Era score

[craney1987]

I started my first game on king and am amazed by how easy it is to come by era score.
King. Standard speed. Standard map size. 8 civs. Normal city states. I shed as Zulu.

Does it become harder to get era points as you climb difficulty? It seems that EVERYTHING gives points. I found I didn't have to pay attention to my score at all to achieve golden ages.
As a way of scaling difficulty within the game it would make sense to me that you get less points for things as you increase your level.

 

[Xmonger]

Keep playing, it depends. Seems to be highly variable based on the map and your game play. Certainly early game racks up points pretty quickly.

For example I got a good map and played well early my first game and got two Goldens, then because of poor planning in mid/late game got a string of Dark. I think the system is working well.

 

[Josephias]

Early exploration feats provide quite a bit of era score at the beginning, so it is easy to reach the tresholds in the early stages (I did, however fall in a dark classical age in one game because an early war with a neighbour did not allow me to explore much).

But these one-shot moments are gone in later ages, and you have to focus more to get the needed points. How many Goden Ages were you able to achieve?

 

[craney1987]

I'm researching my first tech for the era after industrial with I think around 20 turns or so left before the game kicks over (I'm away from my PC now) and haven't missed one yet. So three. But it just seems the points keep coming. Maybe I'm now about to hit the point you're referring to where they are harder to come by

 

[Josephias]

I'm researching my first tech for the era after industrial with I think around 20 turns or so left before the game kicks over (I'm away from my PC now) and haven't missed one yet. So three. But it just seems the points keep coming. Maybe I'm now about to hit the point you're referring to where they are harder to come by

As the zulu you probably built the Ikanda on Classic and the Impi on medieval, which will have provided a quite nice boost (i'm not sure now if it is +4 or +6). But you won't have any more of these. Uniques may be great to achieve a treshold. This may have helped you to not suffer era score points scarcity up to now.

 

[craney1987]

That's true. Also faster promotions and faster corps and armies. Zulu do have a few advantages I hadn't considered

 

[Inlex]

In all 3 games I played (King, Emperor, Immortal) I slingshotted from a Dark Classical era to golden(heroic) Medieval. Never to leave golden again. The triple dedication is so stupidly powerful, that you get far ahead of the 'curve'. I found that many AI civs are in Dark Ages in the mid-game, making the age progression slower and basically locking you for infinite golden ages.

Also; I found that getting a golden age in Info era is OP as hell, since it never ends. If you don't make that, you're royally screwed.

 

[Kurnn]

The rate you get era score is very well balanced. I've played 4 games now where era score was totally different in each game.
I play on Immortal (I used to play on deity but that's almost impossible in the expansion) and my first game was very easy to get era score, so I had golden every time. The next game, I didn't get normal until the 3th era. 2 Dark ages was harsh! But they do have some good effects too.
My last game was crazy, started with gold first, then dark, then gold, then normal.

They spread out era scores very well, and there are a few things you always can do to get one, like clearing a barbcamp not to far away.
I am happy with the balance since I get different results in each game. Only having Golden age all the time would be boring. Now you have to work for it, and have some luck =).

 

[splungey]

After winning a cultural victory as Wilhelmina at the end of the Atomic Era on Emperor, I continued playing. A few turns later, and despite the whole world being in awe of my ridiculous cultural output, I entered a Dark Age. It felt ridiculous, but at that point in the game I'd ran out of ways of getting era points - I was regularly flipping enemy cities, researching Future Civic, smashing it on espionage, churning out great people .. but nothing that was significant enough to even give me a normal age. I carried on playing and was able to continue flipping enemy cities despite the Dark Age penalty but.. lol

 

[GermanSettler]

I think it depends very much.

In my first game as the Cree it was rather easy... the powerful scout on a continents map helped me make more than enough discoveries for a golden age. Plus you can build the unique unit and district very early on.

My second game (playing Wilhelmina), though, was on a landmass consisting out of rather long but narrow peninsulas. It was hard to make many discoveries without ships before other civs blocked the paths. It was impossible to reach a golden age and I narrowly avoided a dark age. Only when I was moving towards my cultural victory with many great people and works did I enter a "Golden Age"-snowball from Renaissance onwards. But even one of those was a narrow one for having a huge city just at the right time.

 

[UWHabs]

I like the variety. My first game as the Cree I got all their big bonuses early and snuck in that early golden age. And then combined with a couple early emergency wins, and steamrolling the AI, I was rolling in era score for golden ages the entire game. Heading to the industrial era (won the game on turn 1 of that era), I beat the score needed for a golden age by over 100 points (Taj Mahal was pretty awesome, although totally un-needed).

But my second game was a different story. As Korea, I got a normal classical age, which boosted to a golden age for the next era. Although the golden age bonus I had didn't really help, and ended up in a dark age the next era (although I could have avoided it, I intentionally delayed a few things to try the dark->heroic jump). Sadly I don't think I'll get any use from dark age policy cards, but my cities are set in a strong core that I have no loyalty issues. That's where I stopped for the night, but I definitely expect to be able to jump to a heroic age next time, which will hopefully boost me along nicely.

 

[nitedemon]

I am still on prince, twice, Cree and Mongolia, large map fractal, i either use monumentality to churn out settlers or conquer around, it seems like once you have a sht tons of cities , for the earlier eras you don’t even have to pay attention at all and still get gold age. The current Mongolia game i managed to wipe everyone out except Canberra because i want a culture win for that achievement, but since i have so many cities now that i have to get hundreds in order to avoid dark age, so hopefully i can get the win while in dark age achievement too.

I think the main problem is that at lower difficulty the era progresses way to slow so you have more than enough time to rack up points.

 

[Josephias]

Also; I found that getting a golden age in Info era is OP as hell, since it never ends. If you don't make that, your royally screwed.

Now, that's indeed a design failure.

Either they invent a "Future Age" that is the one that never ends and adjust the dark and golden tresholds for this age so the most likely result is normal Age, or they use this "Future Age" recurringly (let's say, after "Future Tech/Civic" has been researched X times), to keep the game rolling. I was hopping they would have solved that, but seems QA testers cannot spend that much time playing to the endgame.

 

[Magil]

As the zulu you probably built the Ikanda on Classic and the Impi on medieval, which will have provided a quite nice boost (i'm not sure now if it is +4 or +6). But you won't have any more of these. Uniques may be great to achieve a treshold. This may have helped you to not suffer era score points scarcity up to now.

Usually I keep up in later eras by eliminating Civs (big boost for this, like +5) and building Wonders.

Oh! And you seem to get +1 era score for each artifact you unearth, so that's +3 per archaeologist.

 

[pgm123]

Now, that's indeed a design failure.

Either they invent a "Future Age" that is the one that never ends and adjust the dark and golden tresholds for this age so the most likely result is normal Age, or they use this "Future Age" recurringly (let's say, after "Future Tech/Civic" has been researched X times), to keep the game rolling. I was hopping they would have solved that, but seems QA testers cannot spend that much time playing to the endgame.

I don't really see a difference between a future age that never ends and the information age that never ends. You could switch to that, but what is the point? It would be the same as the never-ending Information Age. Re-occuring Future Age is a bit better in the sense that it would give meaning to dedications. Or you could just have it be a Normal Age and make Information Age dedications (outside of Golden) meaningless.

That said, you don't really need to change the system. By the time you hit the Information Age, someone should hit a victory before any age turns over. In that sense, you're not really permanently in a Golden/Dark Age.

 

[katanaD]

the one era score that leaves me scratching my head is the sole 1 point you get for being the first to land on the moon. really, 1 whole point??

the other is if you start next to a natural wonder, you get 2, 3 point scores, giving a total of 6 within your very first turn

which really contrasts to that lonely 1 point for going to the moon

LOL

 

[Josephias]

I don't really see a difference between a future age that never ends and the information age that never ends. You could switch to that, but what is the point? It would be the same as the never-ending Information Age. Re-occuring Future Age is a bit better in the sense that it would give meaning to dedications. Or you could just have it be a Normal Age and make Information Age dedications (outside of Golden) meaningless.

That said, you don't really need to change the system. By the time you hit the Information Age, someone should hit a victory before any age turns over. In that sense, you're not really permanently in a Golden/Dark Age.

The main point on the first idea was altering the tresholds for that "future age" so you only have, say, a 5% chance of it being dark or golden (as a reward if you push too much one way or the other, and to not just say "ok, future era, everyone is normal now". (which could also be a possibility.

For me, the design flaw is we have 8 ages, and the lenght average (which I haven't found clearly stated elsewere, BTW, so feel free to correct), is 40-50 turns. That makes 320-400 turns out of the max. 500 a game has, so the design should have planned what to do with the remaining 100-180. Of course, you do not always play up to the 500, but they should be covered (even if with a "placeholder" solution like future techs/civics).

 

[UWHabs]

The main point on the first idea was altering the tresholds for that "future age" so you only have, say, a 5% chance of it being dark or golden (as a reward if you push too much one way or the other, and to not just say "ok, future era, everyone is normal now". (which could also be a possibility.

For me, the design flaw is we have 8 ages, and the lenght average (which I haven't found clearly stated elsewere, BTW, so feel free to correct), is 40-50 turns. That makes 320-400 turns out of the max. 500 a game has, so the design should have planned what to do with the remaining 100-180. Of course, you do not always play up to the 500, but they should be covered (even if with a "placeholder" solution like future techs/civics).

I haven't played to that point yet, but to me the logical answer would be to simply "repeat" the last era every 40-50 turns. So you get to the info era, pick a dedication, run with that for the time, and then when that expires, they count up the points again and you do another info era in-game. In theory I guess it would be harder and harder to get points, but that's kind of already true as the map fills up and there's no longer any natural wonders to discover.

 

[isau]

I think era score is really individualistic and depends a lot on the civ you're playing.

For example I just posted in another thread about how surprisingly powerful Spanish Conquistadors are now since you get +3 era points if you convert a city you are at war with. This alongside the improved Mission (which now provides Loyalty on foreign continents) sets Renaissance Spain up to steamroll its way through that segment. I think heading into the Modern era I needed 150 points or so to hit a Golden Age and end it with 185.

But I have had legs of the game where I have fallen into a Dark Age or narrowly missed 1 by 1 or 2 points.

I do think they need to remove giving you era points for killing a corps with a single unit tho. Or only allow it to trigger once rather than multiple times. There's nothing really significant about killing a corps with a lone unit, a lot of times it's just that the lone unit got the kill shot.

 

[noonexis]

Yeah it depends on luck as well - I've got 81/49 in Classic Era playing as Cyrus on Huge Deity Pangaea Standard Speed without conquering any city (liberated two CS as Emergency)

Cyrus

• noonexis
• Feb 16, 2018

81/49 Era score in Classic Era on Deity :)