The Age III events are intended as a sort of reward for having a well-developed civilization at the end of the game. They act as an incentive to not tear down everything you have in search of one more victory point, because what you have already will probably turn out to be worth a few anyway.
If you are losing a lot of ground when these resolve, it suggests that either you were unfortunate with which events were seeded or you devoted your economy to producing culture a little earlier than you should have.
