Golden ages

[obliterate]

I never use golden ages and I prefer to use the great people as great specialists inside my cities. I've noticed the AI almost aleays uses the Golden age ability.

Is it better to use the golden age of great specialists?

 

[Arvedui]

Personally, I only start thinking about a Golden Age during the age of my UU, or I might even having been preparing for it in advance. This can be very early, with civs like Rome, Greece, and the like, or, on the other end of the spectrum, very late, like with the Germans or Americans...

 

[Mischief]

When you are attempting a space race victory it can be a great help to have a Golden Age: Space ship parts are projects so you can`t hurry them with Great Engineers and a late Golden Age lets you build a lot more hammers (for space ship production) and gold (for quicker research).

So, if I have reached the late game and know I`m going for Space Race Victory, I often save Great People I wouldn`t have much use for otherwise for that purpose.

 

[bonafide11]

Only time I ever use a Golden Age is for building the Taj Mahal. I also am not a huge fan of the golden age and I almost never use my great people to start one, but I've noticed that it can be pretty powerful if you have a large empire.

 

[Defiant47]

Golden ages are best started when your empire is fairly well-developed, in order to gain the most benefit out of it. By having more tiles worked overall, you gain greater bonuses overall (and also try to harvest tiles that have both production and commerce). I'll usually only start a great-person golden age if have a great artist that isn't going to be spectacular somewhere (to boost the borders), and usually a great prophet when I've got all my shrines.

 

[Quetzal513]

The only time I think you should consider settling a gp as a specialist is very early in the game. It's going to take a lot of turns for a specialist to equal the immediate gains for a golden age or bulbing techs. Each golden age takes more great people to start, so I would think it has depreciating returns based on the opportunity cost of using those great people for techs. I agree about holding a golden age to complete the space shuttle though. I think the best use of gp is bulbing techs, but specific situations necessitate some flexibility

 

[Whitefire]

Scientist - I like to drop 2-3 Academies before 1000AD. After that, they all go straight into bulbing.

Merchant - I usually bulb these, but late-game merchant runs can be very lucrative. Also, I'll make a run with the merchant if I've just acquired a tech like Rifling or Assembly line and need to upgrade.

Engineer - I actually don't like this one. If he comes around when I'm building an expensive wonder like SoL or Pentagon, I find him useful. I usually bulb these.

Artists - The war monger's secret weapon. If I know I'm going to be aggressive in a game, I make a point of generating a couple of these. You can run to the core of a civ's empire, sue for peace, then drop your culure bombs to suffocate the surrounding cities. Then, when you come back to finish off the Civ, they won't have recovered.

Prophet - Useless for bulbing and one of my least favorite super specialists. The only plus side is that they build shrines.

 

[Quetzal513]

Engineer - I actually don't like this one. If he comes around when I'm building an expensive wonder like SoL or Pentagon, I find him useful. I usually bulb these.

Really? I've heard from lots of posts that Engineers are considered the most useful of the great people. Rushing expensive wonders, even national wonders in production poor cities, can be a huge boost. I guess it depends a little on the difficulty level, b/c the higher you go the less chance you have at wonders.

Playing on monarch I don't ever consider settling gps as specialists. They all go to bulbing techs. The exceptions, dependent on situation, are engineers for wonders and prophets for shrines. I agree artists can be great for warmongering, especially after I learned that they can be used to end all turns for disorder in a newly conquered city in addition to the culture bomb.

 

[Whitefire]

Really? I've heard from lots of posts that Engineers are considered the most useful of the great people. Rushing expensive wonders, even national wonders in production poor cities, can be a huge boost. I guess it depends a little on the difficulty level, b/c the higher you go the less chance you have at wonders.

I play on Monarch/Emperor right now. And while there are a couple of early wonders I love to get, Oracle and GL, the rest I can live without. I would much rather have a scientist to drive my research or a merchant/artist for expansion.

Playing on monarch I don't ever consider settling gps as specialists. They all go to bulbing techs. The exceptions, dependent on situation, are engineers for wonders and prophets for shrines. I agree artists can be great for warmongering, especially after I learned that they can be used to end all turns for disorder in a newly conquered city in addition to the culture bomb.

The thing with bulbing priests is that they always want to do Divine Right. I almost never pick up that tech, for any reason. I rarely get Theology either, unless I can grab the religion. So, my priest are forever wishing to bulb Divine Right, which I don't need. So I just settle it or save it for Golden Age fodder if it's late game.

 

[r_rolo1]

I don't know if anyone already done the maths, so i'll try to.....
(only comparing to lightbulbing; comparing the settling requires to know when the GP's were generated, and I want to keep it simple)
From what I read in the forums:

Great Scientists are worth 1500 + ( 3 * [total population] ) beakers

Other Great People are worth 1000 + ( 2 * [total population] ) beakers

So, for the first GA, for better use you must use two non-scientist GP's ( less beakers lost).
Then ( and suposing that all cities are in research (oversimplification, I know) and that we are at 100% science ( again oversimplification) for H + C = beakers), the extra H+C total on the 8 turns fo GA must be bigger than:

2*(1000 + ( 2 * [total population] )) = 2000 + 4 * [total population] or

(2000 + 4 * [total population])/8 = 250 + [total population]/2 per turn.

From here all depends of the population and of the H + C of your empire ( none of these follows a simple formula ... ), but my feeling is that Golden ages aren't (in the optic that I used) useful before the industrial era, and maybe even there....

Of course, seeing things like this is highly reductive ( there are more things in this game than beakers) and like Arvedui and Mischief said, a well timed Hammer boost can do wonders for your game. But I wanted to do a baseline, so please forgive me...

P.S Any kind of corrections are welcome

 

[Ecofarm]

I can think of at least 3 different types of GAs.

1. SP 4tw
Many cities. Since you do not want specialists during a golden age, -representation and -pacifism. Most people prefer to run specialists at 7+ populations.
You should have plains-cottages and other hammer + commerce tiles (StateProperty_bound improvements: watermills, windmills). Obviously, single production type tiles and food should be avoided, starve if growth requires more than 2-3 turns. The point is to get +2 from each tile, not merely +1.


2. Leftover GP
If I have reached the the military tech I need to dominate world, GA speeds production and provides cash for postdeclaration US. I suppose any deep-tree focus/lightbulb could be leveraged with a GA. Using the GP of low percentage or 2 that arrived to great dismay: "oh, great! Just what I didn't need. Lightbulbs optics!? It's useless. Where am I gonna settle this.... How long until a real GP is born?" Of course, all of my genepools are completely pure (because I override the governer every 2 turns), so I wouldn't know about 'accidental GP'. Actually, I've found that setting a city to 'focus on food' will prevent it from hiring merchants, etc.

Anyway, leftover GPx2 = GA.


3. Unsettled/forgotten about?! GP
Some GAs begin with "I left a GP fortified in that city?! Why didn't he say something?!"


Of course, if you experience a type 2 or 3 GA, I hope you are Prince or lower difficulty and doing alot of spam clicking through turns ftw.

 

[bpreger]

Actually, priests have one really good lightbulb you can take advantage of. In 1.61 Vanilla, if you don't research masonry (and therefore monotheism,) they can lightbulb code of laws, and if you've researched that, Civil Service. I take advantage of this gambit fairly often.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Priests are pretty good to settle - bonus hammers in your production city and bonus gold also. Often my second city is the one that starts a religion and is my production city, so a settled priest there is a nice benefit.

Theology lightbulb is pretty good - its a nice trade tech and it opens a useful civic to a warmonger.

Late game priests are not so great. Usually I want to get them early, preferring scientists, priests and engineers. Late game I want scientists and merchants, or artists if I am going for culture/war.

 

[cabert]

One minor thing to notice is that the first golden age is fairly "cheap" with 2 different great persons. Then it's starting to be a lot less cheap:
second golden age requires 3 different great persons
third requires 4 different
fourth requires 5 different! (engineer, merchant, priest, artist, scientist)
fifth requires 6 different? (what would that be?)