Game speed effects

[Jperkinson]

Sorry- This may be a real basic question....

When moving from standard to epic and marathon 'game speeds'; what variables are changing?

I assume that the number of game turns increases (but not the game 'time'), and I read that the cost to produce buildings increases as well...

But I'm assuming that some things don't scale... If EVERYTHING scaled, there wouldn't really be a point to playing marathon unless you like clicking the 'end of turn' button, right? I know movement doesn't scale, so the distance a warrior can travel in standard is much less than a warrior in Marathon during the same game 'time' frame.

What else doesn't scale?

I just started an epic game, and noticed that I seem to rack up more combat XP, and thus I am getting more great generals... Which got me thinking that since movement, and XP thresholds didn't change, does that mean that marathon units are easier (in game time) to promote to extreme levels?

Do the great person points per turn scale with game speed?

What else becomes beneficial when running in non-standard time?

Just trying to understand
-Thanks

 

[Spearthrower]

There's a whole horde of minor differences that amount to major differences in gameplay.

Some things are easier, some things are more difficult.

There's more focus on protracted wars, which the human is better at, so this is something that makes life a tad easier.

One things for sure is that you really need to plan ahead more as you cant turn tactics around quickly.

I dont think i can order my thoughts well enough at present to list all the effects I have noted, but really you'll find them all out yourself.

 

[CivFan87]

The biggest difference to me is that you fight more wars than on normal. Another is that units you start the war with aren't obsolete by the time the war is done.

 

[tomaalimosh]

Yep... you can have more fun with the promotions, and really farm experience with some elite veteran units, before you have to upgrade them and have to start from scratch

 

[Jperkinson]

Yep... you can have more fun with the promotions, and really farm experience with some elite veteran units, before you have to upgrade them and have to start from scratch

The big thing I noticed is that I have a West Point, Red Cross, Drydock, city with the dutch... Thanks to many turns of privateering near some less advanced civs...(Man, does the AI throw a stupid amount of Caravels at Privateers!), I have 5 GG's in the city... That city builds ships with
+4, +4, +10, +Medic I.... Medic I +18XP....(this is from memory, so I could be missing some XP)

Seems a bit ridiculous... I am playing on 'noble' tho... So maybe I should 'up' the difficulty... Although I would never have a city like this on standard!

Just seems that the XP requirements should really scale....

On second thought, perhaps it doesnt because the AI has the same advantage.... (I wonder how they use GG's)....

 

[KMadCandy]

the things that pop to mind right now that the violent warmongers might not consider are:

the number of turns you have to share a DP or MMS in order to get the AI to agree to a PA does not vary by game speed. so, on marathon PAs tend to be an option earlier in relation to game-year/tech-pace than on quick. chances are you've had a Mutual Military Struggle for 40(?) turns ages upon ages before you would in a quick game.

the game does "is this city going to have a revolt to want to join the fantastic wonderful glorious Candyland Empire over there since their culture is so spiffy keen?" RNG rolls every 10 turns for the cities that are eligible. the same frequency regardless of game speed, results in many many more rolls on marathon than on quick/normal, and means that in a cultural victory game you end up flipping a lot more cities.

so those are two things that don't scale by game speed at all, but maybe they should.

 

[Elandal]

Major differences (do not scale by turn count scale) are:

- On Marathon, units cost relatively less than on Epic and faster (2x hammers whereas 3x is Marathon scaler)

- Movement does not scale, thus units can move more tiles in the same number of years (because it's more turns). I conclude that slower speeds are better suited to larger maps where distances are longer. Simple trivia question: can a Praetorian march from one end of a huge pangaea to the other before modern armors are fielded on Quick gamespeed?

- Great General emergence is not tied to game speed at all. It's tied to experience gained, which again is tied to combats fought. The above two items just lead to the fact that on Marathon (especially on maps smaller than Huge) it's extremely likely that more combat will occur, leading to more XP gained, leading to more Great Generals.


Absolutely nothing is easier or harder unless it's made such indirectly. But when we consider the three points above we can easily conclude that more warring will be done, and as human is better at warring than AI it's beneficial to do so, which makes things easier on Marathon. If you avoid wars and peaceful build your way to space, Marathon is simply more turns than Normal, as all relevant scaling will be done with single scaling factor that is very close to turn count scale.


As the first point applies only to Marathon (of the slower speeds - I have no clue about speeds faster than Normal), we're left with just movement. Now, add some map size and type changes too and you get enough variables to conclude anything you want, but it's quite irrelevant as it's no longer only speed comparison.


When we start considering indirect effects things do change a bit. The slower the speed, the more turns everything takes. This means that a mistake that costs you a turn will become less relevant on slower speeds. Where on quick you might find a lost turn gamebreaking (how bad is it?), on Normal it'd be annoying, and on Marathon a simple "oh yes, forgot to" event. I find this to be quite a big deal in the sense that on fast speeds you simply can't afford to make micromanagement mistakes whereas on slow speeds they simply become annoying ones. Slow speeds are more forgiving.

[EDIT:]
Seems that there are some other factors - and that KMadCandy has become the keeper of arcane knowledge, the sage with answer to obscure questions. But where is the giggle?

 

[KMadCandy]

[EDIT:]
Seems that there are some other factors - and that KMadCandy has become the keeper of arcane knowledge, the sage with answer to obscure questions. But where is the giggle?

oops! i'm still waking up! but it's hidden in the "is this city going to have a revolt to want to join the fantastic wonderful glorious Candyland Empire over there since their culture is so spiffy keen?" part. giggles are part of why our culture is so nifty.

oh wait ... i bet that might drive some folks crazy and make them want to move away huh? well, they luckily don't get born into my cities, so they're spared what would be pain for them .

 

[peter450]

You need more XP to get a GG on marathon than on normal or epic, the first GG emerges at 45 xp rather than 30, then 90 xp etc, on other settings it's 30/60 etc, while you do have time to war more on marathon, the XP required for a GG is 50% more

 

[Silver Marmot]

Game speed always seems most noticable when fighting wars. I've never had the desire to play marathon, but even on epic, you can really get a lot of use out of your fighting units before they become obselete. For instance, as the Romans, a longer game speed will naturally mean that Praetorians will dominate the world for a longer period of time, so playing on epic will enable you to conquer many more cities than playing on normal.

 

[oranges]

One thing no one mentioned, which I find much harder, is that on marathon speed it takes far longer to reserach things like monarchy or calendar, but your cities grow at the same pace as they would on normal. Needless to say, this makes managing your cities to a decent size early on difficult, but as pointed out before you get to play with your units without them becoming obsolete by the time you've built a decent amount. I also consider the slower speeds a great boon for those of us who make tech edge the top priority becuase every little bit counts even more. The greatest downside of marathon for me is having to deal with those stacks of 50 or more units in mid and especially late game, when they become a rule rather than an occasional large assault.

 

[Elandal]

The longer time again nudges me towards larger maps where more time simply is required due to longer distances and more space (thus more cities as well). If you have twice the time, but the map has twice the tiles per civ, you have the same time per city to wage the war, right?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The fact is Almost everything changes by the same amount between game sppeds, so that the only thing that REALLY changes is units.

The time it takes you to
Reseach a tech
build a building
get an extra unit of population

are all changed the same
BUT

your unit movement is not the same

so in a longer game you move your units around more
this is
1. better for more war
2. better for bigger maps