Marathon too easy?

[BalbanesBeoulve]

So I started playing a Marathon game, and I finished teching Civil Service in the BCs. Now I normally play Epic, and no matter how good my start is, I never finish CS in the BCs. 200ad is probably more like it. I didn't even beeline it, i got currency and calendar first, and I think i might have even gotten aesthetics and literature, not sure. I also got liberalism, without any bulbing around 700ad, my previous personal best on epic was about 850, with 1000-1200 more likely. I was halfway done with rifling at around 1050. Got the Music and Economics GP too, and would have no problem getting every other GP.

This was on monarch difficulty, and i've been playing most of my recent games on Emperor, but since I don't always win on emperor yet, i'll go down to monarch for fun. So playing on a lower difficulty contributed to this, but overall my game was going way too good, considering nothing about my start was spectacular. I didn't start with multiple golds in my bfc or anything.

So is Marathon normally considered a lower difficulty than epic?

 

[Strato]

In my own humble opinion, I wouldn't call Marathon less difficult, but rather if a mistake is made, then it becomes less significant. One turn counts for a lot less in marathon compared to normal or epic because there are so many more turns in marathon. I hope that makes sense.

That said, I love marathon and wouldn't go back to anything less.

 

[LuckyAC]

Marathon is unfairly easy, but not because of tech pace. The problem is that war has almost no cost and the AI sucks at war.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Now that I think about it, i should have delayed liberalism and used it to get free rifling.

 

[kazapp]

Marathon is unfairly easy, but not because of tech pace. The problem is that war has almost no cost and the AI sucks at war.

I see what you mean. But the flip side of that coin is that your units doesn't obsolete on their way to the battlefield, something I've always found highly jarring.

I'd rather play on a higher difficulty (and/or on a smaller map) than on a faster speed. The techrate on faster speeds simply is too fast for me; turning the game almost into a RTS ; if you don't like to wage a medieval war, just stall a bit and you can wage an industrial one instead...

 

[dubrown]

I'm in my first marathon experience as well. And I have to say so far it has felt easier than epic/normal. War has been easy, I've never had that an easy war experience without even having a tech-lead. It could be that I built and built troops but the AI seemed content with ~3-4 units/city and when I came rolling in, couldn't produce more as fast as normal due to the buildtimes. So atleast with war the AI seems a bit off in marathon.

On the other hand, I made the mistake to expand way to fast and thus screwed my economy and research completely so I was way behind in tech up to just after liberalism where I had started to catch up and will likely steamroll ahead now. Could off course depend upon that I got a somewhat isolated start with Mao that I impi-rushed very early and then only had Montesuma and Ghengis Khan on the only other reachable continent pre optics. Though, quite funny game anyway, with 3 warmongers stuck with only each other to fight. I don't think Monty and Ghengis ever made peace with each other until I vassalised them both...

 

[paulthebug]

I am the kind of guy who build/whip units endlessly until my econ hit 0% and strike (SE approach). I can pull out of that hole easily under normal speed. When I tried out marathon, OMG, my elite units was disappearing left right and center during a battle, 'cause I misjudge the timing need to get back to green at 0%....

Marathon gave unfair advantage to most early UU, especially prat & CKN. And it penalize the fast worker too much.

I still prefer normal speed.

 

[Sjaramei]

Unit costs 2x the rest is 3x.

It's a different game. You expand quicker and get bigger army cheaper. At low difficulties marathon will be a cakewalk, but I believe the gap closes when you start doing Emperor. (The AI expansion and unit massing reaches a new level then)

It's still an advantage compared to faster speeds, but not as much as some players here want you to believe.

 

[kazapp]

unfair advantage

Tsk, tsk... it's different, not unfair...

 

[danieldaniel]

I think Marathon is best for large and huge maps, which are in turn more difficult than the smaller maps. For a real challenge try a hugemap with quick speed

 

[MrCynical]

Marathon is significantly easier, since it allows more use of warfare, which is the AI's weakest area. It preserves the effectiveness of the early rush at high difficulty levels, as units like axes remain usuable for far longer - long enough to conquer multiple civs.

As others have pointed out, Marathon is also more forgiving of mistakes. Forgetting omething for a couple of turns will do proportionally less damage.

 

[madscientist]

Well I don't think I can answer the OP because it has been so long since I played a full game at any speed other than Marathon. Sjaremei is right, it is a different game with one additional point, Golden ages are 2X also. Here are my comments

1) Epic and standard speeds go by too fast, and you really do not get to play all the ages. I switched to marathon 2 years ago because I got tired of skipping the middle ages since rifling was so close.

2) Huge maps with marathon speed are rather difficult but also can be boring. Those game were always one of two ways, space or UN diplomatic win. On standard sized maps I feel all victory conditions are within my grasp.

3) I can build unit 2X rather than 3X the standard speed means the AI who usually spams more military does the same thing.

4) Is the game easier? Try playing as the Americans with a ticked off Roman next to you. Yes the AI will have Prats for a VERY long time. The AI UUs do not obsolete very quickly.

But to me, marathon speed is more FUN!!! I much prefer to play the same game for several days, going through teh entirity of civilization rather than have it all happen in 3 hours.

 

[Iranon]

Slower speeds are generally easier because AIs don't leverage temporary advantages nearly as well as even the worst human players. It makes wars less costly, and war is the AI's weak point.

If you have an early and powerful UU, you can take over the world... Quechuas on high levels and slow speed are the ultimate exercise in ridiculousness but many others unbalance the game as well.
The AI does not time its wars so they make the most out of their UUs.

Even without the UUs... it's easier to switch from a tech to war footing and kick in some heads; by the time you conquered 2-3 civilisations you might still be ahead when, on a faster speed, you would be large but backwards.

 

[UncleJJ]

I am just relishing the end stages of my first marathon game and I have to say I've enjoyed it more than normal speed where units become obsolete so quickly. For a domination style of play marathon is more satisfying even if it takes a lot longer. For a more technology oriented game like a space race I guess it could get tedious pressing end of turn so many times. I prefer to play one long satisfying game than several quicker games.

Unit costs 2x the rest is 3x.

It's a different game. You expand quicker and get bigger army cheaper. At low difficulties marathon will be a cakewalk, but I believe the gap closes when you start doing Emperor. (The AI expansion and unit massing reaches a new level then)

It's still an advantage compared to faster speeds, but not as much as some players here want you to believe.

I found this as well. It is a different game from normal and epic and the differences in realative cost of units and buildings change the strategies you use at each stage. Drafting for instance is much less useful on marathon as the population cost of troops is the same but the hammer costs are effectively 2/3rds of the normal cost. It is easy to build big armies but the AI has them too and the War Weariness can get burdensome when you fight huge battles of anihilation even if your troops win most of the time. Also if you keep attacking your neighbours you quickly have no open borders and no one to trade resources with and that hurts your economic expansion. So warfare only takes you so far even if the human does have an advantage. You need a good economy to keep up with technology and to maintain the enlarged army.

I faced the most absurd SoD with Gilgamesh and defeated it. He had 30 cannons, 43 knights plus about 20 other troops like crossbows, maces, muskets and pikes. He also had the Statue of Zeus so facing that in his culture would be suicide. Once I had researched Fascism I declared war and waited for him to come to me in the territory of my vassal Mansa. I did have cavalry and cuirassiers (12 of each) to deal with the cannons and maybe 6 machine guns and 10 infantry plus 20 rifles and older troops and 10 of my own cannons. That was one of the most interesting battles I've ever had in BtS with both armies sitting on adjacent hills and trading blows. It took 4 turns for my troops to anihilate his SoD and I picked up several hundred WW despite being in 85% Mansa's culture and 15% Gilgamesh. The aftermath was interesting as I captured two of his cities before WW began to get bad and then he agreed to give me two more cities for peace. I could never have had an experience like that at normal speed so marathon is well worth playing. But we must remember when discussing strategies that the relative worth of some of them are quite severely altered by the differences in troop costs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am just relishing the end stages of my first marathon game and I have to say I've enjoyed it more than normal speed where units become obsolete so quickly. For a domination style of play marathon is more satisfying even if it takes a lot longer. For a more technology oriented game like a space race I guess it could get tedious pressing end of turn so many times. I prefer to play one long satisfying game than several quicker games.



I found this as well. It is a different game from normal and epic and the differences in realative cost of units and buildings change the strategies you use at each stage. Drafting for instance is much less useful on marathon as the population cost of troops is the same but the hammer costs are effectively 2/3rds of the normal cost. It is easy to build big armies but the AI has them too and the War Weariness can get burdensome when you fight huge battles of anihilation even if your troops win most of the time. Also if you keep attacking your neighbours you quickly have no open borders and no one to trade resources with and that hurts your economic expansion. So warfare only takes you so far even if the human does have an advantage. You need a good economy to keep up with technology and to maintain the enlarged army.

I faced the most absurd SoD with Gilgamesh and defeated it. He had 30 cannons, 43 knights plus about 20 other troops like crossbows, maces, muskets and pikes. He also had the Statue of Zeus so facing that in his culture would be suicide. Once I had researched Fascism I declared war and waited for him to come to me in the territory of my vassal Mansa. I did have cavalry and cuirassiers (12 of each) to deal with the cannons and maybe 6 machine guns and 10 infantry plus 20 rifles and older troops and 10 of my own cannons. That was one of the most interesting battles I've ever had in BtS with both armies sitting on adjacent hills and trading blows. It took 4 turns for my troops to anihilate his SoD and I picked up several hundred WW despite being in 85% Mansa's culture and 15% Gilgamesh. The aftermath was interesting as I captured two of his cities before WW began to get bad and then he agreed to give me two more cities for peace. I could never have had an experience like that at normal speed so marathon is well worth playing. But we must remember when discussing strategies that the relative worth of some of them are quite severely altered by the differences in troop costs.

I'm considering dropping from normal speed to epic or marathon. Probably epic. I like warring a lot, but it seems kind of ridiculous to me that I can win a war with only a couple casualties, and I'm already backwards! Also, by the time I march through a few cities, the other civs can pick up several techs! It's not impossible, but that makes it really hard to war.

I don't like 10 hour games+ though, so maybe it's pick my poison .

If marathon really 3x's the building costs but 2x's unit cost, it is the ULTIMATE warmonger's setting. Yes, the AI will still get comparable amounts of troops to what I get at normal, but the differences would be staggering. The AI wouldn't be able to reinforce so easily after losing a SoD, and in game turns I could probably wipe someone out in the time it takes other civs to research maybe 1 tech, instead of 3-5. This is a big difference!

It seems like marathon REALLY speeds up troop movement. Not literally, but relative to the way the rest of the game progresses, troops move at BLINDING speeds in marathon.

I was wondering how people scouted whole continents with their warrior by 2500 BC. That's...probably why.

 

[Hereditary Rule]

I play on EPIC almost exclusively and find that speed to be a nice middle ground. All of my games come in at around 8-10 hours of playtime at that speed which can be broken into 2-3 sessions.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

regarding the op - research has nothing to do with speed... nor do I see any way in which speed would influence it one way or another

regarding war - it's easier as long as you can soak up the ww. Units obsolete harder and they're cheaper; however, they're cheaper for ai too and ww will set high right after the initial sod vs sod battle if you're not careful

 

[mike p]

I haven't played a Marathon game in a long time, but is it possible that the reason you seem to be researching things earlier has to do with the way the program converts a turn number into a year? At 2000BC, 1AD, and 1000 AD have you played the same percentage of total turns whether or not you're playing Marathon, Epic, Normal, or Quick? It might just be a labeling issue.

If on Normal or Epic you've played 25% of the avaiable turns when the calander hits 1AD, but in Marathon you've already played 33%, then your tech progress could look faster, even if it isn't. I could see why they might have coded it that way - Epic already has two turns per year after 1950 or so, maybe the programmers decided rather than split each late game year into three or four pieces, they'd just fudge the BC year markers a little.

 

[littlej]

Mike P, I love the old whalers logo.

Personally I find it's just too long. Like Hereditary_Rule I'm an epic player as well, units last longer but the game doesn't take forever.

 

[DaveMcW]

At 2000BC, 1AD, and 1000 AD have you played the same percentage of total turns whether or not you're playing Marathon, Epic, Normal, or Quick?

Yes, the percents are the same.