[R&F] Having Problems with Last era Dark Age

[Kaan Boztepe]

A toggle button would be good for this option.

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[JJOne]

succinct and correct. It is about pleasure over pain and the endgame is painfully slow, making it painfully dull to look at is too much for me.
Making a game look crap if you are in a dark age is a step too far. Note I also hate heroics and to a degree goldens. Too bright. A toggle button would be good for this option.

I feel you, in heroic I need to change my brightness/contrast to be able to play. Especially since this comes after dozens of turns with the dull dark age graphics.

 

[Arent11]

succinct and correct. It is about pleasure over pain and the endgame is painfully slow, making it painfully dull to look at is too much for me.
Making a game look crap if you are in a dark age is a step too far. Note I also hate heroics and to a degree goldens. Too bright. A toggle button would be good for this option.

Maybe it would have been better to just make golden ages a permanent party (fireworks over cities, +20% production/science/culture) and dark ages a permanent depression (abandoned buildings of cities, -20% production/science/culture). No need to change the UI.

 

[Josephias]

I think what hurts my eyes mostly is not the era colors per-se, but the drastic change when you change from one era to the other. It gets to the point I normally try to end a game sesión at era changes, in order to start anew with the new colors.

Once you are some turns into a dark age, you start to see colors again. Once you are some turns into a golden age, colors seem to be a bit more moderate. For sure it's just perception, but I feel that change.

Maybe if they made the change on saturation sequential (start going back to "normal" age colors bit by bit after the era end timer starts, and take 5-10 turns to reach proper era colors after the era starts) we would not be complaining that much about the "feature".

Nevertheless, an on-off button for the saturation change would be very well welcome.

 

[Alexadamz]

I guess the colors should only be for the UI bar above and the circle where you choose your actions, not the whole map. That is really weird and painful to look at.

 

[kaspergm]

I guess the colors should only be for the UI bar above and the circle where you choose your actions, not the whole map. That is really weird and painful to look at.

That would probably look disjointed. I don't mind - actually, I like - the fact that the colours of the entire map reflect the age you are in. But I do agree the effect could be toned down a little, so it's not *quite* as bright, when you're in a golden age, and not *quite* as dark, when you're in a dark age.

 

[NukeAJS]

One thing that a player should watch out for is going over the golden age point by a lot of points. While this doesn't increase the number of points you need for your next golden age, it does limit what era point bonuses are available. As an example, you can only get the era point bonus for a good adjacency/full district once. It might be a good idea to actually delay completing said district or the final building in the district until the next era comes.

Of course, there's an opportunity cost to delaying the district or final building. Would you rather put that era score towards something useful but not get the several turns of yields or would you rather get useless era points but get the yields sooner?

This doesn't only apply to districts/final buildings of course. It can apply to anything that gives era score although the opportunity cost would change depending on what you're delaying.

 

[Josephias]

One thing that a player should watch out for is going over the golden age point by a lot of points. While this doesn't increase the number of points you need for your next golden age, it does limit what era point bonuses are available. As an example, you can only get the era point bonus for a good adjacency/full district once. It might be a good idea to actually delay completing said district or the final building in the district until the next era comes.

Of course, there's an opportunity cost to delaying the district or final building. Would you rather put that era score towards something useful but not get the several turns of yields or would you rather get useless era points but get the yields sooner?

This doesn't only apply to districts/final buildings of course. It can apply to anything that gives era score although the opportunity cost would change depending on what you're delaying.

This applies specially to wonders too - last game I was already over the Golden era Treshold, and I gambled keeping Eiffel's Tower last turn on hold until next era, as well as Sydney Opera (this one was nevertheles quite timed to finish in era -1 turn, so just had to skip one turn to be era +1. Specifically for Eiffel, I was keeping a close look in my competitor's progress to ensure I was safely getting it without switching (sure they were annoyed when after the era passed I got two wonders on turn one )

 

[Slip de Garcon]

Hold back on artefacts (if only a few turns from Inf Age)
Hold back on buying great people (ditto)
Hold back on creating armies/armadas
Hold back on building your first plane