Poll: What game speed do you play?

[dalessi12]

I am wondering what is the most common game speed chosen? And why?

I prefer marathon (or occasionally epic). I find that on "normal," the war windows (axemen, macemen, rifles, infantry, etc) are too short for my taste. I can't even imagine enjoying "quick" speed.

Obviously the first 100 turns on marathon are pretty boring, but I still prefer it.

So what say you?

What do you play?

Why?

 

[Baru]

I will always play marathon or epic since it gives you a period to actually explore the benefits of all the units. It seems the shorter you go the less the game has to offer.

 

[Enigma256]

Marathon.

it just feels right, and finally i can use those early military units, normally i wouldnt go to war till i had Stealth Bombers, now i have to use the early units, or else i will fall too far behind.

keep in mind this is all on low difficulty, where i can afford not going to war too often

 

[Mutineer]

Normal.
Any slower speed and you just get yourself advantage, as AI does not know how to figth wars. On slower speed you just walking try AI with same units for ever.
On faster speed everything a bit to fast.

 

[NKVD]

I always played all my games on Epic but since the patch I saw there was marathon.. my next game will be marathon for sure

 

[bitplayer]

When I play with my friends we play on normal but I play epic when solo. Tried marathon a few times but it seemed like the ai was building two cities to my one. Which is probably false but thats the way it seemed to me so I went back to epic.

Plus its a bit of a downer to just get rolled over in a half hour or so- by some tech advanced ape- after spending a weeks worth of freetime building up a game on marathon.

 

[douglas_21]

I'm an Epic player for military reasons even when I'm going for diff. victories. The game pace just feels right to me. Marathon feels better, but I hate spending so much time on just one game because I always play a challenging difficulty level (currently monarch) and it's not fun to lose in big wars because you can't really win the game after that...then I wish I had spent less time with the civ.

 

[playshogi]

Epic is ideal for standard maps and is my favorite. Marathon is for huge maps because you need the extra turns just to cross the map, but I also need a better computer to handle it.

 

[Shillen]

Epic is ideal for standard maps and is my favorite. Marathon is for huge maps because you need the extra turns just to cross the map, but I also need a better computer to handle it.

Agreed, the speed should be based on map-size. Duel map on quick speed, tiny on quick or normal, small on normal, standard on normal or epic, large on epic, huge on epic or marathon. IMO...

I play on standard maps and more often than not use epic speed. I find on normal speed there's too much micromanagement as the builds and growth is so much faster that you really have to pay really close attention to all your cities. I don't like doing that in a single player game that I'm just playing for fun.

 

[Phrederick]

I play epic or sometimes marathon, because I like warring and on normal, the tech rate moves too quickly to really use an era's units. What I would love is to make a mod that has the tech rate of epic and the production/great people of normal.

 

[acidsatyr]

yeah what mutineer and shillen said. I used to play epic but normal is way better and harder, much more fun.
Marathon is just way to long, like 48 turns for bronze working haha
easy

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

I prefer Epic. It's slower than Normal, which, IMO is too fast, but doesn't take quite so long to actually be able to start enjoying it as Marathon(not to mention how quickly barb archers and axemen show up on Marathon relative to what you can do)...

 

[LosBlack]

how exactly do the speeds change the game? does the overall play get stretched out due to tech advances and building taking longer? if that's the case, i can see how a faster game would blow by some units.

another question: do the "slower" speeds make the game significantly longer in real-time?

 

[lilnev]

Basically everything slows down -- tech costs, build costs, culture to expand borders, GPPs needed, worker-turns for improvements -- EXCEPT unit movement and combat (and healing? not sure). So slower speeds favor warmongers because your units can move, fight, heal, regroup, move again, recieve reinforcements, etc much more before they become obsolete.

I play either normal or epic, no patience for marathon.

peace,
lilnev

 

[cv431410]

I spend early time to expand (no need to fight if you can grab land free), then build up the cities. By the time this is done (lol, this is never done), it is almost industrial age. As a result, this is my strategy:

(1) Build Oracle, research Code of law, get free tech, Civil Service;
(2) Enable bureaucracy, capital + 50%;
(3) Research feudalism, workers +50%;
(4) Education ;
(5) Liberalism, another free tech;
(6) Get constitution, go for democracy
(7) Emancipation, penalty for other
(8) Calvary
(9) Attack

This is a long game and Quick is prefered.

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm with lilnev: epic or normal for me too.

Most of my games have been at normal speed, so it took me a long time to get used to epic, and even longer to actually finish one of those games. The initial development hump at the beginning of the game, when EVERYTHING seems to take forever, was hard to get used to.

But I find you really build up a head of steam after an early war. The key initial benefit I glean from it is captured workers, the more of them, the better. I usually team them in groups of 2 or even 3, and suddenly the game clips along at a good pace.

I love getting the most out of a civ's UU, and a slower game speed certainly allows for that, especially if you bee-line to the required tech. I think epic is my limit, though; I don't know if I'd have the patience for marathon...

 

[dimaliok]

i play epic or normal but i play epic a bit more

 

[cabert]

i usually play on normal for 2 reasons :
- RL time!
- it's for this speed that the game is designed. Sure, Epic is fun too, but it's putting the AI out of known lands = giving you an edge.

I did some Epic games merely because the GotMs where on Epic speed (didn't submit my losses though ).

 

[Khalid]

I usually play on normal, the reason is the same as Cabert said - real time needed for the game. Although I play GOTM and thats mostly on Epic speed.

 

[Shillen]

i usually play on normal for 2 reasons :
- RL time!
- it's for this speed that the game is designed. Sure, Epic is fun too, but it's putting the AI out of known lands = giving you an edge.

I did some Epic games merely because the GotMs where on Epic speed (didn't submit my losses though ).

Considering how much differently a duel map plays compared to a huge map on normal speed, I don't believe the game was designed for normal speed. Standard-sized maps may have been designed for normal speed, but I'm not so sure about that either. I think they designed the game taking all speeds into consideration.