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Just wanted to toss a quick comment out and see what people think.
We've already heard the manual or strat-guide (forget which) recommend using your Golden Age to best advantage by trying to maximize the number of cities it effects. There advice was therefor to hold it off for as long as you could.
However there is a flaw in their reasoning.
Though much has changed the concept of turn-advantage that applied to previous versions and was refined by us during the SMAC-years still applies. The reason remains the same as well, Civ III is exponential not linear. Your performance is based on previous performance as much as current situation.
Therefore I hypothesize that Golden Ages are actually best used early in the game. It's true you have less cities, and population, than later but that early-game boost will pay off in a better developed empire later. By getting, and using, those extra resources you are effectively producing turn-advantage, and we all know how valuable that is.
My example comes from the Babylonians. With a decent early-game unit, bowmen, they can produce a quick Golden-Age. By doing so they can easily build more Wonders, or settlers, or workers. Doing that produces your turn-advantage. Heck even if it helps you improve military unit production you might make a war go faster and still gain turns of productive development after you finish it.
So if it's still about turn-advantage, and I say it is, then it just logically follows that an early Golden Age is the best Golden Age!
We've already heard the manual or strat-guide (forget which) recommend using your Golden Age to best advantage by trying to maximize the number of cities it effects. There advice was therefor to hold it off for as long as you could.
However there is a flaw in their reasoning.
Though much has changed the concept of turn-advantage that applied to previous versions and was refined by us during the SMAC-years still applies. The reason remains the same as well, Civ III is exponential not linear. Your performance is based on previous performance as much as current situation.
Therefore I hypothesize that Golden Ages are actually best used early in the game. It's true you have less cities, and population, than later but that early-game boost will pay off in a better developed empire later. By getting, and using, those extra resources you are effectively producing turn-advantage, and we all know how valuable that is.
My example comes from the Babylonians. With a decent early-game unit, bowmen, they can produce a quick Golden-Age. By doing so they can easily build more Wonders, or settlers, or workers. Doing that produces your turn-advantage. Heck even if it helps you improve military unit production you might make a war go faster and still gain turns of productive development after you finish it.
So if it's still about turn-advantage, and I say it is, then it just logically follows that an early Golden Age is the best Golden Age!
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