Yesterday I began to wonder why I hadn't seen one golden age in any of the games I had played. The answer the civilopedia gave me left me feeling a bit ill at ease. To trigger a golden age I must sacrifice two different types great people and then my golden age lasts a mere 8 turns. I can start more golden ages by sacrificing three, four, or five different great leaders, giving a total of 24 turns of golden age at the price of 14 great people! I don't think I've even gotten 14 great people in any of my games.

My question is simple. Is it worth triggering a golden age as opposed to using each great person for their individual bonuses? If I do trigger a golden age would it be worth trying to start another?

I think golden ages are very situational. The AI seems to throw away its leaders on golden ages all the time. I'll do a golden age if I'm slightly behind in tech and I want to take the tech lead. Or if I'm about to wage a war and I want to build up a lot of units very quickly.

Naturally, golden ages are a lot better when you have a large empire. If you have a small empire with like 5 cities then its not that useful. You might as well join the leaders to two of your cities and get a bonus that lasts the entire game.

edit: I do think golden ages are a bit underpowered and should probably last longer. Like 15 turns maybe.

You can also trigger a golden age by building the Taj Mahal wonder. I can't remember how many GA turns this gives you though. As for the total number of turns, I'm sure it's easily moddible in the xml somewhere. I think the fact that you can trigger more than one GA is the main reason why they're so much shorter. It's a balance issue. However, the fact that you have to sacrifice so many GL's to do it makes it seem not worth it.

Build the Taj Mahal.

I know towards the end of my first game if I had not taken my first GA I would not have won the space race. Other than that I find myself asking the same question you are. I think the golden age is really only worth it in certain situations as was said and probably becomes a much better option late game when smaller long term bonuses aren't anywhere near as valuable anymore.

I haven't played many games to finish yet, but from looking at what the golden age actually does, I haven't bothered to "chase" one down yet at all. /shrug

I guess maybe in the late-game, as SoD sayed above...

I haven't found them very useful and sure wouldn't waste 2 GP on it! Then again, I haven't been playing on huge maps where I have dozens of cities either...

Lasts (I think) for 8 turns? I agree its situational just like the various uses for our GPs. Late game is probably best. The only time I used the GP's for a Golden Age was my first game when I was indecisive about what to do with my first two GP's. Since then, I have found immediate uses for them (situationally) and never seem to have two at a time.LOL.

I've been getting a lot of Great Prophets, so I use them to build the Religious wonders (one game I founded 6 of 7 religions) then as super priests in cities that need productivity boosts...

They may not seem like much now

But when your having a neck in neck space age race with india on your first game of prince (after barly beating warlord), both of you needing only 1 more piece to acieve victory, and both of you having the tech for it, and all the sudden it says india has entered its golden age...

Totally not worth it 99% of the time IMO. Might be because I always disable space race victory because its a boring waste of time.

Late game is probably best.
Or the early game, since that has a much greater impact on the course of history than later.

For myself, I try to get a golden age that will propell me into building the Taj Mahal. Then it's kind of like your first golden age was 16 turns.

But more often than not a golden age is just what I do with late game prophets and artists, since their special uses are pretty specialized. By contrast, I can't think of a time a scientist wasn't a great help, a time I couldn't take advantage of a merchant, or got an engineer that I didn't put to use within 10 turns.

I find them very useful. They can increase production tremendously, which is very nice in wartime.

I'm beginning to think that they're not useful. Unless if you don't have better uses for the person.

8 turns is just too few. Sometimes i'll grab the 1st golden age if i have less useful great people laying around, but using 3 great people for a 2nd is just insane to me.

ya golden age sucks..

15 turns wud be ok..

I depends on what kind of Great Leaders you're using. If you have no real, immediate use - like rushing a wonder - a Golden Age is viable. Especially if you are running a large empire.

Also, on Epic games, a Golden Age lasts 10 turns. ;)

It can be useful if you have an excess of GPs, which is rare but possible. In my last game my capital was a Great Engineer machine. It produced about nine or ten in total, and I got almost all the Ancient, Classical and Mediavel Wonders as a result. Most of the game I had one or two fortified in my capital because I was waiting for a useful wonder to appear. I decided I might as well use one to create a GA when I reached economics first and got a Great Merchant. However I can't see how using one to create a GA would have been better if I had something for them to do like buidling a useful wonder.

Golden Ages are for late game. Most other uses become worse as the late game approaches (super specialists and academies won't help for as many turns, culture bombs are barely noticable, etc), while GAs get better. If you have a huge empire late in the game it can be invaluable.

Golden ages were usefull in my domination game with the romans.. having about 19 cities at some point, the golden age allowed me to produce military units at a great speed, even in my small newly conquerd cities, and it allowed me to achieve domination a couple of turns earlier.

In this situation, every other use of the great persons would have been completely useless.

My last game I payed attention to how much more science I was generating after initiating a golden age. This was in the late industrial age. Before the golden age I was generating 750 beakers, after the golden age I was generating 860. (I rounded to nearest 10 because I don't remember exact number). But the bottom line is I was gaining only 110*8 = 880 beakers total. Considering I could have used those great people to partially discover techs for 2000ish beakers each, I do not think it's worth it at all to start a golden age for research purposes. The other benefit of course is the extra hammers. I think that is the bigger benefit. So if a golden age should be used it should be used for the shield advantage you get. Whether you need to build a couple wonders or build tons of military units, or whatever. But I think it's still underpowered anyway.

In my last game my capital was a Great Engineer machine. It produced about nine or ten in total, and I got almost all the Ancient, Classical and Mediavel Wonders as a result. Most of the game I had one or two fortified in my capital because I was waiting for a useful wonder to appear.


You can rush wonders with great engineer?????? Is he just wrong or is it my version of the game that's not allright?

You can rush wonders with great engineers; that's their primary use. You can't rush projects like apollo program, spaceship parts, internet, manhattan project, etc.

In the late game a golden age can be worth it, particularly if you end up with a great prophet, which can be rather useless at that stage. I have to admit that apart from that it seems a very poor trade. I think the golden ages should still be 20 turns, 8 turns simply doesn't give enough return for the great people cost.

In my humble opinion, golden ages are really good in the earlier game but they lose effect later because it take too many of them to start one. Not only that, but you have to use a combo of different GP, ie. you can't use three great prophets to start a golden age.
I use merchants for trade missions usually, then I take and upgrade units with most of the money.
I think Im getting like 1700 to 2000 science for a tech, when I expend a GP, and that puts my tech (in this game) to about 3 turns left on average. Also the tech you learn depends on the type of GP you use and in my current game, a great prophet cannot be used to learn tech as there are no more available religious types available.
I think the golden age dilemma depends solely on the individual game. It gives you a non- specific boost in all areas of advancement (shields, science and commerce) and in all cities. Using GP otherwise, gives you a much greater boost, but only in a specific area. I prefer this, because I like to judge for myself what I need depending on where I plan to take my civ, and I can give a steroid shot to a badly needed city, tech, bank-roll, etc..
Later in the game when GP are a bit popular, I hold on to them untill I find something needed. If I were to get three or four of them and still look good, I would probably golden age with them.

You can rush wonders with great engineers; that's their primary use. You can't rush projects like apollo program, spaceship parts, internet, manhattan project, etc.

You can rush any building, great engineer or not. It's just that it is real expensive to rush a wonder through more than a few turns. (This might not be working as it is supposed to, but I have rushed many a wonder in my games.)

GA's are great when you're doing a massive building spree. For example, you discover 'Assembly Line' and you're building factories in most of your cities. Triggering a GA might cut 1/3 off the build time for the factories, which would in turn cut down on future build times. It might be useful for a massive wave of military growth (cav or tanks, for example) as well.

The short duration is, I suspect, because you can have so many GA's. Potentially, you could have 5, 1 from the Taj Mahal and 4 from GL's (14 total.) I'll always take the Taj Mahal if I can get it, and in most games I'll trigger at least 1 GA with GL's. I've done a 2nd with GL's (for 3 total) but I doubt I would try for a 4th or 5th. They just cost too many GL's and it would take me forever to get one of each type of GL.

I like to have a golden age when I have just discovered assembly line: a decent city should be able to pull off building both the factory and coal plant within the 8 turns, and then you can start pumping out military units like never before...

You can rush any building, great engineer or not. It's just that it is real expensive to rush a wonder through more than a few turns. (This might not be working as it is supposed to, but I have rushed many a wonder in my games.)

Yes, buildings. The Apollo Program, spaceship parts, The Internet, The Manhattan Project and so on are projects and can't be rushed with gold, population or great engineers.

Yes, buildings. The Apollo Program, spaceship parts, The Internet, The Manhattan Project and so on are projects and can't be rushed with gold, population or great engineers.

I know, that's why I said "buildings," being able to rush wonders is not something special to great engineers, they just save you a few thousand gold.

I never startet a golden age with great people. I just have the impression that this would be a waste of them. Even if I have no use for them ( great prophet after all shrines are build) i prefer to make them to specialist in my cities...

well I think that's just not true. Great people often are geared pretty much towards a specific strategy. Now you could maximise your great people production in such a way that you get exactly the kind you need, but during a whole game you are bound to wind up with two you can't really use to their full potential. If at that point you have a big empire and a lot you want to produce, a golden age is definitely the way to go. A second or third one are probably hardly ever worth it though...

My last game I payed attention to how much more science I was generating after initiating a golden age. This was in the late industrial age. Before the golden age I was generating 750 beakers, after the golden age I was generating 860. (I rounded to nearest 10 because I don't remember exact number). But the bottom line is I was gaining only 110*8 = 880 beakers total. Considering I could have used those great people to partially discover techs for 2000ish beakers each, I do not think it's worth it at all to start a golden age for research purposes. The other benefit of course is the extra hammers. I think that is the bigger benefit. So if a golden age should be used it should be used for the shield advantage you get. Whether you need to build a couple wonders or build tons of military units, or whatever. But I think it's still underpowered anyway.

In my last game I was pulling 3.5k research. I don't know how much more I'd get from a golden age, but based on your numbers 400 a turn isn't unreasonable. That's 3200 beakers during a golden age. That alone is close to being equal to using them for techs and that's not even always possible. After a successful war you can get some nasty numbers while being far behind in tech. Golden Ages can speed your comeback quite a bit.

Well basically I agree with what has been said, Golden Ages are very useful in distinct tactical circumstances. I have used a golden age to kick start my Space Race, and I have also used one to kick start a bunch of cruddy island cities. But in general I think you should use the individual great people instead. I think spending 3 GP for a golden age is almost never going to be worth it.

I only use GA's if I can get the Taj Mahal. If you can rush the Taj Mahal with a Great Engineer you can get a GA for only one great person which makes it more worthwhile.

I think it depends on which Great Leaders you end up with. I usually end up with more Great Prophets than I actually want, so usually I'll save one for a Golden Age. Usually, at one point, another "useless" leader comes up, but this almost always depends on the context of the game--usually, it's a Great Artist after my culture borders are set; occasionally a Great Scientist, when Academies are already in the largest cities and his sacrifice would only partially cover some marginally useful tech. (I can't imagine ever using a Great Merchant or a Great Engineer for a Golden Age.) I'll usually be willing to spark one Golden Age. For some reason I never get to build the Taj Mahal; someone always beats me to it.

That said, a Golden Age *is* useful for any rebuilding stage in the game; usually, this is if you need to get Factories, Banks, Forges, etc., in all of your cities as quickly as possible. Probably more opportunities come late in the game, since it's almost always more beneficial to make a Great Leader a super specialist in the early and middle stages of the game; in the late game, that's a bit of a waste.

I've used all 5 GA's in a couple of games. Even the 5 GP GA can be very useful. I generally like to use a GA when building up for war, or at war, but there are times to use them for economic buildup as well.

40 turns of GA on the way to a Domination victory can be an awful lot of fun. The first GA gets you more cities than you could have gotten otherwise in the same timeframe. With more cities the second GA is even stronger now, and gets you even more cities...

very much worth it

I thought you could get any number of GA's with GP's.
2 for the first, etc, all 6 for the 5th and 6 for any after that.
Or is it specifically limited at 4 via GP's?

well as far as I understood, since every GA increases the number of GP to sacrifice by 1, the first GA costs 2 and the GP must be different, you can have max 4 GAs...
2 GP for the first
3 GP for the second
4 GP for the third
5 GP for the fourth

am I right ?

As I generaly build the Taj Mahal: I have a golden age. But I've not check how much it increase your production and commerce. Someone has check it ?

And using 2 Great People for another one is not easy for the strategy I used as I only build wonder to generate Great Artist!
You need 2 different kind of great people to generate a golden age.
LeSphinx

In my recent game I used GA to modernize my army. I had longbowmen, macemen and such. I triggered GA, gained lots of gold and updated my whole army with gunpowder equipment.
Guess I hit the spot this time, 'cause I had to fight a war just a few turns after my GA has ended. With my shiny new muskets and cannons I got a definitive advantage on the battlefield.
So, it all depends on situations, it's hard to tell beforehand, if GA is worth sacrificing Great People or not.
In a long-term scientific race, building academies or discovering free techs with GP is good strategy. Golden Age is excellent tool for quick cashing without a tremendous setback in science.