Age 1
Best: Mysticism.
Worst: Oars
Agree on Oars. Not convinced about Mysticism. It's a house when all the 1's are emptied, but that's not always the case. Clothing seems like a stronger card to me, it forces your opponent to meld cards they wouldn't have otherwise melded. And as a long term plan I prefer to have the leaves for Fermenting, Machinery, and Reformation over the liability of towers.
Oars is good when opponent is using Domestication, which is about equal to sailing at age 1.
Mysticism is only good when you meld all 5 colours. And you will not use Mysticism at turn 1
Age 2
Best: Mathematics. Overrated but still a lovely techer / game ender. Fermenting is close behind.
Worst: Currency. Not really that much better than Pottery/Agriculture, hard to set up, and basically a way worse version of Lighting.
Disagree on the worst, I think Canal Building is worse then Currency. They have pretty similar score potentials, but Currency can achieve Monument, and Canal Building can't.
Currency is crazy at age 5/6 when you have 3 different age cards in your hand.
Even monotheism is great if it comes early. Bombing your opponent's board while tucking cards.
Age 2 cards are quite useful.
Age 3
Best: Machinery.
Worst: Feudalism.
Machinery is nuts. You read it and you get to "score a card from your hand with a tower" and you're like, surely there will be no more text on this card. But wait, there's more.
Age 3 cards are quite disruptive. Loads of attacks that can help you against tech-aheader. Agree about Feudalism that it is weak. But for the best cards, optics/compass can stand a chance
Age 4
Best: Gunpowder. Can be a total dud if it comes out too late, but if you get to it early via Paper or Mathematics it can really obliterate your opponent. Second place is likely Printing Press, for that 1/5 chance of PPing into another purple card.
Worst: Colonialism. It works out to roughly "tuck a card and a half" on average, I think. Hard to rely on, and unlike Industrialization, doesn't snowball or splay.
I think Navigation might have to be the worst, simply because Colonialism blocks Gunpowder. Colonialism does get a good bit better with some card counting.
For the record, it tucks more than a card and a half on average, 50% of age 3 cards have a crown, so it tucks 2 or more cards 50% of the time, so the average is 1.5 + however much the 3 tuck and 4 tuck pull up that average.
It doesn't really matter what the average is though, because the tucking effect is weak enough that it needs to be used in conjunction with card counting, you need to know that a large number of remaining 3's have a crown, or know that there's a 50% chance the remaining 3 is of a color you have splayed containing the icon you need, or whatnot.
Gunpowder are not that strong if your opponent knows how to avoid/counterattack Gunpowder.
Experiment, Printing Press, Enterprise are stronger in my view.
Age 5
Best: Chemistry, though occasionally Pirate Code can run away with scoring.
Worst: Statistics, probably. None of them really stand out.
I think I like Astronomy better than Chemistry just because I want to get out of Age 5, not because Astronomy is that great of a techup card, it's ok.
Chemistry is conditional, so in a discussion of average case scenarios I think it doesn't quite have alpha status.
I love Coal and Steam Engine. They are good scorer at that age.
Astronomy is great too.
Age 6
Best: Industrialization. In any other age Vaccination would be here.
Worst: Encyclopedia. Useful a lot more often than Translation, but still rarely useful.
Translation is way more useful than Encyclopedia.. it achieves World dude..
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Encyclopedia is good with canal building/democracy.
Age 7
Best: Bicycle, maybe Lighting? Bicycle has more big-play potential, while Lighting is almost always good.
Worst: Refrigeration.
I think your uncertainty is misplayed here, Lighting is less situational than Bicycle, but not that much less situational, the cards in your hand don't always have different values.
Age 7 cards are very strange. It is, generally, harder to tech up at age 7.Lighting is useful because you can score loads of points, and go to age 8 faster by using all age 7 cards.
Agree about Refrigeration
Age 8
Best: Another all-star age. You could argue for Rocketry, Quantum Theory, Mass Media, Mobility, Empiricism, or Skyscrapers, and I think they'd all be legitimate contenders.
Worst: Socialism. It's just so ... boring compared to its compatriots.
I feel like it's Mobility, because it's strong against a variety of strategies and situations. It doesn't matter if your opponent is threatening to win next turn or just trying to tech up to 10 or what, Mobility will score you points and make your opponent less eligible for achievements and less able to do things.
Age 9
Best: Satellites. Meld/execute is so ridiculously overpowered that sometimes I deliberately Satellites my hand just so I can meld/execute instead of meld. Computers, if you're behind.
Worst: Unclear. Fission? Suburbia?
Definitely Fission. I think I've yet to win a game after a successful nuke. I postulate that "going first", that is, having one action remaining going into that empty board state, is worse than "going second" in post-apocalyptic Innovation.
Oh, and Satellites, yeah, it's pretty silly. The only Meld/Execute card that gives you choices, non?
Age 10
I'm not sure this is meaningful, since the 10's are so stupidly strong that it really depends on your game situation. In general though I find The Internet to be the most scary.
But Miniaturization is so weak, how could you not mention it? All it does is let you end games on score, if you can burn 3 actions and still have score advantage. Flipping Agriculture does a better job of that. There's never ever enough time left in the game to use the bazillion drawn tens, so it's a very one trick pony.
Someone has not used Education on two 8's only to draw Miniaturization. Let me tell you, it is depressing.
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