Unable to get first golden age.

[Martin]

It's probably the most important age of the game, but now, every game I start, 100% failure with 1-2 points left over. That's with a district built, a world wonder and every barb camp within 20 tiles killed.

Just seems as tho the game has been nerfed to make it impossible to get that inital boost. No barb camps even spawn anymore, after the initial few. Until the classical age. They just stop spawning completely anywhere near my cities.

The game also seems to now be by design to force you into a dark age/normal age in later stages of the game, which is almost always catastrophic to your gameplay, allow the ai to just rapidly expand in cities and tech. I'm on avg going from world leader in tech to 3-4th in line, with the ai expanding around me.

Standard - Huge Map, Continents, Marathon Speed. Random Civs and other map layouts.

[LextheMighty]

What game speed are you playing on? Golden ages are much easier to get on slower speeds (like normal, epic, or marathon). I get golden ages on the first era all the time. Sending out scouts to find civs, natural wonders, and new continents help. Build any unique improvements or units you may have. Settle cities on top of the natural wonders you find or settle cities in desert and arctic. There are plenty of ways to get era score. Check the civilopedia there is a list of ways.

I would reccommend aiming for a dark age and then going into a heroic age. Heroic ages are much stronger than golden ages and while you are in the dark age you can use the strong dark age policy cards.

[Martin]

Actually.. that's one I missed.. settling on a natural wonder.. yeh could probably do that. I prefer a golden age start to boost religion, then using religion to buy units in industrial age, via the civic district add=ons. Then going into a dark age in renais to get heroic in industrial.

I always play on marathon speed, any faster doesn't seem to have any point in playing at all.