Huge Maps. Epic or Marathon?

[TRJS]

Hi all,

Just a quick question as the title suggests. Wondering what the preference of others is when playing huge maps. Marathon or Epic? Also a little reason why might help me.

Cheers,

TRJS

 

[Bobbalouie]

I play marathon. I like the slower pace to the game and having long wars where units don't get outdated.

 

[johncross21]

i played a tiny island map on epic because otherwise you spend too long moving troops

I would be tempted to play epic on a huge map for the same reason

however marathon changes the game feel and I haven't the patience

 

[Elandal]

The larger the map, the longer the distances. I play mostly large maps at epic speed, but when I play huge I also switch to marathon - just that my computer can't really handle that.

 

[illram]

ummm...neither?

 

[Roland Johansen]

I play at epic speed on huge maps. Marathon isn't as well balanced as the other game speeds. That isn't that strange as the game was originally balanced for a game speed 3 times as slow and you can't expect a smooth transition to a much slower game speed. One of the results that I've heard of is that the AI tends to build too many units at aggressive AI marathon huge map games and thus tends to hurt its own economy.

At marathon speed, the unit costs are twice as high while the time is slowed by a factor of three. This makes building units attractive. The huge map setting increases the research cost of technologies. These two factors combined will result in increased unit building by the AI before technologies that improve the economy are available.
The chance that a war is being declared is also relatively larger at marathon speed because there is a chance each turn that war will be declared and there are just more turns at marathon speed.
So you tend to have more units and more wars at marathon speed setting and in my opinion this unbalances the game a bit and makes it a bit easier for the player who tends to be better at war.

You can of course increase the difficulty level to improve the opposition of the AI at marathon speed, so if you like the marathon gameplay, then there doesn't have to be a problem.

I do agree with most here that its nice to have a slower game speed on the larger maps so that you have the time to move your units across the large distances that need to be travelled. I also just like the somewhat slower game speeds so that you can enjoy the strengths of certain units a bit longer before they become obsolete, but that is less related to huge maps.

 

[madscientist]

OK, here is my opinion on this

I have been a Huge Map/Marathon CIV IV player since I got Vanilla for Christmas 2006 (going on 2 years). Have both expansion packs. Predominantly Prince in vanilla/warlords, Monarch in BTS (but migrating to emperor)

Reason for going to marathon? The games were way too fast, I was going off to war only the have an army I just created go out of date real fast. I sill like marathon for these reasons and probably will no change although I do understand it is not as balanced as the other speeds (I have downloaded a few games from the forums and just couldn't play at standard speed).

I played huge maps, well because the world is just so damn big!! My games ended either with a space victory or UN election (because I dominated the game ansd elected myself victory) or the occasional cultural victory. The past month I have started playing standard maps, mostly due to the game slowing down alot because of the late-game BTS stuff. There is quite alot of good improvements in the game (warring, more strategic space race, corps) that I do not want to miss.

One thing I found is the games play alot differently, and I like it. Dealing with AIs are different as we all have closer bounderies. It's also easier to know a few AIs out early and deal with a smaller "diplomatic" world. And domination/conquest are real possibilities now.

Also on huge maps, the economy can be real horrible. You cannot expand far enough to culturally touch an AI without tanking the economy (too many games I built the forbidden palace before culturally touching an AIs borders). Now it's not the case, 6courthouses for the FP, 6 universities for oxford etc... Even cultural requires only 9 temples to get 3 catherdrals in each legendary city.

I may consider moving to epic speed but right now enjoying standard sized maps with marathon.

And most importantly, the game moves along at a good speed even at the end on my 5 yeasr old Dell.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I personally think that many people would have enjoyed a game speed between epic and marathon. If you look at the various game speeds, then you can see the jump in game speed from epic to marathon:
quick: 67% of normal turns
normal: 100% of normal turns
epic: 150% of normal turns
marathon: 300% of normal turns.

I guess this was done to please all those who liked a slower game than epic in one go, but I expect some epic game players to like a slightly slower game and some marathon players to like a slightly faster game. Of course, there are also a few who like an even slower game than marathon. People's preferences are just quite distinct.

 

[madscientist]

I personally think that many people would have enjoyed a game speed between epic and marathon. If you look at the various game speeds, then you can see the jump in game speed from epic to marathon:
quick: 67% of normal turns
normal: 100% of normal turns
epic: 150% of normal turns
marathon: 300% of normal turns.

I guess this was done to please all those who liked a slower game than epic in one go, but I expect some epic game players to like a slightly slower game and some marathon players to like a slightly faster game. Of course, there are also a few who like an even slower game than marathon. People's preferences are just quite distinct.

Good to see those numbers. Some things discussed on these forums are appropriate to a certain speed and not others.

Example: Marathon speed is 3 times longer than standard (1200 turns in marathon vs 400 in standard) , yet golden ages on marathon lasts only 16 turns (versus 8 in standard).. twice as long. SO I rarely used GPs for golden ages unless I really needed to reach a tech first, building parts for the space ship, or got a free one off the Taj. Of course totally different in BTS, at least GAs, but you get my point.

On the flip side, axe-rushing is one of the enjoyable and rewarding parts of the game, but there is not always a ooportunity on huge maps.

 

[DaveMcW]

I like Marathon/Duel.

Warrior-rushing is one of the enjoyable and rewarding parts of the game, but there is not always an opportunity on standard maps.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I like Marathon/Duel.

Warrior-rushing is one of the enjoyable and rewarding parts of the game, but there is not always an opportunity on standard maps.

 

[CivCorpse]

I like Marathon/Duel.

Warrior-rushing is one of the enjoyable and rewarding parts of the game, but there is not always an opportunity on standard maps.

LOL, but think how many cottages you could build on a huge map. Billions and Billions (best Carl Sagan voice).

 

[Elandal]

but I expect some epic game players to like a slightly slower game and some marathon players to like a slightly faster game.

I'm mostly an epic player who wouldn't mind 200% instead of 150% while finding 300% to be heckuvalot (ie. too slow for me).

Of course if you want to look at the speeds from another angle:

quick * 3/2 = normal
normal * 3/2 = epic
epic * 2 = marathon (except where it's epic * 4/3 and some other things change too)

Yes, Marathon is different from the rest. Basically quick : normal : epic are 2/3 : 1 : 3/2 ratios around what the game was balanced for, and then Marathon is an oddball because a fairly large part of the people want to play way slower games than the majority. Although I expect Marathon players to be larger group than quick players.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm mostly an epic player who wouldn't mind 200% instead of 150% while finding 300% to be heckuvalot (ie. too slow for me).

Of course if you want to look at the speeds from another angle:

quick * 3/2 = normal
normal * 3/2 = epic
epic * 2 = marathon (except where it's epic * 4/3 and some other things change too)

Yes, Marathon is different from the rest. Basically quick : normal : epic are 2/3 : 1 : 3/2 ratios around what the game was balanced for, and then Marathon is an oddball because a fairly large part of the people want to play way slower games than the majority. Although I expect Marathon players to be larger group than quick players.

I saw a poll a while back. If I recall correctly the largest group of players played at the epic game speed, then normal, then marathon, then quick. If you would split this for multiplayer and singleplayer, then I'll bet that you'll see that the singleplayer games are typically at slower game speeds than the multiplayer games.

And I also guess that most players who play at the larger maps also play at the slower game speeds. So the fact that only 2 answers, epic and marathon, were allowed in this poll isn't that bad. It won't include everyone who plays at a huge map, but I'll bet it captures the large majority.

By the way, I agree that the relative size of the jumps in gamespeed are a better way to look at it. I just wanted to present the gamespeed information as easy as possible.

 

[cabert]

If I played huge maps, I'd use marathon.
But since I have no time to play such long games, I stick with standard size and normal speed most of the time (darn GotM always at epic )