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

[mrwho]

I was constantly surprsied in my first few games when certain events didn't gain era score. Off the top of my head, things that should trigger era score are:

First city capture
First city capture of a specific opponent
Alliances with an AI for the first time
First joint war
First themed museum
Discovering a natural wonder (not first)
Building 5 unique units, 5 unique improvements, or 3 unique districts (why only the first?)
Manhattan Project
Each stage of the Mars project should be worth 3
Maxing out a promotion tree
Reaching a certain GPT, BPT, CPT threshold (expires after a given era)
Building a national park
World's first spy
Training your first spy
Capturing an enemy spy

Increase the thresholds if necessary to accommodate additions like those.

 

[Victoria]

I am not sure having more will help the game, quite the opposite. Having the ability to go dark early to be golden later, get “the fall” before the rise. It’s nice to have the option otherwise it isn’t really a good mechanic.
I guess with that in mind they had to choose.

 

[Katakanja]

Most of these make sense, except for perhaps:

World's first spy

I don't think you can have this, since if Catherine is in the game it's basically extra points for her every time. Also spies work in secret, how are you supposed to know you have the first one in the world, eh?

And

Building 5 unique units, 5 unique improvements, or 3 unique districts (why only the first?)

Well, you say why only the first one, I say why the 5th unit or 3rd district? The number is going to be arbitrary regardless of whether it's one, five or ten. Also the system generally seems to be designed to encourage you to perform a variety of different actions to earn score, rather than just repeating the same ones repeatedly. Even the most often repeated ones (barb camps, tribal villages) become less frequent as the game goes on.

 

[UWHabs]

I am not sure having more will help the game, quite the opposite. Having the ability to go dark early to be golden later, get “the fall” before the rise. It’s nice to have the option otherwise it isn’t really a good mechanic.
I guess with that in mind they had to choose.

Well, if you add more ways to get points, they could also balance it by increasing the limits. So instead of 12 for the next normal era, maybe it's 15.

 

[Victoria]

Well, if you add more ways to get points, they could also balance it by increasing the limits. So instead of 12 for the next normal era, maybe it's 15.

... one can think that, but if you look at what is suggested, the lions will be golden and lambs will all be black.
One suspects they got a pretty good balance.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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

Less celebrated now, though. Justifiably or not, the 100th anniversary of the creation of Canada's first national park, and the subsequent 100th anniversary of the creation of the national parks system a few decades later, were both matters of significant publicity and celebration, whereas the 200th anniversary of Canada's first factory went by without my notice.

One could argue the former would never have happened without the latter, at least in real life. In Civ 6 terms, we know it actually happened because of a surfeit of faith after we'd already given up on a religious victory and there were no Great Persons available we wanted to grab. We had a bunch of mountains and a valley outside of Calgary, though, so might as well spend those faith points to attract some tourists. We must have a lot of holy sites stashed somewhere, because we kept accumulating faith and slapping up national parks all over the place.

In general, the Industrial Revolution gets short shrift in Civ 6. Your production does go up at step points, when you bringing factories on board and the boosts to mines, etc., but nothing like the dramatic shift that happened historically or in previous versions of Civ as you laid down railways. Which is really ironic in the context of this discussion, because both the American and Canadian national parks systems were in large part developed to give people a reason to buy tickets from the recently formed railroad companies, who were desperate to get bums in the seats to pay for those expensive new railtracks across the continent.

Back on point. Yes, the start of the Industrial Revolution should be commemorated on the time line and in the era score system, and the first to industrialize globally should get a bonus score. I wouldn't give a bonus per factory, though, while I would give a bonus per national park.

I am not sure having more will help the game, quite the opposite. Having the ability to go dark early to be golden later, get “the fall” before the rise. It’s nice to have the option otherwise it isn’t really a good mechanic.
I guess with that in mind they had to choose.

I haven't played enough to confirm this, but for a brand new mechanic, I'd say they got the balance on the era scores pretty good. At least for non-optimized early runs through the game. So yes, adding additional sources of era score could upset this balance. I still think National Parks should be added, and the start of the Industrial Revolution, too.

 

[KandAffar]

I have a bad tendency to restart a new game each time I play instead of resuming, and my experience is that the ancient era points are certainly well-balanced. I've gotten both golden and dark classicals but near misses are more common.

@ Canuck - Maybe Niagara Falls is a natural wonder with faith generation?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I have a bad tendency to restart a new game each time I play instead of resuming, and my experience is that the ancient era points are certainly well-balanced. I've gotten both golden and dark classicals but near misses are more common.

@ Canuck - Maybe Niagara Falls is a natural wonder with faith generation?

I haven't been trying to get (or avoid) era points, and all I've had are near misses for golden ages, leaving me in perpetual normal ages. So it seems balanced to me, in that it looks like I need to try for one or the other to actually get dark or golden ages. But that's first impressions, and I may feel differently after a dozen games under my belt.

Good call on Niagara Falls! I knew something was going on.

 

[Victoria]

This has a point
Just started a game as the Netherlands, spammed 4 cities and campus and got a normal age while the three around me got golden. I was at the end of a fat peninsula with a fair gap between Tomyris and me... and she was asking for my 2 horses. I spammed out horsemen next and she declared on me (with Ghengis who is behind her). I smashed in, took Antioch and freed it then took 2 more cities knowing I was going into a golden age. They were both serious red fists.
Now one of these cities was due to flip on the turn of the golden age so rather than desert a sinking ship I held on and the era change is worked out before loyalty as the city did not flip. What’s even better is all the civs I have met plummeted into dark ages.... this is going to be fun.

 

[God of Kings]

There should be more opportunities to gain era points, and there should be opportunities to lose era points.

Sometimes, getting a Dark Age can be advantageous.

 

[chazzycat]

I was surprised the era score reward for completing an emergency was so low. +3 IIRC, for recapturing a former civs capital and in the process stopping a runaway civ.

If emergencies are supposed to be some big important event the whole world is watching, and only happens once or twice a game, they should give more era score than building a standard wonder.

 

[megabearsfan]

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.

Even if you only get one or two golden ages per game, you'd still be spending the entire game working to avoid a dark age each era.

 

[nzcamel]

Actually, given they want excess Era points to make getting a normal or golden age tougher the next time around, I think they will continue to keep some things in and exclude others that annoy us. The barbarians are a great example in the early era's. You've reached the golden score for the next era...but those barbs are going to keep popping up! You'd rather leave the camps now and just pick off units, but can you afford to? Certainly not if there's horses anywhere near! It's kinda counter intuitive.

Edit: I think I'd rather than era score was harder to get/lower...but excess didn't push up the brackets for the next era.

 

[nzcamel]

It may inadvertently make Gorgo and Gilgamesh less desirable to play, as their early hammering of barbs could become bittersweet for players.

Edit: Here's me leaving a barb camp (east of my city) for the next era, thankfully not far away. There was another one at the same time on the far side of my capital that I had a Okihtcitaw dealing with. Thankfully there was a CS archer handy too, and I let them have the camp itself! I don't like playing like this...

Spoiler :

 

[Victoria]

It may inadvertently make Gorgo and Gilgamesh less desirable to play, as their early hammering of barbs could become bittersweet for players.

Yes I noticed this but playing over the last few days it’s a decision you make to get an advantage. Both of those get a great advantage early and have to pay the price a bit later.
I have found a classical dark just about forces the next to be heroic while a standard allows you to bide your time waiting for your opposition to go dark.
England believe it or not is in the Gilgatom area. Pushing for a double golden early to get good science is not a bad option, makes for a more fun game as you sort of explore loads then try and explode while getting great science but trying to ensure when the darkness falls one does not fall with it.
Still perfecting it but it is definitely livened up the early England game