Top 5 Marathon Civs

[JWAT44]

what are the top 5 civs to play as in a marathon game?


edit: (no dlc except mongolia)

 

[Ravellion]

1. Greece. Kill everyone with Hoplites before anyone reaches the medieval age.
2. Rome. Kill everyone with Legions before anyone reaches the renaissance.
3. Babylon. Press the technological advantage of being the only one with Longswordsman/riflemen for a good 150 turns.
4. China. Heroic Chokonu rush.
5. Persia. Longer golden ages are more easy to take advantage of. Kill a civ per golden age.

 

[JWAT44]

3. Babylon. Press the technological advantage of being the only one with Longswordsman/riflemen for a good 150 turns.

sorry i should have mentioned i have no dlc but thanks for explaining why for all of them

 

[chazzycat]

Mongols! The speed of their attack really allows them to take advantage of the much longer window of dominance for their UU.

 

[starrywisdom]

Honestly the best civs that will benefit from longer game times are the ones where you gain an early advantage(IE: earlier resources, a great UU/UA/etc). Longer game ages allow those UU's to be a lot more useful, and since they tend to be unrivaled in their genres it allows an easier domination with them.

1. Greece. Kill everyone with Hoplites before anyone reaches the medieval age.
2. Rome. Kill everyone with Legions before anyone reaches the renaissance.
3. Babylon. Press the technological advantage of being the only one with Longswordsman/riflemen for a good 150 turns.

Most correct.

 

[Kevin J]

#1: Songhai.

 

[vexing]

most people are picking out early domination wins for any pangea type map... in that vein i'd say

babylonian bowmen rush
persian immortal rush
greek hoplite and eventually cc rush
egyptian war chariot rush
indian war elephant rush

 

[Babri]

For conquest I would say Romans, Mongols & maybe Greece. Since army don't get obsolete that quickly on marathon, these civs can be really powerful because they get UUs very close.

 

[Waydeuce]

1. Babylon - Bowmen are solid + the science advantage leads to many long years of dominance
2. Rome - UU's are possibly 2 of the best in the game and the longer they are around and non-obsolete the better. Also, this is where "The Glory of Rome" really shines in a marathon the %15 to buildings can really add up.
3. Greece - Companion Cavalry and Hoplites, enough said.
4. China - Arguably the best UB in the game, especially for marathon. Chu-Ko-Nu with the Paper makers in place theyre not hard to beeline to and require no resources to build.
5.Iroquois - The UU are very solid, move well in the early game and require no resources to make. Also, the longhouse can significantly boost production speeds, which I feel are much more important on marathon than normal speed.

 

[Babri]

4. China - Arguably the best UB in the game, especially for marathon. Chu-Ko-Nu with the Paper makers in place theyre not hard to beeline to and require no resources to build.

I've to disagree there. Bazar is much better than Paper Maker. And u forgot to mention Mongols. They are absolutely terrifying particularly on marathon.

 

[HammerandSickle]

Arabia.
50,000 gold is quite interesting.

 

[turtlefang]

I play virtually all my games on marathon as I enjoy the slower techology pace and longer build cycle. The civs that I would rate as best, after the patch, would be:

1) Aztecs. The Jaguar warrior plus honor lets the Monty simply ripped through the SP trees. Add in the UB to generate high growth, and he can dominate virtually anything that has rivers or lakes.
2) France. Again, early SP start and city building lets France get off to a quick start and dominate the game. Add in the two UU, and its set to dominate up to modern age. However, I like having my UU earlier and that's why I favor the Aztecs.
3) Babs. Science rush and bowman can work miracles. And the tech edge last longer and generates higher rewards.
4) China. The CKN can literally let China rule the age - right up to modern infantry. And papermakers great for money.
5) Greece/Persia tied. The UU are great in the Ancient Era, and both can literally roll over some nearby civs. However, these are somewhat situational and - for me - depend a little bit on where you get started. Persia for whatever reason usually gets a better starting place than Greece.

 

[Babri]

As far as I know Aztec UA suck at Marathon because bonuses don't improve from killing enemies.

 

[vexing]

As far as I know Aztec UA suck at Marathon because bonuses don't improve from killing enemies.

the bonus doesn't improve but there are still more turns in which to kill things, so it marginally scales.

 

[Babri]

the bonus doesn't improve but there are still more turns in which to kill things, so it marginally scales.

No, the time taken to create military units is much higher so in the end you kill almost the same no. of units on Marathon compared to normal speed => Aztec get weaker on slower speeds (unless my logic is wrong )

 

[apocalypse105]

Ottomans you can basicly conquer the hole world when you reach gunpowder....



My top 5:

Persia

Just a good civ overal and because of the long game space you can really abuse their unique ability for getting long golden ages....
Olso there unique unit will last longer

Greece:
Early wars are easy with the hoplites and companion cavalry you can basicly kill a lot of civs with these units early..

Roman:
Early warfare with the legion and balista and because research is going slow you can use the a lot

Germany:
You will get more benifit from there unque ability because time advancing goes slowly so you can build up an barbarian army quickly(you wil battle more barbarians then normal because of the slow speed) . There landsnkneght is really usefull you can get a lot of them in the medieval and conquer a lot of land because time advances slowly...

Ottomans:
When you researched gunpowder(maybe olso chemistry) you can basicly start conquering the hole world before someone reach rifling.....
Just conquer the world when you reach the renaissance nobody can stop you.....

 

[turtlefang]

The Aztecs actually improve on marathon for the following reasons:

1) Thier growth advantage relative to other civs improves due to thier UB. And this improves thier production ability. And science. So thier relative production is better on Marathon than on standard just because of thier UB. And the longer the game goes, the more advantageous it becomes. And lord help anyone if thier capital starts with a lake within one or two hexes.

2) While thier pts per kill doesn't improve, they have a longer time to kill units, and given that SP cost more in Marathon, this gives them an advantage (as it does France). As the number of Aztec barb hunters increase, thier ability to get though the SP increases. And, they tend to get through the honor tree faster if they aggressively barb hunt, adding more culture from garrison units.

3) Once Monty gets about 4 jags/archers hunting, his ability to advance SP is simply amazing. And between building jags, usually converting a scout to an archer from a goody hut, and buying a jag with gold, it just doesn't take that long to four hunters. And this just keeps snowballing. Once he's through the honor tree, hunting barbs or war then generate money as well as culture.

4) Last, but not least, if you generate about a dozen jag earlier and upgrade them all the way to mech infantry, you usually have a very deadly force of mech infantry and can inflitrate through woods/jungle better than anyone else - and recover some damage after an attack. So thier special ability comes into play through the entire game - not just at the start. Making them superior Swds/LS/Rifle/Mech Infantry.

Regarding the others mention, my experience has been:

Rome. Situational. No iron or limited iron and you have a big problem. While I like Rome (I'm a builder), the iron issues a gamble.

Germany. You get a lot of benefit from your unique ability BUT you run into supply problems early and often (the only civ I know that does). This limits you ability to generate money and expand & upgrade your army. If you can get pass this, you can dominate from the middle age forward. And spearman upgrade to the lansnkenight is soooo cheap....But it really hard not to cripple your production early due to supply limitations. And you have to hunt to generate funds, but if your already at the supply limit, you may just go over if hit that barb camp AND generate less gold, which hurts your ability to generate gold and production........

Greece. For whatever reason, I usually end up with a poor starting location and no easy expansion route. So I have problems with this civ.

Persia. One of my favorites, just not what I would consider the best on Marathon.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

I love marathon, but would never play it on a standard map... that said

Pacuti, I love building a large civ

 

[Babri]

The Aztecs actually improve on marathon for the following reasons:

1) Thier growth advantage relative to other civs improves due to thier UB. And this improves thier production ability. And science. So thier relative production is better on Marathon than on standard just because of thier UB. And the longer the game goes, the more advantageous it becomes. And lord help anyone if thier capital starts with a lake within one or two hexes.

Now that doesn't make sense. I don't think that their UB is better on Marathon than on Standard.

2) While thier pts per kill doesn't improve, they have a longer time to kill units, and given that SP cost more in Marathon, this gives them an advantage (as it does France). As the number of Aztec barb hunters increase, thier ability to get though the SP increases. And, they tend to get through the honor tree faster if they aggressively barb hunt, adding more culture from garrison units.

Yeah they can hunt more barbs but their UA gets weaker so I think it is somewhat equalized by more barb hunting early in the game.

3) Once Monty gets about 4 jags/archers hunting, his ability to advance SP is simply amazing. And between building jags, usually converting a scout to an archer from a goody hut, and buying a jag with gold, it just doesn't take that long to four hunters. And this just keeps snowballing. Once he's through the honor tree, hunting barbs or war then generate money as well as culture.

Once the world is well settled the barb hunting would go down. Also u should also consider the cost of those Jags. I'd prefer to use your Jags to conquer some land than hunt barbs.

4) Last, but not least, if you generate about a dozen jag earlier and upgrade them all the way to mech infantry, you usually have a very deadly force of mech infantry and can inflitrate through woods/jungle better than anyone else - and recover some damage after an attack. So thier special ability comes into play through the entire game - not just at the start. Making them superior Swds/LS/Rifle/Mech Infantry.

Needs a lot of skill, practice & luck for that to happen.

 

[black213]

All civs in marathon are almost equal. But ones with early advantage shine more, such as France +2 culture per city and Rome's +25% production.