The Problem with Marathon-Games is...

[stadtpark-hartmut]

... that they end too early.

It is a bit counter-intuitive: I like more turns, so I can actually move my units and use them, before they become outdated.

But those games lead to really bad snowballing in terms of "currencies": e.g. this time in terms of culture I was able to go from 800 Culture to 1500 Culture per turn in maybe 10 rounds at the end, just by changing out some policy cards and researching some silly 25% tourism bonus (- pretty much the last research I did) (going from 900 to 1100 tourism per turn or so).

Details on my game: I just finished at turn 666 out of 1500. (Year 1540) with Canada achieving a cultural victory on a Marathon length game on a huge map with City-States slider at Maximum, on a Primordial map with disasters set high.

I even actively avoided winning a Diplomatic Victory earlier. That's the problem when you play with higher disaster numbers / emergencies: I think they should allow to change the victory conditions on disaster maps to be higher than 20 points... - guess I have to deactivate that winning condition on my next map.

I was almost through with Civics and Technology by the end anyway (maybe half a dozen items left each). Guess I'll have to play harder difficulty. (I always play "Prince", as I don't want the enemy to have unfair advantages.)

P.S.: with finishing early, one also forgoes high-score, as finishing early no longer results in score-multipliers like in earlier versions of Civ... - which is a bit disappointing: I only ended up "3rd place" on the end screen...

Edit: btw: I was playing with 12 CIVs and 36 City states.
(the 55% culture boost came from being Suzerain of 11 City States while having the "Collective ACtivism" policy card. (+5% culture bonus per each City State being Suzerain of)

Edit 2: Using Direct-X 11 (Direct-X 12 doesn't start; maybe my settings are too high).
Yes, I had two or three crashes / hangups: "End of Turn" / "Please Wait", but only late in my game (- which isn't really late, as I finished by turn 666/1500, but late enough if you look at Techs and Civics done). - I probably played maybe 30+ hours - so 3 crashes isn't that bad for 36 city states. (People seem to say that City-States are causing the crashes).

[Gespenst Gaming]

thats why yo gotta turn off all the victory types youre not planning to go for.

[Huitzilopochtli]

is it really fun spamming culture just so your game will end?

Prince level is a dead AI and up to King there is basically no AI other than putting down a few cities and then just remaining passive and deadbeat. You need to set it to Emperor for the AI to start to wake up a bit, and then above Emperor is when the AI cheats become noticeable. On prince you are basically playing solitaire with no AI.

[stadtpark-hartmut]

Goopasloppababookaba님이 먼저 게시:

is it really fun spamming culture just so your game will end?

Prince level is a dead AI and up to King there is basically no AI other than putting down a few cities and then just remaining passive and deadbeat. You need to set it to Emperor for the AI to start to wake up a bit, and then above Emperor is when the AI cheats become noticeable. On prince you are basically playing solitaire with no AI.

Oh. Ok. Thanks.
So I need to play Emperor.

[Stormwinds]

The AI does not change on higher difficulties. They start with more bonuses meaning you surpass them later, but the snowball happens regardless of what difficulty you are playing on assuming you play optimally. If you want a casual city building game, turn off all the victory conditions.

[Sticky Wicket]

You might find this mod useful.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2176927489


It slows down research and culture and makes things harder for the game to run away with itself. Overall creates a much more balanced game for player and AI alike.

[robert.steven.marshall]

I used the mod above in my last game and I use it quite regularly with marathon so that I get a bit of time with each era. You can tweak loads of bits with it nicely as well to suit you.

Another idea is to play on a higher level of difficulty but with the mod that removes the extra units that the ai gets. That way you don't just annoyingly have to play catch up and miss out on all early wonders or get immediately squashed on deity if they spawn next to you (doesn't seem to happen much nowadays). I hate that the highest level of difficulty is just that they start with 4 (I think) cities to your one and extra units as well. They get bonuses to everything but it is still the same awful ai. For example I decided to play with one city as Teddy in my last game (science win in the 19th century with tech and culture set to take 25% longer to get. I somehow built the most wonders) and the ai "attacked" 4 or 5 times and I could easily destroy their units at a distance and then go and raze some cities just for the hell of it. I didn't even have ANY strategic resources (until a city state gave me aluminium and I built the first air units. Which came after the first couple of space projects obvs) or a siege unit but with 4 or 5 units you can often wreak havoc against the ai.

I don't remember a game making it into the twentieth century, even when I try to slow everything down however. The best I've done is made my own map with separate islands with deep ocean between them where everyone can make a handful of cities max until they get the ability to cross ocean. I was actually quite pleased with how that worked out at first because it slowed everyone down a lot but in different ways. However, the last time I played the map I decided to just play against Kupe and Harald Hardrada thinking they would give me a challenge as they'd get free reign to settle (without the mods on). When I finally left my barren desert island Kupe had just four cities one of which was only snow and coast with no resources. Harald had built 7 cities on one tiny island and was just venturing another one barely a stone's throw away. They both knew about the Bermuda Triangle but decided against settling next to it. The map had every single natural wonder on it including about ten more from extra mods. Things like that make me realize just how awful the ai is and how little effort was put into that and the pacing of the game.

I heavily rely on putting limitations on myself to make the game last longer.

[Chariots of the Gods]

The problem with marathon games is that you can't even get through the first part of the game due to it constantly freezing or crashing.