[R&F] When is the best time for a planned dark age?

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It also matters a lot which civ you pick. A civ with an early UU and/or UI will have an easy +4 era score, which can really help you get a very early golden age. I do feel from medieval and onwards, between wonders, district placement and artifacts, I can almost always hit a golden age with a bit of planning.

Agree with this. At Diety, I find I can end up in a Dark Age, Normal Age, or Golden Age for the Classical Era depending on what the game throws at me in the opening turns, without much control over it over than which civ I chose.

After that, I don't find it hard to stay in constant Golden Ages if I milk the era score system.

If I just play without paying attention to era score, then I tend to end up with Normal Ages unless playing domination (so many era scores from killing things) or building archeology museums (so many inexplicable era scores from digging up artifacts: 1 era score per artifact really should be a dedication, not the norm).

 

[NukeAJS]

I avoid dark ages generally, but I think that isolationism in the medieval could be a sound strategy. By then, you've already settled all the good places and you're focusing on development and attacking your neighbors. Better internal trade routes support both those goals (roads to/from conquered cities and more yields) with no negatives. You can also get a tier 2 government which lets you run your dark age policy and the tier 1 legacy card at the same time.

Furthermore, a heroic renaissance can snowball better than a heroic medieval because of the %modifiers.

 

[Sostratus]

The pace of most of my games tends to be such that the first "big conflict" (usually completely subduing 1-2 neighbor civs) is wrapping up by the renaissance, so i often find it convenient to do a dark age in medieval or renaissance for isolationism. Getting into a heroic age in either of those eras seems better than usual- Heartbeat of steam is really powerful, and Hic Sunt dracones can make settling a new continent so efficient it's outrageous.Heroic ages just let you pile on the bonuses in multiple areas at once, which is fun.

If it's a large map, I like to get dark ages near the end (easy because you'll have so many cities) so i can slot Robber barons + Collectivism. As mentioned above, getting +25% production and +50% gold is INSANELY powerful. (I often play germany, and spam CH+Hansa in every city, so they'll all get the bonus) Collectivism is just extra fun because +100% industrial zone adjacency and +1 food from farms is a great way to send everything into maximum overdrive. It comes late, but finishing a game with hansa tiles boasting 20-30 hammers each (max is 45!) is very fun.

 

[Jaybe]

I play as Rome, Prince difficulty, huge continents at epic speed.
I wish that dark ages had greater penalties, such as general reductions in science and culture (25-50%) so you might have greater reasons to employ a dark age policy, or at least be really penalized for being in the dark.

Anyone know how or where I can do this?

 

[Rosty K]

How do you even get the dark age? I seem to get enough era points for the GA not only in the next era, but in the era after it every time, and I'm not even trying hard... Though I play on Prince + Marathon might have something to do with it too...

 

[Nefelia]

That said, I'm still amazed at people saying they get nothing BUT golden ages?

Easy enough to do with China. Ancient and Classical wonder whoring with worker charges gives you easy era points up to the Medieval period, after which you can really on the Great Wall improvement, and Crouching Tiger, along with whatever other wonders you can build with Magnus chopping.

As some have mentioned, playing on slow speeds helps. Playing on larger maps helps as well: found a new city surrounded by unspoiled forest/jungle/stone in the late game for easy wonders.

 

[iammaxhailme]

If you have really strong faith, I want a golden age ASAP, classical if I can get it, so I can spam out tons of settlers really fast by buying them with faith. So if you're planning a dark age to go heroic, I wouldn't do it classical if you have strong faith.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Dark Medival for fast maps , to get science bonus. Even if you don't win but finish moon landing before T130 it is well worth.

Dark Renaissance for +200% chops. Preferrably for Normay since this will be +250%, making one Magnus chop worth more than 1500 production.

Heroic age does not make much sense, but the dark age itself is amazingly good.

 

[DeutschDachs]

Definitely Classical or Medieval so you can best take advantage of your Heroic Age with cities that have had time to create districts yet it's still early enough to hugely affect the rest of your game.

I'd say Medieval is the best for me really due to my ics

 

[Lee Duane Fitzsimmons]

When you take a civ out you get +5 era points. That’s a big extra chunk peaceful people do not get.
Also getting high science early is a standard attack plan and can lead to a lot more discoveries faster,especially firsts.
The ancient era, especiallybwhen slowed by barbs or civ attacks can get you a normal or even a dark but after that, sticking to the formula you just start racing.

I totally agree, Victoria...

Early science is most definitely the way to go, if you're not too distracted with military responsibilities...