"Maranoob"

[BornInCantaloup]

I'm not really sure why I did read it but I read here that "noob" wasn't an offensive term... I must dispute that claim! It is!

Newbie ("new by", litterally) and Noob don't hold the same meaning at all :
- A newbie is new at what he does but can adapt and progress and is willing to do so. There is hope in the newbie that he will become elite ;
- A noob is unable/unwilling to communicate properly with other persons and learn from them; he is stubborn, self-centered and hopeless as far as his "gaming education" goes.

Not really the same profiles. Maybe the meaning of "noob" has changed over the years, due to intensive teenage internet trash-talk, I wouldn't know.
Yet, "maranoob" isn't an appealing term. At all.

So... take it for what it is: trash-talk.

 

[r_rolo1]

Noob isn't, by default, a negative adjective. I view it like "kid." I see a lot of gamers in other gaming communities using phrases like "OMG Look at this kid!" and "Can you believe this kid?" Kid isn't an insult by itself, but it can very much be used as an insult. (The word "gay" fits into this category, as well.)

When attached to "mara" it does become an insult. And the forum seems to be accepting of this, (users and moderators alike.) I find that the most disappointing.

The CFC forums have been a bastion of politeness and intelligence as opposed to all other gaming forums. While you will find politeness and intelligence on almost all gaming forums, the signal to noise ratios are too low for someone like me to navigate through. However, this is changing with the acceptance of "maranoob" as an acceptable phrase in CFC. I'm not going to go to the extreme and say that "If we continue using 'maranoob' then the next step is going to be like x-box live." That is simply untrue and an extreme hyperbole. However, I am going to say that if this community continues to accept "maranoob" as an acceptable phrase then we are taking one step in that direction.

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
- Confucius

To be honest I really dislike the term too. I ( note that I'm taking my mod hat out in here ) get extremely gimped by people that act like this game already has a already deduce mathematical formula shaping how to play it and any kind of correct paramethers to play it ... those cookie cutters strats simply do not exist and as far as I know, as long as the options are there, all are equally valid ( this is not to say that all are equally balanced ).

Moderator Action: And now with my mod hat on again, I must remind you that the usage of terms like the one in the title is borderline flamming. So far the mods have avoided granting sanctions on this, but that can change any moment if things start to spiral out of control. We can have discussions about the game topics without implying that a poster is a unskilled player just because he plays a oficial game speed ( that, to be added, has a lot of extra hidden dificulties on top due to the fact that Firaxis used magic numbers regarding number of turns in a lot of stuff. Those kind of things simply do not scalate at all )

 

[noto2]

I think the point of this thread is that you are not being insulted by your game preference in a single-player game. For example, what if people said "I'm not a quick-scrub, but here's my advice." That type of behavior is extremely uncouth and, unfortunately, it is becoming an acceptable trend to label people who enjoy marathon as "noobs."

What? Who is insulting anyone here? I'm not aware of any insults being thrown around. You seem like you have something to prove and quite frankly I don't care, go prove it to someone else. Why don't you actually read both of my posts and reply to that if you want to...but your reply has absolutely nothing to do with my posts.
I never called anyone a noob at any point. I first posted in this thread explaining why marathon speed is easier at high difficulty levels than normal speed. Read that post if you want to, I'm not repeating it. Then I joined in a discussion about play preferences. If you feel like you want to pick a fight with someone over calling marathon players noobs, go find someone to fight, who actually thinks that. Get off my back.

 

[damerell]

Okay I need to ask this to normal players...How can you play normal when your first war starts in 1000BC and ends in 500AD???

Because time and distance scales in Civ never made sense and never have? Quick or Marathon, it takes long enough for your first warrior to walk out of the city for most of the people in the unit to die, given life expectancies at the time. If you can swallow that, you can swallow a 1,500 year war.

 

[Kesshi]

What? Who is insulting anyone here? I'm not aware of any insults being thrown around. You seem like you have something to prove and quite frankly I don't care, go prove it to someone else. Why don't you actually read both of my posts and reply to that if you want to...but your reply has absolutely nothing to do with my posts.
I never called anyone a noob at any point. I first posted in this thread explaining why marathon speed is easier at high difficulty levels than normal speed. Read that post if you want to, I'm not repeating it. Then I joined in a discussion about play preferences. If you feel like you want to pick a fight with someone over calling marathon players noobs, go find someone to fight, who actually thinks that. Get off my back.

I believe there has been a misunderstanding here.

 

[vranasm]

on the same map the slower game speed is easier (as was stated by other players with reasons why)

the relative difficulty of playing huge/marathon x standard/normal is something that I am unsure about, the games start to be a bit uncomparable...

ha! and I am standard/normal elitist... while we're at it (look L I got it right!), one of the reasons why the standard/normal is "enforced" in S&T is to make the games most comparable and the teachings the easiest.

you have to set some standard settings to teach players and standard/normal seems to be the "right" for a lot of reasons... for one the games are quick enough... you can have first 100 turns played around 1 hour of real life, which stimulates running the same map couple of times to see different strategies play out.

Another thing being that standard/normal is claimed to be the most tested variant of game by Firaxis itself and most things are balanced around that settings (I look at you espionage right here!).

 

[Tristan_C]

Standard / Normal = Chess

Huge / Marathon = Go

 

[Turquoiside]

Standard / Normal = Chess

Huge / Marathon = Go

Hmm, now I'll freely admit until this thread I thought the concensus was that Huge > Standard, in terms of how difficult it is to play. In fact, it's hard for me to conceptualize how this works out. If Tech Brokering is on (which imo it always should be), the AI trades better than the Human player, so teching isn't outright easier. And not every game is a Conquest/Domination, so that's the half of it.

 

[King Kalmah]

Standard / Normal = Chess

Huge / Marathon = Go

I think you hit the nail on the head...plus I love Go...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't understand the noob terminology, but marathon is definitely easier than other speeds at the same difficulty if you know how to fight at all, because the AI doesn't and will throw away units. You then get more time to conquer before they rebuild+tech, and also more time to heal.

On an interesting side note, xbox 360 online experimentation suggests that calling someone a noob is not nearly as provocative as asking someone if they are new to the game and if they need help understanding how to play it, assuming they take you seriously in both cases (exception: said player is actually new to the game).

 

[Ryuji]

All difficulty related stuff aside, I just can't play any civ game on lower than the longest setting. Its just personal preference. I am no pro player, just noble I guess. But in a way I am happy about it. I like it to be on marathon so i don't fly through the ages in a matter of a minute or two. The game lasts forever and I usually tend to have larger territory on larger maps.

Secondly if I was so good that I could win against the AI every game with equal bonuses id have to play on the crazy stuff like emperor or immortal or deity even. And at that point id just feel that the only reason its harder is because the AI is getting bonuses that I am not getting which in turn would just piss me off. Personal opinion i guess. I am a chess player and equality is a big thing. When you play a chess computer that is rated higher than you don't see that computer getting extra pieces. It just calculates and overall plays better than you. (and enough so to annihilate you at times).

But overall its just that the game (historically) moves WAY to fast on the lower levels. I like experiencing the ages for a while. Plus i like for the game to last me a few weeks. So i guess in an odd kinda way, i hope i never get better than I am.

 

[Crimson Phantom]

I can't play anything other than Marathon/Giant. It's not a matter of "winning", it's a matter of enjoyment - I don't want a game that I finish in one sitting. Civ IV allows you to experience and build history - why would you want to build Rome in a day?

Personally, I think the focus on "winning" at all is inappropriate for this game. I basically only ever play games based on points/time - I don't want to "win" by conquering the world with spearmen and elephants, I'd be missing out on the industrial and modern eras!

 

[noto2]

don't understand the noob terminology, but marathon is definitely easier than other speeds at the same difficulty if you know how to fight at all, because the ai doesn't and will throw away units. You then get more time to conquer before they rebuild+tech, and also more time to heal.

On an interesting side note, xbox 360 online experimentation suggests that calling someone a noob is not nearly as provocative as asking someone if they are new to the game and if they need help understanding how to play it, assuming they take you seriously in both cases (exception: Said player is actually new to the game).

lol!!!!

 

[King Kalmah]

Secondly if I was so good that I could win against the AI every game with equal bonuses id have to play on the crazy stuff like emperor or immortal or deity even. And at that point id just feel that the only reason its harder is because the AI is getting bonuses that I am not getting which in turn would just piss me off. Personal opinion i guess. I am a chess player and equality is a big thing.

But overall its just that the game (historically) moves WAY to fast on the lower levels. I like experiencing the ages for a while. Plus i like for the game to last me a few weeks. So i guess in an odd kinda way, i hope i never get better than I am.

100% agree...I was once you and then I started moving up the levels to see if I could do it...well it can and will get annoying...lol...maybe we are just K-Mod players...lol

 

[noto2]

the main problem with giving the AI "cheats" to keep up is that it drastically alters the game which makes it less fun. On noble difficulty you have many options - you can build lots of early wonders, OR turtle up and tech, OR go for early warfare, OR go for a religion strategy, etc, lots of options, lots of fun. On something like immortal there are only a few strategies that are viable. The great lighthouse might still be worth it, most other early wonders are not. Turtling doesn't work, religion is worthless. On the higher difficulty levels you pretty much have to bulb like crazy to get to cannons, and then whip/draft like crazy and war as hard as you can. Other strategies rarely work. The reason is because the AI bonuses mean that the AI will be able to outbuild you - to found more cities, build wonders faster, etc, that the only way you can hope to compete is mass whip/draft a military and go to war. It's not fun because your options are so limited.

 

[Mylene]

You got that wrong sorry, on Immortal you can still play how you like if you got insight on most game mechanics/strats
Only on Deity you are limited, but that was the purpose of this diff. level.

 

[Jack Funk]

I have been playing Civ4 for years and had not played normal speed in a long, long time. I like Marathon because of many of the reasons listed. I usually play on Emperor and have been trying to get to Immortal (have won once and come close a couple of times out of ~20 games).

So anyway, I read this thread and decided to try normal speed. I dropped back to Monarch (based on the comments about marathon meaning at least one difficulty level).

I have to say, the game is quite different. I had to force myself to slow down because everything happens sooooooo fast. Mistakes are indeed magnified. I am having good success at this game speed, but don't think I would fair as well above Monarch. I have to adjust everything that I am doing to compensate for the speed of the game. Until I get comfortable, I will not be trying Emperor, much less Immortal.

It has been interesting.