Dramatic Age discussion

I like the Dramatic Ages so far, but I really dislike that they moved the bonuses to wild card slots, here's why:
I wasn't aware of the moving of bonuses to wild card slots (should have checked the patch notes I guess), so I ran a standard religious opener (Basil II, securing a religion off of 2 cities).
Since I didn't focus on getting early culture, the Golden Age (which I intended to use for Monumentality) didn't line up at all with Political Philosophy, so I was stuck with effectively no bonus for my first golden age.

It feels like Dramatic Ages "forces" me into getting Political Philosophy as early as possible, either through unlocking most/all of the eurekas and/or getting high amounts of early culture.
And if anything, placing an even higher focus on early culture (to reach Political Philosophy) seems to actually narrow the scope of viable openers now.
I generally don't mind if it only changes up the meta (like giving an incentive for that early monument), but not to the extent that it "forces" a response to the culture situation.

I also think Dramatic Ages looks like it's a pretty significant buff to certain civs (Greece under Gorgo in particular).
Not only does Gorgo receive easy early culture, but once reaching Political Philosophy she will have two wildcard slots to choose from.
Granted, I have no clue on whether one can slot multiple GA policy cards (or even multiple Dark Age cards), but if you can, Gorgo just got a significant buff to her early game (which is already very strong).

What looks even more problematic is a Classical Dark Age with not enough culture to reach Political Philosophy in time.
Not only does a Dark Age suck a** this early, but the upsides of a DA is nullified if you can't slot the DA policy cards to get the needed leg up.
 
It's a scaling factor based off difficulty. 20%, it's actually not that much, but scales fast with number of cities. So a civ with 20 cities will lose I believe 4 cities on Prince (AI or Human), and 2 cities if they have 10.

It adjusts based off difficulty, with lower difficulty decreasing the number of cities for the player and increasing for AI and vice versa on higher difficulties with Prince being an even ground.

Iirc Carl lost 4 out of 10 cities on deity in the last live stream.
 
Started a game last night, circumstances were looking iffy for a classical golden age, so I held off founding my third city thinking that there was no way I'd loose one of only two cities going into a dark age.

I was wrong :p

This is on king difficulty. I'm going to keep going with the game to see how things work out. Most interesting challenge I've had for a while.
 
I haven’t played the mode yet, but I’m slightly annoyed at the “you always lose a set proportion of cities” implementation. I like that they used the loyalty pressure check to decide to which cities revolt, but I think they also should have used thresholds of loyalty pressure scaled to difficulty to decide whether to revolt or not. If you have a tight core of 5 cities, with +5 amenities each, and high population, I’m not completely convinced it should force 1-2 to auto revolt. On the other hand, maybe it represents splintering political factions?
 
On the other hand, maybe it represents splintering political factions?

I think it might represent that. During the previous age (years/decades), your empire hasn't be glorious enough, showing that the central government (you) is not as strong and prosperous as some might think... So local governors and lords will enjoy this opportunity to take their independance.

From a roleplay perspective, we have to see it the other way around. You're not loosing cities because you enter a Dark Age, but the Dark Age begins when local governors decides to make a soft coup and secede from your empire, announcing the crumbling of your reign...

But if your remaining cities are happy and populous, then denizens of your lost cities will regret the time when they lived under your reign, making them shift back to you through loyalty pressure; and if you manage to take back all your ancient realm, then you'll enter a new Golden Age of prosperity and might.
 
It's a scaling factor based off difficulty. 20%, it's actually not that much, but scales fast with number of cities. So a civ with 20 cities will lose I believe 4 cities on Prince (AI or Human), and 2 cities if they have 10.

It adjusts based off difficulty, with lower difficulty decreasing the number of cities for the player and increasing for AI and vice versa on higher difficulties with Prince being an even ground.

Rounded up or down ?
It makes quite a difference if you only have 4 cities, which is already a lot coming classical age.
 
I admit I thought it would be easier for the Free Cities which left you in a dark age come back through loyalty only. I prefer not having to conquer back or deal with free cities attacking me and never turning back.

But, the mode is fun! Makes for a more interesting game especially militarily, where I tend to defense and that’s it.
 
Rounded up or down ?
It makes quite a difference if you only have 4 cities, which is already a lot coming classical age.
Up.
2 cities plus a dark age equals a lonely capital and a free city.
 
Up.
2 cities plus a dark age equals a lonely capital and a free city.

I am excited about this new mode but am finding it extremely hard. Using it along with shuffle mode and had 5 play throughs on Deity last night and ended up plunging into Classical dark age in all of them losing my 2nd city. To make matters worse it happens just when I am close to completing a holy site and all that production lost. It is brutal. Meanwhile AI has like 5-6 by this time all exerting golden age pressure. I am going to drop down a difficulty level for the first time in years . So loving and hating it at the same time right now lol

Any tips on how to avoid classical dark age on Deity? I started building 2 explorers to get exploration related era scores. Can't rely on science/Civic points because harder in shuffle mode. I thought about delaying my 2nd city but then what happened is that the AI neighbor with their 6 cities in golden age exerted so much pressure that I couldn't even safely plop the 2nd city down afterwards!
 
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The only thing I would complain is that the Age Cards shows up before you have any wildcard slots. Basically no age bonus before Political Philosophy.

But I guess that is the point of this mode - shake a lot of things (esp. cities and unit productions) up.
 
I guess the dedication cards should become rule for regular games from now on. The solution could be to give one wilcard slot in a Golden Age, so that we can exchange the free dedication for the multiple cards and not get in the spot of not being able to slot a card for still being in Chiefdom. And maybe Heroic Age could have 2 extra wildcards. Could be broken, allowing to exchange the golden age card for any other card, but I guess it is more interesting than the way the game is.
 
I looked in Civilopedia and it does state that you're guaranteed to lose a single city each time you enter a Dark Age.
Very good! My response was based on a single experience last night.
So not yet resolved re rounding.
 
At first I thought the idea was pretty brutal, but I've changed my perspective on it and now find it rather interesting. Instead of looking at them as cities I consider them colonies now. You screw around too much and they revolt against you. If you have spent the entire life span of Civ VI bemoaning wide vs tall this mode is a very devious way of forcing you to think more tall.
 
In my opinion I thought it was a little weak way of making the Dark and Golden Ages more powerful. Should have made it more about a loyalty debuff in Dark Ages and buff in Golden to make it possible to win against the struggles if you really worked on it. And be rewarded in Golden Ages. Should have made the dedications still be there but more powerful and have more options. Or have some new slot where you only put one Dark/Golden Age card and you are only limited to one unless you are Georgia. Some thoughts.
 
At first I thought the idea was pretty brutal, but I've changed my perspective on it and now find it rather interesting. Instead of looking at them as cities I consider them colonies now. You screw around too much and they revolt against you. If you have spent the entire life span of Civ VI bemoaning wide vs tall this mode is a very devious way of forcing you to think more tall.

Big Brain: If you are playing OCC, you won't lost any city.

(And if you pretend to play OCC by ignoring non-capital cities, when in a dark age you are not technically losing cities.)

Although I would say things like having only 2 cities then lost the only non-capital city in a dark age is, well, kind of against the idea of tall. That's a punishment of both wide and tall.
 
Based on what people are reporting in this thread, the real history of the Byzantines is basically them playing on dramatic ages. The amount of revolts, civil wars, and infighting that led to their many periods of territory loss (followed by reconquests) is out of control.

It seems like being able to generate a good base of units to take back free cities immediately (or those of your enemies) is critical. Too bad Frederick’s ability doesn’t work on them.

Ironically if free cities don’t keep your unique infrastructure, Byzantium can just seed everywhere with Hippodromes and get more free heavy cav for reclaiming them. Still have to see if that works.
 
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