Things that seem like they should give era points but don't

[Uberfrog]

Things like the national park should get a point.
Other things should get less or none.


I do in general think that era points are too easy to come by. I don't think chaining golden ages should be a thing. One to two golden ages per game or for the better players stretching to three should be what we get per game.

There's a balance to be made. The feature is designed so that it's something the players have to play with every era, and that's lost if you can only really get one or two a game.

From my experience, and from what I've seen in threads with people missing out by one or two points, Era Score isn't trivial quite yet, particularly in larger empires.

 

[Disgustipated]

Spearman killing tank but that should go without saying

I would love to see this actually. An homage to an old Civ1 and Civ2 joke. Who knows, it may actually be in the game. Has anyone actually defeated a tank with a spearman?

 

[KandAffar]

If they add more +era points, they could balance with negative points as well:

Razing a city.
City declaring freedom/conquered
Builder/settler captured
Manhattan project

 

[GermanSettler]

In order to make the era system even more immersive and connected to the other aspects of the game I would suggest +1 era points for:

"City XY has the most tourists/scientists/traders/etc. in the world." once you reach certain thresholds.


(I would also welcome certain events also tight in with both the era scores and the different victory types such as Olympic Games or a Science Expo etc.).

 

[Xmonger]

I think the element of mystery around Era works well. Consider, before WWII you had an idea that things were looking dark and dangerous (headed into a Dark age), but you didn't know for sure. Maybe something would happen to pull out (e.g. Hitler gets assassinated) or maybe not. Era captures this concept well I think, you have an idea of where you are, and where you need to be, but you can't exactly predict if you'll get there, but certainly you can try to take actions that will help it (but maybe not!). Even having a spreadsheet won't help, for example you could say "Well I'll just circumnavigate this Era and get score" but AFAIK you don't know before hand if it's been done already (but maybe it's buried in your rumors, or probably not if you didn't happen to have visibility into the Civ that did it).

Having some indeterminacy with what gives Era and what doesn't really works well too - just like in history it's a soft concept of "Dark" versus "Golden", not something that should be totally opaque.

 

[Disgustipated]

Builder/settler captured

This certainly shouldn't be encouraged, it's exploity enough as is.

 

[KandAffar]

This certainly shouldn't be encouraged, it's exploity enough as is.

The thought was you get negative era points of you let your own builder/settler get captured, not that you get positive points for stealing the AI's. I suppose you could abuse this to try to give the AI dark ages, but the problem there is the ease of capturing AI civilians, not the idea.

 

[UWHabs]

I assume they'll tweak things in a patch for balance. The National Parks are an obvious one that you could easily give +1 for each NP you found without throwing things off balance.

I think they need to also give more era scores for building things - maybe +1 for the first "tier-3" building of a district type? War gives too many, with a ton of points for capturing capitals and wiping out civs, would certainly be nice to get a few more points for playing peacefully.

 

[KandAffar]

I assume they'll tweak things in a patch for balance. The National Parks are an obvious one that you could easily give +1 for each NP you found without throwing things off balance.

I think they need to also give more era scores for building things - maybe +1 for the first "tier-3" building of a district type? War gives too many, with a ton of points for capturing capitals and wiping out civs, would certainly be nice to get a few more points for playing peacefully.

Another opportunity for negative era points - war weariness - every 10 turns of war is -1 point, making peace is +1 point. This would encourage, shorter, productive wars rather than long elimination campaigns.

 

[Victoria]

Your first themed museum seems like another (and another nice sketch!).

My peeve was England getting zip for museums

Well, you get +3 if you discover it first. You get nothing if you are not the first.

But you get for settling next to. And that's tasty with Taj Mahal... in fact I would go as far to say that the Taj helped me avoid a late dark quite a lot.

Has anyone done a list of all the era dedications and which age they are relevant in... Arioch is good but not quite there.

 

[Katakanja]

The thought was you get negative era points of you let your own builder/settler get captured, not that you get positive points for stealing the AI's. I suppose you could abuse this to try to give the AI dark ages, but the problem there is the ease of capturing AI civilians, not the idea.

I thought the implication was meant to be that by capturing enemy settlers/builders you're enslaving foreign civilians to expand your own empire, hence a penalty for barbaric behaviour. Its a pretty cool idea that works thematically and as a balance for OP settler capturing.

Of course on the other hand, dark ages followed by heroic ages can be more powerful than chained golden ages so adding ways in which you can purposely trigger them might not be ideal.

 

[Bad Wolf]

I just love the era points system, it adds so much excitement to the game, especially the first time when you're unsure if any new action is going to give you era points, and sometimes you just earn them without even realizing you're going to and it's a pleasant little surprise. I would not be averse to increasing the number of points you need to get a golden age / avoid a dark age and also increasing the number of historic moments.

 

[Dearmad]

This thread has loads of great ideas! Wish modding them were easier... Here's hoping someone is listening

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah it would be easy enough to add them to even a minor patch. There are countless different ones you could use.

 

[Disgustipated]

would certainly be nice to get a few more points for playing peacefully.

This. Don't get me wrong, I love going on conquering sprees with certain civs. Although I'm realizing in my current game that there CERTAINLY is a hidden modifier somewhere against early warmongering, I cannot make friends with a single civ despite not outright conquering anyone (I only conquered 3 cities and none were capitals). Firaxis has made it so conquering of any cities results in never being friends ever. Very annoying.

Another thing is I'd like to see the bonus for wonderful district or whatever it is called lowered to 3 adjacency rather than 4. 4 is so hard for me to get in my games.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Not sure about events that cause negative Era score. I think the developers made the right choice in making this be only about acquiring your own list of positive events.

The National Parks are the most glaring omission. I'd suggest +5 for the first in the world, +2 for your first, then +1 for every one thereafter. They are a significant event and an item of national pride that is heavily celebrated in the real world.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Maybe 4 for the first.

 

[Victoria]

Ummm, I think the first factory in the world is considered a bigger event.

 

[Leyrann]

I think the element of mystery around Era works well. Consider, before WWII you had an idea that things were looking dark and dangerous (headed into a Dark age), but you didn't know for sure. Maybe something would happen to pull out (e.g. Hitler gets assassinated) or maybe not. Era captures this concept well I think, you have an idea of where you are, and where you need to be, but you can't exactly predict if you'll get there, but certainly you can try to take actions that will help it (but maybe not!). Even having a spreadsheet won't help, for example you could say "Well I'll just circumnavigate this Era and get score" but AFAIK you don't know before hand if it's been done already (but maybe it's buried in your rumors, or probably not if you didn't happen to have visibility into the Civ that did it).

Having some indeterminacy with what gives Era and what doesn't really works well too - just like in history it's a soft concept of "Dark" versus "Golden", not something that should be totally opaque.

I had a very strong version of this (particularly the bolded). I was in a Heroic Age but hadn't been doing as well as previously, and I was one point short of a Golden Age the last turn of the Era, so I declared a Liberation War against an AI for the 2 Era Points. I got a Golden Age, but lost the war (being able to make peace only because Gilga overextended and I was able to zerg rush his musketmen with knights, swordsmen and crossbowmen) and fell behind, then got into a Dark Age, which I would have avoided with just one of getting era points from a dedication or not having the extra threshold from the Golden Age.

This expansion is awesome.

 

[KandAffar]

I thought the implication was meant to be that by capturing enemy settlers/builders you're enslaving foreign civilians to expand your own empire, hence a penalty for barbaric behaviour. Its a pretty cool idea that works thematically and as a balance for OP settler capturing.

Of course on the other hand, dark ages followed by heroic ages can be more powerful than chained golden ages so adding ways in which you can purposely trigger them might not be ideal.

I thought the implication was meant to be that by capturing enemy settlers/builders you're enslaving foreign civilians to expand your own empire, hence a penalty for barbaric behaviour. Its a pretty cool idea that works thematically and as a balance for OP settler capturing.

Of course on the other hand, dark ages followed by heroic ages can be more powerful than chained golden ages so adding ways in which you can purposely trigger them might not be ideal.

Truthfully I was thinking of -1 from the terror of having your own citizens captured and enslaved, but your thematic explanation is also excellent. Both the capturing and captured civ should get -1.