Great General generation on Marathon

[Tis I]

Since it came out, the marathon mode has been my game of choice. However, i'm not particularly warmongerish, generally the only wars i fight are those when the ai declares war on me. However, in my first warlords game, i chose the Zulu and specifically made a point of being an agressive a-hole. I've conquered China (about 8 cities), vassalized the Aztecs (captured 5 cities, razed a couple more), and vassalized the Ottomans (captured one city, razed two more). Despite all of this warmongering i've only generated one great general.

The default experience thresholds on maration are 90 experience for the first general and the 180 more for the second. Is it just me or does this seem like way too much?

[Will9]

For one in the late game you can research Fasism.

[snoopy369]

I have to admit i'm not a huge marathoner, but 90/180 doesn't seem too bad for marathon, for me... are you playing marathon/large map (many AIs)? I'm assuming you play at least "standard", anyway...

My feeling with GGs (on any size map, any speed) is you won't get many from just occasional warring. From most of my SP games with normal speed and standard map (ie, most games), I have about 2 GGs when I play my 'normal' warring, IE not very much (like you describe), and about 5 when I play aggressive, IE try to take out each civ as I go.

One thing - what difficulty level are you playing at? Anything below noble you won't get that many GGs simply because the AI will have fewer units to kill. My above numbers are at prince; at higher levels you'll get presumably even more due to even more units to kill.

[Akaoz]

Problem is, the bigger the map and longer the game, the less impact one general makes. (As a warrior.)

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by Akaoz
Problem is, the bigger the map and longer the game, the less impact one general makes. (As a warrior.)

As it should. Essentially, in a larger map each tile covers less "actual" geography. This reduction in scale should apply to units as well. Thus, one General on a huge map is worth much less than one General on a duel map. Afterall, a huge map world is, in theory, filled with great people.

[Akaoz]

Shouldn't I by that logic get a lot more generals?

[SebP]

Re: Great General generation on Marathon

Originally posted by Tis I
The default experience thresholds on maration are 90 experience for the first general and the 180 more for the second. Is it just me or does this seem like way too much?

That seems like a design error too me. This is the normal speed thresholds tripled. The problem is, you probably don't fight 3 times as many battles on marathon to take out a civ as you would on normal speed since unit costs are increased along with the rest, and even if they weren't bigger armies also mean higher maintenance with not that much more cities.
So you are getting less when to make them matter on a larger map you should actually be getting more.

I'm playing on normal speed normal size and i got 2 and a half great generals on my first war against the aztecs (gunpowder age, janissary action, love them) taking 6 cities and defending 2 of my own.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Akaoz
Shouldn't I by that logic get a lot more generals?

Exactly!

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, that is true...for cities that are around a lot longer the tripling of other great person costs makes perfect sense, but on marathon, I wouldn't say I have had any more wars or accrued any more experience than on 'quicker' modes of play...so the great general requirement should be about the same.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Yeah, that is true...for cities that are around a lot longer the tripling of other great person costs makes perfect sense, but on marathon, I wouldn't say I have had any more wars or accrued any more experience than on 'quicker' modes of play...so the great general requirement should be about the same.

i haven't played warlord on marathon, but that logic makes sense to me somewhat. i'm not sure it should be about the same. the great general threshold probably should be scaled up at slower game speeds somewhat. but i doubt it needs to be scaled up by as much as the threshold for the other great people. the reason being what others mention: because the cost of units on the slower game speeds is higher.

[rjwoer]

Yes, that definitely makes sense. So has anyone uncovered the line of XML code we need to change?

Also, I am curious if anyone else thinks combating barbarians should allow the accruement of XP points toward a GG? I know a lot of you are going to shake your heads, but I just spent two and a half hours during a normal speed game to fight off and conquer a raging barbarian infestation that severly hampered my early game development. And after finally stamping the barbs and several cities out, I had accrued not one single GG XP.

If not the full XPs one gets from fighting battles with other nations, how about Barbs giving 50% XPs? It seems like some kind of GG benefit should come from the kind of full-fledged war I just had.

Thoughts?

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by rjwoer
If not the full XPs one gets from fighting battles with other nations, how about Barbs giving 50% XPs? It seems like some kind of GG benefit should come from the kind of full-fledged war I just had.

Thoughts?

50% XP with a limit of 1st GG value (30XP on normal).

[Proteus_MST]

I agree,
the barbarians should at least partially count towards the 1. GG,
espeacially if you fight them within your cultural borders.

After all there is already a cap on the XP you get by fighting barbarians.

And in reality there were great leaders which got very much experience fighting barbarians, especially in rome, for example Gaius Julius Caesar.

[jdchambe]

Originally posted by rjwoer

Also, I am curious if anyone else thinks combating barbarians should allow the accruement of XP points toward a GG? I know a lot of you are going to shake your heads, but I just spent two and a half hours during a normal speed game to fight off and conquer a raging barbarian infestation that severly hampered my early game development. And after finally stamping the barbs and several cities out, I had accrued not one single GG XP.

If not the full XPs one gets from fighting battles with other nations, how about Barbs giving 50% XPs? It seems like some kind of GG benefit should come from the kind of full-fledged war I just had.

Thoughts?

My thoughts are mixed on that. In the case you describe, where the barbarians were giving you a good challenge, then yeah, it seems fair. But on the other hand, barbarians are much stupider than the AI, and will throw themselves suicidally against more powerful units for eternity.

So if they contribute towards GG points it should be less. 50% sounds reasonable. Another possibility maybe would be to place a cap on how much the civilization as a whole can get from Barbarians? Enough for at most 1 GG for example? Then sometime between the first GG and the second GG barbarians aren't worth anything anymore?

That would be consistent with the way xp from barbarians works for units.

[dregor]

I think the reason Barbarians aren't counted towards the GG points is because it's fairly exploitable. You can just sit your troops outside the cities and farm the barbarians as they come out to attack without the negatives of being in a state of war.