So my main question is: If you are in the middle of a golden age and you switch civics, will anarchy turns be counted against your golden age? And to make this worth making a whole new thread, under what conditions do you use great people for golden ages and why?

Okay so I realized I could just test this with the worldbuilder... and to my surprise it seems that anarchy turns DO count against your golden age. ):

Then the AI is even dumber than i thought. It's dumb enough that it keeps going for golden ages, when all right thinking players know that golden ages suck and any other use of a great person is better. In my current game, i sent a missionary to the French continent and converted their capital to my religion, hoping they would adopt my state religion since they had none so far. On the very turn when i converted them, they started a golden age with two great people. Then 1 or two turns later, they switched to my religion, going into anarchy! Morons. Please, someone, reprogram this stupid AI!

ya, golden ages are stupid any way, they are just too short.

True, the AI should probably burn GPs for tech (assuming they have more than X beakers left for that tech)

exceptions would be

1. Wonder Rushing, Shrines

2. Academies/ Super specialists if Early enough

3. Wait for better tech

GA should only be used if
1. empire is big
2. Computer is in a space race

And in that Case they should NOT change Government (or the game should allow Anarchy to not count v. Golden Ages)

Well what prompted the question was this:

I had 40% of the land and it was something like 700 A.D. In order to get that last 11%, I needed macemen. Once I got macemen, I didn't care about additional technology. But I had an artist and some other specialist that wouldn't get me bureaucracy or machinery. So I started a golden age to speed up the acquisition of those techs (and building the heroic epic) and I discovered bureaucracy in the middle of the golden age.... if anarchy didn't count against my golden age it would have been hugely beneficial to have bureaucracy.

So to me, it's not usually useful to use great people on golden ages, but for cases like that it is.

Golden Ages are useful for Space Races...the extra production can come in VERY handy when building SS parts.

Makes sense on a large empire. over 20-30 cities could make up over 1700 science in 8 turns. Production and gold bonus too. How many turns would an academy need to make up the science gained from two great leaders. 60 science a turn from 2 academies (using the logic that a academy has to make more than 30 science as adding a specialist to city would provide with 225% science bonus on representation.)

Might take 30 turns for 2 acadenies to provide 1800 science. In effect you would really want upto 3600 science (1800*2) from the golden age as two great leader might provide up to that many science beakers towards a free tech but its not an exact trade off as this doesnt include production/and other bonuses.

Someone should simulate the benefit of a Golden age on a large civilization.

Standard test. 8 turns without a golden age. and 8 turns with. Post starting year of GA and the 2 finishing year results of GA. Obviously no speeding of productions via whipping as this may alter result. Just a thought :)