ck07]

I don't understand the game times that are being quoted here. Warlords, large, normal speed takes me 30-40 hours. It's not my CPU. Each turn takes 0.5-5 minutes for decision-making. How do you play a Marathon game in less?

Or have I got it backwards, and Marathon has so many fewer units and city build decisions? Is the number of turns allowed the same regardless of speed, or different?

 

[6K Man]

I don't understand the game times that are being quoted here. Warlords, large, normal speed takes me 30-40 hours. It's not my CPU. Each turn takes 0.5-5 minutes for decision-making. How do you play a Marathon game in less?

Or have I got it backwards, and Marathon has so many fewer units and city build decisions? Is the number of turns allowed the same regardless of speed, or different?

My large/marathon games take about 50 hours, by the game's timing. Some of that is probably attributable to me leaving the game on and going away to do something else, but probably not more than 20%.

My guess is that because everything takes longer to build in marathon (3X buildings/2X units), you have fewer build decisions to make per turn compare with normal speed, and probably not that many more per game than you would have at normal speed. I think workers take more turns to complete tasks, so it would follow that there aren't that many more worker moves to make in the course of an entire game. Other unit moves are what makes the game take longer, as far as I can tell.

 

[ck07]

....

My guess is that because everything takes longer to build in marathon (3X buildings/2X units), you have fewer build decisions to make per turn compare with normal speed, and probably not that many more per game than you would have at normal speed. I think workers take more turns to complete tasks, so it would follow that there aren't that many more worker moves to make in the course of an entire game. Other unit moves are what makes the game take longer, as far as I can tell.

Makes sense. One turn at war takes me 10x or more as long as at peace on Normal speed. If you fight relatively few wars -- last game I had maybe 30 turns out of about 360 -- then game speed might have practically no impact.

Thanks.

 

[Armorydave]

I settled on epic after wavering between normal and epic. I don't really think any speed is intrinsically easier at least how I normally set up a game (Monarch/Emperor difficulty, standard size, fractal with 1-2 extra civs tossed in).

Warmongering is greatly advantageous regardless of the game speed. Unless I am completely isolated, I am usually at war within 20-30 turns of the start regardless of the speed. I don't think I've built more than a couple workers in my past 30+ games (labor is something other civilizations to supply.

Bottom line, play whichever speed delivers the most fun. For me that is epic ,but I can certainly understand people that prefer normal or marathon.

 

[ck07]

I settled on epic after wavering between normal and epic. I don't really think any speed is intrinsically easier at least how I normally set up a game (Monarch/Emperor difficulty, standard size, fractal with 1-2 extra civs tossed in).

Warmongering is greatly advantageous regardless of the game speed. Unless I am completely isolated, I am usually at war within 20-30 turns of the start regardless of the speed. I don't think I've built more than a couple workers in my past 30+ games (labor is something other civilizations to supply).

Huh. I'm still on Prince, 3rd game at this level. Playing on the Great Plains map, bad luck to get North Center where there are no trees, almost no grass, no resources except Cattle, Wheat (much of which is useless early because no water), Copper/Iron/Stone/Marble. But I'm well ahead so it will be time to step up.

Which leads me to ask: How do you get military suiperiority that early on Monarch+? What about maintenance for cities conquered? Or falling behind technologically?

Thanks in advance,

CK

 

[Saluki]

I don't understand the game times that are being quoted here. Warlords, large, normal speed takes me 30-40 hours. It's not my CPU. Each turn takes 0.5-5 minutes for decision-making. How do you play a Marathon game in less?

Or have I got it backwards, and Marathon has so many fewer units and city build decisions? Is the number of turns allowed the same regardless of speed, or different?

Marathon requires fewer decisions per turn, so it doesn't take that much longer to play even though there are more turns per game.

 

[TheDS]

If you raze cities as you go, you don't have increased maint costs.

 

[Armorydave]

Which leads me to ask: How do you get military suiperiority that early on Monarch+? What about maintenance for cities conquered? Or falling behind technologically?
CK

It is as much suppressing my opponents as it is advancing my cause (which can cause problems if there are a couple pacifist tech whores on an isolated continent as my continent tends to be somewhat tech suppressed as a result of these tactics). Here is the blueprint that I use (although I am sure other warmongers do it differently as this is a home grown strategy).

Try to get your capital onto a plains hill or (even better) a plains stone, elephant or marble. That means you are immediately pumping out warriors and work boats (when applicable) at a good clip. That said, don't spend more than 1-2 turns looking for an ideal start site. I go with my start location or one square away 95% of the time.

I usually start by building 2 warriors no matter what. One to sit in my capital, one to go out with my original warrior for worker grabs. If I have fishing resources, I then build a workboat, If I have hunting I might throw in a scout (again to help look for worker grabs) but otherwise, I keep pumping out warriors (often chop a barracks out after the 5th or 6th warrior if it can be done). I also go for Polytheism (make sure you aren't working some crappy forest to start) or Monotheism right away in order to get my religion. This usually requires manipulating your city production. If you have a two food + one hammer or a three food square, versus a two food 3+ coin square that you can work(ie fish/clams/crab/inland lake with no fishing boat), always switch to the 2 food 3 coin square even though the city advisor will have you working the food/hammers. Once I get a religion, I tend to move off the food/coin squares onto food or food/production squares to build population for a while. That said, I (very) often stick with the good coin squares over food/production to get bronze working and animal husbandry quickly.

While I am building warriors and work boat(s) the AI is dutifully building my workforce. By scouting around the edges of opponent territories you can see what square they will come out to work first (corn, rice, animal, gold, gems, etc..) and keep a warrior in the area (preferably killing a few animals to get woodsman 2). Once the worker comes out (they are almost never guarded early in the game) you grab him and escort him back to your city. This is tricky and workers die on occasion but who cares. Not like it was your worker in the first place.

Hopefully, animal fighting will allow you to build up 3-4 woodsman 2 (eventually 3) warriors. Woodsman 2 warriors are the ultimate early game terrorists. The AI doesn't know they can move two through forest so they will leave workers out working even when you can grab them the next turn. Make sure to grab workers in forest squares and the AI will basically never attack a woodsman 2 warrior with an archer. You can also grab ones that aren't adjacent to the capital if you have cut the roads to that square. I can't tell you how many times I've set up civilizations to be worker factories for my empire (I basically have at least one worker factory Civ every game). Rinse and repeat with the next closest civ and a far away one that is the most dangerous tech whore. This will provide you with a huge workforce, two feeble neighbors and a crippled distant tech whore. I also tend to go after the leader of Buddhism to keep him from sending missionaries all over the world before I can get a Hindu or Jewish Missionary to the Civs that I am not fighting.

Now all you need to do now is keep the barbarians off your back when they start appearing (and there will be lots of them because the 2-3 civs you are messing with won't expand much leaving lots of dark spaces on the map) and make sure your enemies never hook up a strategic resource. Taking cities is a long term project that usually only happens when you are lucky (bunch of barbs hit a city from one side and you have a small army of axes on the other) or after you get construction (catapults aren't a must for city taking but they sure cut down the losses). I know people attack cities with the idea that they will throw away four axes to break down the defenders but I almost never do that. That forces me to wait until construction to start taking cities but it is trivially easy at that point (cause they only have archers in the city and if you keep the barbarians off their back, unpromoted archers). Once you have your enemies bottled up in their capital incapable of getting strategic resources you can toy with them for a few thousand years grabbing workers (in my current game I've had to kill about 10-20 workers because I ended up with way too many and couldn't afford them) until it is time for the kill shot. Early game I am basically only building woodsman 2/3 warriors/axes, city raider warriors/axes and chariots (first couple being my healers). I often build up several axes to CR3 just by killing barbarians.

That is the basic nuts and bolts. There is a lot I am not mentioning but that is how I do it playing (most of the time) Monarch difficulty (Emp when I play the great leaders), Standard size, Epic speed, Fractal configuration, Raging Barbs, aggressive AI and 1-3 extra civs. This strategy was made more difficult with the AI changes (for example, they never used to attack out of a city when they had 2 archers defending but now they will) but not that much more difficult. I tend to score between 100,000 and 150,000 with most games ending with a domination win between 1580 and 1800 or an ugly early loss (usually at the hands of barbarians or because of crappy battle luck against animals).



The major pitfalls of this strategy.

Barbarians. I play with them at the highest setting and if I don't get a strategic resource hooked up before they arrive (I never seem to go for Archery unless I am playing Mansa) it can get ugly. Chopped out a couple Great Walls just in time to save promising games on a few occasions (I normally won't go for it although it is a fine wonder). I imagine going for archery would make it safer but I never do. Religion, strategic resources and worker techs are my order for techs (fishing/hunting on occasion if appropriate).

If an opponent has a strategic resource under their capital or get a second city founded that has one. That pretty much forces you to end your 3,000-4,000 year war/worker farm plan.

Getting good at worker grabs is tricky. You need to learn how the AI will react to your forces (for example, they never attack out if there is only one unit in the city even if they would clobber you in a fight) and plan accordingly. I cannot stress enough how powerful Forest Raider 2 and 3 warriors/axeman are in the early game. I have pinned down entire civs for thousands of years with a single FR2 axemen (literally, did it to both Joao and Julius Ceaser in my current game). They will essentially *never* attack an FR2 axemen with archers even if they have 5-6 sitting in their city (never if you stay in forest squares).

Getting good at keeping them from hooking up strategic resources is also tricky especially if you are using your Woodsman 2/3 warriors to ferry workers back to you country.

For sake of full disclosure I usually bail on isolated starts fairly early. I find them to be the most boring games and it essentially dictates a culture, diplomatic (or worst of all IMO) space race win. I've won enough of those that I generally have no real desire to play any more out. I currently play Civ to grind my opponents beneath my heels.

This strategy tends to work best on crowded pangeas or continents. If you are on a continent with 1-2 other civs you will do a great job wiping them out but you willl find yourself in a tech hole when the rest of the world finds you (similar to if you started alone on a continent). This is still a great strategy for those situations but not as decisive as it is when you get a pangea or large continent start.

 

[ck07]

It is as much suppressing my opponents as it is advancing my cause (which can cause problems if there are a couple pacifist tech whores on an isolated continent as my continent tends to be somewhat tech suppressed as a result of these tactics). Here is the blueprint that I use (although I am sure other warmongers do it differently as this is a home grown strategy).

Try to get your capital onto a plains hill or (even better) a plains stone, elephant or marble.

....

I usually start by building 2 warriors no matter what. One to sit in my capital, one to go out with my original warrior for worker grabs.

....

While I am building warriors and work boat(s) the AI is dutifully building my workforce. By scouting around the edges of opponent territories you can see what square they will come out to work first (corn, rice, animal, gold, gems, etc..) and keep a warrior in the area (preferably killing a few animals to get woodsman 2). Once the worker comes out (they are almost never guarded early in the game) you grab him and escort him back to your city. This is tricky and workers die on occasion but who cares. Not like it was your worker in the first place.

Hopefully, animal fighting will allow you to build up 3-4 woodsman 2 (eventually 3) warriors. Woodsman 2 warriors are the ultimate early game terrorists. The AI doesn't know they can move two through forest so they will leave workers out working even when you can grab them the next turn. Make sure to grab workers in forest squares and the AI will basically never attack a woodsman 2 warrior with an archer. You can also grab ones that aren't adjacent to the capital if you have cut the roads to that square. I can't tell you how many times I've set up civilizations to be worker factories for my empire (I basically have at least one worker factory Civ every game). Rinse and repeat with the next closest civ and a far away one that is the most dangerous tech whore. This will provide you with a huge workforce, two feeble neighbors and a crippled distant tech whore. I also tend to go after the leader of Buddhism to keep him from sending missionaries all over the world before I can get a Hindu or Jewish Missionary to the Civs that I am not fighting.

Now all you need to do now is keep the barbarians off your back when they start appearing (and there will be lots of them because the 2-3 civs you are messing with won't expand much leaving lots of dark spaces on the map) and make sure your enemies never hook up a strategic resource. Taking cities is a long term project that usually only happens when you are lucky (bunch of barbs hit a city from one side and you have a small army of axes on the other) or after you get construction (catapults aren't a must for city taking but they sure cut down the losses). I know people attack cities with the idea that they will throw away four axes to break down the defenders but I almost never do that. That forces me to wait until construction to start taking cities but it is trivially easy at that point (cause they only have archers in the city and if you keep the barbarians off their back, unpromoted archers). Once you have your enemies bottled up in their capital incapable of getting strategic resources you can toy with them for a few thousand years grabbing workers (in my current game I've had to kill about 10-20 workers because I ended up with way too many and couldn't afford them) until it is time for the kill shot. Early game I am basically only building woodsman 2/3 warriors/axes, city raider warriors/axes and chariots (first couple being my healers). I often build up several axes to CR3 just by killing barbarians.

That is the basic nuts and bolts. There is a lot I am not mentioning but that is how I do it playing (most of the time) Monarch difficulty (Emp when I play the great leaders), Standard size, Epic speed, Fractal configuration, Raging Barbs, aggressive AI and 1-3 extra civs. This strategy was made more difficult with the AI changes (for example, they never used to attack out of a city when they had 2 archers defending but now they will) but not that much more difficult.

....

This strategy tends to work best on crowded pangeas or continents. If you are on a continent with 1-2 other civs you will do a great job wiping them out but you willl find yourself in a tech hole when the rest of the world finds you (similar to if you started alone on a continent). This is still a great strategy for those situations but not as decisive as it is when you get a pangea or large continent start.

Ah, I get it. I hadn't got the worker first, cities later component. Makes sense. I suppose you stay with one city moderately long unless needed to get copper.

Btw, I know what a plains/hill gives a city tile. What do you get for Ivory or Stone or Marble?

Also the connection to crowded maps (I usually play Large w/ about 10 opponents instead of 8). Why the preference for Fractal over Pangaea? & have you considered Great Plains. A lot of resources, but VERY concentrated by region (West: Silver/Gold/Sheep/Dye; Center: Wheat/Cattle/Gems; East: Corn/Pigs/Sugar. Pretty much nothing else except C/I/S/M, and the last two are rare. No Ivory/Silk/Bananas at all in my current game).

I suppose this would not work nearly as well on Normal speed, since tech would advance faster in relation to Axeman mobility.

CK

 

[friedonions]

Marathon is the one longer game right? Well I play that because I can beat the AI on normal difficulty, which is noble i think? I can only beat warlord level on normal speed. I am getting better though!