Why does Marathon = (-2) Difficulty?

[Rpger29]

The idea that playing on slower speeds is like playing at a lower difficulty seems to be pretty widely accepted. Anecdotal testimony would seem to support this pretty well, but I have noticed that the reasoning doesn't seem to be well articulated.

The usual explanation is pretty vague and is something along the lines of "the AI just doesn't get its act together on Marathon."

I figure I'll take a stab at one possible explanation. Everything costs more in production and gold on Marathon speed.

However, you don't really make proportionally less GPT in a Marathon game. You also don't need 3x as many units. Regardless of speed, it still only takes 3-6 units to take a city. It still only takes about 1 unit for every 3 AI units to defend.

Attrition is not necessarily greater in a Marathon game. So even though initial costs were 3x higher, you're not necessarily spending nearly 3x as much over the course of the total game.

Is this about right, or are there other major factors at play? I'm very curious since I'm still moving up in difficulty and playing a wider variety of game speeds and map sizes.

 

[Aristos]

Play a Marathon with double the HPs for units and cities, and then you have a game...

Playing on certain maps is what makes it really easy (the infamous archipelagos, for example), far more influencing than speed.

 

[Jaybe]

Traditionally, slower game speeds create greater player advantages because there is more military opportunity & movement before enemy units can be built or upgraded.

Faster game speeds would create more opportunity for your units to get ready to attack an enemy city and "poof -- all the enemy units are upgraded" due to tech advancement.

 

[Smokeybear]

Traditionally, slower game speeds create greater player advantages because there is more military opportunity & movement before enemy units can be built or upgraded.

Faster game speeds would create more opportunity for your units to get ready to attack an enemy city and "poof -- all the enemy units are upgraded" due to tech advancement.

Ayup. Faster game speeds greatly magnify the AI's ability to get the most out of its cheats, and minimize all of the player's advantages. On marathon speed, I can actually build a couple of wonders in the early game- but on even just epic speed, the AI is shooting wonders out like spring grass out of the south end of a happy cow, and I'm lucky to get any of the good ones.

And at marathon speed you can frequently kill off a barb camp (with the attack-heal-attack method) without getting ambushed by new spawns two or three times every time during the process- but on epic or faster, you need at least a couple warrior/archer teams working together just to take out nearby barb infestations before they overwhelm your young civ. Taking on a barb camp with one unit, is often suicide.

I've won a couple King games on epic speed, but the frustration and 'rapidity' of the experiences, keep me playing on marathon. While I did enjoy the faster build times, I didn't particularly enjoy the rushed feeling of zipping thru eras and usually having to upgrade units repeatedly before I even had a chance to use them. I just like the slower, more measured and fulfilling experience of the long games. I can't even imagine playing on 'fast' speeds- "yay, I have a horsie guy! oop... it's been three turns, time to upgrade him to modern armor..."

Another thing I noticed on epic speed, is that RA's are flying around like popcorn- the AI civs can easily get the gold for them, it seems, and you're constantly spending all of your gold on them to try to keep up with the greatly magnified speed of the tech-rush competition. And that comes at the cost of being able to afford a decent amount of city-state bribery, the cost of which remains at the same high price as it is on marathon speed, unlike the RA costs. And you make a lot less gold in general on the faster speeds than you do on marathon, relatively over the same length of game eras. During any given era on marathon speed, you might make say 3000g to spread out between several RA's and a couple of CS briberies... on epic speed, you'll only see 1500g- and it comes down to buying one or the other but not both, or a *lot* less of both, during the same era period. So it was costing me relatively a lot more to keep up on tech, and I was much less able to bribe CS's to get a decent boost to food/culture. IMO, they should lower the price of CS bribery quite a bit on the faster speeds too, to compensate.

I think I'll stick with marathon, myself.

 

[elprofesor]

Basically, the greatest flaw of civ 5 's AI is its military genius. If you want to succeed in a game, the easiest way to do it (exploits excepted) is by invading your neighbours, and thus gaining land and a part of their advantages.

Now, how do you win a war? Usually, via getting units an era ahead of your enemy's units, since you can't outproduce the AI if you are playing over Prince (unless you are already in control of half the world, thus already winning), and there's just so much superior tactics and/or backstabbing can do for you. And how do you get improved units? Via beelining a tech, something the AI rarely does.

So how does this go? You beeline a medieval unit, usually longswordmen (may be another one if your civ has a unique version), and you go medieval on your neighbours, until they get medieval on you. The time it takes for an AI to catch up in military techs depends on the speed. The time it takes for you to send another civ into oblivion does not, though. So this tech advantage may get you 1-2 civs on standard, 4-5 on marathon, and maybe none on fast.

Thus, why it's easier to play on marathon than on standard. On the other hand, if you never plan to invade your neighbours, and you neglect your military, you're toast, since you won't be able to respond accordingly to the threat.

BTW, I agree with Smokeybear that there aren't enough techs in Civ V, and eras tend to pass way to fast. But playing marathon does have the very negative consequence of being waaaaaay too slow for everything else. The ancient/classical era last forever, and there isn't much you can do then...

 

[Hustapha Thool]

I think increasing map size on marathon can negate the -2 difficulty somewhat

 

[Rpger29]

And I suspect Huge is darn near unplayable on anything but marathon (for me).

 

[vexing]

the main advantages are in military:
in marathon a skilled player can utilize a few units to wreak havoc. the AI is really ineffective at war; on the faster speeds they can make up for their inability to use smart positioning and such by just spamming units, on marathon it takes them 3x longer to build new units, which is far less spam to deal with.

there is less time for units to go outdated between the start and end of a conquest, and less time for AIs to build walls or gain techs/population to increase city defense

the player also utilizes promotions a lot more efficiently than the AI - you'll almost never see an AI unit with march and blitz or logistics. in marathon, even if it takes 200 turns to get your units up to level 5, it's only a small fraction of the game and your units are easily more than 2x as powerful at that level.

additionally, gaining and maintaining city state alliances via barb quests is easier on marathon. the time between notification and capturing a camp is relatively 1/3rd as much as standard speed.

rush buying costs are proportionally lower on marathon than other difficulties.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Faster gameplay= less military movement, more growth,production, gold+research
Slower gameplay= more military movement, less growth,production, gold+research

The AI cheats at growth, production, gold+research
The AI is Really bad at military movement (and does not cheat on it)...

If the AI got -60% damage from attacks instead of -60% happiness, then Marathon would be +2 difficulty levels.

 

[turtlefang]

I play many of my games at Marathon on huge maps at high difficulty levels - usually immortal.

I don't find that its -2 levels lower than standard with these settings. While the player can out military the AI, the AI gets relatively large production/science bonuses to counter. In addition, I've never seen the AI have happiness problems - which on Marathon can last forever for the player.

And, you have to be very very careful with your military units. You literally can't afford to lose any after building them because it takes too long to replace them. So you can't take as aggressive action with your military - and I would never barb hunt with single units because of this in on a Marathon setting - it just takes to long to recover from a loss.

And usually when the AI attacks, if its close to you, is that it attacks in large waves. Never well coordinated, but if your unprepared, your dead. You simply can't build something on the fly to defend. Based on my experience, the AIs - in general - are more hostile and won't make as many deals - RA or trades - on Marathon than standard. Not sure why, but getting an RA or decent trade deal is simply harder.

Last, many of the strategies to win listed in the forums don't work - or don't work as well - on marathon and have to be heavily modified. Which makes it a little more interesting.

I can't say that I have played Marathon on smaller maps much, so it may change a lot as the maps get smaller. But on huge setting with less water intense maps, the AI does about the same on Marathon as normal at the higher settings.

 

[Hustapha Thool]

I play many of my games at Marathon on huge maps at high difficulty levels - usually immortal.

I don't find that its -2 levels lower than standard with these settings. While the player can out military the AI, the AI gets relatively large production/science bonuses to counter. In addition, I've never seen the AI have happiness problems - which on Marathon can last forever for the player.

And, you have to be very very careful with your military units. You literally can't afford to lose any after building them because it takes too long to replace them. So you can't take as aggressive action with your military - and I would never barb hunt with single units because of this in on a Marathon setting - it just takes to long to recover from a loss.

And usually when the AI attacks, if its close to you, is that it attacks in large waves. Never well coordinated, but if your unprepared, your dead. You simply can't build something on the fly to defend. Based on my experience, the AIs - in general - are more hostile and won't make as many deals - RA or trades - on Marathon than standard. Not sure why, but getting an RA or decent trade deal is simply harder.

Last, many of the strategies to win listed in the forums don't work - or don't work as well - on marathon and have to be heavily modified. Which makes it a little more interesting.

I can't say that I have played Marathon on smaller maps much, so it may change a lot as the maps get smaller. But on huge setting with less water intense maps, the AI does about the same on Marathon as normal at the higher settings.

Very true, also on immortal or even emperor, when you find out who your neighbors are, many times your second tech must be archery. When playing huge maps you will find that the resources will be homogenous in your immediate era. A new luxury resource is often very far away.

 

[vexing]

@turtlefang, i suggest you try a domination victory at standard speed on a huge map and see how it compares. if you play most your games at marathon you may just lack a perspective from which to compare.

another bonus for longer speeds is barbarians are a lot less troublesome, on quick camps spew out a ton of units while on marathon they basically come one at a time always. songhai and germany can make out like bandits: the number of camps you can clear is basically the same as standard, so you get 3x the bonus with them on marathon. with songhai this actually compounds via rush buying units to more benefit, especially with the lowered rush buying costs.

there aren't very many applicable games in the HoF yet to do a great comparison, but i have posted a
turn 189 standard speed standard size england deity archipelago win, and a
turn 377 marathon speed huge size england deity tiny islands win

in both of these i beelined navigation and destroyed my opponents with SoTLs... the marathon speed was much, much easier, even with the much larger map size it took only 2x as many turns. my SoTLs stayed up to date throughout the marathon game, as well as getting to logistics relatively faster

 

[Smokeybear]

@turtlefang, i suggest you try a domination victory at standard speed on a huge map and see how it compares. if you play most your games at marathon you may just lack a perspective from which to compare.

another bonus for longer speeds is barbarians are a lot less troublesome, on quick camps spew out a ton of units while on marathon they basically come one at a time always. songhai and germany can make out like bandits: the number of camps you can clear is basically the same as standard, so you get 3x the bonus with them on marathon. with songhai this actually compounds via rush buying units to more benefit, especially with the lowered rush buying costs.

there aren't very many applicable games in the HoF yet to do a great comparison, but i have posted a
turn 189 standard speed standard size england deity archipelago win, and a
turn 377 marathon speed huge size england deity tiny islands win

in both of these i beelined navigation and destroyed my opponents with SoTLs... the marathon speed was much, much easier, even with the much larger map size it took only 2x as many turns. my SoTLs stayed up to date throughout the marathon game, as well as getting to logistics relatively faster

Ok, now go try that on a huge pangaea map, not an island map <grin>. I can do anything I want pretty much, in island games- continents or pangaea are where the rubber meets the road. And playing a huge/standard speed game (which I've never done, to be honest) on a pangaea map, I'm willing to bet you'll end up with civs that resemble archipelagos, by endgame... little isolated empires with 50% or more of the map still unutilized by the end. Standard speed is basically only 25% of the total play time of a marathon game, so I would be amazed if all of the open spaces ever filled in (or even got close to it). Which would make for a rather strange game.

 

[Rpger29]

Ugh quick. I've yet to roll a quick speed game that didn't play like absolute crap.

I think we can all agree that this is a strength of the game and the series. Different speeds give different people the experience they're looking for.

 

[Glassmage]

if you abhor slow unit and building production costs then go to Gamespeed.xml and change the numbers. It is that easy. I changed those numbers for Epic from 150 to 125. Works fine. Improvement time goes from 150 to 100 too.

 

[vexing]

Ok, now go try that on a huge pangaea map, not an island map <grin>

it's irrelevant to the point; a map about twice as large took 2x as many raw turns on marathon as standard, which is pretty clear evidence that marathon is easier. the same exact thing could be done on pangea, especially with an early UU civ like greece, or someone else with an innate marathon advantage like askia or bismarck.

speaking of askia, another great indicator of how easy marathon can make things are the ridiculously early settler level victories possible, like a diplomatic victory in 660 bc (turn 284 on marathon). good luck getting a diplomatic victory in the BCs on standard speed

 

[gunter]

I have played Civ V few times only too judge but I am an old civ player, since the first one.

At normal speed it seems to me quite fast, sometimes I discover a unit knowledge, I start to produce it and before its production end I already have discovered a new one.... it sounds wrong IMO.

I like push science and I find myself, when circumstances are fine at middle difficulty levels, to have a new research achievement every 2-3 turns, too quick IMO.

I would give the marathon a try sooner or later

 

[CYZ]

Might have been said but peacefull players don't benefit from marathon. In this case aggressive AIs can often get the upper hand techwise and you'll find there is no way to respond to threat on time.

They declare war, you realize you don't have enough units or that their units outtech you. Takes them several turns to reach your first city, which is just enough time to build half an archer. On quick you have enough time to build several units (by different cities).

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

Ok, now go try that on a huge pangaea map, not an island map <grin>. I can do anything I want pretty much, in island games- continents or pangaea are where the rubber meets the road. And playing a huge/standard speed game (which I've never done, to be honest) on a pangaea map, I'm willing to bet you'll end up with civs that resemble archipelagos, by endgame... little isolated empires with 50% or more of the map still unutilized by the end. Standard speed is basically only 25% of the total play time of a marathon game, so I would be amazed if all of the open spaces ever filled in (or even got close to it). Which would make for a rather strange game.

Not at the higher levels, no. I don't really play at the lower levels, so maybe that's how it goes, but on immortal (where the AI has large production bonuses such that saturation bombing of settlers is easy) if you wait until the industrial era to start really rampaging, you will generally find that nearly every hex of the map belongs to one AI or the other, often in strange patterns. The AI's habit of spacing cities so that they touch one another contributes to this effect, I guess.

On huge pangea maps, this makes for some challenging late-game conquering, even with a tech advantage, just because of how much space there is to conquer. Makes you pretty good at working with modern units, though. Push the big red button; it's your friend.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Well, personally I think it's a lie. A common one, yet a lie.
Slower speeds are actually harder. Boredom is the biggest factor there. You're bored -> you lose your focus -> you play worse -> game is harder.

Might have been said but peacefull players don't benefit from marathon. In this case aggressive AIs can often get the upper hand techwise and you'll find there is no way to respond to threat on time.

They declare war, you realize you don't have enough units or that their units outtech you. Takes them several turns to reach your first city, which is just enough time to build half an archer. On quick you have enough time to build several units (by different cities).

I don't play marathon, but that just doesn't sound right. Firstly, reduced rushing costs will compensate faster offensive units movement. Secondly, you still should be able to benefit defensively. AI doesn't beeline properly so once you've got sufficient defensive army it'll be sufficient for longer. Which means more time invested into infrastructure and 'peaceful' techs. Probably you cannot disregard defense completely counting on quick archers popping if necessary. But this is rarely good idea anyways. I might be wrong though. Have zero experience with this speed.