[GS] So, how do people feel about Eras?

[kaspergm]

I just have one issue with it... any overflow of golden age points should be awarded to the next age; they should really fix this.

Imo. that would be the worst thing they could do. If they did what you suggest, players would be guaranteed permanent golden ages even more than is the case currently. The system breaks down completely if you can just amass era score one age and then live off it for the rest of the game. At least one good thing you can say about the current system is that it allows you to collect massive era score at some point and still have a poor era later, which is really how it should be.

 

[Galvatron]

If they did what you suggest, players would be guaranteed permanent golden ages even more than is the case currently.

Is that really a bad thing though? Even if it is, there's a mountain of solutions to that, like increasing the value of later era's achievements or just an overall increase in era cost.

Don't get me wrong I am afraid of making it too good, but they current system is annoying in the waste, especially since many score sources are unique, so once you burn them that's it.

Im not sure if anyone suggested it but a simple solution that fixes both ends of the spectrum could be ending heroic eras and replacing them with a system that rewards a number of dedications relative to you point overflow with dark age giving you a bonus to your era score. Even if you overtake the score needed by like two times then atleast you know it's going to good use.

 

[Galvatron]

(again, IMHO) is that "Dark Ages" were never Entirely Dark. In fact, if you divide up consequences into Political, Diplomatic, Religious, Scientific, Trade, Production (the usual suspects in Game Design) you will be hard put to find ANY period in history when all of them simultaneously went into 'decline'.

Are you in some alternate reality where the past 40 years have been good? Because in this dimension every category the is in a massive slump on a global level... arguably not for production if you believe speculation but very few people do.

 

[acluewithout]

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The way Era scores works does create perverse incentives. You’re basically constantly pushed to stop doing awesome stuff to avoid Era score, either to force a Dark Age or to avoid “wasting” Era Score (because you’re not going to hit a GA aide you’ve already secured one).

Carrying over Era score is definitely not the solution. I agree it would just mean endless Golden Ages, which I think would get pretty boring fast, and it also wouldn’t remove the incentive to not do awesome stuff in some circumstances.

I can live with the current Era system and there’s other stuff I’d rather FXS address as a priority, but I do think there must be a better way to do Eras (although I don’t know what that is personally...).

 

[Galvatron]

That's a disincentive, not a perverse incentive. A perverse incentive is when you are incentivised to produce the opposite of what a system is designed for. Like a bounty being provided for rats tails including people to cultivate rats and increase the population rather than cull them.

A perverse incentive would be something like getting rewarded for something that damages your civ, like getting era points for overcoming a repeatable event like cracking down on a rebellion, and thus getting points for poorly managing a region.

 

[AsH2]

I just have one issue with it... any overflow of golden age points should be awarded to the next age; they should really fix this.
..

Imo. that would be the worst thing they could do. If they did what you suggest, players would be guaranteed permanent golden ages even more than is the case currently. The system breaks down completely if you can just amass era score one age and then live off it for the rest of the game. At least one good thing you can say about the current system is that it allows you to collect massive era score at some point and still have a poor era later, which is really how it should be.

I think a golden compromise would be if they raised the Loyalty effect (atleast double), but also made the Age effect (on Loyalty) fluent (instead of a fixed number set together with dedication) - then reaching "golden age" (and starting to get overflow of points) would be award enough.

 

[kaspergm]

Imo. that would be the worst thing they could do. If they did what you suggest, players would be guaranteed permanent golden ages even more than is the case currently.

Is that really a bad thing though? Even if it is, there's a mountain of solutions to that, like increasing the value of later era's achievements or just an overall increase in era cost.

Yes, I do think that would break the entire purpose of the system. As I understand it, the intention of the era system is to break with the idea that every action and bonus in the game benefits you for all eternity afterwards. Now, one can agree with or disagree with this intend, but imo. it does make sense given how the game very much suffers from snowball syndrome.

When that's said, I think there are a lot of aspects of the current system that are very gamey and which I dislike myself. The fact that you are artificially encouraged to postpone some actions just to time the era score goes against general immersion in the game, and I acknowledge that the fact that any score beyond golden age threshold is just wasted can feel disappointed. I think a better way of addressing it would be to go away with the fixed threshold, but rather make it some sort of scored competition, where your era score is weighed up against that of the other players - either as one combined era score, or divided into different aspects of the game (military, science, culture, empire management ...). That would obviously make for a completely different system, but would also open for some more fluidity in the terms of dark and golden ages - maybe you could have different kinds, for instance a scientific golden age, if you become top score in science era score - and would also give a new framework to the idea of 'heroic ages' - maybe if you were top scorer in multiple or all of the scores - which is one of my most disliked aspects of the current game.

 

[kb27787]

Imo. that would be the worst thing they could do. If they did what you suggest, players would be guaranteed permanent golden ages even more than is the case currently. The system breaks down completely if you can just amass era score one age and then live off it for the rest of the game. At least one good thing you can say about the current system is that it allows you to collect massive era score at some point and still have a poor era later, which is really how it should be.

Not an issue IMO, as long as they do this while overall lifting the golden age requirement per era (from 24 to 36 for example). Golden ages should not be every age, yes, so we need to make it tougher to get one. But having players delay completing districts for the era points is silly.

A "global" system seems interesting also... at the end of the age the top civs get golden ages and the bottom civs get dark ages with normal ages in between. This means having a fluid threshold rather than a fixed one based on the number of cities. Then the civs with golden ages get bonuses depending on which aspect their empire excels the most compared to other civs (science, culture, gold, military or faith) and the bottom civs get penalties according to which aspect their empire is worst.