How to make Epic and Marathon modes better?

[Glassmage]

If you like to fight wars within the same eras, it is difficult to do that in Quick and Normal modes. Epic and Marathon modes are good for you to fight and REALLY build your civilization.

Epic and Marathon increase the tech and culture cost which is understandable, but these modes also increase the unit and building production costs. Is it better if the production costs be lowered somewhat so you can actually build a single Longswordman in a reasonable amount of turns? Lower production cost for buildings would affect the science and culture accumulation too, so how can this be modified?

Personally, I like Epic mode more than the other ones. Quick & Normal are so fast that your units are obsolete quickly. Marathon is terrible because I am not going to wait ~40 turns for Pottery and 75 turns to get my first social policy...

 

[Ellye]

Since in Civ5 you don't need a large army anyway, Epic and Marathon already let you really make use of all units across the eras.

Though I too would like to see what would happen with a simple reduction in production time for military units in Epic/Marathon speed.

 

[GfxJG]

You can easily change production time within the XML files.

 

[OrangeNinja]

There are many modes that increase greatly the research time and either decrease or keeps the same amount of production costs for everything.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

I always play Epic, unless its a multiplayer game. I don't feel that it takes long to build a unit at all, but the key here is to recruit them in cities with ample production. In particular I like to have one or two cities which specialize in nothing more than unit recruitment.

But my feeling it doesn't take long is probably because I'm so used to playing on Epic that Standard feels really fast.

I tried Marathon once but it took way too long to do anything.

 

[Rince]

Same for me on Epic. Sure buildings take long to build but then again, the game does advance at a slower pace. If buildings were constructed as fast as on Normal, you'd run out of buildings fairly quickly.

And as mentioned by Ellye, you don't need tons of units. Keep them alive and upgrade them often. That being said, units only take a couple of turns for me to build in my top production cities.

 

[turtlefang]

I play marathon most of the time. The key is to build early, upgrade units and NOT lose any if possible. Create a few super production cities for late era units such as ART or Aircraft if you need them. That really takes care of the production time except for buildings.

Marathon lets you use units in each era to really see what they can do.

As far as lowering production cost of units, haven't really played any mods that do that. The most frustrating thing on marathon is really building settlers/workers. A reduction in unit times, including those two, might increase the warfare in ancient times but not sure.

 

[Ellye]

There are many modes that increase greatly the research time and either decrease or keeps the same amount of production costs for everything.

By the way, at the risk of going too much off-topic, is there a mod that removes all or part of all the "free techs" in the game?
This is something I really dislike - free techs from scientists, from wonders, from social policy - there's just too many free techs.

I would like to see them replaced by a beaker bonus, perhaps something using the same formula of a research agreement (and, by the way, I would like to see the 50% bonus for RA's reduced to 25% each).

This is how I really would like to play, to make each era last more.

 

[krazybastid]

Edit icosts in assets xml buildings and units i figured out how to change alot of things to make the game alot better. If you have some skill in XML/HTML you will have alot of success modding basic elements

 

[apocalypse105]

I played a game that changed the build times at the time I got pottery I allready had 4 warriors and my maintaince was going high... Because you are forced to build someting untill I can build the grannary ANd I allready build some workers and setltlers


Marathon build time is slow in the beginning But as soon you are beginning to improve the land and production of you're cities everything produce quickly (the units)

 

[The Mad Russian]

I play on Marathon 100% of the time. but I play differently, starting 90% of my games purely in the Future Era, mainly because I just want to get to the modern warfare with the tanks, nukes and so on and I've been doing Future Era games since Civ III. Since I only do so with Domination/Time victories enabled, it really makes for some chaotic games with awesome wars. No city states, usually small/tiny maps with twice the number of civs that it suggests. For me, it's really the only way I can enjoy CiV.

-Mark

 

[Babri]

Slightly lowered unit costs might be good for game balance on epic & marathon. It will help AI to build yet another army after getting their initial wave being annhiliated by human player. Personally I like epic speed, slight tweaks to unit cost could improve it however building costs are fine as u may run out of buildings if they are lowered.

 

[TPQ]

If you like to fight wars within the same eras, it is difficult to do that in Quick and Normal modes. Epic and Marathon modes are good for you to fight and REALLY build your civilization.

Epic and Marathon increase the tech and culture cost which is understandable, but these modes also increase the unit and building production costs. Is it better if the production costs be lowered somewhat so you can actually build a single Longswordman in a reasonable amount of turns? Lower production cost for buildings would affect the science and culture accumulation too, so how can this be modified?

Personally, I like Epic mode more than the other ones. Quick & Normal are so fast that your units are obsolete quickly. Marathon is terrible because I am not going to wait ~40 turns for Pottery and 75 turns to get my first social policy...

Personally I find Epic build times are just fine. I always focus on economic development anyway, so I often just buy units and buildings instead of building them.

Chuck some cash on a maritime or two and throw all the excess food onto mines and lumber mills and with a couple of production multipliers from buildings you can churn units out pretty quickly at Epic speed.

 

[Soronery]

AI needs a bigger production bonus to units on the slower speeds.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

In practical terms, because the AI is terrible at combat I always have enough money to rushbuy pretty much anything I really need at epic (conquer lux etc), if this was a perfect world and Firaxis would've made a good AI this should definitely be implemented though (or perhaps if mods manage to make one with the DLL).
I play epic.

 

[krazybastid]

If you run out of stuff to build in like 1967 or something you could just build units and we all know we need them on Marathon. Unless your really pumpin out alot of hammers unit builds take like an eternity. <iCosts> id a really simple tag if you can get that you can pretty much see the XML and figure out the rest. With any reasonable hammer producing cities, a unit could take about 10 turns. That should be brought down to 5 or 7. I only play marathon cause I think it adds more depth to the game plus the world is mapped faster.