Golden Ages
- Thread starter bkrice
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z0wb13
undead
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2009
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GAs r0xx0r!!!!>!<!>!<!!!!!
golden ages are better in the late game when you have a big empire. great people are better for bulbs in the early and mid game, and best settled in the early game or small empires. and they also unlock some neat buildings, and corporations.
also, free civic changes is pretty cool, and you can squeeze 2 into a GA if you need to switch into slavery or nationhood to draft an army.
golden ages are better in the late game when you have a big empire. great people are better for bulbs in the early and mid game, and best settled in the early game or small empires. and they also unlock some neat buildings, and corporations.
also, free civic changes is pretty cool, and you can squeeze 2 into a GA if you need to switch into slavery or nationhood to draft an army.
GAs kick your economy into overdrive. Thus, as noted, they're most useful in the late game when you have lots of cities to benefit from that overdrive. You can mash out an army very quickly in the 8 turns allotted to you; you can quickly build spaceship parts; you can rush through a few key techs; you can make serious progress on getting more Great People...all around they're amazing accelerators. If you don't need the Great Person's primary use (bulbing techs, rushing wonders, etc.), definitely consider using them for GAs instead of settling them, especially as the game wears on.
vanatteveldt
Emperor
I disagree generally with the "GA's are better in late game" argument.
GA benefits are spread evenly across empire, e.g. if they benefit a small empire "25%" they will generally also benefit a large empire "25%". Of course, 25% of small is less than 25% of large in absolute terms, but CIV is all about relative growth.
There are three arguments for early GA's:
- GA gives a benefit of +1h+1c on tiles already producing one of those. In early game, a cottage will go from 2c or 3c to 3/4c, an increase of 50% or 33%. In late game, the same cottage will go from say 6c to 7c, an increase of only 17%. The same for workshops, mines, etc. (Exceptions are of course tiles that get their first commerce or hammer, such as non-riverside windmills, US towns, and riverside levee tiles; so that is a consideration)
- In mediaeval times you get a number of new civic options, e.g. caste, bureau, OR/pac, HR. An early GA can let you adopt those civics without needing to waste turns to anarchy
- If you use an early GA to gain advantage, this can be multiplied exponentially. If it is true that most games are decided in the first 100 turns, shouldn't we use a GA in those turns?
One of my favourite plays is to use the artist from music to go into a golden age, run pacifism+caste during the golden age and max scientists everywhere. On the last turn, switch to whatever you really want to run. This way, you can exchange the artist for 2 or 3 scientists, which is a great boost towards Lib.
In general, a GA is a great time to do whatever your empire was not doing well. For example, if you are running a builder economy and you need to boost your unit output, use the GA to drop into military civics, build as many units as feasible, and drop back. Same for GPP as in the play above, or as a warmonger drop into tech civics to run towards a useful (military) tech.
I think the decision on whether you want a GA now are:
- is my empire growing population or am I around happy cap? If you are growing, a GA is less useful as it doesn't increase food
- do I have pending civic changes now or within the GA duration?
- how useful is the GP otherwise? Can it bulb or instabuild something useful?
- is there something important to gain from the boost? Will it give me a shot at important wonders? Will it allow me to win liberalism? Will it allow me to conquer an important piece of land? Maybe even: will it get my out of my REX hole and towards a good economy?
GA benefits are spread evenly across empire, e.g. if they benefit a small empire "25%" they will generally also benefit a large empire "25%". Of course, 25% of small is less than 25% of large in absolute terms, but CIV is all about relative growth.
There are three arguments for early GA's:
- GA gives a benefit of +1h+1c on tiles already producing one of those. In early game, a cottage will go from 2c or 3c to 3/4c, an increase of 50% or 33%. In late game, the same cottage will go from say 6c to 7c, an increase of only 17%. The same for workshops, mines, etc. (Exceptions are of course tiles that get their first commerce or hammer, such as non-riverside windmills, US towns, and riverside levee tiles; so that is a consideration)
- In mediaeval times you get a number of new civic options, e.g. caste, bureau, OR/pac, HR. An early GA can let you adopt those civics without needing to waste turns to anarchy
- If you use an early GA to gain advantage, this can be multiplied exponentially. If it is true that most games are decided in the first 100 turns, shouldn't we use a GA in those turns?
One of my favourite plays is to use the artist from music to go into a golden age, run pacifism+caste during the golden age and max scientists everywhere. On the last turn, switch to whatever you really want to run. This way, you can exchange the artist for 2 or 3 scientists, which is a great boost towards Lib.
In general, a GA is a great time to do whatever your empire was not doing well. For example, if you are running a builder economy and you need to boost your unit output, use the GA to drop into military civics, build as many units as feasible, and drop back. Same for GPP as in the play above, or as a warmonger drop into tech civics to run towards a useful (military) tech.
I think the decision on whether you want a GA now are:
- is my empire growing population or am I around happy cap? If you are growing, a GA is less useful as it doesn't increase food
- do I have pending civic changes now or within the GA duration?
- how useful is the GP otherwise? Can it bulb or instabuild something useful?
- is there something important to gain from the boost? Will it give me a shot at important wonders? Will it allow me to win liberalism? Will it allow me to conquer an important piece of land? Maybe even: will it get my out of my REX hole and towards a good economy?
Framesticker
Prince
I don't people actually argue for that early Great People should be saved for later GAs, but for that ater GAs, instead of being settled or used for bulbing (as both of these effects diminsh as the game goes on) should be used for GAs.
Whether this is good advice depends what you mean here. Drafting and whipping during a GA is generally a bad thing to do. Working excessive numbers of food tiles is also a waste when there are alternatives that make use of the GA bonusses. However ending a GA with those civics can be a very useful way to switch civics, and one I frequently use.
During a GA I tend to work as many tiles as practical that gain the extra
and 
and to run as many specialists as possible in cities that have a good GPP pool. In the middle game, post Liberalism, I might run Representation, Caste System and Pacifism during a GA, starving some cities to empty their granaries of spare food. At the end of the GA I will then switch to Nationhood, Slavery and Theocracy and start raising an army. That could continue for many drafting and whipping cycles, with regrowth, until it's time for another GA.
6K Man
Bureaucrat
The bigger the empire, the more important a Golden Age (GA) is. The beakers you get from bulbing don't seem to scale with empire size, and obviously, settling/Academy only benefits one city.
I try to time my major sets of civic changes to coincide with GAs, simply because the absence of anarchy for 2-3 turns (Epic speed) can be worth hundreds of hammers and thousands of beakers. Add in the boost your hammer and commerce production gets, AND the +100% GP production, and I find that it's often a better move to start a GA than to do anything else, once I have more than a dozen cities or so.
As stated, the later the game, the less useful it is to settle/Academy your great people, and bulbing/GAs become more attractive. In the early game, strategic bulbing, an early Academy, and a Shrine to a widespread religion can trump GAs.
I try to time my major sets of civic changes to coincide with GAs, simply because the absence of anarchy for 2-3 turns (Epic speed) can be worth hundreds of hammers and thousands of beakers. Add in the boost your hammer and commerce production gets, AND the +100% GP production, and I find that it's often a better move to start a GA than to do anything else, once I have more than a dozen cities or so.
As stated, the later the game, the less useful it is to settle/Academy your great people, and bulbing/GAs become more attractive. In the early game, strategic bulbing, an early Academy, and a Shrine to a widespread religion can trump GAs.
Beakers from bulbing do scale with empire size a little. I think it's 1500 beakers, plus 3 per population point for a great scientist, and 2/3 that for anyone else... although I could be wrong about the exact numbers, I know it's something like that. There's a big base number of beakers you get, then each additional population adds a little more.
z0wb13
undead
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2009
- Messages
- 657
i would tend to agree with you here. but, sometimes you need to field an army more than you need maximum efficiency. i'm splitting hairs, in know.
the second point that you touch on is that instead of working
tiles during a golden age, you can starve cities to take advantage of double :GP: points, or whatever. but generally, during a GA, you want as many citizens working tiles as possible.
6K Man
Bureaucrat
That is definitely a little scaling. I'm not sure I ever noticed.
Consider an empire of 25 cities, averaging size 10. That's 250 pop points x 3. So a bulbed Scientist provides an extra 750 beakers. Sounds good, until you consider that a Golden Age adds an extra commerce and/or hammer for every tile producing commerce and/or hammers. There are up to 275 tiles being worked. Multiply that by how long the GA lasts... and the GA outstrips the bulbing pretty handily. Even assuming you're working some food-only tiles and running some specialists, you'll also have 50-100 tiles producing both hammers and commerce, and getting a double bonus.
Yeah, it's a very small boost. To my mind, it doesn't really affect the balance of golden ages vs. bulbing much (I suppose it might affect a very few close calls). What it does effect is if you're already up to needing too many great people for another golden age, so you have to decide between bulbing and settling - prefer to bulb with a large empire, and to settle with a small one.
I only mentioned it because it's a little mechanic which isn't really advertised and is easily overlooked (I hadn't noticed until I got curious and went looking on forums for exactly how many beakers a GS provided).
I only mentioned it because it's a little mechanic which isn't really advertised and is easily overlooked (I hadn't noticed until I got curious and went looking on forums for exactly how many beakers a GS provided).
Also recall that you WILL have late game GP ... and what exactly do you intend to do with them when they show up? Some can become corps, but aside from GAs not all that much is promising - settling is a low return late game, bulbing might save you a turn off a tech, and even unique abilities are fairly weak by that point. Early GAs are viable, but they come at the price of making the last few GP pretty worthless.
A few other points of note:
1. The ability to abuse caste/pac comes after you have your first shot at a GA; it can be extremely useful to starve down a city using that.
2. A number of techs let you gain or that massively increase GA yields. US towns are obvious, but also machinerary which opens WMs for the first shot. GA on windmills is a lot better than on mines.
3. MoM allows you to get more relative value from a GA. Waiting until you've built/taken it can be huge.
4. GAs are one of the few ways to temporary pump up production. Nabbing a key wonder off a timely GA can be worth a LOT (notable ones include the AP, UN, Pentagon, 3GD, and internet - though not really a wonder). Being able to drop into a GA on demand is pretty nice.
A few other points of note:
1. The ability to abuse caste/pac comes after you have your first shot at a GA; it can be extremely useful to starve down a city using that.
2. A number of techs let you gain
or that massively increase GA yields. US towns are obvious, but also machinerary which opens WMs for the first shot. GA on windmills is a lot better than on mines.3. MoM allows you to get more relative value from a GA. Waiting until you've built/taken it can be huge.
4. GAs are one of the few ways to temporary pump up production. Nabbing a key wonder off a timely GA can be worth a LOT (notable ones include the AP, UN, Pentagon, 3GD, and internet - though not really a wonder). Being able to drop into a GA on demand is pretty nice.
mariogreymist
Deity
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2009
- Messages
- 2,201
To my mind, the free civics swaps are the #1 benefit of the Golden Age. Delaying certain civics swaps can make good sense if a GA is upcoming. It's also worth noting that the faster game speeds make this effect more important, even though anarchy is shortened in terms of turns lost. 1 turn lost on normal speed is the same as 2 lost at epic, or 3 at marathon. Because there is no way to create fractions of turns lost, the faster speeds end up losing a proportionally larger portion of and during anarchy, as opposed to slower speeds.
Generally, if I am going to change more than one civic, I try to do it during a GA. I rarely play a game where I go for less than 2 GAs, and I have done as many as 5 in a single game. (Taj and 4 GP generated)
And Great Artists do have a more important function than Golden ages when you're going for a culture win.
and during anarchy, as opposed to slower speeds. Generally, if I am going to change more than one civic, I try to do it during a GA. I rarely play a game where I go for less than 2 GAs, and I have done as many as 5 in a single game. (Taj and 4 GP generated)
And Great Artists do have a more important function than Golden ages when you're going for a culture win.
I feel that a first, mid game golden age can be really helpful in preventing a three turn anarchy associated with a major civic change.
I find it really useful to keep a golden age "in your back pocket" for a dire time of need. Specifically, if you get an unexpected DoW. Nationalism drafting units and slavery whipping has saved me a number of times. With a GA, you can crank out units that turn. I find this more beneficial on higher levels when you have neglected building strong garrisons and have diverted hammers to workers/beaker buildings to keep up with the AI teching.
I find it really useful to keep a golden age "in your back pocket" for a dire time of need. Specifically, if you get an unexpected DoW. Nationalism drafting units and slavery whipping has saved me a number of times. With a GA, you can crank out units that turn. I find this more beneficial on higher levels when you have neglected building strong garrisons and have diverted hammers to workers/beaker buildings to keep up with the AI teching.
