[NFP] [Discussion] Is striving for a Golden Classical era a trap?

[kaspergm]

Often, I find myself going out of the way in an attempt to get a Golden Classical era, but dramatic ages apart, is it actually worth the trouble? It seems to me that achieving the Golden Classical era will often end you in a suboptimal situation for several reasons:

• The benefit of a Golden Classical era seems - for most civs - rather limited. Classical Monumentality on paper is great, but often I find myself with very little faith income at this point of the game, meaning it will not land me much more than a settler and a couple of builders.
• Classical Golden era means you're much more likely to end in Medieval Dark era. This feels like an opportunity loss for several reasons - Medieval Monumentality is likely to land you many more benefits than Classical, and Medieval era is often a good window for conquest.
• On the other hand, Dark Classical era will make it extremely easy to hit a Heroic Medieval era. This will also allow you to aim for a Dark Renaissance era, which will again hand you an extremely easy Heroic Industrial era, at least if you play on a continents type map, because you can pick the Hic Sunt Draconis dark age dedication which grants massive era score for discovering new continents and natural wonders.

I know there are players who say it's easy to get golden ages all the way through, and I expect that extensive conquest will make that true, but apart from that scenario, will it be more beneficial to strive for a Dark Classical era (which actually is rather hard to achieve)?

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I generally agree, as long as you have no good faith income.
Monumentality (occasionally Exodus of the Evangelists) are the only two good dedications that I would personally bother with, and usually Free Inquiry is too early to benefit from (I usually haven't built up comm hubs/harbours when Classical Era hits).
That said, I find faith rather easy to come by these days.
The AI no longer goes heavily into Earth Goddess, and that can sometimes be a good source of faith even if I'm not going for a faith based game and the free settler/divine spark etc. are taken (for instance, when going for a science game).
In that case, I'll go for the Classical GA.
Dark Ages can be cancer if you are squeezed for settling space early on, so as long as I stay out of that I generally don't mind not reaching a Classical GA.

That said, I don't generally struggle with reaching a Medieval GA anyway, Renaissance is the one I usually struggle to get (and where the dedications are somewhat poor anyway, so it's not as much of a problem).

Either way, I'm interested to hear why you think the Medieval Era is a good time for conquest.
Usually that is the age where I'll stop doing conquest because of walls making any further conquest just sooo expensive.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've never really thought about it. Unless I'm terribly beset by barbarians, it's not usually hard to meet the GA threshold without even planning it, and I often double the points required. The ages I typically struggle with is the Renaissance and after when you don't get points for clearing barb camps and you've gotten all the "noteworthy district" points you're likely to get.

Caveat: I typically play on Prince.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I've never really thought about it. Unless I'm terribly beset by barbarians, it's not usually hard to meet the GA threshold without even planning it, and I often double the points required. The ages I typically struggle with is the Renaissance and after when you don't get points for clearing barb camps and you've gotten all the "noteworthy district" points you're likely to get.

Caveat: I typically play on Prince.

Yeah the difficulty has a lot of say in this matter.
If the OP plays on Immo/Deity, the AIs have such a strong tech/civic advantage that the Ancient Era goes by very fast and you need to be very dilligent about collecting what little era score you can.

Typically the Emperor level is where the Classical GA is becoming more difficult to reliably pick up.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah the difficulty has a lot of say in this matter.
If the OP plays on Immo/Deity, the AIs have such a strong tech/civic advantage that the Ancient Era goes by very fast and you need to be very dilligent about collecting what little era score you can.

Typically the Emperor level is where the Classical GA is becoming more difficult to reliably pick up.

I find most of the time, the ancient era goes by so fast that I barely have time to adjust to even make the decision (playing at Immortal). Especially with a dark age, I mean, some games you just can't if you are lucky to start near a continent border or a natural wonder, that alone will virtually prevent you from even attempting a dark age.

Sometimes you do get near the end of an era, and if I see myself at 20+ points before the era flips over, then you sometimes have a normal vs golden decision. At that point, it's a good time to see if you want to choose Amani and move her to a few CS for those points, or to build a galley and get that era score.

And yeah, sometimes that early golden age feels wasted, but then again, one more early settler that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten, or a few more cheap builders, and that can still make a big difference. If I'm in a situation where I felt a dark age wouldn't bother me (ie. mostly isolated, or at least without any close border gaps), then I don't care too much and will take the earlier golden age. And even otherwise, sometimes I just use the golden age for those 4 prophet points to run for a religion that I wasn't otherwise chasing.

 

[8housesofelixir]

If having a good and stable faith income, or if want to play a hyper-optimized game, GA for Monumentality. If playing as Dido or England and began to spam Unique Harbors in Classical Era, GA for Free Inquiry. Besides these cases it doesn't really matter.

 

[kaspergm]

I find most of the time, the ancient era goes by so fast that I barely have time to adjust to even make the decision (playing at Immortal). Especially with a dark age, I mean, some games you just can't if you are lucky to start near a continent border or a natural wonder, that alone will virtually prevent you from even attempting a dark age.

Sometimes you do get near the end of an era, and if I see myself at 20+ points before the era flips over, then you sometimes have a normal vs golden decision. At that point, it's a good time to see if you want to choose Amani and move her to a few CS for those points, or to build a galley and get that era score.

And yeah, sometimes that early golden age feels wasted, but then again, one more early settler that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten, or a few more cheap builders, and that can still make a big difference. If I'm in a situation where I felt a dark age wouldn't bother me (ie. mostly isolated, or at least without any close border gaps), then I don't care too much and will take the earlier golden age. And even otherwise, sometimes I just use the golden age for those 4 prophet points to run for a religion that I wasn't otherwise chasing.

Yeah, good points, even if it only amounts to one settler from Monumentality, that is still one extra Settler, which can amount to a lot in the long run. I'm also glad I'm not the only one who actually takes the 4 prophet points dedication from time to time. I play on Immortal, and I often find myself in the situation where I lack a few points to reach golden when ancient era ends.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The benefit of a Golden Classical era seems - for most civs - rather limited. Classical Monumentality on paper is great, but often I find myself with very little faith income at this point of the game, meaning it will not land me much more than a settler and a couple of builders.

The key thing to remember is that your builders/settleres are also cheaper with gold too. Builders also move faster, making it easier to chop wonders.

Classical Golden era means you're much more likely to end in Medieval Dark era. This feels like an opportunity loss for several reasons - Medieval Monumentality is likely to land you many more benefits than Classical, and Medieval era is often a good window for conquest.

Who really cares? By this point you should be able to build an entertainment complex so peaceful play doesn't care about Dark Ages. If you get a dark Medieval, you can use Twilight Valor and simply hurry up the war or try and capture an EC. And you'll get a Heroic easily next era by destroying your opposition. If you play well, this is only an annoyance.

On the other hand, Dark Classical era will make it extremely easy to hit a Heroic Medieval era. This will also allow you to aim for a Dark Renaissance era, which will again hand you an extremely easy Heroic Industrial era, at least if you play on a continents type map, because you can pick the Hic Sunt Draconis dark age dedication which grants massive era score for discovering new continents and natural wonders.

This is very true, but I would say these are apples and oranges. If you were getting a Dark Classical Era, that means you weren't anywhere close to a golden age anyways. In that case, yes, I'd agree that if you can't get a Classical Golden, then you could just not bother and get a Dark Age. But a Classical Golden > Heroic Medieval if possible to get, simply because of the snowball effect; waiting 30 turns for a bonus is never as good as getting a bonus now.


At the end of the day, I think Classical Normal Age is the worst, being the worst of both worlds and makes it harder for you to get a golden age while denying you a Heroic Age. If you can intentionally get a Dark Age by avoiding that, it'd be nice, but sometimes not possible in aggressive games. In general, I think Normal Ages are the real dark ages.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Who really cares? By this point you should be able to build an entertainment complex so peaceful play doesn't care about Dark Ages. If you get a dark Medieval, you can use Twilight Valor and simply hurry up the war or try and capture an EC. And you'll get a Heroic easily next era by destroying your opposition. If you play well, this is only an annoyance.

At the end of the day, I think Classical Normal Age is the worst, being the worst of both worlds and makes it harder for you to get a golden age while denying you a Heroic Age. If you can intentionally get a Dark Age by avoiding that, it'd be nice, but sometimes not possible in aggressive games. In general, I think Normal Ages are the real dark ages.

I'd say that if you have to build an EC just for loyalty issues in an early Dark Age, you did something severely wrong.
I'd stay away from building any EC early (unless you are certain you will get Colosseum, but then you build the EC for a totally different reason), as you can usually circumvent loyalty issues by proper settling.
Loyalty can become an issue though if you forward settled a bit (often a good idea to secure that land), but a Classical DA can screw you over then, and building an EC in hindsight will most likely not save you in time then - hence you already did something very wrong.

I dont mind Classical Normal Ages at all, I'd say they are much preferable to a Classical DA at higher difficulties because of the "forward settling/loyalty trap".
Normal ages give you extra era score for the Medieval Era just like a DA, but you arent nearly as restricted in settling.
Personally I don't mind a Classical Normal Age at all, and this applies even to Deity (as long as my faith income is low).
Don't get me wrong though, when I used to play on King/Immortal I used to like Classical DA's myself, but when the land gets grabbed fast you usually really need that NA over the DA.
The Medieval HA is not worth it imo, unless of course you settle on some remote island where you can keep doing your business as usual.

Just finished up a Deity game where I had a Classical Normal Age, and in that game I forward settled Persia and a few turns later surprise war'ed him, where I eventually took over all of his cities before the Medieval Era.
I generally had some loyalty issues during that stage (especially during my conquest stage), and with a Dark Age this wouldn't have been possible at all - I would have had to settle to the south where there was only tundra, as well as giving up any ambitions of conquest.
That DA would have hurt me way more than the NA did.

 

[Vargas1]

As others have said, if you have solid early faith generation then GA Monumentality is a no-brainer (even a single goody-hut relic by itself gets you 1-2 settlers by the end of classical, depending when you find it). For my playstyle, I also am a fan of Exodus of the Evangelicals for founding a religion and spreading internally a bit. Playing on standard size maps I can usually get one of Feed the World, Choral Music, or Work Ethic, each of which have good benefits for a non-religious game, and using Exodus to get it means I can put off building holy sites/buildings (other than one to activate the prophet) and focus on other infrastructure first.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I'd say that if you have to build an EC just for loyalty issues in an early Dark Age, you did something severely wrong.

Medieval is not really early anymore, and yes if you're having loyalty problems after classical at all you've probably done something wrong. But yea, I'm just saying if you had to, not that it should be considered typical. I mean, sometimes things go wrong. An EC would probably be for conquest in most cases, if needed. But I rarely see loyalty as a problem at all outside of war on any difficulty except in really cramped maps.

 

[newbie2]

Playing on Emperor, but isn't the "meta" play to go classical dark age and then go into overdrive in a heroic medieval era?

that's at least how I try it

 

[Archon_Wing]

Playing on Emperor, but isn't the "meta" play to go classical dark age and then go into overdrive in a heroic medieval era?

that's at least how I try it

For a certain style, yes, especially if you can guarantee it, but early aggression may make loyalty an issue.

Although the importance of dark or golden ages is somewhat overstated. The dedications are good but not always mandatory.

 

[iammaxhailme]

As has been stated here before, I think a high-faith classical golden age is the best thing you can get. But if you don't have good faith generation, it's not worth that much.

 

[Zenstrive]

Monumentality in Classical Golden Age is crucial to my playstyle, since it would give me expansions required to nab several golden age points: building city on desert or tundra tiles, making high adjacency bonus point districts, settling close to enemies, settling near natural wonders, making unique improvements, etc etc. I always try to nab high faith pantheon and a religion in ancient age so that I can roll in faiths during classical and medieval

 

[CrabHelmet]

For a certain style, yes, especially if you can guarantee it, but early aggression may make loyalty an issue.

Although the importance of dark or golden ages is somewhat overstated. The dedications are good but not always mandatory.

Hmm, I've always been skeptical of this. At least on Deity, AI growth bonuses are so high and they're so likely to hit Classical Golden Ages that I find Loyalty losses can be devastating if the player goes into a Classical Dark Age. I'm too risk averse to try this regularly, only if I have *tonnes* of free space.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Hmm, I've always been skeptical of this. At least on Deity, AI growth bonuses are so high and they're so likely to hit Classical Golden Ages that I find Loyalty losses can be devastating if the player goes into a Classical Dark Age. I'm too risk averse to try this regularly, only if I have *tonnes* of free space.

Same here, which is my I'll go to great lengths to avoid a DA, but im more than happy with a NA if the GA is out of reach.

The good ol' "get a DA to secure a medieval HA" doesn't really work when the AI starts with 3 settlers and grabs land like mad.

 

[Socrates99]

It's a planning trap. It's kind of useless if you haven't been building faith and have low gold income which can happen if you're building a big army. You get faster movement for builders and that's about it. I've run into that a few times.

I stopped intentionally getting DAs though, especially in classical. It can be so painful. Even in later eras I find I have to sacrifice card slots to help maintain loyalty in fringe cities and it can hurt my governor micromanagement. I'd rather run on all cylinders in 2 normal ages than hamstring myself one age to help myself in the next. I've never crunched the numbers so I'm not sure if I'm correct there, might just be me.

 

[pjotroos]

As someone typically playing on Emperor (about 80% of my games), I agree in principle that it's not really worth it if you don't have stable source of faith. If I do get classical Golden Era, it's usually monumentality, and less often exodus, and both require faith to be effective. I never have good enough infrastructure to really benefit from classical Free Inquiry, and I never once took Pen, Brush and Voice, at any stage.

The problem is, it's really hard to avoid passing dark age threshold, unless all the barbarians are somewhere else (which doesn't happen often) or I actively avoid exploring (which would also mean passing on tribal villages), and I still prefer a weak golden age over normal age.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Hmm, I've always been skeptical of this. At least on Deity, AI growth bonuses are so high and they're so likely to hit Classical Golden Ages that I find Loyalty losses can be devastating if the player goes into a Classical Dark Age. I'm too risk averse to try this regularly, only if I have *tonnes* of free space.

Can't say I've seen the same when I've played Deity. How far are you settling your cities apart?

I mean, I've seen negative loyalty before, but never so bad a governor or government plaza (if desperate) couldn't fix it.