Couple of counter points: Golden ages are more impactful in the early-mid game. You pretty much want to *always* pick up Monumentality if you have a decent faith gain for easy civilian Units. Faith is pretty worthless in the early game, unless you're rushing a Religious Victory. Getting Monumentality means you can snowball that much faster with Settlers and Builders. The faster your cities come online, the faster they start producing yields. Pen, Brush and Exodus are NOT as impactful. A boost to Culture is nice, but it is dependent on the amount of cities you've founded and how well they've been built up. Getting Settlers for Faith is vastly more powerful, since every Settler you purchase is a future new city, which means more yields across the board, not just Culture. Also, rushing the Civics tree is a very niche playstyle that only really works with Civs that have a Civic-locked unit (Poland, Brasil) in case you want to do a timing attack with their unique unit (Winged Hussars and Minas Geras respectively). There is practically no reason to strive to be the first to unlock certain civics. Exodus is only good to pick up if you're behind in the religion race, or if you're trying for a fast Religious Victory. The buff to religious units has no impact on your infrastructure, besides being able to spread your religion to your cities faster. Arguably, it's more powerful during Normal Ages, since each converted city gives you two Era Score, though it does have to compete with Pen, Brush and Free Inquiry, which are stronger when the player knows what they're doing, since there's no resource throttle (Faith) for those two Dedications, you just get extra score when getting a Eureka or Inspiration. Free Inquiry is typically what you pick if your Faith gain is weak. More Science is just faster access to powerful units, helping your early game conquests. Getting access to higher tier melee units faster than your neighbours is huge for early game wars. Even if you don't plan on being all that aggressive, it's still the best choice, because all Civs want to be competitive when it comes to Science. Additionally, it gives you benefits from having Harbors and Commercial Hubs, both of which are Districts you pretty much want in every city. As for Dark Age cards, you DO NOT want to enter a Dark Age, at least after the Ancient Era. Dark Ages come with a hefty Loyalty penalty, which can cripple your rate of expansion, whether through Settling or Conquest. To combat these Loyalty problems, you may have to slot in Policies cards that take up valuable space. This is especially true if your neighbour is in a Golden Age, you may find yourself in dire straights if your cities are all rebelling on you. The Dark Age cards are more of a consolation prize. Outside of very specific niches, you should always strive to at least secure a Normal Age.
Hi Lazer, I was looking at this from a multiplayer perspective with the Better Balanced Game Mod. Many Civs don't generate faith; instead they often go commercial hubs with magnus internals. Most people pick pen brush to get to important techs like feudalism and civil service in the first era. Feudalism is one of the most important civics in the game, and the card serfdom allows your empire to expand massively. Then many players transition into free inq. for a timing push, or they continue into penbrush. In BBG Exodus of the Evangelist can be used to increase your production towards units. This golden age has been recently changed. Also in these games having a dark age is much better than a normal age. Then you can hit a heroic age, and plug in these useful cards. Many people in a caravel fight like to plug in twilight valor to get an extra +5 combat strength against their opponents, and this can change the tide of the naval fight. In a non-competitive game of civ, what you are saying can make sense, but this is the meta in competitive multiplayer.
It may have been better to present this information broken down per era by highlighting what you should do throughout the era and how you can push yourself over the line.
I've been playing for a while now and Era score and how to score it in a pinch has been a mystery to me. Thanks for the vid king
Couple of counter points:
Golden ages are more impactful in the early-mid game. You pretty much want to *always* pick up Monumentality if you have a decent faith gain for easy civilian Units. Faith is pretty worthless in the early game, unless you're rushing a Religious Victory. Getting Monumentality means you can snowball that much faster with Settlers and Builders. The faster your cities come online, the faster they start producing yields.
Pen, Brush and Exodus are NOT as impactful. A boost to Culture is nice, but it is dependent on the amount of cities you've founded and how well they've been built up. Getting Settlers for Faith is vastly more powerful, since every Settler you purchase is a future new city, which means more yields across the board, not just Culture. Also, rushing the Civics tree is a very niche playstyle that only really works with Civs that have a Civic-locked unit (Poland, Brasil) in case you want to do a timing attack with their unique unit (Winged Hussars and Minas Geras respectively). There is practically no reason to strive to be the first to unlock certain civics.
Exodus is only good to pick up if you're behind in the religion race, or if you're trying for a fast Religious Victory. The buff to religious units has no impact on your infrastructure, besides being able to spread your religion to your cities faster. Arguably, it's more powerful during Normal Ages, since each converted city gives you two Era Score, though it does have to compete with Pen, Brush and Free Inquiry, which are stronger when the player knows what they're doing, since there's no resource throttle (Faith) for those two Dedications, you just get extra score when getting a Eureka or Inspiration.
Free Inquiry is typically what you pick if your Faith gain is weak. More Science is just faster access to powerful units, helping your early game conquests. Getting access to higher tier melee units faster than your neighbours is huge for early game wars. Even if you don't plan on being all that aggressive, it's still the best choice, because all Civs want to be competitive when it comes to Science.
Additionally, it gives you benefits from having Harbors and Commercial Hubs, both of which are Districts you pretty much want in every city.
As for Dark Age cards, you DO NOT want to enter a Dark Age, at least after the Ancient Era. Dark Ages come with a hefty Loyalty penalty, which can cripple your rate of expansion, whether through Settling or Conquest. To combat these Loyalty problems, you may have to slot in Policies cards that take up valuable space. This is especially true if your neighbour is in a Golden Age, you may find yourself in dire straights if your cities are all rebelling on you.
The Dark Age cards are more of a consolation prize. Outside of very specific niches, you should always strive to at least secure a Normal Age.
Hi Lazer, I was looking at this from a multiplayer perspective with the Better Balanced Game Mod. Many Civs don't generate faith; instead they often go commercial hubs with magnus internals. Most people pick pen brush to get to important techs like feudalism and civil service in the first era. Feudalism is one of the most important civics in the game, and the card serfdom allows your empire to expand massively. Then many players transition into free inq. for a timing push, or they continue into penbrush. In BBG Exodus of the Evangelist can be used to increase your production towards units. This golden age has been recently changed. Also in these games having a dark age is much better than a normal age. Then you can hit a heroic age, and plug in these useful cards. Many people in a caravel fight like to plug in twilight valor to get an extra +5 combat strength against their opponents, and this can change the tide of the naval fight.
In a non-competitive game of civ, what you are saying can make sense, but this is the meta in competitive multiplayer.
Of course you want to golden if you can, but if it is not an option try to go dark.
@@tylermurray9223 Ah, I missed the part where it was MP focused, my bad.
You probably should have made this more clear.
It may have been better to present this information broken down per era by highlighting what you should do throughout the era and how you can push yourself over the line.
Thanks for the advice. I have been busy, so I haven't been making videos, but when I start back up I will try that.
This is why old Kongo is the worst civ