Marathon mode is excellent

[narmox]

Just one little additional high-jacking (or rather, small correction )

Originally posted by Yaga
"Medieval" was used in the early 16th century to denote the age between the fall of Rome (by which they meant the Eastern Roman empire, and dated to the 5th century and the sacking of Rome by the visigoths; the Western Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when the Turks tooks Constantipole, an event which, ironically, triggered the 'birth' of the Renaissance in Italy)

You got eastern and western reversed in that paragraph Rome etc was the western half, Constantinople etc were the eastern empire.

This thread makes me wanna try Marathon. I'll definitely do it after the holidays. So far I almost only play Epic, Marathon should be very fun

[Dr,ape]

Marathon mode is what I was dreaming of.

In Civ 1, 2, 3, SMAC, and 4 (pre-1.52) I never even bother with building much ancient era units, much less waging continental wars. It was pointless. It was a waste of precious building time to create a decent size army, march them out on foot (not much transportation infrastructure to speak of), and by the time they reach the rally point to the nearest enemy city they are outdated and considered lost. I would much rather spend the build time on city buildings and settler making. I didn't have to worry too much about the enemy attacking because THEY would have the same problem. Just make one or two units per city was enough (plus the fact the units used to cause production slow downs).

In Marathon mode:

I started a war against the Indians, took over their empire with an army of WARRIORS, size of which would be considered big in ancient terms. I had never felt the real need to do that, ever, in any previous Civ games.

Centuries later, with about 5 cities in the empire, the barbarian invasion began. I was forced to mass-produce WARRIOR units, trying to keep the barbs away left and right. I took a deep breath of relief when I could finally produce ARCHERS!! Those archers saved my behind many times. Again, never would happen pre-1.52. After many turns of this back-and-forth war against the barbarians, I got my first state-of-the-art Axeman unit. Holy crap, I never felt a unit with strength 5 really worth anything before. By putting a huge army of Axemen in the forests around the empire, the Barbs were no longer a problem.

The Marathon mode ended what used to be my biggest gripe about Civ games. I like all Civ games, that's why I want to enjoy every century every decade in them -- not just the AD part of the game. Before I don't ever start wars until I have railroads running everywhere inside the empire.

[johnmcd]

The tech definitely needs further slowed in Marathon, I'm sure it must be scaled from the other difficulties but it seems ot go whizzing past, I've been getting the early industrial techs in six turns, which feels about five times faster than is right as a minimum.

[rjwoer]

Marathon is a huge, and badly needed, improvement to Civ 4. I am so pleased to see it now included. This is the game speed I've wanted all along!

[Enigma_Nova]

They need to drop the unit, building, and possibly wonder-producing speeds down so that players remain balanced with barbs, and you can have WTFARMYs marching around the map.

[Hengist]

As a scholar of history. I feel obliged to reply to your post as it contains several areas of inaccuracy...

Originally posted by Yaga
To a certain extent you are correct

Yes I know that I am, and it's to a large extent

Originally posted by Yaga
It was used however to refer to their perception of medieval people and states as being uneduated and uncivilized, not towards a lack of materials.

This is not what the Dark Ages means. The era is called the Dark Ages as there are not many surviving sources that cover this period of history.

Originally posted by Yaga
There are an abundance of medieval sources, many of which were available at the time. Notable among these: Justinian's Corpus Juris Civils, a 7th century codex of Western Roman Law

The Medieval era covers the 9th century to the 16th century. The Dark Ages are a completely different era. The Dark Ages cover the 5th century up to the 11th (and yes, there is an overlapping of periods).

Originally posted by Yaga
; Domesday and Little Domesday surveys; the pipe rolls of the Angevin kings of England, begining the the mid-12th century; the 13th c. glossiter's works on the CJC; and by now we're in the 14th century where there is a tremendous amount of material from the Model Parliament forward; the biography of William Marshall, the Cantebury Tales, etc. etc. Not to mention all the church documents (I believe there's a copy of the minutes from Lateran IV, if not Hildebrand's comments from the Investiture crisis, both c. 11-12th century), the Statues of Common Law (which starts early 13th), etc., etc... So yes -- I must take issue with the notion that we don't have many surviving records of this period. While much of the best work on the Medieval period was done by Strayer, Postan, and Southern in the 50's - 70's, modern historians such as Brian Tierney, David Wootan, and Barry Holtz have each put out very nice collections in the past few years. (For an excellent read, pick up Richard Vaughan's series on the Valois Dukes of Burgundy)

Again you've cited the Medieval era period as the basis for your argument. Once again this is not the Dark Ages that you're referring to.

Originally posted by Yaga
"Medieval" was used in the early 16th century to denote the age between the fall of Rome (by which they meant the Eastern Roman empire, and dated to the 5th century and the sacking of Rome by the visigoths;

The Medieval period is not dated back to the 5th century.

Originally posted by Yaga
the Western Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when the Turks tooks Constantipole, an event which, ironically, triggered the 'birth' of the Renaissance in Italy) and the comigled emergence of Humanism, Reformation, and Reformation. It was this I should have referred to above, but as the original post mentioned the "dark ages," and their popular use is very similar, I just ran with it.

I simply do not understand what it is you're trying to say here?

Originally posted by Yaga
Regardless -- very fun, the Marathon.

Agreed

[Xuenay]

Originally posted by Hengist
Modern English translation:
Shields clanged, resounded loudly. The lean wolf in the wood rejoiced at it, and the dark raven, bloodthirsty bird. They both knew that warriors intended to provide for them their fill of doomed men.

Where might this be from, I wonder?

Sounds like it'd be a nice read.

[Hengist]

Hi Xuenay,

It's from one of my old history books called... The Germanic Engle Tribe: A History of English Roots and Language.

I think that's where I came across it originally. I've got too many books on the Anglo-Saxon's to remember exactly which one it was.

Here's some more old English with their modern day translation... In honour of the old Gods of the English

*Tyesdaeg = Tuesday, named after Tye, the God of War.
*Wodensdaeg translates as Wodens day (in tribute and celebration to Woden), we now call it Wednesday (Norse Odin).
*Thunordaeg = Thursday, named after Thunor, the God of the Elements (Norse/Viking name was known as Thor).
*Fryedaeg = Friday, named after Frye, Goddess of Fertillerty (also known as Frig, hence the word Frigging, as in 'Frigging in the rigging'... I wont explain what to 'Frig' something may mean ).

[Enigma_Nova]

So, you have a Masters degree and/or Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon Origins, or is this just an area of interest for you?

[Hengist]

One honours degree and a post graduate degree.
With regards to... 'or is this just an area of interest'. Alongside computer gaming, it's also my other hobby, so yes, it's also an area of interest for me

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
They need to drop the unit, building, and possibly wonder-producing speeds down so that players remain balanced with barbs, and you can have WTFARMYs marching around the map.

Unit costs are 200% normal on Marathon, building and tech costs are 300%.

[MasterDave]

I tried marathon once the night the patch came out. I chose a huge highlands map on Monarch level. I spent the next 30 turns moving my warrior around and pressing enter a lot, as it took 30 turns for the next warrior. Had my first warrior been eaten by a lion it would have been even more painfully slow. Anyhow, after I had managed to explore most of the map and had maybe a half dozen warriors and a worker built (25 turns to make a farm whee!), the barbarians started spawning four units per turn all around me. Soon all of my outlying warriors were dead, and it was still taking 15-20 turns to build new ones.

Needless to say, I was doomed. Also, the huge map was taking forever between turns (I have a new computer- 3.4 GHz 64 bit P4 and 4 GB RAM) . If I try marathon again, I will definitely not use a huge map. Overall, however, the pace was just painfully slow IMO. I do like the changes to the tech costs in normal and epic mode, and probably epic remains my favorite single player setting.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by MasterDave
I tried marathon once the night the patch came out. I chose a huge highlands map on Monarch level. I spent the next 30 turns moving my warrior around and pressing enter a lot, as it took 30 turns for the next warrior. Had my first warrior been eaten by a lion it would have been even more painfully slow. Anyhow, after I had managed to explore most of the map and had maybe a half dozen warriors and a worker built (25 turns to make a farm whee!), the barbarians started spawning four units per turn all around me. Soon all of my outlying warriors were dead, and it was still taking 15-20 turns to build new ones.

You paint a good mental image.

I concur, Epic is the one! Though a marathon game on huge sounds intriguing. I'm sure my machine will handle it speed wise, but I should probably put another 1G of memory in, unless they've fixed all of the memory issues.

Highlands would be cool. Probably you should have kept several warriors back to guard the hills and push back the fog of war.

[Aro]

Well, maps with more land have more chance to produce barbs. This kind of map, huge Highlands, is the worst... (I mean in this circunstances, Sirian… The map is great for all the rest! ) All that land, no ocean... Barbs everywhere!!!

In fact, it seems a bug... Maybe be some kind of correction factor, reducing the appearing of barbs, helping to keep the map playable, would be necessary... And if you choose Marathon, you’re dead meat.
Or you may consider the whole thing a challenge, put a lot of archers in hills all over the map and go for it.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Shaka II



You paint a good mental image.

I concur, Epic is the one! Though a marathon game on huge sounds intriguing. I'm sure my machine will handle it speed wise, but I should probably put another 1G of memory in, unless they've fixed all of the memory issues.

Highlands would be cool. Probably you should have kept several warriors back to guard the hills and push back the fog of war.

My computer is about as fast as they come with a 3.4 Intel Extreme edition CPU, 4 GB RAM, and a GForce 7800 PCI express VGA card, and on the huge highlands map, it was still taking about 15 seconds between each turn to generate all of the barbs on a huge highlands map. This is after 1.52. I do not normally play huge maps at all, so maybe this is what I should expect.

Highlands is my favorite map in general, and I did have the warriors posted as sentries, as that is essential to survival on that map with any game settings, but with the computer spawning four or five new barbs every turn, and my home city pushing out a warrior every 15-20 turns, casualties could not be replaced.