Game Speeds

[The_Paladin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Sounds like a bug actually

Originally posted by Willem


Well I wouldn't know how it compares to Standard since Marathon is all I play. And I think you can't really compare the two and expect them to be the same. For one thing, with Marathon taking much longer, there's bound to be more wars waged. If units took 3x to build, they'd probably be very short, very mediocre wars. All I know for sure though is that for me the speed plays well.

Agreed. If we work on the assumption that the intention of marathon and epic speeds are to make the move times of the units less significant and units last longer before becoming obsolete then Civ4, then that’s exactly what making the units cost 2x to build does. That's what I like about the speed.

For me it plays well too - once I have my empire founded. However I find it really odd that strategies involving wonders / growth that work perfectly on normal speeds fail miserably on marathon speed. Those strategies in no way involve military units, what the change in speed was intend for, but still are drastically affected. To me that's an un-intended side-effect of the game speed change and is, IMO, due 90% to the altered costs of settlers / workers in comparison to growth times.

For an example take the suggestion someone made a while back (I can't remember who anymore) to allow your capital to grow at the beginning while building Stonehenge. When it reaches its happiness limit, it throws out two settlers, then continues to finish the henge, proceed to pyramids, and the oracle. This is doable (depending on the difficulty) quite easily on normal speed but on that same difficulty try it on marathon and you will have a much harder time.

Or try an oracle CS slingshot and compare the average number of cities the computer has after the slingshot on normal to what they have on marathon. They will have quite a few more on the later speed. I don't think that a non-military strategy should be affected so much by a military change.

But as I say this is just my opinion. It seems generally either people aren't as picky as me (that's understandable ) or like things the way they are. If that's the case that's fine by me. For any people out there like me that find this to be an issue, the fix is like this: Alter the costs of the settler and the worker in the XML files. If you are playing marathon, make the settler cost 150 (so that x2 = 300) and the worker cost 90 (so that x2 = 180). Problem solved and I personally like the speed much more with those changes and my working strategies migrate between speeds much better.

[arvcran]

I got used to standard and felt any thing above that was slow. Just because you have to get used to it not to mention a little more time between things happening.

I suspect that playing with extended game speeds is that you have more time to use the unit types between having new ones available. And it probably favors the human player and increases the chances of success at higher difficulty levels. though this is light speculation on my part ;-).

[JackRudd]

I play at Epic, but would like to play at Marathon at some point. (The patch is too large for me to download.)

[uberfish]

Slower speeds do help the human player quite significantly, because you have a longer window to exploit a military tech advantage and the AI isn't close to as good at that. Normal speed + continents gives the most challenging game IMHO and I guess it's what the AI was optimised for.

Epic feels less rushed - on the other hand domination games on standard speed take quite long enough to finish as it is.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

marathon all the way! good thing I got my Civ4 after the 1.52 patch.... I played 1/2 a game on normal once to see what it was like and stopped in the Med. era (after less than 1 hour) because it seemed pointless.

Marathon feels just right... don't think I would want an even slower speed. Anyone ever play faster than normal speed?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Tokyo Sexwale
Marathon feels just right... don't think I would want an even slower speed. Anyone ever play faster than normal speed?

I tried Quick once just to see what it was like, but I didn't like it much. I quit just part way through. Marathon is the only speed for me now.

Mind you, Quick would probably be a good way of trying out different strategies.

[MightyTiny]

I've completely abandoned all other speeds than Marathon. The changes in the proportions of build times with units vs. buildings really do change the game... and for the better, much better!

Large wars at any times, using the current technology, become feasible, because units remain usable without having to upgrade for a long time.

Also chopping for settlers is indeed recommended in marathon!

For those that don't know about effective chopping to speed up your early game, you simply start building something else than a settler, start choping down a forest, and on the turn before the chop is finished, switch production to settler. The settler then gets the hammers from the chop, after which you switch back to whatever you were building before, and repeat the process with another forest.

That way, you can produce settlers while still allowing your city to grow, AND building units or buildings.

[Datajack Franit]

Now that my pc allows me to play Civ4, I´d really love someone to post a marathon guide, as at some point of my game I suffer economic collapse due to either too early or too late expansion

[couerdelion]

My question is really about how fast time moves

Making units relatively cheaper is always going to promote a more military game. But for other things rest, if general building time is at 3x then one would assume time would move at around one-third of the pace of normal speed. The time period seen in Marathon games seem to suggest that the movement begins at around 20 years per turn which is one half of normal.

So with the exception of settlers and workers, this would mean that development in a marathon game would be 33% behind that of one at normal speed at a similar point in time (eg 0 AD)

[Willem]

Re: My question is really about how fast time moves

Originally posted by couerdelion
Making units relatively cheaper is always going to promote a more military game. But for other things rest, if general building time is at 3x then one would assume time would move at around one-third of the pace of normal speed. The time period seen in Marathon games seem to suggest that the movement begins at around 20 years per turn which is one half of normal.

So with the exception of settlers and workers, this would mean that development in a marathon game would be 33% behind that of one at normal speed at a similar point in time (eg 0 AD)

It's all here:

iGrowthPercent - 300
iTrainPercent - 200
iConstructPercent - 300
iCreatePercent - 300
iResearchPercent - 300
iBuildPercent - 300
iImprovementPercent - 300
iGreatPeoplePercent - 300
iCulturePercent - 300
iAnarchyPercent - 300
iBarbPercent - 400
iFeatureProductionPercent - 300
iUnitDiscoverPercent - 300
iUnitHurryPercent - 300
iUnitTradePercent - 300
iUnitGreatWorkPercent - 300
iGoldenAgePercent - 200
iHurryPercent - 33
iHurryConscriptAngerPercent - 300
iInflationPercent - 10
iInflationOffset - - 200 (minus 200)


GameTurnInfos

iYearIncrement - 20
iTurnsPerIncrement - 100
iYearIncrement - 10
iTurnsPerIncrement - 200
iYearIncrement - 5
iTurnsPerIncrement - 200
iYearIncrement - 2
iTurnsPerIncrement - 350
iYearIncrement - 1
iTurnsPerIncrement - 350

Man that was a pain to format, I had to remove all the tabs or it was just a bunch of numbers.

[couerdelion]

Re: Re: My question is really about how fast time moves

Originally posted by Willem

GameTurnInfos

iYearIncrement - 20
iTurnsPerIncrement - 100
iYearIncrement - 10
iTurnsPerIncrement - 200
iYearIncrement - 5
iTurnsPerIncrement - 200
iYearIncrement - 2
iTurnsPerIncrement - 350
iYearIncrement - 1
iTurnsPerIncrement - 350

Man that was a pain to format, I had to remove all the tabs or it was just a bunch of numbers.

Thanks Willem that explains things a lot

By my reckoning, if we equate 1 normal turn = 3 marathon turns then

4000 BC (Normal) = 4000 BC (Marathon)
2000 BC (Normal) = 1500 BC (Marathon)
375 BC (Normal) = 0 AD (Marathon)
0 AD (Normal) = 225 AD (Marathon)
500 AD (Normal) = 525 AD (Marathon)

[Aeson]

I think game speed and mapsize should be paired up for the "real" CIV experience. The smaller maps on Quick, Medium maps on Normal, bigger maps on Epic. Otherwise the (lack of) scaling of unit movement to game speed throws off the balance.

I don't think Marathon is as well balanced as the others. That's to be expected as the game mechanics were for the most part balanced before Marathon came into existance. From what little I've seen, the Marathon timeline is also off from the others by quite a bit when comparing victory conditions. (And thus Scores are off as well.)

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Tokyo Sexwale
marathon all the way! good thing I got my Civ4 after the 1.52 patch.... I played 1/2 a game on normal once to see what it was like and stopped in the Med. era (after less than 1 hour) because it seemed pointless.

Marathon feels just right... don't think I would want an even slower speed. Anyone ever play faster than normal speed?

Many players in the multiplayer lobby insist on playing on quick mode. I do not like quick, and prefer normal for multiplayer. I have never been able to get people willing to try epic in multiplayer, many people you find in the lobby favor the instant gratification/ quake type games.

I am playing a marathon game currently, and it is fun, although I am more accustomed to the pace of normal and epic in single player, and I think I prefer the pace. My gaming style really has not changed a whole lot between what I do on epic/normal and marathon.