How to avoid dark ages in late game?

[Chibisuke]

I've played a few more games on deity, and for those who are struggling with era points, my best advice is to maximize on great people to whatever extent you can. You get +1 era point each time you recruit a great person. If you can monopolize great people to any extent, you can generate a ton of era points especially during golden ages when it is otherwise hard to generate them. I have been able to chain golden ages on deity by having such strong great person generation.

This was easiest thus far when I played as Gorgo. If you play her properly, you can generate so many great writers you can't use them all. But it will give you a crap ton of era points as well. You can do this to a lesser extent with most other civs, just have to use Pantheon of Divine Spark and spam theater districts asap in new cities. It'll just take longer with most other civs.

 

[Socrates99]

War works great. I know the peaceniks don't want to hear that but it prevents DAs for me. Converting a city while at war or defeating veterans/corps/armies are great sources. Even just joining wars for emergencies or dpecific CBs works. You don't necessarily need to be a bloodthirsty warmonger. A peaceful player could build the Taj Mahal or crank out archeologists.

Generally after the Renaissance the only time I get DAs are when there's nothing left to research and I'm just counting down the clock with tourism or mars parts building.

 

[Arent11]

I've found that it is fairly easy to get normal or even golden ages in the early game, since you get enough era points: goody huts, discoveries, building unique units for the first time etc.

However in my experience it is much harder to get even a normal age in later times (medieval+). So, several times now I've spent the industrial+ ages in a perpetual dark age. (which is even graphically annoying since the map turns a darker shade...I suppose there's an option to turn this off but haven't checked yet).

What are your strategies to earn enough points to get normal/golden ages in the later game?

Why avoid a dark age? It doesn't really matter.

 

[shogun11B]

War works great.

If you were to write a strategy guide for Civ 6 it would only need to be one page with only this on it.
Applicable in all situations.

 

[Aldor]

Why avoid a dark age? It doesn't really matter.

It does, if you care about how the game looks (to my knowledge, there is no option to turn the ugly "dark age" graphics off, or a mod for that. Also, for immersion purposes (my empire is doing great but due to some "gamey" counter, which is in no way related to actual techs, progression etc you are thrown into a dark age).

Thanks for all the suggestions above btw. Haven't played much in the last weeks, will probably start a new game when the spring patch lands

 

[kb27787]

Have you tried building (chopping, mostly) wonders? Archaeologists are 3 era points each... These will get you the rennaissance and industrial era points needed.
Really the game should be over, even with peaceful play, in industrial or modern at latest, on deity.

 

[GimliLegolas]

I've found that it is fairly easy to get normal or even golden ages in the early game, since you get enough era points: goody huts, discoveries, building unique units for the first time etc.

However in my experience it is much harder to get even a normal age in later times (medieval+). So, several times now I've spent the industrial+ ages in a perpetual dark age. (which is even graphically annoying since the map turns a darker shade...I suppose there's an option to turn this off but haven't checked yet).

What are your strategies to earn enough points to get normal/golden ages in the later game?

Perhaps your problem is that you earn too many era points early in the game. The trick should be to earn enough for a golden age but no more since this just makes later periods more difficult. However, if you do slip into a dark age, do not despair. You'll have to work hard on keeping your cities loyal but going from a dark age to an heroic one is sometimes worth the difficulty. I've considered, but have not yet contrived to do it, to go deliberately into a dark age