Marathon mode is excellent

[sparkyal]

The DDG's taking years to get around the globe is still there. It is better to think of it like turns instead of years.

I haven't played on Marathon yet, I've been playing on Epic, and it has been pretty cool.

sparky

[eris]

Well, I finished my first Marathon mode game. Got a domination victory in the 1600s. It now stands as my highest score. It wasn't bad once I got out of the early ages. I had to build up until I had Knights before I went into conqering mode. Prior to that, I had the most amazing thing happen. I founded Hinduism and at one point in history, every civ was Hindu, even Elisabeth, who had founded Buddhism. If I hadn't already said no to a few tech demands I would have thought about going for a Diplo win. I have never had so many folk like me. Then, just before I was ready to launch my conquering hordes. Various Civs started little wars with each other. The diplomacy screen was a mess of different colors!

For some reason, I felt it more necessary to micro manage things I had never done before. I am not entirely sure why that was. It is probably good for my overall game. I'll try a couple more Marathon games if I can. They sure do take up more real-time time. That is the major disadvantage so far. I have to keep remembering what my grand strategy was in between playing sessions.

[Generaldoktor]

The most stated concern about Marathon mode is that, with long production times, you can make a decision that's wrong for production and then not be easily able to rectify it. (You can really only overwrite one production or else lose everything invested in it, forever.) It looks like you avoided that on your first game, but beware in future ones.

Regarding micromanagment, there is a big argument going on right now in the Call to Power forum about whether C4 eliminated microcmanagement as advertised, or is as big or bigger a micro headache as the CTP variant, "Ages of Man."

Whatever! I like micro, it's a big part of why I play the games, to let the problems of the real world slip away as I get submerged in a rich, complex game problem. Others will tend to disagree...

[Blaupanzer]

At normal speed, noble-level, micromanagement does seem less necessary (read: useful) than in earlier versions. I am used to micromanagement and use it in all civs, but the real rewards in Civ IV seem to be related to the willigness to go to war. So if Marathon speed recaptures the feeling that a player may use more than one path to victory that would be cool.

In previous games (especially I and II) the player could use war to recover from an early error. Is this still the case on marathon speed?

Note that taking more real time for a game only to find you will lose because of a decision taken 20 in game hours ago is NOT fun. If this is the case with marathon, then I will stick with my "udate all your units after you take your first city when invading far away civs "strategy on normal speed since I can play twice as many of those games in the same real time. Can some of you marathoners let me know if the condition of the first sentence in this paragraph is usually the case for you at Noble or above?

Thanks.

[Generaldoktor]

Blau, I would really encourage you to try it, rather than rely on us. The short answer to your question, IMHO, is "yes, sometimes," but unless you are playing multi-player, you can ditch a game that is no longer fun for you. (Nobody has to know! )

Everybody is talking about Civ4 like it's been here forever, but even for those of us who lined up on the very first day of sales, it's only been about nine months. And less, since refinements like "Marathon Mode" have been implemented. I look at it as a continuing learning process. I played Qin recently in an aggressive setting to learn about Cho crossbows and found out I couldn't use them really because gunpowder came in too fast. I'm not losing in that game, but haven't gone back to it, because the reason I started it is no longer valid and my time is valuable too.

Do what you want, when you want!

[Eogen]

Actually, the dark ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages) were so named because, due to the eliptical nature of the revolution of the earth around the sun, it was literally darker in the northern hemisphere during the middle ages.

Geeze, you people and your 'history'.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Eogen
Actually, the dark ages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages) were so named because, due to the eliptical nature of the revolution of the earth around the sun, it was literally darker in the northern hemisphere during the middle ages.

Geeze, you people and your 'history'.

I am pretty sure you're joking, but considering some of the stuff I've seen spouted as fact on these forums, I'm not ruling out the possibility you aren't.

[TheNagus]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru


I am pretty sure you're joking, but considering some of the stuff I've seen spouted as fact on these forums, I'm not ruling out the possibility you aren't.

He's gotta be joking. Or REALLY stupid - the link he gave says the opposite to what he does

When the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us, due to the paucity of historical records compared with later times.

I felt obliged to create an account just to point that out...

[Blaupanzer]

Of course, the "Dark Ages" were only dark (lacking much literary and artistic input) in parts of Western and central Europe. The same time period was jumping with art, literature, and science in the Arab, Chinese, and central American societies.

So how does all of that relate to Marathon Mode?

[Blaupanzer]

Tried it a couple times; much better feel; more like Civ I. However, as has been noted, this speed is very unforgiving. Forget to do or change something at the proper moment and your whole strategy can be blown to shreds.

Cannot get my head around raging barbs though, seems almost masochistic to do that to yourself, even though one AI civ was blown away by barbs in one of the games.

Thanx for the tip folks.

[Generaldoktor]

I play Raging Barbs a lot, but keep my difficulty down around Noble most of the time to compensate. Raging Barbs does seem to give you the equivalent of a level of difficulty itself, in the early game. Barbs eventually disappear as the map is settled. It can get sort of like a video game though, like "Space Invaders," "Shoot him, there's another, shoot him; there's another, shoot him!" Probably the most masochistic is with Marathon speed, large Highlands map with continuous mountain chains, (Lakes map may work as well.) The barbs hide and appear everywhere in between the mountain ranges, building actual little civilizations; the AI civs have trouble dealing with them in those numbers and are restricted in settler spamming and a lot of their similar tricks. It is not unusual to see AI Civs killed off early in this; (Mansa Musa died out last night in a game I was playing like this; Toku frequently does too; both rely heavily on settler spam, early on, to their detriment.) The barbs in these games become like an extra player, at least early; and loyal to no one. It is an effect I like.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

yes the barbs are great it has to be raging

[iamsomeguy]

This mode is interesting, but is not what I want.

Everything scales. I ended up stacking multiple workers so they get their work done quicker, and I *still* run through technologies and have obsolete units before I have a chance to not only build them but even use them.

This really isn't anything other than just a scaled longer version of the normal speed game.

what it *should* be is this:

extremely long time to research techs

everything else normal

that way you can build an ancient city, have warrior and archer armies, and each tech is a HUGE deal.

Anyone know how to make the game do this?

[Datajack Franit]

I´m about to win my first Emperor game on Marathon, and my biggest complains are 3:

1- upgrading units just doesn´t happen. I can´t spend 500 gold for upgrading ONE cannon into ONE artillery. I have 45 cannons, go figure out

2- on marathon, researching ancient ages techs with a starting city and no terraforming costs between 24 and 34 turns. no need to say that the players founding Buddhism and Hinduism have something like 50 turns of advantage on the human players focusing on Judaism, 150 on Christianity, 200 on Confucianism. IF you manage to grab a religion, the rest of the world will be united against you. In this Emperor game I´m winning I NEVER converted to any religion, losing all the advantages like Org.Rel 25% and Theo +2 exp. per unit. Not to mention losing the free spy in those cities that were touched my my religion (I focused on a religious beeline, Polytheism and Monotheism, got them both but couldn´t convert because the rest of the world was either Buddhist or Confucianist) I couldn´t just have enemies attacking me every 20 turns.


3- Culture has no place on Marathon. Even in big cities, Cathedrals, Colosseums and Universities are taboo, as they take at least 20-25 turns before factories. And don´t make me start with the factories, my capital took 35 turns to build it. I gave up building power plants after the rest of the world gained back 600 score points of advantage. Crazy

[Yaga]

I can't speak towards Emperor mode per se, but your criticism founding religions is one of things I find challenging about Marathon mode.

Unless one starts with Mysticism, it is incredibly difficult to found any ancient religion. However *because* of the long turn scale, it is much easier and effective to spread the later Era religions -- a well developed Medieval or Renaissance city can put Missionaries out in 4-5 turns. It's an investment to do so, but if you found, say, Islam or Christianty, a Civ with two or three decent cities can spread the religion in 40 or 50 turns -- that's 15-30 missionaries, which should give substancial coverage.

Then there's the tack I took in my present game (Marathon, Large, Monarch) playing at the Romans. After waiting to see which was the dominant religion on my continet, and aquiring the Great Person necessary to build the shrine, I simply declared war, marched my Praetorians, took the city, built the shrine, and then sued for peace. Since I had already acepted the religion (which was by far the more popular) and propigated it through my kingdom everyone was only -1 upset with me (declared war on their friend) but that was more than made up for by the +'s for then spreading said religion throughout the continet, and onto the next...

[Generaldoktor]

I always play on Marathon, but rarely above Noble and never successfully, (above Noble.) This game is less than a year old. A bunch of guys who had "mastered" Civ3 seem to regard it as their right that they win all the time at the highest difficulty levels. I don't think Firaxis intended that to be common. There's a thread right now called "Civ is dead" where people are saying this is the "ultimate" Civ and there will never be a Civ5. Maybe, but if people on the design team are looking at it that way, they probably expect you to take years to really learn how to win on Emperor/Raging Barbs/Marathon (I always play with Raging Barbs, too; and there has been a lot of whining about that,) and years more to win at the highest level with the other complicating conditions. That's what makes games last. (Despite stinky AI, there are still people playing Alpha Centauri, including me. That only had one expansion pack and no subsequent variants.)

Yaga's idea shows a way to win at Marathon by developing religion. Datajack's complaint I think derives mostly from the difficulty level. (Maybe you just aren't ready for it, dude--sorry, bad joke. ) I'm doing fine at Noble, but both there and the one game I'm running currently on Prince, you have to adopt the old kung fu mentality and fight without fighting (for long.)

It is clear AI attack more frequently on the higher difficulty levels. Right now, on Noble, by spurring trade and spreading religion and avoiding aggressive moves myself in favor of inner development, I can avoid war for centuries. (You can usually and I stress usually acquire enough cities in the early game territory grab to develop culture/religion/wonders, etc., without war, if that's all you want and you are not artificially attuned to war by your own temperament, Civ3 experience, multi-player experience, this last a whole different ball game, etc.)

In my Prince game, I was attacked. But like the kung fu master, I waged defensive war, which I am d-mn sight better at than AI and frustrated them to where they made peace after a reasonably short time. I was invited by a third party to join them to resume the war. I did, got poor results, but kept all my cities and eventually again got a treaty out of the b-stard, (Montezuma, of course.) Now I am developing my religion and culture again, while devoting some cities, (I have about six,) to building more and better defensive units. I'm about halfway up the power grid, far enough that nobody's seeing me as an easy mark. I might have to fight to get higher, but some of those above might take each other out and I have culture and religion now working my way, (I got my religion early; made it a priority in the early game, in fact, but I am Asoka. OTOH, if I didn't see religion as a priority, I probably would have picked a different leaderhead as all my games are custom.)

I haven't tried this on Emperor, but I can't help thinking, with practice, it can be done.

[Yaga]

Something not often mentioned (it seems) is that Marathon is better the more Civs you have. 16-18 Civs on a Large map is just about right for me -- you only get 2-3 cities at the start, but so does everyone else.

Also, for what it's worth -- here is a a screen shot of my best-yet Civ4 score -- 71,000 Monarch / Marathon game w/ iirc 16 civs, a large Terra map, raging barbs, aggressive AI, and random personalities -- everything else Vanilla.

[Generaldoktor]

I'm generally playing with 10-14 civs and I think it is correct that more is better for the live player. AI will fight each other for space, as well as you. They get distracted and to some extent intimidated. For example, if they attack you, which of the other 12 might come up on their rear? Even with the basic level of artificial "intelligence" currently, they have some concept of odds of success vs. multiple avenues of counterattack. I've intimidated them by myself, using principles of the defensive war I describe above. If I have enough moderate to high XP points behind pinchpoints and walled cities, I make myself look unattractive and suspect that is true even on these higher levels and even if I have a different religion.

One point I didn't make earlier is, not all of them are ready to war over religion, given a certain demonstration of strength by yourself. Isabella, we know is; probably Montezuma, maybe Saladin. From the rest, you may not get the trades you want and they may try to land grab around you, but I'm not sure you are guaranteed AI aggression just because of differing religion, if you are accomodating and non-aggressive other ways. For me, I like to have my own religion.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I agree about founding an early religion - it's quite difficult if you aren't starting with mysticism. I can't say I've had too many problems with lost time due to bad decisions - maybe because I catch my bad decisions fairly quickly, so they do less damage on Marathon than on normal speed.

I may have gotten lucky in my current game, but I think I'm atop the score chart for 2 reasons:

1. Luck. I started next to two really unpopular Civs (Caesar and Isabella). They were the odd ones out in our little Bud club, so nobody objected to me crushing Caesar (who was actually ahead of me on the scoreboard) and later Isabella. Those two wars doubled my city count. And because there are 13 AIs on a Terra map, the others have no space to grow in.

2. Cossacks. This may be luck, too, but I've had Cossacks up and running for 100 years and can still outgun any AI as a result. I don't think units get obsolete too fast in general; the maceman age was pretty short.

[Son of David]

Forgive me, but I've had a brainwave.

I think most of us see that the classical age is over quite quickly, and the years BCE are over almost in a flash.

On the other hand the medieval era seems to last forever.

So - to simulate the intense intellectual and physical achievements of ancient civilization, and the subsequent stagnation of the Middle Ages, the classical age should be re-scaled to last a little longer by 1) shortening the number of years a turn takes in the early game, 2) reducing the cost of the earlier techs, and 3) making solid medieval technologies like bureaucracy and philosophy a little more expensive.

Although it seems strange to me that philosophy is so late on in the tech tree considering that many parts of the world had sophisticated philosophy by the 600s BCE. In Civ4 philosophy is usually invented several hundreds of years CE.

[Generaldoktor]

Actually Paper is pretty late on the tech tree too, given ancient Egyptian papyrus; and so is gunpowder; evidence exists now that the Chinese used it against barbarian invaders and in their civil wars from the 10th century A.D. and maybe before; "bombards" and explosives, if not handguns.

I suppose you could simulate this by beelining, to some extent, but all those are pretty far back on the tech tree.

Playing Ragnar recently, I got a pretty good run on the "macemen" (Berserker) period, but yeah, it probably is a little short. So is early gunpowder, (musketmen.)

The idea of extending would be worth considering by Firaxis, but game balance considerations are always in play when contemplating change of something that major. Everybody is seemingly agreeing, more so, I think, since "Warlords," that the game works pretty well now. I've sort of been going along with the crowd. But I'm one of those people who"s never pleased.

[pdc_heavy]

I tried a Marathon game last night (small/fractal/noble) but had to quit. After two hours of real time play, I had five cities with only a warrior and archer each and was getting creamed by Monte, my immediate neighbor. By the time I could make a unit, it only replaced the one that had been beaten after the onslaught by Monte's archers and jags. I felt like a punching bag with only one finger that kept hitting "enter."

So, with only two hours to go in my gaming "session," I dropped the challenge to Warlord, added raging barbs and aggressive AI, and began an Epic game. I am finding the Epic a little bit more well-paced than Marathon or Normal. Of course, it's no longer the pace that is the problem but the challenge level is now too low.

One of these days, I'll find the right combination.

[Generaldoktor]

IMHO Marathon is better suited to big maps. Granted, Monte, aided by his early UU, has a reputation for early rush, but if you had had a little more space for everybody to grow in on that map, the slower progress of unit/improvement development would not register so harshly.

Marathon mode is not for everybody. Even on maps where you have a buffer, mistakes in production are grossly modified. My current game isn't totally scr-wed yet, but I have a marvelous army I've built up of Cho-ko-nu and now I find Catherine, my major rival, has beelined to gunpowder.

[pdc_heavy]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor
IMHO Marathon is better suited to big maps. Granted, Monte, aided by his early UU, has a reputation for early rush, but if you had had a little more space for everybody to grow in on that map, the slower progress of unit/improvement development would not register so harshly.

You're right about that. My problem is that my laptop is below the recommended specs and larger maps aren't an option (for sanity's sake). But I love the idea of a longer-paced game. I wasn't able to really play the game until the last patch was released. But I've been a fan since Colonization was released back in the day.

Marathon mode is not for everybody. Even on maps where you have a buffer, mistakes in production are grossly modified. My current game isn't totally scr-wed yet, but I have a marvelous army I've built up of Cho-ko-nu and now I find Catherine, my major rival, has beelined to gunpowder.

Crazy. In my game, I'm stuck between a barb city and Peter during the ancient era. I am hoping that their respective warmongering will take each other out, while I, as India, max out the spiritual aspects while building decent defensive units.

Every game is different in the Civ series. I really couldn't ask for more.

[Dis]

Originally posted by pdc_heavy
I tried a Marathon game last night (small/fractal/noble) but had to quit. After two hours of real time play, I had five cities with only a warrior and archer each and was getting creamed by Monte, my immediate neighbor. By the time I could make a unit, it only replaced the one that had been beaten after the onslaught by Monte's archers and jags. I felt like a punching bag with only one finger that kept hitting "enter."

So, with only two hours to go in my gaming "session," I dropped the challenge to Warlord, added raging barbs and aggressive AI, and began an Epic game. I am finding the Epic a little bit more well-paced than Marathon or Normal. Of course, it's no longer the pace that is the problem but the challenge level is now too low.

One of these days, I'll find the right combination.

I hear you, I have trouble finding the right difficulty combination.

My last game I was playing a lower diff. level. But I started off with no access to horses, iron, or copper. It made things interesting. I had to hold people off with archers until I got to the new continent (terra map). I was playing with aggressive ai. (but for the first time I was playing with no barbs).

[Prussia]

Marathon is almost a must with some maps, such as terra maps.

[Dis]

my latest game is on marathon. I'm finding it to be acceptable. It's also great when going for domination wins as I am. Gives me more time to use my units. Right now I'm playing a large terra map as the americans. I love terra maps.

It even gave me time to use the Navy Seals. Although it's still a silly uu. I feel stupid building navy seals en masse. But I never built them before. I actually found them useful as my cavalry couldn't crack riflemen very easily, but my navy seals could. It helped bridge the gap between cavs and tanks. The slower movement wasn't too much of a problem. As I wasted just as many turns waiting for my cavs to heal up in a city.

I'm about to finish my game right now. I have about 40% of the world area, and need 60% for the win.

I'm finding making mistakes not to be too costly. I had no access to copper, iron, or horses. So I had to pop rush some archers. I got lucky though. 2 archers were able to defend against a swordsman and axeman attack. I was very close to losing a city.

I sacrificed 4 population to try to get a university up to culturually take over some iron. The funny thing is I never did get that iron until after I got a city up and running on another continent with access to iron. It finally took a wonder (rushed with a GE) to get the iron on the main continent.

[Prussia]

I modded the SEALS and made them 27 strength...
Just cus it pissed me off.

[pdc_heavy]

Originally posted by Prussia
I modded the SEALS and made them 27 strength...
Just cus it pissed me off.

[alexander2k]

Well, I guess this thread is pretty old. Yaga and Hengist are having and interesting converstion, though.

The main point of the Dark Ages for me is that reason more or less went out of fashion during that time.

I am not saying it didn't exist. I am saying that it was a time when being too clever was considered by many to be a distraction from the real business of having a relationship with God that would enable one to get into heaven.

By contrast, Muslim society was developing all kinds of tremendous advancements, until they too were fell into the habit of valuing the afterlife more that the current one.

"Dark Ages" to me means there was no popular, sustained inquiry into how the world, works.

So the origins of the name or how many documents survied, is a bit beside the point.