Marathon mode is excellent

[Dis]

how could you have won a space victory without artillery?

[Badtz Maru]

I guess I did pick up Artillery eventually.

I'm pretty embarassed about this...I started another Marathon game on Noble, and started noticing the same effect, and paid attention to the actual numerical cost of units and buildings, and saw they were too low...then I remembered I tried to mod Marathon to have everything like Normal except for research times, that's why I was getting advanced so quickly. What's odd is that I had thought that the changes hadn't taken effect, because back when I modded the game speed XML file and tested it afterwards, it seemed that the costs were still at the normal Marathon values.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Yaga


Forgive me for sounding like the typical Internet dork, but...

To a certain extent you are correct; the term "dark ages" first appeared in print in the early 18th century. 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. 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; 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...

Hopefully I'm done with hijacking this thread. Also, I just finished my first Marathon game -- a 17th c. Domination win (Large, Terra, Noble, 16 civs) -- that was quite fun. I've begun a second game (bumped it up to Prince) and saw a Civ first for me -- Raging Barbians destroyed a civ (India) within the first 500 years.

Regardless -- very fun, the Marathon.

Well, I'm glad we got to a usable comment about Marathon You and Hengist sound like a couple of Yale-Oxford history PHD types arguing whether Nero could really fiddle. I like history, (or I wouldn't play the game) and may have even heard of some of the references you mention, but gee wow, the bibliography is getting mighty deep in here. Who says people don't read anymore?

I'm halfway through my first Marathon game. (Yeah, they do take longer to play.) On Noble, I wiped three of the AI's unsuspecting, what do they call that, dagger? But I am worried now that the rest can build back in their jungle cities and flash hit me back, now that I'm consolidating and concentrating more on commerce and culture. Striking early would appear, repeat appear, to get around some problems with everybody building big armies, on the QT, later.

I think the big map is important though. My nearest neighbors don't seem threatened by my "expansion," unless they're doing an Oscar-winning acting job; and can't see a lot of what I am (or am not) doing either. I haven't had a true emergency yet, but I think the units stream off adequately, although I know this would be different with higher difficulty and also know I'm a micromanagement freak for maximizing production for cities.

Marathon and big maps for me.

[Rinuv]

This concept of a "Dark Age" was first created by Italian humanists and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to include not only the lack of Latin literature, but a lack of contemporary written history and material cultural achievements in general.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages

Now, please stop arguing about it!

Thank you.

[Gueron]

is that the Mayans completed the Alpha Centauri project and left the Earth.



Actually, I don't know what happened, theres not a lot of written references.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Incidentially, whatever happened to the Celtics from Civ II, and has anyone developed a mod for Mayans or Celtics? Is it even possible to mod(create) new civilizations to play with?

Edit: to add Questions.

[Generaldoktor]

My favorite bistro where I live in Florida has two self-professed "Mayans" working in the kitchen there. They have very large hands, dark Hispanic complexions and rather square heads, just like they are depicted on "Ages of Ancient Empires." So nice a few stayed behind to give us calendar.

[Master-Mike]

Marathon games are the best setup up ive played so far.

I mainly play with a few mate on MP for marathon games on large to huge maps with heaps of AI on emperor level.

Barbs are tough, AI will often attak you early, getting many wonders is hard. You really need to be careful how you build your civ and what you research. I love how you know get time to build most units before the tech rush makes them useless.

Civ iv is truely an awesome game on mamoth & emperor and above levels.

[Datajack Franit]

Barbs are tough, AI will often attak you early, getting many wonders is hard. You really need to be careful how you build your civ and what you research

True. In my current monarch game, huge continents map, I overexpanded in order to prevent the AI from flooding the whole continent with their cities. Had to drop tech rate to 10% for sth like 250 turns. Still, I was able to destroy Greece and expand to the south of my continent, while everybody turned to my religion. On the other continent, Catherine and Gengis Khan have smashed 7 civs and currently researching rifling, while I'm completing my army of catapults


Good that they're far, far away

[redstar05]

Marathon mode is great. Apart from the fact that i won a space age in 1580!

[redstar05]

On Prince.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Dis
how could you have won a space victory without artillery?

Artillery is not needed to win the space victory.

[Dis]

artillery is needed for rocketry

[Dis]

I love marathon mode, but I still feel the modern age is all wrong (I mentioned this in the expansion thread). I can get to the modern age at such an early year, but then the techs, and space ship builds take forever. Yes, this could be a problem with my empire. But I am fairly certain I concentrate on enough research and production (that's all I ever concentrate on). I don't know why I start to lag in the modern age.

My last game on a highlands map, I was unable to get the spaceship built before 2050. Despite building broadway in the 1600's. This doesn't seem right to me.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by redstar05
Marathon mode is great. Apart from the fact that i won a space age in 1580!

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Dis

I love marathon mode, but I still feel the modern age is all wrong (I mentioned this in the expansion thread). I can get to the modern age at such an early year, but then the techs, and space ship builds take forever. Yes, this could be a problem with my empire. But I am fairly certain I concentrate on enough research and production (that's all I ever concentrate on). I don't know why I start to lag in the modern age.

My last game on a highlands map, I was unable to get the spaceship built before 2050. Despite building broadway in the 1600's. This doesn't seem right to me

Yes, something's still not right here. I'm finishing up my second "marathon" game, this one's on Noble, which is about as high as I go because it makes the AI equal, or at least untruncated in "intellect" without giving them special tech advantages. I was pleased to beat my way way ahead in tech and "power" from most of them, without being ridiculously away and was following a neo-historical timeline, getting advances about the same as real world. Somewhere in the Renaissance, Peter started to focus on tech real hard and Mao and Julius to a lesser extent and the beeline was on for modern day advances, especially military, before the Reformation was out. Riflemen appeared, (in Peter's ranks) about 1650 and flight was discovered by him and Julius by 1800.

Genghis had the first nineteenth century army, and a considerable navy of frigates, this last rare for an AI IMHO, but he backed off tech for a military buildup at that level and I scurried up a little on military tech and built aplenty to put him out of the game, scr-wing my research for a good many turns with the war, as someone else described.

With my thus-acquired new overseas empire, I would have liked to work on refrigeration and radio, but now find myself racing Peter in plastics to finish the Three Gorges dam, which I could desparately use. Eiffel Tower sits up for grabs and my all-too multudinous and scattered cities grumble while we try to complete a 21st century dam in the 1860's. I imagine we'll see jets shortly.

Oh did I mention that I have "space victory" turned off, but still don't have rocketry, fission or artillery, which several of my competitors do and won't trade. I think Peter wants "The Bomb" and before 1880.
I don't think I'm manipulating my research capabilities efficiently to keep up with him; I am the predominant empire and have several cities that should be great research centers, as well as massive production.

Some of this too, is just the flexibility of the new game concepts, with these clever AI's beelining for certain techs, (mostly military,) without regard for the historic timeline, which the game allows. I do have "aggressive AI" turned on too. But it still feels wrong somehow and I'm getting a different type of game workout than I expected. I enjoyed fighting Genghis with 19th century tech, even though it was the 1700's mostly at the time (long, transoceanic war.) Racing Peter for stealth bombers and ICBM's in the chronological 19th century is considerably less entertaining.

[schekker]

Playing on marathon will result in a chronological incorrect modern age, there is just no way around it.

The smallest time lapse for 1 turn is a year, and on standard speed it already uses that for the last x turns. So, if you want to move to marathon speed and want those turns to take say 3 times as long, the only way to make that possible to start that period 3 times x turns before 2050, instead of x turns before 2050.

And I rather have my stealth bombers before the 100 turn countdown starts, then on a chronological correct timeframe of around 1990-2000, with no real possibility to use them anymore.

[Adagio]

They could make the modern age count in seasons instead of a year to avoid this problem (Spring 1989 --> summer 1989 --> fall 1989 --> etc)

didn't they do something like that in an XP to Civ2 or something?

[chiqss]

My first win on emperor was on marathon speed after 2 easily won marathon/monarch

I think that , apart from being my favourite game speed , marathon allowed me to climb a difficulty level and get more interesting games.

One other thing I have not seen mentionned in this thread is that food ressourcesare more "powerful" at marathon speed. As the surplus required for cities to grow is higher on marathon , a +5 food tile is a lot better than a regular +2.

My first win on emperor / marathon , playing Rome , my capitol site had 2fish,3crabs and 1 rice. Though I ran all game after health resources ( Rome had reach sometimes - 10 dur to lack of heatlh and still growing !! ) , those ressources made rome grow very fast t
hus taking advantage of the high number of turns using more tiles than AI cities

[Nacht]

Originally posted by chiqss
One other thing I have not seen mentionned in this thread is that food ressourcesare more "powerful" at marathon speed. As the surplus required for cities to grow is higher on marathon , a +5 food tile is a lot better than a regular +2.

Yes, and hammer resources are more powerful because buildings are more expensive, and commerce resources are more powerful because research takes longer.

...

[Arrian]

artillery is needed for rocketry

Arty is NOT needed for Rocketry, Dis. It is one of two pathways to Rocketry. The other is via Flight, IIRC.

-Arrian

[chiqss]

Originally posted by Nacht


Yes, and hammer resources are more powerful because buildings are more expensive, and commerce resources are more powerful because research takes longer.

...

you right , every advantage is increased but IMHO , as food surplus makes you use more tiles quicker , their advantage is even bigger...

Let's take my actual game small map / 6 civs / emperor / marathon. My capitol site has a rice ressource and a gold ressource ( and I'm Mao ou starts with Agriculture and mining
) . I immediatly start a worker ( 30 turns ) and then
put a farm on the rice ( 15 turns ) and then mine the gold ( 12 turns )
On turn 60 ( which is the time a city would take to reach size 2 ) I have a worker , a level 2 city still growing while using a gold mine
then thanks to the gold mine I take the tech lead for the rest of the game ( I haven't finished yet but cultural victory is almost certain )

[Dis]

Originally posted by Arrian


Arty is NOT needed for Rocketry, Dis. It is one of two pathways to Rocketry. The other is via Flight, IIRC.

-Arrian

really? I did not know that. Hmm, this could make me rethink my paths through the modern age now. I'll have to take another look at the tech tree.

[JoeGator]

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.

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.

What he said. Almost to the letter, only my system is Pentium D 3.0 with 1GB RAM, upgradable to 4.

[Paddy]

ouch - well will not go near it with my older beast then - thanks

[RevMunky]

Its nice to see people actually discussing history terms.

I think tho that there are 2 different meanings to the term *Dark Age*, because there have been 2 periodes in history that are labeled by this term.

The medieval period is usually called the *Dark Ages* for some reason im not sure off (not my focus of my study :P)... Prolly what one of the first posters said, because it was a *less* advanced and civilized society then the one before and after it (at least thats what the people who thought the term up came with a couple hundred years ago)

The argument that there wasnt enough material in the *Dark Ages* is valid, but it doesnt count for the medieval times but for the time when the *Sea Peoples* razed the Mediterranean and the Near East around 1000-800 BC. Certain civs died out because of a combination of conditions at that time and for archaeologists the short period after this the records are pretty blank (depending on the region) until the start of the Iron Age where more archaeological material starts to turn up again.

Im not like a TOTAL expert on this but it should be something like this if im not mistaken

EDIT: hmm seems i got an old dated link or something from the website coz i noticed alot more pages now on this topic and this prolly already was mentioned

EDIT2: and DAMN some of you guys make this game sound so easy... still having troubles actually planning stuff ahead... specializing towns and such

[Generaldoktor]

This used to happen to me all the time; pay attention to the date at the top left, which is day-month-year, in European fashion. Also, hit reload before you respond to a page, that way you ensure you get the latest comments. The posts are also numbered in the upper right. If you want to respond to post #24, but the thread is up to #60, hit "quote" first to get the other guy's comment you want to respond to, then everyone will know what you are talking about.

Pay attention to the page number of the thread listed at top and bottom of any page. If you are reading (and responding) on page three, but the thread shows there's four pages, your comment is going to post on the last page, regardless of what you are responding to. Again, the "quote" function is useful; people don't really mind if you're responding even to a much earlier comment, as long as they can figure out what you're responding to.

This thread hasn't been responded to in about a month and is probably dead. Apolyton removes them after a while if there are no further responses. On the other hand, occasionally a late comment, like yours, will revive a discussion.

I don't know what exactly you are responding to, I always thought there was one "Dark Ages" in Europe from about 500-1000 A.D., or somewhere around there.
History is kind of Eurocentric, because they, or their descendents (I am of European stock, born in the United States, third generation,) emerged on top geopolitically and pretty much technologically at the end of the various "ages of discovery." If there were "dark ages" elsewhere, in China, for instance, they are simply not acknowledged as such by mainstream historians.

[RevMunky]

Hehe on the first page the discussion about *Dark Ages* got started and my link on the civ4 website brought me there (so i assumed it was an up to date topic)

And i think the fact that most people dont know about a previous *Dark Age* term around 1000-800BC is because its more a term used by archaeologists that study the Mediterranean and the Near East region around that time period (european archaeologists too btw )

[Generaldoktor]

Yeah, it's just not being taught that way, outside of archaeology, as far as I know. I do know a little bit about the Sea Peoples ravages; I know they ended one Egyptian dynasty, for one. So I believe you.

You might like Thamis variant for Civ3, "Ancient Mediterranean," which has its own board at Apolyton and can be downloaded from there, or maybe you've played it. It's actually possible in that, (if you haven't tried it,) to play the "Sea Peoples" as well as other cool Ancient Civs like Goths or Nubians. I had a blast with it, before Civ4 came out. He's trying to make a Civ4 version, but I don't think it will turn out as well, Civ3 was the real generals' game, in spite of what they're trying to do with the new Civ4 expansion and warfare is what the ancient world was all about, real time.

[TheAbstract]

Pardon the possible stupidity of this question but does Marathon mode basically mean you get more turns in the game? Im really enjoying a normal speed game just now but its running out of turns all too quickly.

[Adagio]

You get more turns to play, but it also takes longer to research and build

[armchairknight]

Originally posted by TheAbstract
Pardon the possible stupidity of this question but does Marathon mode basically mean you get more turns in the game? Im really enjoying a normal speed game just now but its running out of turns all too quickly.

Civ IV is a great game, eh? My last game was on Marathon and it was my first Marathon game. Oddly enough, I still ran out of turns too soon.