What is more difficult?

[Ming]

As some might note... you can still be FAR above the "average" gamer, and still suck at Civ

Granted, MP is a different style game than SP, but it's really humbling to get rushed and wiped out by dog soldiers and archers early in the game (thanks snoopy)

[Blaupanzer]

Ming expresses it well. Try a little Deity whenever you get full of yourself. The barbs don't have time to start spawning before 2 AIs are fighting over your soon-to-be carcass.

[Boracks]

Back to the original topic.... (strange concept, I know). All below is IMHO.

Marathon speed helps the human, more time to actually use the units and the human uses them better. Also less chance of showing up at another civ's cities just as they deploy the tech that counters your army.

No tech brokering helps the human since you get some control. See a relatively friendly civ about to get something and don't want them to spread it around? Sell it to them cheap then they can't resell it. Also you can then boost a vassal's tech without them giving it to those that are still waiting to be vassalized.

Aggresive AI, no comment, haven't played with it. (So much for 90% of this thread )

[Jaybe]

No tech brokering helps the human since you get some control. See a relatively friendly civ about to get something and don't want them to spread it around? Sell it to them cheap then they can't resell it. Also you can then boost a vassal's tech without them giving it to those that are still waiting to be vassalized.

Absolutely! In the Hephmod I use, there is some tech leakage anyway (discounts given for known civs having a tech). OTOH, AI civs will not accept techs for which they have substantial research or may want to sell for themselves.

[Kaosium]

My experience has been that without 'Aggressive AI' the game will let me sit there and build and I might never get a declaration until I'm good and ready for it. With 'Aggressive AI' ticked I have to expect a war sooner rather than later, and when it comes I can expect another just as soon as I have the first one on the ropes. Perhaps by two or more powers sometimes. I never got 'chain-warred' before I started playing with 'Aggressive AI' and it's commonplace if you play it. That makes the game harder in my opinion, as you have to expect centuries if not millennia of total war sometimes.

[Ming]

Marathon speed helps the human, more time to actually use the units and the human uses them better. Also less chance of showing up at another civ's cities just as they deploy the tech that counters your army.

I almost always play normal speed... I like the game to "move along" so the slower speeds never appealed to me.
So I would have to assume other people's opinions on this are more correct than any opinion I would have

We do play some MP on quick speed, to help move the game along if we don't have a lot of time, but normal speed is the norm for me.

[slnz]

Marathon speed helps a ton... If you happen to get a military tech advantage for 30 turns you can easily gobble up a neighbor with that advantage. Compared to Normal where you'd just have 10 turns.

It affects a lot of other things too that Firaxis forgot to scale, like war declaration checks, religion autospread, culture based revolts and getting techs for peace (on Marathon you get 3x less techs for peace since the AIs think 3x more beakers = 3x more valuable).

This all on top of the fact that (non-Settler) units only cost 2x more while having 3x more turns compared to Normal, so for warmongers Marathon is the way to go if you want the maximum amount of wars and units.

Absolutely! In the Hephmod I use, there is some tech leakage anyway (discounts given for known civs having a tech). OTOH, AI civs will not accept techs for which they have substantial research or may want to sell for themselves.

The same is true even in unmodded Civ4, and it can be quite significant. Of course in a mod it could have a more pronounced effect.

[Ming]

so for warmongers Marathon is the way to go if you want the maximum amount of wars and units.

I can see you overall point, but still I think the game moves "too slow" at those speeds, and continue to play normal. If you are a war monger, you still get a long enough edge on the military techs, far longer than the 10 turns you imply

Plus, you are a little mistaken about the warmongers in general. The trick to doing war properly, even as a warmonger, is to do it quickly, only when needed, and with as few units as possible. Builders do the exact same. The big difference between warmongers and builders is, warmongers see war as the solution to more problems than builders do

[slnz]

Yeah it depends on how you define a "warmonger" I guess. I just meant that with Marathon you 1) get more wars (more war declaration checks) 2) get more units 3) can fight longer without upgrading, all favoring people who like war over Sim Empire.

Even these "builders" you mention usually end up winning games through Domination on Marathon because an advantage on that speed is so much easier to convert to conquest than culture/tech. Plus it's tedious as all hell to win an enter-whacking victory (Cultural/Space) on Marathon.

[rah]

Yeah, I can't imagine a cultural win at marathon. What's it take, like a bazillion points per city?

[Blaupanzer]

I think 150,000 for each of 3 cities as opposed to 75,000 at epic, and 50,000 at normal. As I only play epic now those are just what my memory recalls. All these numbers go up if you turn off espionage, but I don't know the increments.

[slnz]

150 000, or more if No Espionage is checked

Once I had a Marathon cultural game where the game ended (in my victory) with an angry Hannibal having a stack of 30 Cavalry next to one of my culture cities... which was defended by 2 Musketeers. **** can hit the fan real fast on Marathon.

[Lord Avalon]

Once I had a Marathon cultural game where the game ended (in my victory) with an angry Hannibal having a stack of 30 Cavalry next to one of my culture cities... which was defended by 2 Musketeers.

We are too cultured for you. Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time.

[Blaupanzer]

"You have lots of horses but we are legendary," the guard shouts. "Go home!"

[rah]

They were probably waiting a turn for the siege units to take the defense down to 0