Because it’s much earlier than post imp. Proper imp starts at about 22-27 mins when you get some military upgrades or canons. Post Imp would then be after gold and wood start to get depleted from safe locations. That imo would be 30-40 mins into the game.
At that stage sure, you’ll have extra mil production. Closer to 20-30 buildings for your core units and then supplementing with more siege workshops and support units.
Because i already have tier 3 golden age i can build keeps and forward mil production without having an umbilical cord of houses to my base. Then saturate these buildings before going back to production at my base.
Post-imp is usally refferred to as when you are imp and all the major techs have been researched, blacksmith and unit upgrades are in, university techs researched etc. Usually you have a plethora of vills so you want to spam military buildings to make sure your pop is staying at the 200 cap as much as possible when you fight.
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The 30 building difference between Golden II and Golden III seems like a lot for the bonus given. I’ve played hundreds of games and personally don’t think I ever have used the third bonus before the game ends. But that’s just my playstyle.
As already mentioned, about the time you would decide to push to the third golden age, you also probably in the imperial age and already have researched or are currently researching the final technologies. You also have a lot of resources coming in fast. The 20% to gathering is probably the nicest of the tier 3 bonuses but idk if it really matters at that point. Same with the 20% research and 20% production. Research is basically done, I’d be shaving like 10 seconds off 1-2 techs.
I personally don’t produce 10 of each production building. I can see that mattering at the highest levels of play, but for me most games end the first time someone hits pop cap, no need to sustain it with 30 barracks. I normally make 3 siege and 4 stable, that’s it. Most games I honestly don’t even hit the 2nd tier even after completing all the buildings I need to win. I’d be filling the 30 building gap with houses since they are the cheapest building. 30x50 wood = 1500 wood to hit the bonus. + the time to produce all those houses. All for 20% of stuff I don’t need by then tho. I could increase my production 200% by spending that 1500 wood on more stables and workshops. Then I would be 20 buildings shy of the third tier, but I would have 10x the bonus.
Doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I just haven’t played any games yet where I needed 40 production buildings. That’s the only scenario I can see it being useful.
Travel speed is a valuable late game resource. I’d rather get 10% movement speed buff from ‘golden age road technology’ or something than 20% of all the other stuff. Even if it was just within my city space. That would actually give me a 2nd reason to build so many buildings to enlarge the city.
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I really like this idea of switching up the Golden Age Tier III bonus to movement speed. Late-game attempts at Golden Age Tier III usually involves a ridiculous snaking of forward production buildings or house spams. This leaves the forward production buildings spread out but still not quite forward, or wastes wood unnecessarily with a bunch of otherwise useless houses, and frankly looks quite silly.
Giving a speed bonus in Tier III would allow Abbasid players to build a tight compact defensive base (which I think was the point of their Golden Age Tier mechanic and plays into the Abbasid playstyle), and benefit from not having to build forward bases.
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I like the extra production speed on the third tier. Abbasid lategame eco is huge and this way you always replenish your army faster than your opponent. I tend to end up with 20 to 30ish production buildings in long 1v1s. I think building outposts and snakebasing is a big part of Abbasid gameplay. I enjoy it, but I do understand if that’s not the case for everyone.
If you want to build a tight compact and defensible base Rus might be what you’re looking for. Abbasid are more geared towards a map control stye. They build an open and spread out, but connected base which is defended by towers and camels as an anti-raid unit.
I also basically never reach Tier 3. An idea would be to add a university tech that counts every structure (even those outside the influence of the house of learning) towards the goal. Since it’s tied to the university, it’s only available in the imperial age and wouldn’t change civ balance too much. Better that than constructing houses like crazy to hit 60 structures.
60 isn’t too much imo however if the lower it it’s not something too low bc 30% eco plus 20% production and 20 research is a combo of several civ bonuses combined!!!
One of reason why it’s hard to reach is short influence to connect.
If this is buffed or improved, then it would be easier to reach and may not need to reduce amount of building.
I don’t mind snake-basing, but it’s a bit ridiculous looking and kind of a strange mechanic if intentional. The alternative is house-snaking. You used to be able to place the foundations of houses to connect bases to create an invisible, indestructible link between bases for Golden Age, but I’m not sure if they patched that out.