advantages/disadvantages of early/late golden age?

[Adm.Naismith]

In Single Player I'll chose "Early GA". For me, AI usually is stronger at the game start (max effect of any cheat the programmer let it have, less complex map to manage - few units, few cities, etc.), not to mention the random advantage of a better start position.

If I can manage to survive and start a decent development early, I usually pile on early fundation and take off my Civ powergraph by middle game.

Modern era is usually a boring race to discover every tech, build every wonder and repel every silly AI civ that try to attack me with its weak army.

Of course the Civ III AI strenght is still to be checked, so I can be wrong.
I never played MP, so I don't know for sure. May be there is more room for a late GA, to catch every human player leading the race or leave them back on the dust with your greatly enhanced production.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Snapcase
Actually, YOU can. Because you have been registered here more than six months. It's under Control Panel -> User's Profile -> (Avatars) Change... Good luck.

No, you can't as the Upgrade wiped out that part of Mark's code.

[DonJoel]

Ofcourse it will be better with a late GA, especially if it last for a fixed number of turns.
Early in the game 25 turns might be played out on 15 minutes, in the late game 25 turns might take 2 hours! think for yourself
And I never wage war early in the game anyway...

[PGM]

It depends... rather than simply deciding if GAs should be early or late, I think they should be activated... at the right time. And that varies in every game. Sometimes your opposition won't be that strong and you'll want to wait until your empire (cities, units, wonders, ...) is ready to maximize the boost. Other times the opposition might be getting ahead and you might need to spend the GA in a defensive way, to catch up.
Also, it depends on the specific civilization you are playing with. There's just too many variables and not enough knowledge of the game yet to vote on this.

[DonJoel]

Since you wont be able to ICS (since settlers take 2 population points and worker1) and that golden age wont give any food bonus it seems better to have golden age late since the speed of which you will be able to expand is the growt speed of your cities and not the produvion advantage you get from golden age.