There are some easy ways to tell if you’re *not* ready to age up:
– you can’t autobattle through GE
– your core GB aren’t to optimal levels if you’re HMA or lower (or the same era you came to the guild in)
– you don’t have enough goods to do all the negs you need plus some for trading
– you don’t have a stock of store buildings, one-up kits, and reno kits
– you don’t have any SoH in your era
– you don’t meet the guild’s AOAA requirements for aging up
– you don’t have enough fp or goods for the next part of the tech tree
So those are sort of the bare minimum requirements for aging up, and I may be forgetting a couple. One big thing is to make sure your CF is at least at 58, because a higher CF means more diamonds when you complete certain quests. But you meet or exceed all those metrics, so how do you decide whether to age up or stay put? There are, I think, a few different ways to look at it and answers will vary.
One thing I consider is whether I have truly maximized my use of space. Is my city’s efficiency over 100%? Am I bursting at the seams with no room for great event buildings I have sitting in inventory? Have I gone as far as I can on the map and run out of expansions? If all that is true, maybe it’s time to age up. But I wouldn’t advise aging up to get more room if your city is not efficient. Then you’ll just be inefficient in a higher and more difficult era.
Another thing I consider is the reputed fighting quality in the era I’m in versus the next one (or the next however many I think I might want to go through at once). If I’m in a truly horrendous fighting era, I’ll move sooner–BUT I’m a fighter, not a farmer.
We don’t talk much about farmers because they’re not on a 4-hour schedule the way GBG fighters are, or a 24-hour schedule the way GvG fighters are. But farmers are VERY important to a healthy guild. Maybe they fight some, maybe they don’t, but they focus their cities on getting goods, and we all know that a healthy treasury is crucial to a healthy guild. So maybe a farmer, instead of looking at how good or bad fighting is in their era, looks at how much in demand the goods of that era are. Avs, for example, stays in IA and produces a lot of goods, and IA goods are always in demand. Other good eras for farmers, as long as they have reasonably high AOAA (Arc, Observatory, Atom, AI Core), might be Colonial, Industrial, Modern, and Post-Modern. Those goods tend to be on the scarce side.
The reason I say “as long as they have reasonably high AOAA” is because the eras that are best for farmers tend to be ones where the treasury is a little weaker. If people camp in those eras, we can get stuck with big GBG draws on those goods. So it’s helpful if people in those eras have, or work on having, at least 3 of the 4 AOAA at or over 80.
You always want to think about timing when you’re aging up. The standard advice is to wait until right after GBG starts, and that is generally good advice, but there are ways to get even more.
For example, don’t open GE until after you age up, so those early quests in your new age that require military units can be met by going through GE. It’ll also give you some of your new goods.
I also think it’s ideal to age up at the start of a new event. Anything that you level up or plant will be your new era’s age, and goodies from the event are also likely to help you get through the new era quests.
Because I’m always focused on the guild treasury and the varying GBG and GvG demands on it, I make sure I have *at least* 3 SoH or Great Elephants in every era I’m going through. That means that if I’m aging up, I want to make sure I have enough frags or levels to have 3 fully leveled SoH/Elephants in each of however many eras I plan to age through. Sometimes it’s taken me a while to accumulate that many.
I also leave event buildings in prior ages unless I really need to age them up for AA/AD boost. If you have champion retreats or the little production buildings like sleigh builders, it’s a good idea to plant those in each era as you go and then store them, so any time you need goods of a certain era, or units of that era, you have something in inventory that can produce them. Ideally you have scads of these in your inventory, but realistically probably few people do.
By the way, the tip about Champions applies most to PE and later ages for players who participate in GvG. The military buildings get huge, and champ retreats are a very small and manageable 3×3. So when you need troops of a certain era you can just pull out that champ retreat and plop it down until your Traz spits out enough of what you need.
As I said above, it’s a good idea to make sure you have enough coins, supplies, and goods to get through the tech tree for however far you want to go. You can find out what’s needed with FoEHelper or with Google.
So how many goods of your era do you really need to have on hand before you age up? Again, answers vary depending on a player’s era, focus, and how they want to play the game. Some people think 1k is enough, some people want 50k of *each* good in their era before they move up.
I think a reasonable rule of thumb is to try to have at least a couple thousand. You need them for negs at a minimum and you won’t be producing as many previous era goods, even if you leave some event buildings in that era (as you should). If you trade a lot (great!) you will want more. If you don’t trade much (also okay) then you can get by with less.
For sure, at a minimum, you want however many you will need for the tech tree plus a good cushion.
I also consider how far I might want to go at once. Because my AO is high, fighting down only one era in GBG is pretty crappy for me. The benefit doesn’t offset what I lose by not having my AO effect. So I usually look at aging up 2 or more eras in a season if I can. I’ve probably gone about as far as I can with that (to FE). For anyone from IA to CE, though, they can consider moving up 2 or even 3 eras in a season–if they have the preparations in place AND sufficient AA/AD that they can autobattle through each era and move on.
But of course you don’t want to speed through “good” eras and camp in “bad” ones. If you’re a farmer, you might want to linger in EMA, LMA, CA, Indy, ME, and PME, for example. If you’re a fighter, you might zip through those eras as fast as you can, but don’t skip HMA, PE, or FE. Those eras are particularly good for fighting.
To some extent this changes when you get to upper eras. The map and the story line can take MUCH longer to get through, and of critical importance you have to be able to collect enough specialized goods to open each tech. Others would be a lot more qualified to give advice specific to aging up through higher eras.
Guild considerations also come into play when deciding whether to age up (your mileage may vary).
Higher era players can fight through more attrition. Does the guild need more heavy duty fighters? (Maybe not now, but maybe we will if they nerf GBG.)
Higher era fighters can do more in GvG. If you ever play on a pc, that might be a consideration. As you can probably tell, we are chronically short of fighters in upper eras.
Are you in an era where the treasury needs help? Or would you be aging up into one? If so, are your AOAA a) in existence, and b) at levels that will help the guild? Or will being in that era cause some strain on the treasury? By way of example, I aged into ME from PE because our treasury was struggling badly in ME and PME for a while. By staying in each era for a bit, I helped stabilize those eras in the treasury. Our treasury is stronger than ever, but there are still pockets here and there that are a little weaker.
New and better ideas for the game come along all the time. If you have other thoughts about aging up, or suggestions, or questions, message me any time or post in any of our billion chat threads.