How balanced is VP with Marathon?

[Ziad]

I've really enjoyed this mod so far, but I can't help but wonder if I'm not playing it the way it was intended. Wars in general are easier, and I assume that's because travel time is less relevant and unit production is relatively slow. Otherwise a lot of the bonuses seem UP or OP, more than one would expect. Ruins in particular stand out. So while it's fun, I'd rather play it more in line with what it is balanced around.

What gamespeed is best for VP? Are marathon games too tilted in the player's favor?

 

[CrazyG]

I find marathon, and even to an extent epic, to be extremely skewed in favor of civs with early game unique units. Stuff like hoplites have enough time to conquer everything.

On ruins, its less clear. Culture ruins are strong, faith is amazing but rare, other than that they seem fine to me. This holds true for all difficulties, though it is more extreme on slower speeds

 

[Ziad]

I see. That makes sense.

Is there any way to counter-act that beyond hand-picking civilizations? Maybe play with more civs than normal to offset the probability of imbalance?

 

[krazyhades]

In general both in vanilla and in VP the slower the game mode the more it favors the player and use of units. Epic and Marathon are much much easier than standard. The combat AI in the mod is HUGELY improved over vanilla but the human still makes better decisions. Slower game speeds give units more turns to accrue experience and to heal and reduces the rate at which techs and needing to pay for unit upgrades impact any particular war, and as you note travel times are also strongly affected (relative to tech pace etc).

 

[Enginseer]

In general both in vanilla and in VP the slower the game mode the more it favors the player and use of units. Epic and Marathon are much much easier than standard. The combat AI in the mod is HUGELY improved over vanilla but the human still makes better decisions. Slower game speeds give units more turns to accrue experience and to heal and reduces the rate at which techs and needing to pay for unit upgrades impact any particular war, and as you note travel times are also strongly affected (relative to tech pace etc).

And one of the best example here is that the Polynesia AI will tend to discover all of the AIs before the Printing Press.

 

[DarkZero]

Epic is not that bad, just up the difficulty, but marathon is not really playable if you want to ever lose a game.

 

[glider1]

so in reverse, quick speed is harder and you can drop a difficulty level which is good but then you have to play on smaller maps which is less fun.

 

[Ziad]

I'll try an Epic on Immortal. Thanks all

 

[FoxOfWar]

Difficulty is certainly subjective. I manage to lose about third of my games on Marathon/King.

But yeah, combat is easier just because what you have at the start of a war is far more likely to be all you have - and all the opponent has. Unique units have huge windows to work with, but that sort of makes it fun I think.

 

[De_Genius]

yeah. I play on Marathon exclusively and have to drop the difficulty to King if I don't want to play conquest, otherwise one or two empires always snowballs out of control and becomes unbeatable.
Regarding unique units they are in play a lot longer than usual which makes them more valuable. This gives the civs with early UU an edge, but if they do not seize it or cannot, the later UU civs will come into play, so it seems fairly balanced to me.

 

[DarkZero]

yeah. I play on Marathon exclusively and have to drop the difficulty to King if I don't want to play conquest, otherwise one or two empires always snowballs out of control and becomes unbeatable.
Regarding unique units they are in play a lot longer than usual which makes them more valuable. This gives the civs with early UU an edge, but if they do not seize it or cannot, the later UU civs will come into play, so it seems fairly balanced to me.

The problem whit your statement is that "I don't want to play conquest" is like saying I don't want play science or I don't want to play culture, conquest is an integral part of the game, its true it is more necessary the higher the difficulty, but marathon makes snowballing extremely slow, and thats what makes it easier as the ai snowballs from the start whit its bonuses.

 

[Asterix Rage]

yeah. I play on Marathon exclusively and have to drop the difficulty to King if I don't want to play conquest, otherwise one or two empires always snowballs out of control and becomes unbeatable.
Regarding unique units they are in play a lot longer than usual which makes them more valuable. This gives the civs with early UU an edge, but if they do not seize it or cannot, the later UU civs will come into play, so it seems fairly balanced to me.

Same

I only play Marathon. Above king I saw many times more than 30 ironclads from an unique super power at my border coming to speak with 6 corvettes of my own empire Forget conquest
Since a while I use to play emperor anyway with a few bonuses I pick with IGE at T0. Like a handful of gold + 1 tech or 1 policy ( and some tiles redesigned around the capital city ). I'm not proud of that but that's the way I found to balance maybe VP / Marathon with the kind of play style I like.

By the way...
I don't know if I'm the only one dreaming of a special VP exclusive Super Marathon gamespeed? 500 hours per game guaranty
Because 6000 years of History is a long long journey

 

[tu_79]

The problem whit your statement is that "I don't want to play conquest" is like saying I don't want play science or I don't want to play culture, conquest is an integral part of the game, its true it is more necessary the higher the difficulty, but marathon makes snowballing extremely slow, and thats what makes it easier as the ai snowballs from the start whit its bonuses.

I disagree. What it is really difficult to avoid is war, but you can certainly win without any conquest. Killing some of the AI units seems like no feat, but it forces AI to build or purchase new units and not invest in buildings meanwhile. Even then, playing completely peaceful is still posible.

 

[busted_bunny]

I play marathon right now on 43 civs and 20 CS biggest map. Everything looks to me, just like vanilla at standard speed. There are failed civs, there are advanced civs. War is much more immersive, as it looks like real war, but not just blizkrig. When you have unique units you can't just beat anyone you want. Sometimes there are problems, that exceed any advantages. And that's all, just like i said, seems VERY familiar. But unlike vanilla, in CBP civs can fail (either become vassals, or extinct completely).

And... What is "Snowballing"?

 

[Moi Magnus]

And... What is "Snowballing"?

Snowballing is "the more you won, the more you will win" (same as a snowball that get greater and greater when rolling). It corresponds when situations where the game is far from being won/lost, but the winner is already known (usually because he control half of the world, or have 20 more techs, ...) and nobody can challenge him.

 

[CrazyG]

And... What is "Snowballing"?

To snowball is to increase in size over time. The origin of the phrase is if you had a small ball of snow, and rolled it down a hill, snow on the hill would stick to the ball. Thus it get bigger and bigger as it rolls down. In Civ, the idea behind snowballing is that an early advantage gets bigger and bigger as turns go by. It also means the earlier the advantage, the stronger it is.

Lets say I take tradition with God of All Creation in a game, and I find culture ruins. That extra 15 culture from ruins might give my first social policy 8 turns earlier. That is worth another 16 culture, so my 2nd social policy comes a few turns earlier. That is worth a few points of faith, so my pantheon comes earlier. The pantheon gives culture, so my 3rd policy comes earlier. That is worth production, so I build a well earlier. That well puts me way ahead in food and culture, so on and so on. That 15 culture from ruins could plausibly be worth thousands of yields throughout the game.