What is a GAP worth?

[zeofig]

Everyone has a feeling for what the basic yields are worth, depending on the situation. Early game, 1P is worth 2G or so, usually 1C > 1P, food depends a lot on the city etc. It's not too hard to judge approximately how these change as the game evolves. But what about golden age points? I have no idea how many G, S, C etc one GAP is worth to me. Sometimes it's clear a GAP is worth very little, but let's say

• You are somewhere in the "mid-game", between Medieval and Modern
• You have a few nice golden age bonuses (resources, policies, beliefs, UA/UB)
• You are generating golden ages decently fast but you're not close to saturating

I would like to know if 1 GAP can approach the value of 1G, 1P, 1C etc. I think it's quite hard to judge, but it's important for the balance of the many things in the game that yield GAP.

I've added a poll asking what you think. The idea is to assume favourable circumstances for GAP, as outlined above. How close can 1 GAP get to the value of 1 gold (as a yield)? I've used gold for the poll but any yield could be used. I think the relative value of GAP varies a lot more than the other yields. To be honest I don't know how to respond to my own poll despite having played dozens of GAP-heavy games of VP.

 

[CppMaster]

I don't know, I usually ignore GAP, because I prefer every other yield than that.

 

[Legen]

It is really hard to evaluate GAP, even when playing GA civs. The only exception is Brazil, since the UA is a GAP conversion: 1 GAP = 0.3 + 0.3 . And that UA is considered to be strong, so I doubt that GAP is worth even 0.1 gold for a generic civ.

 

[pineappledan]

GAPs' value is heavily dependent on if you have gold on tiles. So depending on if you're playing a civ with a UI that gives gold, or you have lots of villages, or if your luxury resources or pantheon gives gold, GAs can be quite variable.

Regardless GAPs are delayed gratification. If the choice is between 1 now and the promise of +2 gold for 10 turns at some later time, I will pick the 1 gold now.

 

[CrazyG]

Really this question is about the time value of yields, which is really hard to answer. GAP obviously suck in the ancient era (and getting your first golden age too early can actually be a disadvantage).

I did quick math for a savegame from industrial era, and I need about 4,500 GAP to get a golden age for 10 turns, which will give me about 1,500 culture, 2,000 production, and a harder to predict quantity of gold (maybe like 1,000?). This situation has no particular synergies such as religious beliefs or artistry, just a few baths and a school of philosophy (which I didn't factor into the above).

That's actually a pretty good deal which would suggest a value of more than 1 gold per GAP, but the thing is a new source of golden age points usually just means the golden ages come earlier, not necessarily that you get an extra one before the game ends.

I think on the average game, a GAP is about 1 gold, perhaps less in war heavy games. If you pursue a golden age heavy strategy its easily worth more than 3 gold IMO, though of course you will reach a point where golden age lasts until game ends so they drop to 0 value.

 

[pitofanavocado]

If you roll for example, Desert+Floodplains start, Tradition, with Divine Inheritance (+20% yields during GA) for a Founder Belief, and pick up Petra, GAP are very valuable.

The new Happiness seems to have made that strategy much more difficult now though, so they might be even more valuable, not sure yet.

Generally you would use your Capital's excess happiness for early GAP, and keep your expands at 4-5 pop with neutral happiness for a while until you catch up on buildings later in the game, and then they contribute GAP. But now it seems much harder to keep excess happiness in your capital.

 

[DeAnno]

GAP are very much a yield of diminishing returns. Ironically they are usually "strongest" in a game where you aren't pushing Golden Ages because the amount of GAP to trigger depends on how many GAs you've already had in a pretty extreme way. Does anyone have the formula handy? CrazyG's Industrial GA example seems super cheap to me (like maybe it's his third GA of the game?) but I might be misremembering.

But say you have a GA cost of 4500 and you trigger one and the next cost is 7000. Instantly your future GAP after that lost 36% of their value.

 

[psparky]

But say you have a GA cost of 4500 and you trigger one and the next cost is 7000. Instantly your future GAP after that lost 36% of their value.

Well, that next GA is worth more (as you will have more culture to be boosted) and may last longer for various reasons.

Anyway, before the end game, I generally value them more than food/production but less than science or culture. Obviously situational though.