Avoid Dark Age after Ancient Age

[Justansell]

I've always had trouble avoiding a Dark Age going from the Ancient Age to Classical Age. What am I doing wrong or what are some tips to get my Era Score up?

[PolecatEZ]

Its mostly luck of the draw on your maps. You'll need to bust at least 2 barbarian camps and/or run across a butt ton of wonders, villages, and new continents with your scouts.

Get a scout or two out early, keep your warrior(s) close by to bust the camps when they're spotted.

[Kimmaz]

If you have more units, you can do more per turn. I only play on Emperor now, but I have had multiple games with 65/24 era points. In one of the games I managed to "go around the world" in the ancient era. A different game I killed 14 barbarian camps (giving 42 points alone).

Main key point is having a lot of military exploring, getting those bonus huts, barbarian camps and meeting AI/city states.

[Justansell]

Originally posted by Kimmaz:

If you have more units, you can do more per turn. I only play on Emperor now, but I have had multiple games with 65/24 era points. In one of the games I managed to "go around the world" in the ancient era. A different game I killed 14 barbarian camps (giving 42 points alone).

Main key point is having a lot of military exploring, getting those bonus huts, barbarian camps and meeting AI/city states.

So early on I should focus on making military units rather than buildings or wonders? And I for some reason only find two or three barbarian camps/tribal villages on most of my games.

[Kimmaz]

You find more barbarians, just look further. The military is great early, for scouting. Then you can settle your first 4-5 cities in good locations and securly with escort. I would not build wonders or districts before I have 4-5 cities and 4-5 military.

[Kimmaz]

https://i.imgur.com/Myq9KRY.png

With barbarians turned off, And with no war, Choosing random civ btw.. I got very little points. I guess without barbarians it is indeed hard.
I Did not build a single building in the capital, and no districts.

[Gentlest Giant]

I typically build no more than 2 units in ancient era for exploring purposes, don't overdo military unless you have a threatening neighbour or want to be a threatening neighbour. Your first district typically yields 3 era score and stuff like building your first naval unit also give a decent chunk.
With all this said, frequently enough I would be quite happy to get a dark age for classical in order to shoot for a heroic medieval. I find it harder to deny myself the points than it is to gain the points though. : p

[Chaotic Harmony]

Are you playing on a map with city states and/or other civilizations?
Conquering another empire automatically gives you 5 era score, busting barb camps 3, settling cities 1, discovering wonders can vary.

But if you're not worried about getting a bit of blood on your clubs then even if there's no barbarians you should be able to roll a nearby civilization and get sufficient score.

[Dray Prescot]

I find what makes a big difference for what I can achieve for Golden Age/Normal Age/Dark Age depends a LOT on how long the current Era lasts.

I have only ever had one Dark Age and it was from an early change to the Classical Era. The one nice thing about it was I finally learned what the Dark Age Policies were, and more importantly, what it meant to have a Heroic Age (you get to choose 3 out of 4 Dedications instead of 1 out 4).

Early (40 turns) Era changes tend to make the AI players have very bad next Eras, i.e. mostly Dark Ages and some Normal Ages with very few Golden Ages, and even I have trouble making Golden Ages with one time a Dark Age (as mentioned above). Because the AI Civs are in mostly bad Ages, the next Era tends to be very long, usually the 60 turn maximum. In some games I have seen the Eras alternate between 60 turns and 40 turns as the game progresses.

[Sword_of_Light]

Barbarians do seem to be key. I've played maps where I was on a continent where none spawned - it wasnt a game without barbarians - there were plenty one continent over. But with only three other civs on my continent, it was basically impossible to avoid a Dark Age.

That said, Heroic Ages are the up side to this - three bonuses - and none of the other civs did any better. So Dark Ages arent that worrisome, at lease early game. Late game, especially if I'm going for a Culture win, I'm looking for nothing less than golden.

[Grandma Helldiver]

I noticed that every few games I get a map with Barbs that insta-respawn. The turn I clear one, another one pops up on my map the very next turn, over and over.

It really lopsides your score, and on King anyway, hobbles the AI as they can never quite deal with them until they get tech advances... so they spawn cities slowly. If you are really lucky, you can find where this is happening and farm Barb settlers.

[Justansell]

I want to say thank you to everyone who responded. I just got home from work and will be getting on to see what I can do. I hope this thread will help others who are struggling with this.