Game speed effects?

[xts3]

I'm wondering does game speed have any effects on gameplay besides just increasing the number of turns?

[Shaka II]

It has a big effect, but it depends a lot on what victory conditon you're playing for, and what map type, and size your playing. Marathon allows more turns to move units in proportion to the time it takes to build improvements or research tech advances. Also, unit build times are reduced, allowing more units. These are features mainly of interest for those that like to experience an era without units becoming obsolete so fast. Also, to conquer a map, especially a large map, you need time to move your units across the world. Marathon offers that.

For the space race or culture builder, I don't think it matters much, but there are hybrid players, e.g., builder/warmongers and this benefits them as well, to have more turns, maybe conquer a neighbor or two, and continue on to a culture or space victory.

On Marathon, you can actually forget about time, get lost in the game, in the era, the way Civ was meant to be.

[Badtz Maru]

Re: Game speed effects?

Originally posted by xts3
I'm wondering does game speed have any effects on gameplay besides just increasing the number of turns?

In slower gamespeeds, the amount of culture needed to expand boundaries is increased relative to the increase in the number of turns. Great Artists produce more culture than in Normal. Of course, the amount of culture needed for a culture victory is also increased. The amount of food needed to grow the city increases, and the amount of hammers you get from pop and buy rushing is changed as well. On Marathon (three times as many turns as normal), the hammer cost for buildings and wonders is multiplied by 3, but the cost of military units is only multiplied by 2. The time workers take to complete improvements is also increased, but I'm not sure if it's by the same factor as other build times.

[couerdelion]

Most things are scaled to the speed you are playing so there ought to be no difference in the passage of time.

The biggest difference is units because these have more time to move. Comparing Marathon to Standard and your units move three times as quickly relative to the general flow of the game.

There are a few quirks of the game that will show up on slower speeds. One of these is that pop-rushing can be quite profitable at Epic level - you can get twice the hammers that you get on Standard while the speed is just 1.5x

[cynyck]

Yes, the quirks. Another quirk I have noticed that may make an epic map easier is that forest grows back more often in the earliest part of the game. And I realize it will not grow back on a developed square. But having more forest to chop makes it a bit easier I think.

[Smellycowsquid]

Originally posted by cynyck
Yes, the quirks. Another quirk I have noticed that may make an epic map easier is that forest grows back more often in the earliest part of the game. And I realize it will not grow back on a developed square. But having more forest to chop makes it a bit easier I think.

Yay Industrialization!!

[Blake]

You also get uh less anarchy on slower speeds and can switch more often, since the 5 turns between anarchy means much less with 3x as many turns.

Barbarians spawn at a constant rate, which makes them harder to fight on Marathon because you train units slower.

A serious difference is hut bounty and pillage income, it's constant. So on Marathon you can't fund reserach with huts to anywhere near the same extent, and pillaging is more for denial than profit.

[phooey73]

Don't they adjust the anarchy period accordingly?

I get anarchy periods of 5 and sometimes even 7 turns on Marathon.

On normal speed, its usually just 1 turn or 2. I've switched two civics sometimes and the anarchy period was still just 1.

[Shaka II]

Anarchy seems to depend on several factors including empire size, game speed and probably population. I've had around 8 or 9 turns of anarchy on Marathon with around 32 cities, standard pangea. This was switching two civics at once, free speech and state property. When I came out of anarchy I won, by domination! But I heard of someone who had something like 14 turns on marathon.

[Nugog]

I believe the difficulty level also has an impact on the length of anarchy periods

[phooey73]

Playing on Noble, Marathon, Archipelago, almost 90 cities now. Changing a single civic takes 9 turns! Each additional civic adds 2 turns.

I hadn't considered the game level factor. The last time I played a normal length game, I was still playing on Warlord.

Edit: Forgot to add, Huge map

[nbarclay]

The biggest advantage in anarchy is relatively early in the game, before a civ gets big enough for anarchy to stretch out over multiple turns. For example, what would be one third of a turn of anarchy on normal speed would round up to one turn, while tripling the value for Marathon would still be only one turn (assuming it scales as a multiple of three).

Another difference is that on slower speeds, the time workers spend moving from one place to another is shorter in comparison to the time it takes to complete worker jobs. That can make it a little bit more practical to "waste" worker turns moving to tiles that are a higher priority to improve.