Marathon is for lightweights.

[Hauptman]

So I've been playing a bit over a month now. I was highly preturbed by how rapid research is even at marathon speeds, when compared to build speeds. Especially with how advanced flight said "build 3 biplanes" at me every single game. Wait you want me to spend 20 turns building an airport, then another 15+ building biplanes, to save 4 turns of research on a tech that will make it all pointless?

Serious guys... that was just a dumb idea in general.

...and to have that mars landing happen pre-millenia, even if I took my time... was just a let down. Where are my epic games? I just blaze through the games, hit the next turn button a few times, and win without ever feeling invested.

However I may have found the fix.

I was thinking research should be doubled, but someone else thought "screw that lets triple it" and added a Mod to the workshop "Extended eras: historical research times".

It triples research time (except the first techs, which it only doubles) and eurekas only cut a quarter. This is for the patient types who want to really play through a game. And OH MY! What it did was amazing! It isnt just slower... as the AI has to do something with all it's extra time...

I tell you, this is a completely different game and goes a long way to fixing the failures of the vanilla.

The thing that really blew my mind was the unit spam. The AI's spend the extra time making units. This means if I want to conquer something... I'm going to have to work for it. No longer can I just run amok on the map as I please doing what I wish when I wish.

I declared war on Washington my first playthrough with the mod thinking nothing of it. I had my 4 warriors and 4 slingers. I was good. But then.... I noticed his power rating. 1200 power? What the? (I had about 250)

I was able to beat back his line and take his first city, but that's as far as I could get. The never ending train of his units wore me down, I had to capitulate or face losing my army, and possibly my empire, even though it was me on the offensive.

Now if you want a city, you must prepare for it. Combined arms, naval and land, in order to clear every single tile that fights back. It isnt quite Stack of Doom levels of challenge, as the AI still cant handle war, but it is at least a challenge.

Then the tech parity... There's always those backwards civs who dont do research... just to be fodder for those that do. You still have those, however, it's much less pronounced, since it took me 1000 turns to get cannons, that archer army still posed a threat, for all that time.

Just figured I'd share, as this mod went a long way to get me invested into this game, hopefully it'll get someone like minded as well.

 

[Depravo]

Completely agree. Epic speed and 3x civic and tech costs is an absolute must.

Marathon skews the game too heavily in favour of the human player.

 

[Kyro]

I just blaze through the games, hit the next turn button a few times, and win without ever feeling invested.

Well you see, investment is a dirty word in Civ 6, it's all about short-term rushing this and that, they can't have you investing your way to victory because that's too long-term for some players.

 

[agonistes]

I've been playing mostly marathon with the tech and civics at x10 (well, using both the x2 and x5, which actually stacks for some reason), and reducing boosts to 25%. Then I cap the settler cost. This helps the ai expand quite a bit. The problem is the human player (and a few ai) still runs away with the game pretty easily, and once you start getting ahead in techs, the smaller civs are looking at 500+ turns even for ancient techs/civics.

I think I read here that RnF reduces research time for the backend civs, but I don't think it will be enough. They really just need to give away free techs/civics to civs that are too far behind, or allow for tech/civic trading. Something. I don't know. But it bothers me when a civ falls way behind in research.

I wonder if its possible to cap the minimum research time? A spread of 200-300 or something like that.

Hmmm. Maybe if you just took one tech or civic in each era, and made it cost a lot more? I don't know. I'll keep plugging away at the problem.

edit: maybe the solution is to make the boosts 90% or so, but change what causes them, like, another civ has discovered steel: get a 90% boost to ... oh... gunpowder? And having a unit attacked by a knight boosts chivalry (or is it stirrup?).

 

[Hauptman]

Civ 4 did it pretty simply.

For every civ that researched a tech, that tech got cheaper. So like when I beelined something ignoring some of the basics, when I backfilled the techs would be at the 4 turn minimum cost. You still had the backwards nations, but if they didnt get ate, they'd eventually catch up. I messed around a lot with that game, and "no tech trading" on diety marathon is usually what I played as it slowed everyone way down, and I had games last into the 1900s often.

This x3 costs really messed with my plans in my first civ6 game with it... My usual strategies just didnt work. Everything was just so different. Instead, now I'm using policy cards I had never even thought of using before, because on standard speeds, they are pointless.

At first housing was the big bottle neck, and that + housing card was a godsend... but then as I expanded (just a little) it became amenities. There are 2 cards for that that I never needed before. Religion choices that add research are almost a must. I was playing emperor my first run through as spain, and that extra 65 culture from spreading to other civs made a huge difference. I ran away in culture, but was neck in neck in science techs with a couple major players. That is until they finally DoWed me. Early armadas fixed them right up >

One thing I decided pretty quickly once I started playing this game was to squash blue (and pink) city states. Since tech was already too fast, they had to go. I just might have to put them back... as I'm 2/3 of the way to 1500 turns and just hit modern era. I may not be able to win a victory condition unless I just take everyone out once I have my battleships. (I also started disabling culture victories as it was impossible to not get one of those way to early.) A time "victory" might actually be a thing this game... I'll keep going with it and see how it ends up... Too much invested in "flight slingulator" achievement to start a new game and try other things yet. A level 3 slinger takes some work I tell you.

 

[Ferocitus]

So I've been playing a bit over a month now. I was highly preturbed by how rapid research is even at marathon speeds, when compared to build speeds. Especially with how advanced flight said "build 3 biplanes" at me every single game. Wait you want me to spend 20 turns building an airport, then another 15+ building biplanes, to save 4 turns of research on a tech that will make it all pointless?

Serious guys... that was just a dumb idea in general.

Too sweeping a generalisation because the game depends on
many factors.

What level are you playing at?
Against how many other civs?
What size map?
What score did you get at the end, i.e. are you a Dan Quayle
or an Augustus level player?

 

[Hauptman]

Too sweeping a generalisation because the game depends on
many factors.

What level are you playing at?
Against how many other civs?
What size map?
What score did you get at the end, i.e. are you a Dan Quayle
or an Augustus level player?

Wut? Immortal if I want a conquest game... emperor for peaceful builder (due to size of my empire not keeping up on tech) marathon, HUGE! Pretty sure diety wouldnt be an issue now as I know what I'm doing finally. And yes, my last victory I put off until I had the 2500 score... and didnt even get an achievement. But what does that have to do with the research times being too fast, or the price of Tea in china?

So yeh... the unit spam... Did I mention there is unit spam with this mod?

Since I figured out how to conquer like a madman and get zero warmonger from it... I was doing just that, clearing my warmonger penalty and slowly releasing Hojo who got ate sometime in the classical era. I knew this was about to happen so Had to position everyone in a line to the coast to keep a path open... Because exactly one turn after giving Hojo a city, this happened.

 

[Exquisitor1]

I play on epic using the 8 ages of pace mod. I like the pacing quite a bit with this mod. Prior to the last fix I had been playing using the 5x speed mod (3x 5x or 10x) and I liked it a lot, too. I recently played a vanilla game on standard settings and omg was it every fast! Too fast except that the endgame was still too boring!

 

[Hajee]

Unit spam is the biggest issue in terms of increasing tech.civic cost.
When I made my mod, I address by adjusting gold, which the only real way to fix unit spam when you adjust the tech cost.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1223182362

 

[Hauptman]

Unit spam is the biggest issue in terms of increasing tech.civic cost.
When I made my mod, I address by adjusting gold, which the only real way to fix unit spam when you adjust the tech cost.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1223182362

I dont mind the spam so much... keeps me more honest. Plus it gives my navy something to do. Level 5 frigates are no joke!~ Once I got them upgraded to Battleships, I was able to hit the Fjord again and get level 6. Just one more to go.

This would seriously make Monty even more OP though. Every tile a free worker. Never ending supply of free workers. Just workers for miles as far as the eye can see!

It has caused some problems navigating anywhere on the map that isnt my borders or deep sea. I really hate the 1upt idea.

Oh and never, ever allow open borders... Just dont do it.

I just watched Germany's overflow poor into England after killing off her units. Since they have no where else to go (no ship building) they'll be locked into place after thier agreement ends. She's boned for good now, cause Germany is my bud and I doubt there'd be a war for me to clean it up.

 

[pokiehl]

Hey, I'm the creator of the mod you reference in the original post! (Extended Eras). I'm really happy you enjoy it. I think it's a more elegant solution than the simple '3x research speed' or whatever mods because with my mod, research costs continuously go up beyond 3x each era, and it also takes into account Great People points, etc. I have a blast playing with it and I'm glad you do too. I guess you can think of it as a much longer version of the 8 Ages mod.

I also made a mod called "more movement" - if you play with Extended Eras on big map sizes, I recommend trying that out too. It's a good combo, I think

 

[spfun]

The game is far too boring and flawed to play at anything slower than normal speed.

I see you have 20+ cities, in civ 4 you had vassals, in civ 5 you had puppets, both games had governors. In civ 6 you have nothing to help with a large empire, its just message spam every turn! Generic City 24 built a granary... Generic City 28 built a wall... While you use the same 12 units you built at the start of the game to kill thousands of AI units... BORING!