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]

What actually happened in the "Dark Ages"

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.