game speed: epic vs normal

[linkhan]

Just got the game last night and one of my dilemmas is
playing epic vs normal speed (haven't had time enough time to try and appreciate both yet. Only did normal so far)

My question is, how does the speed change your gaming experience? I've been reading all over the internet that the three game speeds were "tweaked so they'll all feel normal".

Sure, with epic, you take more turns to get techs and build things. Obviously, it takes more hours to finish a complete game. But what does that mean in the overall gameplay experience? With epic, will you feel more engrossed in each era. Will you be fighting wars longer?

Let me know.

[Solver]

Epic, generally, means that everything is more valuable. Units cost more to replace, a city takes longer to develop infrastructure, etc. It's more strategic and your decisions matter more, you have less room for error.

Play a few games on Normal at least so you get the hang of it. Then, if you're into having longer games, try Epic.

[Stuie]

"Normal" feels like Civ to me. If that makes any sense. I'm sure I'll try Epic in days to come though...

[Aeson]

Most things scale pretty well between the game speeds. Unit movement rates don't scale though. Which means you have more time to use various units in the field, and less time to react to other civ's units (relatively speaking).

For example, if on Quick you spot an enemy unit 3 tiles away from a city you have no units to defend with, you might be able to build a unit of your own fast enough to respond. If the same thing happens on Epic, bye bye city.

[Eyemaze]

Ooh changing to epic tonight

[wilebill2]

And if speed chess appeals to you, try quick on a Tiny map. What a hoot!

[Dominae]

Epic games are not necessarily longer - you just have to hit Enter faster and more often, that's all.

[Akaoz]

So in Epic there are more turns from 4000BC to 2050AD right? And things take longer to build and research.

All in all, doesn't that just make it easier to win by force? You will have more turns to move your armies...

Edit: I just finsihed a "normal" game and I felt a bit rushed. I never felt I had the time to go to war, because I was allways upgrading a unit or getting tech, I blinked and the year went from 1000AD to 1888AD...

[Aeson]

All in all, doesn't that just make it easier to win by force? You will have more turns to move your armies...

It should have that effect somewhat, unless playing against a "tough" opponent who can take advantage of the same effect just as well or better.

[dearmad]

None of these answers is clear...

I would like epic to mean you get more time between techs... simply that. So you cna play aorund with units more.

[Grumbold]

It sounds like you get longer between techs, but it takes longer to build a unit as well. The units you have can move further between techs because there are more turns, but you won't have time to create double the amount of units because they take twice as long too.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by dearmad
None of these answers is clear...

I would like epic to mean you get more time between techs... simply that. So you cna play aorund with units more.

That's something that you can edit fairly easily. I'd like to play a game in which tech growth and settler building is sloooooooooooooow, constructing building is slower than normal, but building units is normal.

[Akaoz]

Bosh: Sign me up for that Mod

[Fried-Psitalon]

Uh... it DOES take longer to get techs in Epic.

[dearmad]

uh... but does it ALSO take longer to get units and techs so in other words (explained YET AGAIN): is the WHOLE game just slowed down to a creep or is there a more refined blancing thing going on?

I imagined epic as: slower techs, slower buildings, but NOT much slower unit building... so the overall effect would be you feel you spend a bit more time in each phase of tech growth.

In my first normal game the "eras" went by so fast I sometimes never even built a unit from that era. I don't like that- I built one airplane before I had stealth jets! That's jsut not fun...

I want to sense I'm in an age of bronze and play with those units a bit. then later an age of wooden ships and sail- and play there for a bit. You know, at least 20-30 turns depending.

Iwish FIRAXIS (or a long-time BETA TESTER) would just lay out EXACTLY what entails "epic." I don't want to spend 3 days playing through one to finally jsut realize it's the whole game just slowed down to a crawl, meaning STILL not building many units from each era because they take SO long and just being able to move them more when I DO manage to build them.