Warriors vs. scouts vs. slingers discussion

Builder into Settler seems like you would always miss first Golden Age, no? How often do you start with Dark Age / Normal Age / Golden Age?
Serious question as someone who hasn't played many games using the Rise & Fall mechanics and all those games are meant to be peaceful (so I don't have any cities surrounded by hostile loyalty) - does that matter much? My impression so far has been a dark age isn't all that bad and a golden age isn't all that great, so who cares? What is the downside to your first age being a dark age?
 
Builder into Settler seems like you would always miss first Golden Age, no? How often do you start with Dark Age / Normal Age / Golden Age?

Oh... that's why I always struggle to hit Classical Golden Ages.
I'll have to play some 50 turn games with Warrior x 3 to see if it makes a difference for me.
Thanks!
 
Oh... that's why I always struggle to hit Classical Golden Ages.
I'll have to play some 50 turn games with Warrior x 3 to see if it makes a difference for me.
Thanks!

If nothing else, 3 warriors will guarantee you a Bronze Working eureka, around 100-200 gold from camps, a decent chunk of early era scores, possibly a few goody huts and and a few first city-state meets. They also help prevent barbarian rushes that will otherwise make your workers' & settlers' lives miserable.

3 warriors also provide just enough military strength value to prevent most AIs from rushing you, although if you feel the pressure, you might want to add 3 slingers-to-archers too.
Later on, even if you don't have iron, they can serve as distraction for enemy units, as garrison in captured cities, or guard duty on trade routes with barbarian activity around.
 
Serious question as someone who hasn't played many games using the Rise & Fall mechanics and all those games are meant to be peaceful (so I don't have any cities surrounded by hostile loyalty) - does that matter much? My impression so far has been a dark age isn't all that bad and a golden age isn't all that great, so who cares? What is the downside to your first age being a dark age?

You're completely right. Dark Ages are actually great and if you can you should always get the first Dark Age, because Heroic is incredibly strong as 2nd or 3rd. It's usually not possible if you're scouting/expanding fast though, because you always shoot into normal age. I've only had two dark age games in all of GS, both classical. Classic Normal Age is bad, but missing GA in classic is less bad then missing it later, classic GAs are the least impactful.
 
You're completely right. Dark Ages are actually great and if you can you should always get the first Dark Age, because Heroic is incredibly strong as 2nd or 3rd. It's usually not possible if you're scouting/expanding fast though, because you always shoot into normal age. I've only had two dark age games in all of GS, both classical. Classic Normal Age is bad, but missing GA in classic is less bad then missing it later, classic GAs are the least impactful.

I'm not sure about this.
I was reading a thread awhile back about how back to back golden ages are greater than dark into heroic.
I'm too tired to look it up but I think @Victoria and others broke down the math and reasoning.
I think every fast finish on standard from turn 80 to 145 has always had all golden ages that I have seen.
I forget the record for standard maps but I think someone did a salty fish CV in like 56 turns or something like that?
Once again... too tired to look it up and kinda upset at Civ VI today lol.
 
I am not sure an empirical analysis has ever been done, nor could it really be. The map and approach of the player mean a lot. What was fairly obvious was that the worst you could have was a normal age unless you were being pinned in by fast growing civs and slipped into a dark where your entire civ can flip.
A critical area in my view is faith. If you built up faith and/or pillaged faith in the ancient Era then monumentality is a very strong classical golden era. A dark classical is an option though due to the likes of +5 combat for all troops which does have a noticeable effect.
Lately fast GOTM’s have had some Very fast people doing dark classical into heroics.
This conversation seems to have initially started with the comment that golden ages aren’t great. They can be incredible or they can be rubbish. I thing the commenter has some validity, as in they do not help you win the game much but do typically speed it up.
 
For majority of games, only Industrial age is worth of a push for "heroic", although arguaby dark/heroic/dark/heroic is probably ideal, but not easy to pull off.
 
I am not sure an empirical analysis has ever been done, nor could it really be. The map and approach of the player mean a lot. What was fairly obvious was that the worst you could have was a normal age unless you were being pinned in by fast growing civs and slipped into a dark where your entire civ can flip.

Exactly. Normal age is the only really bad scenario.

I think every fast finish on standard from turn 80 to 145 has always had all golden ages that I have seen.

In my Rome game I went Dark into Heroic and finished T184. In my other Dark Age game I finished early T19x. Imho getting a Heroic Age as second age is incredible. As I said in my other post missing the first monumentality is bad, but it's not the end of the world. Unless you have a pillage war, as Victoria states, or you're going for a faith strategy, then it makes little difference. The important Golden Ages are the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Missing those is much more crucial, since by then you will have a meaningful faith/gold output. 5 Golden Ages is definitely better than 4 GA and 1 Normal. But imho DA - HA - 3x GA is optimal. Whether that's mathematically/empirically true is, as Victoria says, rather impossible to say.

For majority of games, only Industrial age is worth of a push for "heroic", although arguaby dark/heroic/dark/heroic is probably ideal, but not easy to pull off.

Missing monumentality in your 3rd age is not ideal. Also the last heroic age doesn't really matter as much, since you'll be finishing the game by then. Having a Heroic age second or third is most important, because then you're still devleoping and can use it to maximum effect. Also, the fourth age does not have very strong bonuses to pick from, sadly. Half of them are irrelevant unless you go for Dom. So yeah, Medi HA is much better than Industrial GA imho. Meanwhile getting HA second/third has all the good ones to pick from. So I do not think Dark / Heroic / Dark / Heroic is ideal at all. You cripple yourself more with that Dark Age as 3rd than you help yourself with the mediocre Heroic as 4th.
 
Missing monumentality in your 3rd age is not ideal.

I guess my real question is faith worth acquiring in such quantities and dumping them into workers, compared to, say, the science bonus from Heartbeat of Steam? I usually pillage & conquer faith in my games so it's not a really reliable source of faith generation :D

EDIT: I notice my question is moronic, I re-looked at what Heartbeat of steam does, yeah, monumentality is definitely more beneficial.
 
I guess my real question is faith worth acquiring in such quantities and dumping them into workers, compared to, say, the science bonus from Heartbeat of Steam? I usually pillage & conquer faith in my games so it's not a really reliable source of faith generation :D

EDIT: I notice my question is moronic, I re-looked at what Heartbeat of steam does, yeah, monumentality is definitely more beneficial.

Heartbeat of steam is only available as your 4th age I think. Pls correct me if I'm wrong. And yes, imo Heartbeat is so much better for space victories, since it gives you lots of centralized production. The idea is to buy 7 charge builders with monumentality and save them until the end of the game, at least for SV.
 
Heartbeat of steam is only available as your 4th age I think. Pls correct me if I'm wrong. And yes, imo Heartbeat is so much better for space victories, since it gives you lots of centralized production. The idea is to buy 7 charge builders with monumentality and save them until the end of the game, at least for SV.

Well, that's what I meant, that heroic Industrial age, with Hearbeat of steam and 4 gold per trade route is the best I can think of for space victory.
 
Well, that's what I meant, that heroic Industrial age, with Hearbeat of steam and 4 gold per trade route is the best I can think of for space victory.

I think coinage is pretty bad at that point (at least for me) since I will likely already have bought one or even both Spaceports. The 4th age as heroic is not very impactful if you regularly finish sub 200, because out of all the bonuses you can pick, Heartbeat is the only one that matters. So a HA is only marginally better than a GA.

If your games go to 300 turns or 250 however then fourth Heroic Age might actually be really good, because at that point coinage is insane in terms of gold. If you're still building Big Ben and haven't bought your spaceports it seems very much worth.
 
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