Getting Started

[Questdog]

I play a hybrid of Marathon and Epic, with Marathon research times and Epic building time. Let's you stay in an era for quite a while and not feel like your playing the game in slow motion.

 

[bwoww78]

I play a hybrid of Marathon and Epic, with Marathon research times and Epic building time. Let's you stay in an era for quite a while and not feel like your playing the game in slow motion.

Mind sharing how you do that? Like a great combo... At least a good transition between the two

 

[Questdog]

Mind sharing how you do that? Like a great combo... At least a good transition between the two

First, make a back-up copy of CIV5GameSpeeds.xml. It's in the Civ 5 directory wherever you installed the game (not the folders in 'Documents') under /Assets/Gameplay/XML. Then just replace the part that looks like the following with the following and when you load up the game and play on Marathon you will see that units will build much faster than they used to on Marathon. Also, you'll see that the early research times will be longer than normal, but that is to compensate for later in the game, because having more units and especially buildings quicker will make your research times speed up.

<Row>
			<ID>0</ID>
			<Type>GAMESPEED_MARATHON</Type>
			<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_MARATHON</Description>
			<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_MARATHON_HELP</Help>
			<DealDuration>50</DealDuration>
			<GrowthPercent>150</GrowthPercent>
			<TrainPercent>150</TrainPercent>
			<ConstructPercent>150</ConstructPercent>
			<CreatePercent>150</CreatePercent>
			<ResearchPercent>350</ResearchPercent>
			<GoldPercent>150</GoldPercent>
			<GoldGiftMod>75</GoldGiftMod>
			<BuildPercent>150</BuildPercent>
			<ImprovementPercent>150</ImprovementPercent>
			<GreatPeoplePercent>150</GreatPeoplePercent>
			<CulturePercent>150</CulturePercent>
			<BarbPercent>150</BarbPercent>
			<FeatureProductionPercent>150</FeatureProductionPercent>
			<UnitDiscoverPercent>150</UnitDiscoverPercent>
			<UnitHurryPercent>250</UnitHurryPercent>
			<UnitTradePercent>150</UnitTradePercent>
			<GoldenAgePercent>125</GoldenAgePercent>
			<HurryPercent>250</HurryPercent>
			<InflationPercent>10</InflationPercent>
			<InflationOffset>-270</InflationOffset>
			<VictoryDelayPercent>150</VictoryDelayPercent>
			<IconAtlas>GAMESPEED_ATLAS</IconAtlas>
			<PortraitIndex>0</PortraitIndex>
		</Row>

The reason I change the Marathon entry, rather than just changing the research time in the Epic listing is because you get a lot more turns on Marathon and to get more turns in Epic would take more editing than changing Marathon (Plus, the settings are actually a bit slower than Epic).

Also, TBC makes a couple of changes to Marathon that you may want to alter, though I leave them alone when I play the mod (since they actually don't seem to do anything; may be a bug in TBC). They are located in the City Development folder of the TBC folder in "BCD - General.xml" (again make a back up before you edit the file).
They are:

<GameSpeeds>
		<Update>
			<Where Type="GAMESPEED_MARATHON" />
			<Set TrainPercent="250"
				 UnitHurryPercent="250" />
		</Update>

You may want to change the TrainPercent to 150 to be consistent, though as I said, they don't have any effect when I play the mod and I think you can safely leave them alone (The Unit HurryPercent is the same as I set it in the other file, so it doesn't need changing regardless).

P.S. You could do it by making a mod of this, rather than replacing the original file, but since I just did it for me, it's a lot simpler and I never want to play on regular Marathon anyway. If you decide you don't like it and want to revert to the original way, just restore the backup copy of the XML file.

 

[Questdog]

If you decide you don't like my settings and want to play around with them yourself, the entries are mostly self-explanatory. One oddity, however, is that Settler construction speed is tied to the growth variable (which also governs how quickly new citizens appear) rather than the TrainPercent (which governs the speed at which all other units are built).

 

[Questdog]

One other thing you should be aware of playing at this hybrid Marathon/Epic speed is that it makes building units a lot more efficient than buying them.

That's the way I think it should be, but it is not the way TBC has been designed and if you typically do a lot of unit purchasing, you'll find that's not such a good thing to do with these settings ( I guess, even if you DON'T purchase many units, you'll still find it's not such a good thing to do....). To set it so that it works more like TBC is designed (at least from a hammers to gold perspective), I think you'd have to change HurryPercent to 125, though I think it makes things way too cheap. To me purchasing units ought to be something you can do with excess gold if you are a rich man, but should not be a viable alternative to building them yourself. Hammer based manufacturing should be the base of any producing economy in my opinion, anyway.

I think the purchasing of units with gold would make more sense if you had to buy them from another civ. I mean, as it is now, its like you are pulling hammers out of thin air. But if those hammers had to actually exist somewhere before they could be bought, then that would make more sense. Although the building of them should still be more efficient, else the unit builder would make no profit by selling his hammers.

 

[Busdriver]

I've always viewed the difference between purchasing and building similarly to the difference between the government contracting the necessary labor and the government building/training stuff itself. So in the example of units, when you purchase a unit, you are hiring mercenaries. This is why, in my view, communism gives hammers while the market based Commerce tree gives gold and helps in purchasing. Not that this is a completely realistic portrayal of these, but civ in general is an abstraction and is not a very realistic portrayal of reality. It's a fun abstraction, though.

 

[Mortal D]

U guys can also try to play normal marathon and change only reserch ( from 300 to 450 ) and hury ( from 100 to 125 ) .

The hury cost need to be adjusted or u will end up with a lot to much money to spend in the midle/late game.

 

[truetom]

Is there a way to make political relations more stable? Arabia went from being friendly and giving me 9 gold for lux resource per turn to war in the next turn. I didn't do anything to provoke it. Can actions of other nations (denouncing, etc.) sway relation as much? Seems a bit too much.

 

[black213]

Is there a way to make political relations more stable? Arabia went from being friendly and giving me 9 gold for lux resource per turn to war in the next turn. I didn't do anything to provoke it. Can actions of other nations (denouncing, etc.) sway relation as much? Seems a bit too much.

Pretty sure it's unfixable with tools that we have now. What Would Gandhi Do mod is already integrated in TBC and it's supposed to make the AI more sane.

 

[Thalassicus]

I do plan on making an effect that can improve the culture of specialists eventually. I don't see a problem with artists consuming half food until then (technically not half with a Hospital, but close enough). Each pop point still requires time to acquire and adds to unhappiness, so they have costs, and the number we can get is restricted.

@Ahriman
Check out this chart: link

@bwoww78
I used to play large+epic, but lately switched to standard+standard to get more games completed. I wouldn't recommend slower speeds since it favors the human player too much (slower everything but movement -> combat advantage -> human is better at combat). If you do play at a slower speed though, do it on a huge map.

 

[Ahriman]

@Ahriman
Check out this chart: link

This chart seems to support my point. 6 full trees (36 picks) are dramatically more expensive to reach than 30 picks are in vanilla. In fact, they're more expensive to reach than 36 picks are in vanilla. So you have made a cultural victory harder to achieve.

I just played a very culturally focused game as Siam with 3 cities, and I got my 5th tree finished well into the modern era (thinking I was done, but then I saw I needed a 6th tree).

 

[Questdog]

A Cultural Victory needs to be harder to achieve than it is. Currently, it is the easiest victory condition of them all and the only one (other than domination) that can be achieved before the WWII. There is no way a peaceful science or diplomacy seeking civ can defeat a cultural seeking one, without resorting to violence.

If you are truly going to build a civilization that will stand the test of time, then more time must pass.....

 

[Ahriman]

A Cultural Victory needs to be harder to achieve than it is.

Than it is in what?
It currently takes 6 full policy trees in this mod (5 in vanilla). That is impossible for a large empire, and takes a very long time for a small empire.

I have no problem with it being achieved earlier than a science victory. The whole point of a culture victory is that you give up expansion and power in exchange for a shot at an earlier victory. There is no way that a 3-city empire is going to be as powerful as one that is slightly larger, so it has to have some advantage to this playstyle. Its basically impossible for a 3-city empire to hold off a late-game AI superpower with a large airforce and nukes, so it should be possible (though not easy) to win culture before that stage.

There is no way that a you can defeat a diplomatic or scientific seeking civ without violence (or winning first) either, they are also passive victory types. But neither of them require you to play in such a narrow fashion as a culture win. Both are possible to play a normal game and then decide which to focus on only in the modern era. Culture isn't like that, you have to build your whole game playstyle around it.

 

[Txurce]

It currently takes 6 full policy trees in this mod (5 in vanilla). That is impossible for a large empire, and takes a very long time for a small empire.

I have no problem with it being achieved earlier than a science victory... There is no way that a 3-city empire is going to be as powerful as one that is slightly larger, so it has to have some advantage to this playstyle.

I agree that there's no need to make a cultural victory harder.

How would you quantify a "large empire"? What would the smallest number of cities be?

 

[Ahriman]

I would say a small empire is up to 4 cities.
I would say a medium empire is maybe ~5-8 empires. I would say 9+ cities is a large empire.

But it depends on mapsize, and those are just very approximate interpretations.

I think 6 full trees is too many; if its kept at 6 trees, maybe the marginal culture cost of new policies could be constant after 25-30 picks or so, rather than continuing to increase.

 

[Zaldron]

I would say a small empire is up to 4 cities.
I would say a medium empire is maybe ~5-8 empires. I would say 9+ cities is a large empire.

But it depends on mapsize, and those are just very approximate interpretations.

I think 6 full trees is too many; if its kept at 6 trees, maybe the marginal culture cost of new policies could be constant after 25-30 picks or so, rather than continuing to increase.

Remember that Thal also increased culture production (see museum for example) so even though it costs more culture to fill out 6 trees, the overall ease should be about the same. If you're going for a cultural win, you should probably fill out the left side of freedom as soon as possible, along with the policy in liberty that reduces the penalty per city to 10%.

I like playing small empires (2-6 cities) and on King in my last probably 4-5 games I've won culturally *long* before science was even on the radar, while still being top 3 in tech, OR been forced into a diplomatic victory to stop an AI from taking it. Even with 6-7 cities I was still getting a new policy every 4-5 turns at the end of the game.

 

[Seek]

@Ahriman: Look at the chart again - the baseline is the 100% line and the vast amount of policies are below 75% of vanilla costs! Also, as Zaldron noted, culture buildings have been buffed quite a lot here, and the Representation SP has been buffed significantly as well, allowing larger civs more policies. I had the fastest win (235 turns) I've ever had with a four city culture victory recently.

 

[Ahriman]

Remember that Thal also increased culture production (see museum for example) so even though it costs more culture to fill out 6 trees, the overall ease should be about the same.

The increase in culture is pretty small relative to the total cost increase.

If you're going for a cultural win, you should probably fill out the left side of freedom as soon as possible

This is the same as vanilla.

@Ahriman: Look at the chart again - the baseline is the 100% line and the vast amount of policies are below 75% of vanilla costs!

Look at the chart again. The chart is CUMULATIVE culture costs, not marginal policy costs. At 36 policies, the under the mod it costs 25% more than it takes to get 36 policies in vanilla - and in vanilla only 30 policies are required for a cultural victory.

It doesn't really matter much if the cumulative cost of getting 20 policies is cheaper, because 20 policies doesn't get you a cultural victory.
[It matters a little, because it means you could get things like Constitution slightly faster.]

If you want to make a direct comparison, then look the absolute total culture cost of getting 36 policies in TBC, the cost of getting 36 policies in vanilla, and the cost of getting 30 policies in vanilla.
[We don't have this info here, but Thal presumably had that number to make the chart.]

I bet that the cost of 36 policies in TBC is much, much higher than the cost of getting 30 policies in vanilla.

 

[Seek]

Look at the chart again. The chart is CUMULATIVE culture costs, not marginal policy costs.

So it is. Oops.

I'm still not certain that the difference is as drastic as you make it out, however. As I said, I recently had a very quick culture win - close to 100 turns less than my last try on vanilla, though that was a while ago. There is a *lot* more culture available in TBC than vanilla (which the costs do not reflect, obviously).

 

[Questdog]

I don't like cultural wins in the first place, but I played a game recently to try for one and see what is was like before I complained any.

Anyways, the first impression I had was that it is VERY boring. Nothing much happening most of the time except me hitting the "Next Turn" button and waiting for the other civs to play. But if that is what someone else enjoys, fine; more power to them.

The one issue I had with having to fill out 6 trees, is that I was forced to take a tree that excluded one of my earlier trees. It seems to me that going for a cultural win, you should be able to build a more homogenous empire and all your policy picks ought to be able to compliment one another, or at least not conflict.