Eras Idea (sub-ages) - Expansion level rework

[steel vortex]

Further to some of the recent threads here about sub eras (e.g. https://discord.com/channels/1307104947426295818/1399128143591379005), I wanted to add my own spin on things. Largely, I founds those threads had a lot of high level ideas and aspirations that I agreed with, but were perhaps lacking in real mechanical changes that try to fit into the framework of the existing game.

Why change the system?

• The current game finishes a bit early. Lots of players, myself included, would want to play into modern times and in particular that post-WW2 cold war era. If we just extend the Modern Age then that could upset the general balance, so I think its better to rejig the whole timeline.
• Adding a 4th Age would be very tricky. Most of the Modern Civs still exist and there aren't many great candidates for 4th Age Civs either. Not to mention, Age Transitions mess with the flow of the game and adding a 3rd would probably be a negative, even if they do make significant improvements to the transition system. There is also not really any suitable crises, and is there even enough content for a full age without getting into SciFi?
• Medieval needs some love.
• The Age of Sail is a bit lacking in sails!
• Eras would be a major expansion (think Rise & Fall / Gathering storm) type proposal.

The Proposal:

• Most of it is shown in the pictures.
• Antiquity is already pretty great. More Classics would be great!
• Medieval needs time before you explore the oceans.
• New ships for the Age of Sail.
• Modern will be helped by better pacing.
• T4 units for some classes.

Also a couple of my previous posts I think would integrate really well into this general rework:
Flagships (Naval commander rework for Renaissance): https://discord.com/channels/1307104947426295818/1346834673225044028
Aircraft Carrier Upgradeable (possibly even 3-tiered given the changes of real carriers from WW1 to modern times): https://discord.com/channels/1307104947426295818/1343140729156927488

Time sensitive legacy paths Triumphs:
legacy paths Triumphs for the first half of an age could either be 1off bonuses (e.g. a leader point), or part of a general rework to legacy paths where there are multiple ways to get points throughout the age and its more about gathering a set number rather than completing a path (rework done, hype!). Either way, if you don’t achieve it fast enough, you miss out.

Few Examples:

Ancient:
Military – Disperse an independent power.
Economic – Claim a set number of empire resources
Scientific/Culture – Gather a set amount of science/culture from narrative events / goody huts.

**Medieval: **
Military – Build Castles (captured worth x2)
Economic – Achieve a certain number of production output in cities.
Scientific - ?
Cultural – Spread your state religion to all/most/some of your settlements.

This part I'm shaky on, so fill in the gaps in the comments if you can.

[molten fern]

Another great post

Medieval 🥰

[umbral elk]

Am I correct that this proposal is very similar to the writeup I did, except for its handling of legacy paths? if so, would you like me to copy paste that writeup over here for context in this discussion?

Also, there's a few places here where i think you use the term era when you meant age - i know what you mean because we talked out the concept, but you may want to do a proofread for readability for others

[steel vortex]

I'm losing track of all the threads but if i remember correctly you linked to like a google docs and it had some good stuff in it? yes, post it.

Fixed some of the era/age mixups. Think that's it. Cheers

[umbral elk]

This was the writeup I did inspired by your original suggestion, trying to formalize it into a clearer game design pitch

[steel vortex]

Yes, agree with the vast majority of that. I just wanted to expand in the particular direction of, for example unit changes and new mechanics

One of the areas I spent a lot of time thinking about but forgot to write up in the OP was how to make ocean exploration happen only in the 2nd half of the age without messing with the recent continuity change of having antiquity era ships turn into cogs.

For me, the best solution was to bring forward the light naval ship. The caravel is perfect for this. It’s a light exploration ship of the era and since it would be the 1st light naval ship, players wouldn’t be able to game the system by pre-making lots of ships knowing that the game will update them for free. I’d also be happy for the game to give players a free caravel when they reach the tech (similar to how we used to get a free cog) if that better suits the balance. I think it’s important than the heavy naval ship gets its ocean faring ability a fair bit later, since players could have loads of these.

Then if we’re doing more naval units, why not a privateer? 🏴‍☠️

[prisma pulsar]

I can totally see how a lot of these ideas could work really well.
That said, I'm not on board with further delaying ocean travel.

Why wouldn't you be able to cross the ocean early in the medieval era?
Let us all be like the Vikings and discover the Americas.

A (more or less -> since civilian units still need Cartography) common race to the distant lands is, in my eyes, a fun and meaningful mechanic.
Delaying it further behind a tech or upgrade would just create unintuitive and unfun gameplay:
Those who didn’t gather enough science yet are left waiting, piling up units on the coastline, while stronger players get to explore and enjoy.
That’s not exciting. It’s punishing.

Creating an even playing field at the beginning of the age is key here to avoid that imo.

Immersion is important. But it should never come at the cost of good gameplay.

[steel vortex]

I think there's 2 main reasons why I wanted to delay ocean faring. 1, is that the distant lands mechanic just takes over the exploration age which is part of why medieval feels like its not involved. And 2, because the age starts at around 300AD and ocean-faring is a long way off for then. I think even the earliest Viking stuff was around 1000AD which does beat the Portuguese and Spanish, but still.

I would also be happy for a change to oceanfaring based on trade/supply range rather than ocean tiles hurt you but that goes beyond what i wanted to show in this post.

I don't necessarily agree that it would be unfun as you say, or at least isn't it the same as the rest of the game. The aim of the game is to get advantages and use them in the short window before everyone else has them, and this is just another version of that. Is it unfun to lose a science space race because someone else is faster?

One balance change that would have to happen is that distant lands become less essential and more of a 'nice to have' which would help with that problem.

[prisma pulsar]

You could delay settling with gating civilian ocean travel behind a later tech. When the first distant land settlement is established, the era then switches. This would give the medieval era with its units & mechanics (love the idea of castles/ trebuchets) room to breathe and at the same time allow players the freedom to explore + establish relationships with distant powers, setting
things up for the next era.

This way the age would still be longer, which is the most important precondition for having a proper medieval era as far as I understand.

Also, I think this whole argument leans heavily on a very Eurocentric view of history.
Plenty of oceanic civilizations (Hawaii is even in the game!) mastered long-distance sea travel way before the “Age of Exploration” narrative we usually default to.
The real-world ocean travel timeline is likely even more chaotic and fragmented than we tend to assume.

[steel vortex]

So looking at Wikipedia, it says Hawai'i is inhabited around 940-1200AD, so really not far from Vikings. Certainly the areas around Fiji were much earlier but looks like a lot of that was done by land bridges and then relatively short hops. It was still impressive stuff, and i think a unique Civ ability to explore earlier would suit this because its very much not the norm for the rest of the world.

Also, when we talk about the age of exploration, we're normally talking about a more specific purpose than just finding. Its about having ships advanced enough to do the return journey, about taking enough supplies to found colonies and about being able to take resources back to the homelands. And that really did come no earlier than about the 1400s.

So with that in mind, i wouldn't mind some exploration but with no civilian units. Caravel could be a late medieval unit rather than Renaissance. But i think its important that the Cog is not oceanworthy.

[prisma pulsar]

glad we found some common ground

[granite minnow]

Wow, very nice post!

[steel vortex]

Cheers! Nice to see older topics resonating with people.

The more I think about it, the more I think that extended ages would work better than 4 ages. I think 3 is the sweet spot and another age transition would hurt the game.

[iron gull]

Do you think we’d get more medieval special units?

[steel vortex]

I think for the most part, the game already has the units needed its just they dont get much love. There could always be room for a bit more. Castles and siege units would be fun! And there could always be more things!

[solar tiger]

This is interesting. ARA has similar system. They devide history into 3chapters with several acts in each of the chapter.

[granite minnow]

I think that this topic is getting better and better with every update, I honestly don't see any sense that second era is so short and now we have vikings and Pirates for example on the same timeline... that honestly don't have too much sense.

[steel vortex]

To confirm, do you mean that the topic of this post is now no longer needed or that its needed more than ever? While I haven't gotten to play the latest patch yet, i do feel the game still has 2 major pacing/age issues and thats that Medieval flies by, and the game stops too soon (i.e. we need to get to at least Cold war and ideally to current day).

[granite minnow]

Its needed more than ever, in my opinion

[steel vortex]

Thought I'd revive this post since it got reference by another and there's been a few different similar posts about these issues (both 4th age and split ages).

I think a lot of people are recognising that medieval is just not feeling right. When was the last time you fielded a large army of knights, crossbows and trebuchets and attacked an enemy castle (well castles arent in the game so its not entirely fair) but even still?

[tribal sorrel]

I feel like I keep coming back to your idea as a necessary core change. This feels like the only approach that can break the containerization of each age into a single cohesive game. The current thing where each age has distinct mechanics that dont change over the course of the age makes it really feel like 3 minigames, and while they're doing a great job on improving your continuity as a single cohesive entity, it feels like that entity falls asleep and wakes up to play three random minigames.

The hard part of the time jumps is also that it seems like your people werent really doing anything in the time period. Like the crisis just made them catatonic (every single civ catatonic similtaneously, like the world as a whole just froze and tech skipped). Nothing is built to show that, but even worse nothing is destroyed. No cities are lost, no buildings damaged, no new civilizations are found.

I think short of a total overhaul in that direction this fleshing out of the eras to properly add continuity is probably the next most essential expansion after the current triumphs, victories and ToT update.

I'd really love it if you posted a more refined version of your concept based on how the game has progressed since. I love your ideas, and really hope this one in particular gets implemented

[steel vortex]

Thanks for the very kind words! This was another of my more popular posts on a somewhat similar concept: https://discord.com/channels/1307104947426295818/1344405910512209920

I have been thinking a lot about the game progress and the updates and while I didnt get to play too much during the workshops (lot of IRL commitments), I'm going to try and play a good few games when 1.4 comes out and while theyve made a lot of good changes, they haven't really addressed this portion of the game yet.

[steel vortex]

Eras Idea (sub-ages) - Expansion level rework

[prisma pulsar]

There are still quite a few unadressed popular threads like this one floating around.

Civ Players are known for many things, but patience certainly isn’t one of them. I personally don't fully agree with Firaxis priorities set in this matter, but that doesn't mean I don't trust them to eventually arrive at a point, where 7's gameplay loop & systems become addicting.

Still, im feeling optimistic about 7's upcoming patch cycles. If firaxis manages to adress 80% of the good stuff still floating around here, we're in for a great time.

[steel vortex]

I feel like they had to go for classic mode first because of the amount of people that weren’t even willing to try the game without it, and they’ve genuinely come up with a decent solution to a complex problem there.

Hopefully now they can look into the other systems and give them the same love and attention.

[ruby rain]

Adding back strategic resources would certainly help with your idea on making the modern age an age where civs are fighting for limited resources. Currently if you are not pursuing an economic or military victory you have very limited reason to settle or conquer new cities.

Making power plants rely on coal/ oil/ uranium and making them give huge amounts of production will make a game feel a lot more competitive.