So are Normal Ages the worst?

[beorn]

At this point, I am not really impressed with the way the ages are determined, nor by their effects.

Lot of times my thriving civ (or thriving ai civs) score low, and vice versa. Not sure what I would suggest, but a civ that is losing ground should not end up in a golden, and a civ that is expanding and becoming very powerful should not end up in a dark... The fact that this happens tells me that it's not working right.

As to outcomes, I just don't see all that much impact, certainly not in the first half of the game. Dark and normal, you are gaining era points, which makes is just circular, and so far at least I haven't wanted those dark age cards. Golden age benefits are underwhelming, rarely making much difference in what I am mainly trying to accomplish, and heroic? I can never find three I want... Maybe if I played the religious game, I would have a different reaction, but I rarely found a religion.

Loyalty points have so rarely come into play in my games. I mean, I like the fact that shoving a settler into the midst of some civ's cities isn't going to work out for anyone -- that is a clear plus. But otherwise...

 

[Scaramanga]

Any loyalty from sources other than population make a big difference. +2 might see like it's low but it's +2 directly applied to your loyalty on top of your population loyalty. It bypass the whole population tug of war game and just add to your total loyalty. A happy city get merely +3 from amenities but that make a difference because it's +3 directly applied to your total, unaffected by population pressure.

Assuming you have only one city surrounded by foreign ones, Amani with Prestige in that city is not going to affect it any more than her base 8 pressure. And +2 in their cities with Emissary doesn't sound like it would make much of a dent unless they have other problems. At least that's what I thought we were talking about.

 

[Disgustipated]

It should scale with game difficulty

I believe it does, doesn't it.

And +2 in their cities with Emissary doesn't sound like it would make much of a dent

I've actually had several times where cities were losing loyalty by like -1.5 or something like that. Only problem is that effect you do have to wait the 5 turns for.

 

[isau]

I feel like it should be much harder to enter a second Golden Age after just completing one, if not impossible (Georgia being the exception). If a civ stays in a Golden Age from the Classical era to the Information era how can historians even tell there were any ages? LOL.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Normal ages seem boring but I think I'd rather have the open wildcard slot and be mired in the mediocrity.

Hmm, you know, "boring" is probably the best term for this as opposed to worst.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I rarely use Dark Age policies, but the reason why I shoot for a Dark Age instead of Normal (when I think I'm going to get Normal, anyway) is so that NEXT time I can have Heroic.

 

[DWilson]

It's interesting that everyone has so many golden ages. In my experience, if I'm not warring I mostly get normal ages with an occasional dark. That may be because I rarely have less than 12 cities, and play fairly carelessly with governors (mainly used for loyalty) and districts. Of course, if I start fighting wars, it's an almost guaranteed golden age.

 

[KayAU]

It's interesting that everyone has so many golden ages. In my experience, if I'm not warring I mostly get normal ages with an occasional dark. That may be because I rarely have less than 12 cities, and play fairly carelessly with governors (mainly used for loyalty) and districts. Of course, if I start fighting wars, it's an almost guaranteed golden age.

I think part of the reason for me is that I tend to stay ahead in tech, meaning I will be first to everything. It also means I will get a lot of wonders, including Taj Mahal. Another part of the reason, is that I get a lot of great people.

In my previous game with Scotland, I overshot the Golden Age threshold by more than 80 points at one time. That was in spite of me trying to postpone some historic moments. It was also a game where I went fairly wide (12 cities on a small map), as a result of an early war with Spain. I didn't do any offensive wars or significant amount of conquest after that, though.

Perhaps it is also affected by game speed? I play on Epic.

 

[Disgustipated]

My record is overshooting the golden age threshhold by well more than 100 points. I don't remember what it ended up being exactly.

My current game I'm struggling. I did get 2 golden ages by getting EXACTLY the minimum number of points the very last turn (I had to do some scrambling to get that done). At my current point in the game, I'm unlikely to get another golden age. Map type is a big reason. And I only have 10 cities (before I had 9, but one just culture flipped to me). I could go on a conquering spree, but I won't. I'm playing as Korea btw on the Expanded Earth map. So I am getting most of the tech era points, not so much of the civic ones though.

 

[TomKQT]

My record is overshooting the golden age threshhold by well more than 100 points. I don't remember what it ended up being exactly.

I think the huge overflows (I had many of them in a single game) could be fixed somehow. It would maybe make sense to make one additional threshold and allow you to get a heroic age even without a dark age, if you get really a lot of era score points? So not just a limit for avoiding dark and a limit for getting golden, but also a limit for getting heroic.

And I would also probably vote for making every subsequent golden age harder to get (it worked this way in Civ5).

 

[WillowBrook]

And I would also probably vote for making every subsequent golden age harder to get

They are, but it's only 5 points additional required per previous golden age. It should be a steeper curve - maybe keep 5 for the first, but add 10 for the second (total 15), 15 for the third (total 30) etc, or something similar.

 

[DrJambo]

Golden ages are too easy for the human. I usually have more golden ages (quite often consecutive) than normal ages than dark ages. In my last game as Genghis, I had 3 in a row.

 

[lordofcivs]

People here have different ideas mainly because they're all playing in different difficulties. Also the ideas differ because they're going for different victories. But in general, my personal opinion is to agree with the original post that Dark Ages are superior to Normal Ages due to the follow up of Heroic Ages. However, we need to properly plan for it.