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When my happiness balance is +X it means I get X extra points to my golden age counter every turn. During a golden age the counter disappears. What happens to the happiness points then? Is the balance still being kept and updated? Or is my happiness value frozen during the golden age?

  • If the value is still being updated, what happens when it reaches the next threshold while the existing golden age still takes place? Does it trigger another golden age (i.e. lengthening the current one)?
  • If the value is frozen during the golden age, does that means happiness score is meaningless during a golden age (with the exception of a negative balance which has other repercussions)?
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  • 13
    IT IS SPENT IN BOOZE.
    – badp
    Commented Nov 16, 2010 at 18:27

3 Answers 3

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The happiness accumulated during a Golden Age is completely wasted. It does not count towards the next Golden Age, it just vanishes (probably spent on steroids, the additional production has to come from somewhere).

As far as I can tell, excess happiness during a Golden Age is mostly worthless, if you get a 30+ turn Golden Age you could probably sell all your luxury resources to the AI for profit.

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    I prefer thinking of crack but good suggestion anyway
    – Eric
    Commented Nov 16, 2010 at 18:46
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    Not totally worthless, if you have the social policy that gives you culture based on your excess happiness, you will continue to earn that extra culture during a golden age. And you still need to maintain positive happiness to avoid the other negative side effects.
    – bwarner
    Commented Nov 16, 2010 at 22:52
  • @bwarner I only meant excess happiness, I clarified my answer. And you're of course right about that social policy.
    – Mad Scientist
    Commented Nov 17, 2010 at 10:43
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In Addition to great Fabian's answer I want to add a way how you can control the excess happiness without waisting it. By adopting Freedon SP branch you get a happy face per two specialists. So when your empire is in normal state make a lot of specialists, you'll get excess happiness and finally a golden age. During a golden age send your citizens to work on fields. You will not only save on those otherwise waisted excess happiness points, but would also better exploit +1prod/+1gold on fields generated by the golden age.

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  • I don't recall if this was changed in a patch, but unlike Civ4 a Golden Age gives +20% to production in all cities rather than +1 production on all tiles with at least 1 production already. The +1 gold/tile-with-at-least-one works as you stated and as it was in Civ4, however.
    – David Harkness
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 3:53
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Just to answer the other part of the question, when a golden age begins, your existing excess happiness balance is kept and restored once the golden age ends (just tried it then, with two golden ages stacked together).

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