[R&F] It seems better to be in Dark Age

[GoatsHeadSoup]

The loyalty penalty alone is enough to make Dark Ages hard to swallow. With a 7 governor cap, it's going to be very hard to deal with a dark age if you've gone wide. Border cities will be flipping faster than burgers at McDonald's.

Also, some of the dedication bonuses for Golden Ages are insanely OP too. I'm thinking that weaving Dark Age-Heroic Age to get the triple dedication might be better than aiming for back to back Golden Ages.

This is actually a great way of balancing dark ages, for human players at least. I guarantee that the AI is not going to be able to handle this very well. On lower difficulties the AI will probably get stuck in a permanent dark age due to how far ahead the player is, and on higher difficulties it will be in a permanent golden age because of how much the AI cheats. It will be interesting to see how this eventually gets balanced.

 

[pgm123]

Can you stay there forever? You are bound to accomplish something and it will add up???

I'd imagine if you tried hard enough, it would be possible. But you'd have to actively avoid doing certain things like anything first, anything with your uniques, or any of your dedications. The fact that your threshold to get into the normal age is lowered based on the time you've been in a Dark Age makes me think it will be a pretty tough mini-game.

 

[Wingednosering]

If the only Dark Age bonus (that makes it more appelaing than heroic/golden) is the chopping power, I don't see it being a problem. You'll never have enough trees to chop from the beginning of the game to the end. Strategically dropping to a dark age in the information era to rush space race projects I could see though.

 

[pgm123]

If the only Dark Age bonus (that makes it more appelaing than heroic/golden) is the chopping power, I don't see it being a problem. You'll never have enough trees to chop from the beginning of the game to the end. Strategically dropping to a dark age in the information era to rush space race projects I could see though.

It's not actually the chopping power, which is based on a governor, but the ship-building boost. He's saying you use the boost to get ships almost built and then chop with boost to get the overflow.

There's a pretty simple nerf to this, which is to just cut down on the amount of overflow you can use--say 50%. Or 0%. Or you can play with how cards work on overflow (e.g. production not needed from a card gets cut out of the overflow). Or you could have it not scale by era, so it gives you very little late in the game. Make it a mod and call it Lily difficulty so those of us who aren't that good can get to chop and get bonuses.

 

[Wingednosering]

I get that, but the basic mechanic is built on chopping. No trees, no/minimal overflow. It's still a finite resource.

 

[pgm123]

Agreed. I'm just saying it'll exist all game.

 

[UWHabs]

Or, you know, they can fix the chop overflow "bug" and prevent this whole thing.

Never mind that the original post is based on the governor modification for chops being a multiplicative bonus where we have no reason to believe that this will be the case. If anything, the +100% chop yields will simply add to the other bonus, so that a 120 production chop would put 480 production towards a privateer with all those policy cards. Still obviously a crazy bonus.

Man, I really hope they fix the chop overflow. Like, seriously, how hard is it for them to simply apply the chop one hammer at a time until it completes what you're working on, and then any remaining hammers from the chop simply go into base production next turn?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Agreed - unless there is some other negative to a dark age other than just lower city loyalty then it just seems a big win to be in one. The more modifier cards they add into the system the more options there are to exploit/unbalance things.

They could solve a lot of balance issues if they just made chops a flat yield and not subject to policy cards or other buffs.

I'm still holding out (a fading) hope that they are going to do something to fix how overpowered chops are.

The problem is the overflow mechanic.... Civ6 has the worst version of it so far

 

[Cyberian]

It might be a tactic to go wide with Governors meaning all 7 asap to prevent any loyalty issues.
If you have about 10 cities you can be sure that a few of them are fine on their own due to buildings and terrain. Then you put the governors in the ones where you got the most loyalty issues.
You can probably manage way higher city numbers with relocating them.

 

[God of Kings]

Atomic Era Dark Ages are the best.

Why?

They can lead to an Information Era Heroic Age.

 

[Wingednosering]

Or, you know, they can fix the chop overflow "bug" and prevent this whole thing.

Never mind that the original post is based on the governor modification for chops being a multiplicative bonus where we have no reason to believe that this will be the case. If anything, the +100% chop yields will simply add to the other bonus, so that a 120 production chop would put 480 production towards a privateer with all those policy cards. Still obviously a crazy bonus.

Man, I really hope they fix the chop overflow. Like, seriously, how hard is it for them to simply apply the chop one hammer at a time until it completes what you're working on, and then any remaining hammers from the chop simply go into base production next turn?

It's actually an even easier process than that. It's actually less work to prevent overflow than it is to include it.

Maybe they like it? Or maybe they aren't aware of it?

Another solution (the cleanest option) would be to switch production modifiers to cost modifiers. Instead of 100% production towards X, go for '50% less production required for X.

That option requires more work because of all the tooltip rewrites though, so I doubt we'll see it.

 

[Cyberian]

You could just put caps on overflow plus a percentage waste the higher it reaches the cap.
I like overflow I don't want this mechanic back where I have to make sure I always build something that is a rough multiples in cost of my hammer output and maybe even move pops between turns that was painful af.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Another solution (the cleanest option) would be to switch production modifiers to cost modifiers. Instead of 100% production towards X, go for '50% less production required for X.

That option requires more work because of all the tooltip rewrites though, so I doubt we'll see it.

I thought of that too, but the problem is it opens up an exploit that would allow players to get the benefit of the cards without committing to them.

You could start building a wonder without having the "Reduce Wonder Cost" card equipped, then stop building that wonder when it reaches the point where it would have finished if you did have that card equipped. The next time you discover a civic, you equip the card and change your production back to the wonder, obtaining it instantly. It's like you were using the card the entire time, even though you only had it equipped for a single turn.

 

[Onii-chan]

Strategies like this just makes me twitch my eyebrows. Are people playing the game because they think it's fun or just to find every possible loophole in the game mechanics in order to get a high score and/or win the game as quickly as possible? Reminds me of the Awesome Games Done Quick event; I've never seen what's supposed to be so fun about playing games like that. But whatever floats your boat

In any case, rather than arriving at the conclusion that "Dark Ages are better" from this, I think you should rather arrive at the conclusion that "This is a stupid game mechanic abuse and it should be patched/modded away altogether" because production overflow in general is a ridiculous mechanic that should not exist in Civ, or at the very least not carry over if continuing to build something that the +% production bonus did not originally apply to, that's just plain illogical

 

[Siptah]

My first thought when I saw the +100% chop of the Stewart was actually "Ok, so they finally nerfed chopping. Glad for that!"

 

[Arent11]

you just lose a little loyalty, which is sure to be covered by simply wiping out all nearby Civs.

There are indications that there are loyalty mechanics that have not been mentioned yet. For example, loyalty pressure of recently conquered cities. So, yes, right now warfare is best in civ 6 & yes, dark ages seem to help with that a lot. However, until I know all the specifics of loyalty, I will be cautious.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Strategies like this just makes me twitch my eyebrows. Are people playing the game because they think it's fun or just to find every possible loophole in the game mechanics in order to get a high score and/or win the game as quickly as possible? Reminds me of the Awesome Games Done Quick event; I've never seen what's supposed to be so fun about playing games like that. But whatever floats your boat

In any case, rather than arriving at the conclusion that "Dark Ages are better" from this, I think you should rather arrive at the conclusion that "This is a stupid game mechanic abuse and it should be patched/modded away altogether" because production overflow in general is a ridiculous mechanic that should not exist in Civ, or at the very least not carry over if continuing to build something that the +% production bonus did not originally apply to, that's just plain illogical

I agree, I'm no great player in any case but I try not to exploit loopholes/bugs/things that don't seem right when I do find them.

 

[pgm123]

My first thought when I saw the +100% chop of the Stewart was actually "Ok, so they finally nerfed chopping. Glad for that!"

I'm curious if they made chopping less effective so you need the Stewart to recreate the effect.

 

[Kyro]

There are few things that make a game designer's hair stand. Parading exploits as strategy...now that nerf hammer is gonna come down real hard. You can say goodbye to boosted production overflow in advance, it'll just be overflow that can be used for whatever the card specifically limited.

I used Privateer wood to make my space rocket! Ain't that so smart? Surely the devs must have intended this totally broken feature.

 

[Victoria]

I'm curious if they made chopping less effective so you need the Stewart to recreate the effect.

That would be great. Chopping is strong at the moment but if they nerf it too much then science victory will be a lot about clicking the next button. Currently I am finding it like a puzzle, its quite a complex victory and not easy to get around T150 with including all the 'exploits'. I used to think it was cheating but its just another style of play that is more challenging than immersive.
I agree we do not know how much they have changed things and no matter what we guess it will not quite match but so far what I have seen is the loyalty mechanism can be overridden with domination.