The Boredom Factor...?

[Tweedledum]

Is it just me, or does anybody else find that the Industrial Age can be a real pain to play through?
You've got all these Techs which do nothing except enable other Techs (which do nothing except...) - I'm thinking of Corporation,Steel,Refining etc.

I've lost count of the number of times I've run out of things for my cities to do other than build more Infantry(or Riflemen)/Cavalry which I don't really need and cost money to maintain. Its either that or stick 'em on Wealth

How does anyone else handle this phase of the game (other than win before it arrives - now that IS the ideal )

 

[marshal zhukov]

I love the Industrial Age.
For me it is the time to conquer AIs, settle old grievances and also make them pay for past humiliations

 

[Zouave]

Yea. nothing like massive micromanagement.

 

[Becka]

I like the industrial age, when I get there.

 

[Cade Foster]

i love it too better than that crappy civ 2

 

[Reboot]

I just hate the music they play on Industrial Age, that chamber music thing really drives me NUTS!

 

[LittleDragon]

I really liked the Industrial Age music, my favourite of the game

I agree with the original post that there are too many technologies that have no use except as a stepping stone to the next technology.

I think in cases this could have been avoided. Take electricity for example. Why on earth did they move coal plant from electricity to steam power? Coal plants are used to produce electricity, and yet they can be built prior to the discovery of electricity. Electricity is left purely as a stepping stone.

A greater effort could have been made with these techs IMHO.

 

[BCLG100]

i love the industrial age as well especially after you have built factories you can get most things in under 10 turns

 

['Copter Pilot]

Electricity is left purely as a stepping stone.

Don't forget that it allows your workers to irrigate any tile. Big thing on some maps.

I've played my last game as a monarchy and loved this long time for building more riflemen/infantry (free support!). It's also a good time to cut the AI off from rubber ressources, and to destroy the weaker ones completely (artillery and infantry will do the trick). But it's a bit tedious.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

The industrial Age is where the "boredom factor" makes up for the too fast tech developement before. You're often so far behind in city development, and you need to build the expensive Factories, that Firaxis simply put a slowdown into tech development. I'm currently trying to fix that a little in a mod, but it's kinda tough to do that in a balanced form

Still, with my playing style, the Age is fun!

 

[cracker]

I think if you are finding the Industrial age tedious and boring then you are choosing the wrong path trough the tech tree.

I personally favor the beeline to Infantry/Artillery. This path enables Railroads, GLobal irrigation and a 50% boost in worker productivity


... then add techs to get scientific method to enable the Theory of Evolution that you have pre-built as an almost palace in some city.

With the theory of Evolution you can pop two free techs that either cut through Factories and Oil or extend your lead on the lower path up through electronics. Usually cutting factories is the better choice because you can convert prebuilt colleseums (sp?) into factories in just a turn or so and then set the factory cities to build suffrage and prebuild for Hoover and/or battlefield medicine. Using the Theory of EV to reach electronics makes better use to get the more expensive techs but it may be a few turns before Hoover can come into play and effect the game progress.

A frustrating thing about the industrial age is that 12 pop cities full productivity developed will usually top out at 37 to 19 shields of productivity when you need to reach to 45 or tune back to 30 in order to build infantry with minimum waste.

 

[Maple]

Personally, the industrial age is my favorite in the game. Three new strategic resources to trade, infantry, long-range artillery, railroads, hostpitals, and factoies. The Industrial age for is usually the end of the expansion stage in the game, and is the start of the infrastructure phase.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The most tedious era in my mind is the Modern, at least if you go for a space victory (which's the only really civvy thing to do!), as it tends to degenerate into an insane research race for the prerequisites for SS parts. I've rarely touched techs like Miniaturization or Stealth, and during my last game I had my science rate fixed at 90% during the entire Modern Age with the exception of the last five or so turns of a major war when I had to lower it to 80% to afford some luxuries. In the Industrial Era you're still building up your empire, and any territories you conquer just might turn productive before the end of the game.

(The obvious and realistic solution to the space race problem would be to make SS parts require some of the very last techs - I find it quite idiotic that you can construct a starship without knowledge of Robotics!)

 

[LittleDragon]

Ah, I agree with that, Cconformist. There is nothing to do in the modern age except build armies and spaceships. It always feels as though the civilisation is stuck in the 1980s.

 

[Chris_b_89]

I only wish they made automated workers more intelligent, with their stupidity I have to do everything myself, which makes the turns quite long.