[R&F] Marathon is still a mess

manarod

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 8, 2007
Messages
92
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italy
I tried marathon games and while i love the new mechanics i have to say that they are not optimized for marathon games!
I was able to stay always in golden age and with a lot of points and the global age was so far behind me. Medieval age took an eternity to end
The cost of units is still too much high, it's impossible to have more than 2/3 ships and why the experience points are triple if the cost is triple too??
The loyalty is instead too fast, 4 turns to flip in marathon?

It's normal speed better? I played at emperor level, i will try to raise the difficulty
 
Marathon has always been unbalanced, in every Civ game so far as I can tell. You just can't optimize a game to last for 500 turns, and have it play out exactly the same with 1500 turns. Personally I've never understood how anyone can finish a Marathon game, I've never gotten out of the BC years in one. I prefer Epic and even Epic feels too long sometimes.
 
It is ridiculously easy to stay in a perma-golden age on marathon. The thresholds stay the same as on standard speed, but you have triple the number of turns to reach them. Since units move the same speed, it's not too hard to go cruising for barb camps to pad out your era score.
 
Yes, marathon is still fairly unbalanced. I am enjoying R&F under epic, and the good thing about global eras is that the pacing is a bit better than vanilla due to the rubberbanding effect. I kinda like how even though the world may still be in one era, you may have teched out, so time feels more organic (i.e. A few Industrial buildings and a few units pop up while still retaining predominantly renaissance feel... Much like reality).
 
play epic,change all tech civics progression to +2for eac era and that's the best experience.
 
yes, epic game speed is the best. I always play it. Also Huge map, with default numbers for ai nations and citystates, but with plentiful ressources ... has also some advantage with playing germany and their unique hanse. I also changed the tech/civics cost by folllowing factors
Spoiler :

UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*1 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ANCIENT'; -- just for reference
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*1.33 WHERE EraType ='ERA_CLASSICAL';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*1.66 WHERE EraType ='ERA_MEDIEVAL';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*2 WHERE EraType ='ERA_RENAISSANCE';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*2.5 WHERE EraType ='ERA_INDUSTRIAL';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*3 WHERE EraType ='ERA_MODERN';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*4 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ATOMIC';
UPDATE Technologies SET Cost = Cost*5 WHERE EraType ='ERA_INFORMATION';

UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*1 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ANCIENT'; -- just for reference
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*1.33 WHERE EraType ='ERA_CLASSICAL';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*1.66 WHERE EraType ='ERA_MEDIEVAL';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*2 WHERE EraType ='ERA_RENAISSANCE';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*2.5 WHERE EraType ='ERA_INDUSTRIAL';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*3 WHERE EraType ='ERA_MODERN';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*4 WHERE EraType ='ERA_ATOMIC';
UPDATE Civics SET Cost = Cost*5 WHERE EraType ='ERA_INFORMATION';

germany is op, imho
 
It is ridiculously easy to stay in a perma-golden age on marathon. The thresholds stay the same as on standard speed, but you have triple the number of turns to reach them. Since units move the same speed, it's not too hard to go cruising for barb camps to pad out your era score.

Gah! :wallbash:
I wanna play Marathon...but not with such unbalance. Is there anything else they have taken into account that we haven't yet...?
 
Are the AI's also in a golden age all the time?

I noticed on some maps it's harder for both me and the AI to get golden ages. At least during certain ages. I'm mainly talking about my current game on archipelago map. I've been playing epic the speed I always play. I haven't really enjoyed marathon games since Civ4 days (I even played a slower speed with one of the mods).
 
In my one game so far (turn 500 as we speak :D ) everyone on my continent which was Sumer, England (she was the first Civ I met as Scotland - I was like... "typical" :help: ), and the Aztecs -and I think I'd met Philip across the water by then too- everyone got golden ages as we headed into the Classical era. By the time the medieval era rolled around quite a few dropped out:

Spoiler :

Era Points Medieval.PNG



Sumer was in a normal age also, I'm pretty sure. But then they declared war on me...and that was a tragic mistake. And mostly not because of me so much! My CS allies destroyed at least two of their cities (including one I was going to flip peacefully) before I had a chance to do much :wow:
I'm now in the 10 turn countdown to the Renaissance change over, so we'll see what happens there.

Maybe there is more to it than Eagle Pursuit thinks or else all the AI also would be close to permanent golden ages as well.
I should add that I dropped to Prince from King for my first go through R&F.
 
Okay, so one Civ has got themselves into a Heroic age.
Kongo & I have held our position in Golden ages.
England and Georgia have stayed in a Normal age, and been joined by Greece falling out of Golden.
Egypt has stayed in a Dark age; and been joined by the Aztecs from Normal, and the Scythians from Golden.


Era Points Rennasience.PNG


I do hope that I'm finding it so easy because of Prince, and that when I return to King and above, that it does get a lot tougher. I'm def getting plenty of era points from barbs :undecide: You'll get 2-3 era points from defeating one camp; when plenty more way larger milestones give you nothing or 1 point. That may need to be toned down.

But again...all the A.I should be finding it easy to be in Golden ages with three times as long to get there; so maybe Marathon's not broken in regard to it...
 
I love marathon pace against the maximum number of civs (33 currently) on
ludicrous size maps (200x100).
Just because it doesn't suit your style doesn't mean it's broken. I find small
maps with only a few civs at fast pace as piss-weak as tic-tac-toe. That
doesn't mean the game is flawed if I chose an inappropriate mode to play with.
Some people like blitz chess, others think it's an abomination.
 
How balanced Epic speed is?

1. Nobody has played enough games to judge yet. There are many ways to play;
many different choices for the number of civ opponents and maps and paces.

2. The devs have said many times that the game will be tweaked after they have
enough information and feedback.
 
They definitely need to factor map size and speed on the Golden Ages stuff. Map size is kinda covered with the cities penalty, but it's not enough. A bigger map gives more opportunities to earn era score. Basically, it could be something like -3/+3 points on deviation from standard map, plus the 12 points base should be increased by speed.

Also, the golden age/dark age modifier should be +10/-10 instead of +5/-5. Would make getting one after a Dark age easier, but stringing several golden ages harder.
 
I love marathon pace against the maximum number of civs (33 currently) on
ludicrous size maps (200x100).
Just because it doesn't suit your style doesn't mean it's broken. I find small
maps with only a few civs at fast pace as piss-weak as tic-tac-toe. That
doesn't mean the game is flawed if I chose an inappropriate mode to play with.
Some people like blitz chess, others think it's an abomination.

I'm with you. I accept that as the AI can't outmatch a human without help, more turns does make the game a bit easier than in a shorter game. Then there's an attrition to marathon that some wouldn't handle for all their "it's easier" logic, cos they don't have the patience etc.
But that isn't why I play marathon - I play it cos I want that epic feel.

I do hope they take feedback from marathon games though and adjust it if it is deemed to be not quite giving the test it should on higher levels.
 
How balanced Epic speed is?

No idea, it's the only speed I play, so I have nothing to compare it too. :) I'm happy enough with it. I feel it has enough balance giving your units enough time to accomplish something before they are obsolete, without build times getting crazy high like marathon. Although I'd like some games to be epic speed for the first half, and then quick speed for the second half, I wish I could do that sometimes.
 
So i finally succumb to a Dark Age. Which is great :thumbsup: were I not in the midst of an emergency having converted Monty's religious city... I would have like that to have finished first. I missed out on a normal age by two era points which made for a few frantic turns as I tried to find a couple more from anywhere.

But I'm in good company, and no one at all is in a golden age. Cleo was just canned out of the game by having her capital flipped.


Era points Dark Age.PNG
 
I am relieved to say that I got the Heroic age. It looked like I wasn't going to get it for quite a while. Then with enough turns to go that it was obvious that I would I started to delay a few things so as to not waste any era points. I still wasted 3 points by being the first in the world to build a Neighbourhood Gah!

As you can see here no one else is even in a golden age. Is this rubbish AI? Or is marathon balanced enough, as we aren't seeing mass era scores on their behalf...

Era Points Heroic.PNG
 
I am relieved to say that I got the Heroic age. It looked like I wasn't going to get it for quite a while. Then with enough turns to go that it was obvious that I would I started to delay a few things so as to not waste any era points. I still wasted 3 points by being the first in the world to build a Neighbourhood Gah!

As you can see here no one else is even in a golden age. Is this rubbish AI? Or is marathon balanced enough, as we aren't seeing mass era scores on their behalf...

View attachment 488860

I can't see why it shows the AI is rubbish or not from that one
point in the game. If they all get into golden ages in the next
era and you end up in a normal age, it still wouldn't prove
anything.
 
I can't see why it shows the AI is rubbish or not from that one
point in the game. If they all get into golden ages in the next
era and you end up in a normal age, it still wouldn't prove
anything.

At the least I think it shows that Marathon isn't broken re Era scores, looking solely at the AI. I've had one dark age, one heroic age, and all the rest golden ages. That isn't how I want it to be - I'd hope that normal ages are "the norm" and the others are a bit more special. But then I did drop down to Prince for this game...I hoping that's why I've racked up so many golden ages.
 
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