Golden Age Too Soon

[ChumChum]

i've noticed that when reviewing the races ppl tend to argue along the lines of

"you don't want your golden age too soon. you want it when you are settled down and can do a big bunch of development. generally the best time is the early middle ages, e.g. china, japan, india"

i also thought the same initially but after playing the game a lot more i think an early golden age is the way forward.
in fact so early that all my recent game have been with the aztecs and i really like theire super-super early golden age.

the reason being that, although the actua amount produced is much smaller than a later golden age, this initial boost allows you to wipe out one of your neighbours and get a much larger initial land grab. if you think of the rise of your civilisations power as an exponential curve (e.g. 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256 etc...)
then a small change at the beginning due to an early golden age give a massive change at the end (e.g. 3-6-12-24-48-96-192-384-768)

thats my reasoning anyhow and the reason i like the aztecs and the egiptians at the moment. haven't tried it with the greeks or the zulu yet as their initial charge is from defensive units. maybe someone could enlighten me.

-ChumChum

 

[Darth Sidious]

First of all, i do agree that basically early id better than late, because of the reason you stated.

However, it is not needed to raze a civ. without GA i always am very well capable of razing my neighbour and taking over his ground. And i do play deity only.

The GA only has effect if a square already gives you shield/commerce, since usually i irrigate squares with food bonus and mine shielded grasslands first, i either have 2 or 0 shields from a square. commerce i have 1 or 2 depending on the presence of a river (i play industrious) this means in many squares, the added bonus will be a 3th. under despotism this is a waste. Also do you have very little laborers to give a bonus since your making lots of settlers.
The best time for GA therefore IMO is when you just swiched government and you just took the other guys land. the GA will help you build your extra large civ quickly.