Old World Marathon

[Verrucosus]

Fascinating discussion, though, even if unrelated to the Battle of Marathon scenario I thought of when I first read the thread title.

In my memory, the slower speeds in Civilization IV were a kind of optional counter-measure for those who felt that the pacing of Civilization had changed too much because of other design changes. Between Civ1 and Civ4, the standard number of turns from 4000 BC to 2050 AD had decreased from 600 to ca 450. At the same time, more and more unit types had been introduced and the tactical options had shifted from ZOC-rules to situational unit attributes. There had not yet been an attempt to nudge players towards smaller maps. (I think Civ5 was the first version that defaulted to "small".) Units being outdated by the time they get to the front was a frequent comment from those fond of fighting wars away from home. At the same time, those who avoided warfare if possible could finish a game in an evening or two and didn't quite feel the epic nature of 6000 years of history the way they used to in the earlier versions. That's where the epic and marathon speeds could help.

For all its roots in Civilization, Old World is simply different. It is much more of a wargame than Civilization to begin with and the AUC-timescale doesn't invite similar expectations of how long the game should feel.

 

[Solver]

Yes, Civ4 is my favorite iteration and I enjoyed the game the most on Epic speed. I want a history feeling where I'm going through various eras with their own distinct events, and I felt the default speed interferes with that in some cases. One was invasions of another continent - if you sent a fleet to conquer the new world, then your conquistadors would be getting outdated around the time they disembark. Another was having technical revolutions change the course of a war. On the default speed, any war would see several techs pass, but on slower speeds a protracted war could dramatically change by inventing something better, similar to how machine guns changed WW1.

 

[bitula]

I now disabled ambition victory and put point victory to maximum (117): I think this makes the game longer. So far everything is OK. Seasons don't make the game longer, but I still use them because it is very hard to memorize the characters when they die so frequently. I don't think this makes the game easier, since it applies for both Player and AI. Actually if someone dies from illnes that is a bigger loss than on year scale. Would be nice to tweak the illness chances on seasons settings, I just lost an 8 charisma consort and my whole strategy broke, since civics plumetted from like 200 to zero.