To be honest though, I think going more production/gold/culture focused during a golden age isn't a bad idea, so maybe I'll try it more purposefully and see what kind of difference it makes. As laid out by someone else already, Golden ages had nothing to do with happiness in previous iterations thats simply the design choice they made for civ5 golden ages - it could have been something else entirely. It's not that I'm pausing growth in all my cities for the golden age, but I do often pause growth in important cities during golden ages for tangentially related reasons. Golden ages being tied to global happiness was only specific to civ5s design. I say generally though, because if I can swing it I will build wonders in my capital during a golden age, and I absolutely will pause growth to build wonders. Now to the OP's question, generally no I don't switch over. And while there is definitely a benefit to micro-managing your cities it's not that important. To compensate, units will still have the speed bonus the turn after the Golden Age ends, as shown below: In Golden Ages, all of Persia's units gain additional movement and strength. If you eant to micro-manage them then yes, picking anything else besides food focus is better, but if you're not micro-managing your cities then food focus is a strong option. Above: The speed bonus for all your units doesn't apply until the turn after the Golden Age starts, if you manually initiated it. Regardless though, there's nothing wrong with choosing Food Focus in your cities. I don't know if the OP actually meant clicking the food focus button or just meant 'switch your general focus from food to production/gold'. Ok everyone's jumping on the ' food focus' part of the post.

How to farm golden ages civ 5