Marathon mode is excellent

[Hauptman]

Most definatly closer to the feel of previose civs.

First tech in civ3 often took 32 turns. settler production 30 turns. and i often had time to defeat entire civs with a single unit (as in attacking and ending a war with knights, or imortals, not killing everything with 1 solo guy. =P) C IV just completely changed that prior to marathon. a tech every 4 turns means by the time my new musketmen reach the BORDER they need to be upgraded.

Plus with the longer speeds you are required to be ready for war before it happens. when you can crank out a unit per turn from most cities its kind of makes it ok to run a skeleton crew.


I am most definatly a fan of the marathon speed. but something is unfair with them as i can out tech and out build the AIs on an emporer one-city-challange. I got 3 of the ancient wonders all in one city (pyramids oracle and parthenon), just go ahead and try that on standard speed.

[MightyTiny]

Originally posted by Hauptman
I am most definatly a fan of the marathon speed. but something is unfair with them as i can out tech and out build the AIs on an emporer one-city-challange. I got 3 of the ancient wonders all in one city (pyramids oracle and parthenon), just go ahead and try that on standard speed.

I too have noticed that AI's are less eager to build wonders in the marathon mode.

I think that this is probably due to the fact that in the marathon mode, the difference in time needed to build a wonder, as opposed to a military unit is significantly increased, thus discouraging the AI's from building wonders, when they could build a moderate sized army in the same time.

I myself LOVE the marathon mode - it made a huge difference in the game. I've completed a couple of marathon games now, and my last one was the most interesting CIV4 game I've played, and what I did there could not have been done in other modes:

Due to diplomatic circumstances that arose, I ended up in active wars with nations that I didn't share borders with; there was a few world wars with Russia, Japan and France fighting more or less against the same opponents; Me (Arabia), US and India.

But my first war was against the Atzteks, who attacked me through Chinese territory (I had good relations with the chinese untill late in the game, when I HAD TO punish them for being backstabbing would-be-friends thoughout the game). I ended up Conquering the Atztek area so that I had an empire in two parts, with my original territory to the north, my new territory to the south tip of the continent, with the chinese in between. Through various complications I ended up having to conquer the French too, and their territory wasn't connected to EITHER of my two previous territories, but did have a border with the chinese again. So my empire was a sort of a Y shape upside down, with China in the nexus part that connects all the lines.

Ended up giving MAJOR help to both the US and India to help them defend against stronger enemies throughout the game, and in the end, when the Chinese canceled open borders with me disconnecting the parts of my empire, I beelined to bomber-requirement techs, built a sizeable fleet, some tanks, and... well, that was that for the Chinese.

I then built the UN, and both Washington and Gandhi voted for me for Diplo victory, which was more than enough.

But this game could only have happened in marathon mode; it was REALLY event-filled, plus I fought the sorts of long distance wars on a large map that would have ment that my units would have been obsolete much too fast in faster time settings.

How did I finance such an undertaking? I had the good fortune of founding Buddhism very early, and having it spread very widely... but still had to beeline to Communism to get state property after conquering the Atzteks, to save myself from financial troubles.

Even the finance-aspect of such a game would make it impossible in other time settings, simply because you'd have someone finish the Apollo program before you'd recovered financially from the first conquest enough to consider participating in further conflict.

That game really blew me away - marathon mode is simply awesome!

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by MightyTiny
I too have noticed that AI's are less eager to build wonders in the marathon mode.

I think that this is probably due to the fact that in the marathon mode, the difference in time needed to build a wonder, as opposed to a military unit is significantly increased, thus discouraging the AI's from building wonders, when they could build a moderate sized army in the same time.

That's both good and bad. Good that we get to build more wonders, bad that we get our heads handed to us when the AI, with their bigger army, decides that it's time for us to die. That's what Peter the Great said to me.

The present marathon game on standard/highlands/emperor is going fine. To my good fortune, just as I was gearing up for war with Tokugawa, he declares war on the very turn I discover construction, so I pumped out some catapults quickly to catch up with my axemen. Several turns later, Catherine attacks Tokugawa. Our mutual military struggle has now brought the two of us closer together.

This is my first big break, though I had only half as many cities as the AI to start. Tokugawa's empire will be mine, setting me up for the mid game. As long as he's done before he gets Samurai, which should be the case. Civil Service is 10 turns out for me, and no one else has it yet, nor machinery.

Marathon is awesome. Standard highlands with 11 civs is very fun and keeps barbs to a reasonable level. I suspect 7 civs on standard highlands would yield intense barbs again. 9 civs might be an interesting compromise, depending on what you like. It's the perfect speed for getting to fight wars with a set of units of that era without them becoming obsolete by the time they get through the war.

One problem with too few civs on a large map, even 15 civs on a huge highlands map, is getting religion. Usually, I just acquire it by roads and rivers from the AI, but there is a long time of fighting off the barbs before cultural borders close in and religions spread. In this case, I find Monarchy essential for keeping my civ happy, and beeline for it after alphabet.

Also, cutting the forests on highlands map down too soon, before health sources are hooked up, can lead to stunting also. So, a balance is required. Environmentalism comes with medicine, which makes forests (and jungle) so much more important, but the early game benefits are simply too strong to ignore.

[Dis]

Played my first marathon last night. It still was only a 4 hour game (according to the in game clock).

It takes a while to get used to the long build times. And I circumnavigated the globe around 1000 AD. Very early. I had military tradition very early as well. I hit alpha centauri in the 1800's- my best yet. Though amazingly I didn't get the score bonus I was anticipating. I guess you take a penalty when playing marathon mode.

Although I should note I was playing on warlord difficulty. This is way too easy for me. As I had a 2000 point lead over the next competitor. .

So while the years you discover stuff is unrealistic, it is a fun mode to play.

[Shaka II]

I think the score hit you take is for difficulty not speed. I suspect the advancement of tech is due to the easier difficulty level. But this will also be due to number of civs and other factors. You need to move up in difficulty.

[FoZFoRiC]

The dark ages are called that because the christians were destroying everything non-christian. They destroyed libraries, statues, temples, anything that reminded them of the 'heathens' and 'pagans'. Technology, architecture, and literature were lost to all but the wealthy and what survived were hidden away in church vaults. hell if grave-robbing was your only means to access books you'd call it the dark ages too!

[tomasson_lb89]

Hey guys,

really enjoyed reading this thread. Must try marathon speed soon. But won't it be really interesting if all of us played the same game and disussed in this thread or something?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova

At least you know the AI is suffering the same.

It's not though, it gets big bonuses against Barbs. Every level it gets the same bonuses that the human does while playing on Settler, it never goes up.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by tomasson_lb89

Hey guys,

really enjoyed reading this thread. Must try marathon speed soon. But won't it be really interesting if all of us played the same game and disussed in this thread or something?

That might be interesting, but it's also good hear from a variety of playing conditions and maps. I wouldn't have known how much fun highlands was if I hadn't come across this thread. It's also hard to get everyone to play on the same difficulty to compare.

Originally posted by Willem

It's not though, it gets big bonuses against Barbs. Every level it gets the same bonuses that the human does while playing on Settler, it never goes up.

From the few highlands maps I've played on marathon, I think barb bonus that the AI gets make that kind of map play considerably harder, maybe between one half and one whole a difficulty level. Also, I suspect that the great amount of forest for wood chopping affects things.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Willem


It's not though, it gets big bonuses against Barbs. Every level it gets the same bonuses that the human does while playing on Settler, it never goes up.

I find highlands easier because of the barbs, the reason is mostly AI brain-deadedness. Like the AI seems to prefer to create 2 garrisons per city, now these are GARRISONS, they wont move out. So an AI city could have 2 archers (or even Skirmishers) inside a city, watching while a lonely barb warrior runs around ripping up every improvement in sight. They need to actually use that big barb bonus to benefit from it.
The degree to which an AI prospers on highlands depends largely on whether they can quickly hook up horses, if they get chariots out then the chariots will mop up the barbs. Otherwise the barbs will rip up all their improvements and it'll be eons before the workers leave the cities again.

I find the sweet spot for AI being ruined by Barbs is Monarch, the barbs come thick and fast and the AI production bonuses aren't quite enough. At lower difficultues the barbs aren't so plentiful, at higher the AI has more significant production bonuses.

[Shaka II]

Perhaps, but Willem's point was that the AI gets the same huge barb bonus independent of level. So, in a barb heavy map, the AI may actually do better.

I can only attest to my experiences playing at emperor, but highlands seems to play as 1/2 a difficulty level harder than pangea. Yes the AI is bad at fighting, but is the bonus so large that it overcomes that?

I'm not sure about the wood chopping aspect.

[Lastpiper]

Strange, my few attempts at Marathon have resulted in me falling way behind the AI civs in technology, and very early in the game. Initially I had this problem at all speeds because I hadn't figured out the value of cottages, but I'm still getting these results after fixing my strategy. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there - has anybody else noticed this?

[marvinkosh]

Not only do you have to put the cottages down, you also have to make the city work them so that they grow and become useful, which likely as not means a corresponding decrease in food and/or hammer production.

If on the other hand a city has a large income from working certain tiles (some luxury resources, for example) then it may not be necessary to put many cottages nearby.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Lastpiper
Strange, my few attempts at Marathon have resulted in me falling way behind the AI civs in technology, and very early in the game. Initially I had this problem at all speeds because I hadn't figured out the value of cottages, but I'm still getting these results after fixing my strategy. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there - has anybody else noticed this?

I was having that problem myself, but in my last game I went for Writing much earlier than I used to, skipping the early techs. The religious ones in particular, I used to try for an early religion. Then I built a Library in my capital and created Scientists as soon as possible. Once I got enough GP points to build the Academy, I was pretty much the tech leader after that. Saladin gave me a bit of a run in the Industrial/Modern eras but that was partly because I was a bit slow building Universities when I had the chance. I eventually beat him again though. Mind you, I did manage to build the Great Library which no doubt made a difference.

So my tech priorities now are, get Archery for defence, go for Pottery to let my first Worker start building Cottages right away, then go for Writing to build the Library. At least it worked in my last game.

[Badtz Maru]

I finished a very interesting game on Marathon recently - a lot of fun, but I think that the developers should look at how the difficulty levels/map sizes and the adjustments mesh with the Marathon mode, because I just won a space race victory in 1120 AD.

I did a small continents map with the default number of civilizations, but played it on Warlord difficulty instead of my usual Noble (I'm not very good, I can only win about half the time on Noble unless I do a cheap chopping start, and play on Warlord sometimes if I want to experiment with strange strategies and not get wiped out by 1000 BC). My initial plan was to do a pseudo OCC as Mansa Musa and see how many religions I could get in my capital, but I found a scout, two workers, and agriculture from huts before I reseached Mysticism. I hated to see those workers go to waste, so I grabbed Bronze Working, chopped out a couple of settlers, Stonehenge, and the Pyramids. I skipped Mysticism so I could exploit my resources quickers, and I still got Judaism long before the AI got Buddhism (snagged by Hatty).

Long story short, I was cranking out so much commerce that by Classical times hardly any tech took more than 9 turns, and most were less. I hit Medieval well before 500 BC, when I finished the game in 1120AD I had every tech except Composites and Artillery (no need for them when my closest competitor were barely climbing out of the Renaissance era. Most modern techs were 3-7 turns to research, meaning they all would have been 1 or 2 on normal game length. Now, I know that tech rate goes faster relative to game year on Marathon because you have more time to build up your infrastructure, normally when I play Marathon on Noble the Industrial techs come about 200-300 years early, but most civs are relatively evenly matched.

I think the longer game speeds drastically increase the handicap the player gets on lower difficulty levels. This last game was fun, but I probably will have to create a custom difficulty level if I want to play something less than Noble on Marathon. With shorter game lengths, Warlord is easy, but if you sit back on one side of your continent and don't exploit your advantages to expand, the AI civs will catch up with you eventually. I achieved most of my Marathon blowout with only 5 cities (though I couldn't resist taking over my long-time friend Frederick when I started getting my industrial era units while he was still using longbows and swordsmen).