Has anyone chosen a Dark Age legacy yet?

[Big J Money]

If I understand Dark Ages inCiv 7, they work like this:

1. You have to not complete any legacy path milestones for the path which you want the dark age (ex. science)
2. You have to pick the dark age in the next era, and I guess it doesn't cost any legacy points? (i.e. it's a reward not a punishment?)
* There seems to be back and forth online about whether choosing a dark age takes away all your legacy points or not
3. You cannot choose a golden age if you choose a dark age (if it takes away all your legacy points, then this goes without saying)

Is that correct? I'm curious if anyone has considered any of the dark ages to be worth their cost, even to the point of ignoring one or more golden ages you've unlocked. Since the dark ages come with a bonus and a malus, it seems unlikely that I would ever do this. But maybe I'm lacking in imagination, or just misunderstanding how the system, works. I could perhaps see picking the antiquity military dark age for a one city challenge, since the OCC would prevent one from qualifying for any golden age, except cultural.

 

[Taefin]

I had the chance to take a military dark age after antiquity. Lose all settlements except capital but gain 3 full cavalry armies. I didn’t pick it, and I don’t know what would happen to those settlements (join AI? get deleted?), but I could imagine a one-city antiquity where I’d rather conquer a neighbors capital instead of keep some 7-pop towns on HL. If nothing else it would be fun.

You do lose all other legacies, since selecting the dark age zeros out all your points.

 

[bumpyglint]

If I understand Dark Ages inCiv 7, they work like this:

1. You have to not complete any legacy path milestones for the path which you want the dark age (ex. science)
2. You have to pick the dark age in the next era, and I guess it doesn't cost any legacy points? (i.e. it's a reward not a punishment?)
* There seems to be back and forth online about whether choosing a dark age takes away all your legacy points or not
3. You cannot choose a golden age if you choose a dark age (if it takes away all your legacy points, then this goes without saying)

Is that correct? I'm curious if anyone has considered any of the dark ages to be worth their cost, even to the point of ignoring one or more golden ages you've unlocked. Since the dark ages come with a bonus and a malus, it seems unlikely that I would ever do this. But maybe I'm lacking in imagination, or just misunderstanding how the system, works. I could perhaps see picking the antiquity military dark age for a one city challenge, since the OCC would prevent one from qualifying for any golden age, except cultural.

Dark age paths make sense only if you're in really bad shape..

Choosing one grants a significant bonus along with a penalty, and if you select a dark age path, you won’t be able to spend any other legacy points in that age. If you've performed well in the previous age, choosing a dark age path feels counterproductive, as you'd sacrifice all the benefits you've worked to accumulate.

 

[Leyrann]

Honestly I feel like I'd have to try to not complete even the first milestone of any path. So far the question has more been whether or not I can get all of them at the same time, and I don't think I've scored below 10 milestones in any age yet (out of 5 finished Ages), except for the Modern Age that I think I finished with no milestones in the military path (so getting 9 total), which was mainly because I didn't feel like microing a few dozen units for a few dozen turns.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Honestly I feel like I'd have to try to not complete even the first milestone of any path. So far the question has more been whether or not I can get all of them at the same time, and I don't think I've scored below 10 milestones in any age yet (out of 5 finished Ages), except for the Modern Age that I think I finished with no milestones in the military path (so getting 9 total), which was mainly because I didn't feel like microing a few dozen units for a few dozen turns.

I totally bombed the treasure fleet game.

 

[Big J Money]

Honestly I feel like I'd have to try to not complete even the first milestone of any path. So far the question has more been whether or not I can get all of them at the same time, and I don't think I've scored below 10 milestones in any age yet (out of 5 finished Ages), except for the Modern Age that I think I finished with no milestones in the military path (so getting 9 total), which was mainly because I didn't feel like microing a few dozen units for a few dozen turns.

This is similar to my feeling, but I wouldn't go so far. I would say you would have to try to have a bad age. I almost entitled this post "what's the point of having these dark ages", but I wasn't sure whether they zeroed out all your legacy points or not.

If they didn't, then you could pick a dark age and still get your other legacy bonuses. This might be an incentive to intentially fail a legacy path to get the dark age. Or at least not go out of your way.

But since the dark age eliminates your legacy points, I don't think anyone would intentially shoot for one.

I think this is why some people say they are viable when your game "is in really bad shape", but this seems more theoretical than practical, because I can't imagine a game where you would have less than a few legacy bonuses. Also, it seems that if you were playing that poorly, then you were just going to lose the game anyway, dark age or not.

Sounds like I need to up the difficulty in my next game and see how it goes.

 

[Taefin]

Also, it seems that if you were playing that poorly, then you were just going to lose the game anyway, dark age or not.

I like that it gives a little more reason to persist through a bad age, if you want to attempt to prevail against all odds. I’m mostly thinking about antiquity military and exploration culture (bonus to getting explorers) have some pretty potent rebound potential. If it wasn’t for a navigable river and mountain wonder guarding my two cities in my current game, I likely would have been wiped off the HL and had to regroup using my island towns.

 

[Melkus]

The economic modern dark age maybe sounds interesting too, you could sneak to an economic victory (railroads and factories cost half the price, culture malus).
You'd need a decent culture base. But to qualify for it, not scoring treasure fleets is not exactly hard.

Not building (or taking over) 2 antiquity wonders also seems possible. +1 Spread and +1 movement for missionaries in Exploration (the cultural dark age) feels laughable however - there's a social policy that does the same thing. (And missionaries move very fast already and are the best scouts in Explo). AND you get a happiness penalty for your troubles.

 

[Navelgazer]

Honestly I feel like I'd have to try to not complete even the first milestone of any path.

I find it pretty easy to miss out on the first Antiquity military milestone the way that I play. And you can definitely whiff on Treasure Fleets even if you're trying for it.

 

[AriochIV]

I didn't build any Wonders in my most recent Antiquity Age and so got a look at a Dark Age trait for the first time.

If you select the Dark Age trait then all the other traits disappear, so choosing the Dark Age trait means forgoing all the legacy points you've earned. That just makes it a no-brainer decision... since it includes a malus it would be of questionable value by itself, but paired with the opportunity cost of all the other traits, that's just not even a question.

I honestly don't even know what these are even in the game for. Maybe as a consolation prize if you failed an Age so hard that you basically got no legacy points at all... but it's kind of hard to imagine that happening.

 

[Leyrann]

I find it pretty easy to miss out on the first Antiquity military milestone the way that I play. And you can definitely whiff on Treasure Fleets even if you're trying for it.

That's six settlements. You end the Antiquity with a settlement cap of 6. While a Golden Age is difficult to hit on military, and might be practically impossible if you don't get extra settlement cap from your civ or leader anywhere, it's never difficult to hit the first milestone. Just do the single most important thing in the game - expand.

As for treasure fleets, if you settle just a single treasure resource and get to Shipbuilding by turn 50, you'll have generated the 10 points you need by turn 130. And that's a very low bar to hit. I'd say a reasonable expectation for an average, maybe a bit worse than average, player is to be able to settle two resources by turn 60, and assuming your age takes 140 turns, you'll have earned 20 points in that time. (my Age ends quicker but that's because I'm hitting all the milestones - if someone who is trying for treasure fleets only secures two resources, I'm going to assume they'll be struggling to hit the other milestones as well)

 

[Big J Money]

Just do the single most important thing in the game - expand.

On very hard settings and small maps, it's quite easy to have all the nearby land taken by the AI before you get to settle it. And not every player wants to get into a war.

I agree that if you make it your utmost-goal-no-matter-what to have 6 cities that you will get them. But that poster didn't say it was difficult to get 6 settlements, they simply said it's easy to not get 6. That's not the same thing.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

That's six settlements. You end the Antiquity with a settlement cap of 6. While a Golden Age is difficult to hit on military, and might be practically impossible if you don't get extra settlement cap from your civ or leader anywhere, it's never difficult to hit the first milestone. Just do the single most important thing in the game - expand.

As for treasure fleets, if you settle just a single treasure resource and get to Shipbuilding by turn 50, you'll have generated the 10 points you need by turn 130. And that's a very low bar to hit. I'd say a reasonable expectation for an average, maybe a bit worse than average, player is to be able to settle two resources by turn 60, and assuming your age takes 140 turns, you'll have earned 20 points in that time. (my Age ends quicker but that's because I'm hitting all the milestones - if someone who is trying for treasure fleets only secures two resources, I'm going to assume they'll be struggling to hit the other milestones as well)

Well, I had gotten to the end of Science and Culture as well as getting a few future techs. I had two lonely fleet goods in my lands relatively far away. I think it was a combo of timing myself out too quickly and me not knowing what I was doing. I would have reached level one if the age had lasted a few more turns though.

As it was I ended up winning by Econ victory, so I'm nbot really sure how much I missed not getting treasure fleet bonus.

 

[Evolena]

If I understand Dark Ages inCiv 7, they work like this:

1. You have to not complete any legacy path milestones for the path which you want the dark age (ex. science)
2. You have to pick the dark age in the next era, and I guess it doesn't cost any legacy points? (i.e. it's a reward not a punishment?)
* There seems to be back and forth online about whether choosing a dark age takes away all your legacy points or not
3. You cannot choose a golden age if you choose a dark age (if it takes away all your legacy points, then this goes without saying)

Is that correct?

1. right
2. wrong: You have can choose to pick the dark age in the next era, and I guess it doesn't cost any it costs all your legacy points? (i.e. it's a reward not a punishment? an option)
* There seems to be back and forth online about whether choosing a dark age takes away all your legacy points or not -> it does
3. given 2), right

 

[Big J Money]

I wonder if it would be better if it worked like this when you unlock 1 or more dark ages:

1. You keep all your legacy points
2. But you can't spend them on golden ages
3. And you must select 1 dark age (you can choose which one if you unlock more than 1)

 

[stealth_nsk]

The core idea is - if you did really bad, you have an option to get unique bonuses.

So, having dark age as a bonus, not something forced, is totally fine. I wouldn't want forced dark ages from Civ6 to return.

Sacrificing all points also have the idea behind it - to make dark ages useful only if you performed really badly. And also to avoid unnecessary synergy, where combining dark age with other bonuses could lead to some potentially strong combos, which would make some people hunting for those dark age legacies.

But while those decisions have reasons, it's clear that dark age legacies are too underpowered and need some review to become viable.

 

[Big J Money]

The core idea is - if you did really bad, you have an option to get unique bonuses.

That's the purpose of this thread, to find out if the core idea was practical. Has anyone actually done poorly and then decided to choose a Dark Age legacy? So far, nobody has replied about that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's the purpose of this thread, to find out if the core idea was practical. Has anyone actually done poorly and then decided to choose a Dark Age legacy? So far, nobody has replied about that.

As I wrote further below, the idea didn't seem to work.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Due to a brain fart and inaccurate fingers, I accidentally picked the Modern Age dark age in my latest game (you get Flight at Combustion but.. something or other). You clearly wouldn't do it out of choice if trying to win fast, but it was kind of fun to get planes up that quickly and start bombing people.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I honestly don't even know what these are even in the game for.

Cool material for content creators looking for a new spin??