early gold age, worth it?

[Tecibbar]

In my recent game, oracle bulbs Feudalism. I could start a great age and save three turns of anachy(monarchy, vassage, change religion). I think it was very worth it, as future great age would not likely save me three turns. And though I got less and , they were more valuable in early game.

 

[Gwynnja]

Golden ages are more powerful as the game goes on. The inverse is true for Great People. Bulbing, settling, and building academies and shrines are all usually better than an early golden age.

 

[The Enigma]

It depends on the type of great person you have. If you popped a great artist, and you are not aiming for a cultural victory then burn him for a golden age. Do likewise for a great Spy if you don’t do much espionage. Like Gwynnja said golden ages are FAR more powerfull later in the game, but if you have no other use for your GP then go ahead.

 

[kossin]

Or you can put him to sleep and use it for multiple late GAs.

 

[Bostock]

I agree with the OP - an early GA that saves three turns of anarchy isn't wasted.

Also, while the GA turns bring fewer extra coins/hammers each, they bring them earlier, giving them more time to "ripple".

The only real shame IME is that the Mausoleum tends not to be built/captured by that point.

 

[ppciv4]

better if you have that WW that adds 50% golden age.

build many windmill, watermill, workshop to make most tiles have both hammer&commerce

save some GPs(better if PHI), and... you can be in golden age for quite long.

 

[pi-r8]

how'd you get feudalism from the oracle? lol. But yeah, I think an early GA is only worth it if it saves you 2+ turns of anarchy.

 

[noto2]

People always say golden ages are better late game. How? In the early game, you might have tons of plots giving only 1 or 2 of a resource. So 1 hammer plots turn into 2 hammer, 2 commerce plots turn into 3 commerce, for example. Thus the GA boosts your economy by 30-50%. In the late game the GA might be turning 7 commerce plots into 8 commerce, and 4 hammer tiles into 5 hammer. Thus the GA is only boosting your economy by 15-20%. If I've just expanded a lot and my economy is just making its recoverly, an early GA boosts my economy enourmously.

 

[Soirana]

Late on - you work more tiles overall.

Overall - i don't know. If you crashed your economy due to war/rex into negatives and that Golden Age would get you let say currency. I would go for it.

I actually believe GA should give you an advantage. I usually go through couple while preparing to kill my main rivals.

 

[Andvare]

Golden ages are also a wee bit more powerful on faster speeds, as the anarchy from civic/religion changes are more severe. But saving five turns of anarchy on marathon, from going to org. rel. and hereditary rule and choosing a state religion, is huge.

 

[mirthadir]

The real reason early GAs are weaker is that the relative value of other uses of the GP go down as your empire gets more powerful.

Bulbing philo can easily save you 10 turns of direct research time and let you trade for another 20 or so (and that ignores the other very handy advantages of nabbing philo), bulbing electricity likely lops 2 or so turns off your research time and if you are VERY well positioned with respect to normal diplomacy and WFYABTA might be leverageable into another 4 turns off via trade.

Likewise the return on settling is far better the earlier you settle. Settling a late GSp barely makes a dent in your overall espionage (assuming you've built courthouses and jails everywhere, settling one in the early BCs will give you major returns for a over 100 turns.

Even the special uses of GP become less powerful late game. One GE can finish the entire Mids in some podunk town for you, with the SoL you can only use him to play catch up. The amount of gold you get from a trade mission declines relative to your net potential as the game progresses. Etc.

In terms of raw percent increase in economic performance, early GAs are actually stronger than late (getting 1 extra per tile is much bigger when your average yielding tile, like seafood, horses, and riverside farms, gives 1.5 than 5, from a respectable amount of cottages either overall or in B cap). The difference is that late game you have nothing else to do (aside from found corps). Thus your terminal 2 to 5 GP will likely end up being wasted.

All of that being said, a BC GA is not always a bad idea. The key is to make sure that it is worth it. You are sacrificing the long term value of your future GP, but that is fine if the short term does something like say double your size. Going for a LB rush and saving multiple turns on the civic swap as well as getting the suckers out faster from increased is worth nerfing your last few GP (who will sit around unable to start a GA for you) and foregoing the benifits or an early bulb if it will ensure you kill off the competition and dramaticly increase in land size.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I generally agree with the 2+ turn anarchy saving threshold for GA. And if you've expanded to near-strike (REX or early war) rather than idly let yourself remain boxed in, the GA benefits can be a life-saver for rebuilding an economy, quickly.

 

[Antilogic]

I agree with both of the previous posters (unless somebody cross-posts me).

The early GA is all about what you can do with it. If it's several civic changes and economic recovery, do it. If you are like me and always feel like you need a few more units to declare war...then a GA can give you the productive edge to nab another city or two. In the late game, it's probably worth the sacrifice of using that great person for bulbing, for instance, to get those cities you wouldn't be able to get otherwise, at least not this early.

 

[futurehermit]

Not worth it. Suck up the anarchy or don't make the switch imo. Let's say, hypothetically, that an early golden age affects 30-40 tiles (~6-8 cities at size 5-6). That's nice. However, by mid-to-late game that same golden age affects 200+ tiles (~20 cities at size 10+). The net difference is tremendous. Furthermore, as has been already stated, there are much better ways you can use your great people early on:

GS: Bulbing, academies, settling
GE: Rush-wonder, settling, save for Mining, Inc. or Creative Constructions
GM: Settling, trade mission, bulbing in some cases, save for one of the food corps
GP: Shrine, settling, bulbing (e.g., theology)
GSpy: Infiltrating, settling, scotland yard
GA: Useful for cultural victory; otherwise best used for golden ages or culture bombing an important captured city and thus ending revolt immediately.

GA would be the only GPers I could justify using for an early golden age, but even then I would save it until my empire would benefit more from the golden age.

 

[mirthadir]

Not worth it. Suck up the anarchy or don't make the switch imo. Let's say, hypothetically, that an early golden age affects 30-40 tiles (~6-8 cities at size 5-6). That's nice. However, by mid-to-late game that same golden age affects 200+ tiles (~20 cities at size 10+). The net difference is tremendous. Furthermore, as has been already stated, there are much better ways you can use your great people early on:

GS: Bulbing, academies, settling
GE: Rush-wonder, settling, save for Mining, Inc. or Creative Constructions
GM: Settling, trade mission, bulbing in some cases, save for one of the food corps
GP: Shrine, settling, bulbing (e.g., theology)
GSpy: Infiltrating, settling, scotland yard
GA: Useful for cultural victory; otherwise best used for golden ages or culture bombing an important captured city and thus ending revolt immediately.

GA would be the only GPers I could justify using for an early golden age, but even then I would save it until my empire would benefit more from the golden age.

You are right in your results, but wrong in your analysis. The number of tiles affected is irrelevent, we care how how fast the GA increases our economic climb (GNP growth being by and large exponential). It is a fairly good assumption in Civ that follows a basic rule of compounding so 20 50 turns sooner is worth far more than 30 later.

For a CE the strongest time to GA is early game, before you have much cottage growth at all. Hypothetically, if we pop a golden age when we only one tiles our GA comes pretty close to doubling our GNP (slightly less thanks to things like trade); for a fully mature CE we are looking at only a 14% increase in . The first case gives us 8 turns of "free research", the latter only 1.1. With Fin Civs this disparity is even worse (300% increase for the early GA vs 12.5% for the late) literally 24 turns vs 1.

Now, obviously this is a first order analysis. The dynamics change when we include as US towns get a huge boost from the GA. But the basic relationship is still the same, GAs give one extra yield to any tile regardless of base yield. Thus a BC riverside mine benefits more from a GA than a railroaded riverside mine with a levee. There is enough play as well with windmills and waterwheels to make GAs a bit more interesting, but the basics are the same, early golden ages trump late ones in their own right.

It is only the extremely high value of everything else early and the extremely low value of the same late that dictates going for late GAs a rule of thumb.

 

[noto2]

Agree with above. Saying an early GA is not worth it because it effects less tiles is making a huge error in judgement. what's better, getting 1000 beakers in the modern age, or 200 in the classical age? I'd take 200 in the classical age. Or what's better, getting 1 great engineer at the beginning of the game, or getting 10 with future tech? At the point of future tech, 10 GEs won't make a different. 1 GE at the beginning of the game is enough of an advantage to win the game for you.
Yes, in a late game empire, a GA might work on over 100 tiles, maybe even close to 1000. That's irrelevant. What matters is the relative change. In the late game, a GA might reduce your research time from 12 turns to 10, let's say. In the early game, it reduces it from 12 to 6. Which is the better option? Early game, in that case. Anyway, I'm not trying to argue that GAs are better early game, I'm just saying that it's wrong to assume it's better to use them only in the late game. They can be powerful at any point in the game, but as another poster already said, in the early game other options are more powerful, like rushing a wonder, bulbing, or settling. In the late game if you aren't building a corp there is usually nothing to do with GP other than run a golden age, I realize that.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I dont think its much about WHEN you burn a gp for a GA as much as why you did it and what you do during it. In this case using it for a quick switch to war civics footing and then (I am assuming) spending rest of time massing troops quicker and building a warchest would be worth it if it helps you win war easier and quicker and puts you in better position when its all done. And in long run if it means a successful war then that success would make bigger diff in game than a later GA.

I would say bigger waste would be burning a gp for GA with thinking of "nothing else better to do" then just going on normally doing what you would have done if that gp hadnt popped at that specific time. So it not time of game that GA happens as much as what you do with it while it is happening that counts more. At least that my oipinion.

Kaytie

 

[futurehermit]

Yes, in most things civ, early is better than late, I'm not debating that. But, you have to combine both parts of what I said. I can take the bonus from the golden age OR I can bulb my GS for xxxx beakers. Which would I rather do? In most/all cases I would rather take the bulb. Same idea with building an academy that will help in the short term and also pay signficant dividends over the long haul. Would I rather spend a GE on a golden age or rush the pyramids? Would I rather spend a GP on a golden age or build a shrine or settle for and (and with representation)?

getting 1000 beakers in the modern age, or 200 in the classical age? I'd take 200 in the classical age.

I would rather take the x >>> 200 from the bulb...

Also, the percentage payoff does look considerably better for the early golden age, but you also have to consider the sheer gross payoff of the late golden age. That low % can still correspond to a very large volume output that can put a decisive hurt on AIs in terms of your position relative with theirs. This can be especially true if you are able to string golden ages back to back to back, which is, obviously, much easier to do later in the game.

Like I said, a GArtist is probably your best bet for an early golden age, but I would have to question how/why you have generated a GArtist that early in the game, if you are not going for a cultural victory, in which case settling/bombing is probably much better of an option.

 

[absimiliard]

I'm w. FutureHermit.

The issue isn't whether an early GA is better than a late one. I actually think it might well be just because it's . . . well. . . . . early.

The issue however is whether an early GA is better than the alternative use of the GP in question. And there, usually it is not.

-abs

 

[CornPlanter]

It depends. If that golden age would give you an edge to win the current war or a particular wonder race, or so needed boost at the economy (or everything at once), etc., then go for it.