26-01-2005 00:39									#1
	Adding A "Soft" 5th Age? Full PM-box? Change here!

I was hoping to get some opinions about adding another age to the game between the medieval and industrial ages. Also wondered how to prolong each age too.

It seems I just get enough of one unit type built and my tech advances to the next level. I would like to hack about with sword and spear for awhile before advancing on!

I thought about artificially inflating the costs for certain techs (mandatory) as an ending point to the different ages. This would make each age last longer and provide a "soft" barrier between each age.

For instance, the ancient age is OK tech wise but double the cost of Construction and Horseriding at the end of the tree. The medieval would end with Metallurgy, Astronomy, Printing Press, Banking and have their costs inflated but...Military Tradition, Physics, Democracy, Economics begins a new "Pre-Industrial" Age that ends with Nationalism, Ironclads, Steam Power and Medicine.

How would this affect gameplay for the AI? Is there another way?

	26-01-2005 01:00									#2
	Put an end to popups!

The easyist way to prolog an age is to make every single optional tech in it a required tech.

Adding a 5th Age??? Can't be done.

Making a tech required will make the AI value it as 50% more in a trade trade and also presumably when making a decision about what tech to resarch.

The humans hating a required tech that doesn't lead to anything will just bypass it until the end of the area and then reserach them all in 4 turns each.

Extending the Ancient Era would extend the lifetime of ToA, Oracle, and GL, but that would be a good thing.

You could also effectly split an era by adding a new tech that acts as a choke point.

A tech can have up to 4 as a prereq, so you could make it require Metallurgy, Astronomy, PP, and Banking, and then add that gateway tech to the prereq list for Military Tradition, Physics, ToG, Economoics, Navigation, and Democracy.

	27-01-2005 19:50									#3
	Remove this text

Thanks for the response. I like the idea of the choke point tech. It will take a little juggling but I can create a pre-industrial age that way besides extending the length of other ages.

	28-01-2005 23:48									#4
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

In Civ3, the "Middle Ages" does kind of encompass a lot of history (500AD to 1800 AD). Too bad it can't be split something like this:

"Ancient World" 4000BC-500AD
"Middle Ages" 500AD-1500ishAD
"Renaissance" 1500-ish to 1680ish
"Baroque?"-ish Era 1680-1790
Industrial Era 1790-early 20th cent-ish
Modern Times etc. etc.

or at least, combine Renaissance and Baroque time periods into something. I can see why the game designers did it...it is a simplification. They wanted the game to flow well.

It would be nice...a pity its hard coded to 4 ages

	29-01-2005 03:15									#5
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by Mace In Civ3, the "Middle Ages" does kind of encompass a lot of history (500AD to 1800 AD). Too bad it can't be split something like this: "Ancient World" 4000BC-500AD "Middle Ages" 500AD-1500ishAD "Renaissance" 1500-ish to 1680ish "Baroque?"-ish Era 1680-1790 Industrial Era 1790-early 20th cent-ish Modern Times etc. etc. or at least, combine Renaissance and Baroque time periods into something. I can see why the game designers did it...it is a simplification. They wanted the game to flow well. It would be nice...a pity its hard coded to 4 ages

Its hard to think of Democracy as Medieval but yeah, sacrifices had to be made. I added all these new units but many times my economy really takes off in the medieval age and I usually don't do much with the heavy metal units as I am chasing Infantry.

	29-01-2005 09:01									#6
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by Mace In Civ3, the "Middle Ages" does kind of encompass a lot of history (500AD to 1800 AD). Too bad it can't be split something like this: "Ancient World" 4000BC-500AD "Middle Ages" 500AD-1500ishAD "Renaissance" 1500-ish to 1680ish "Baroque?"-ish Era 1680-1790 Industrial Era 1790-early 20th cent-ish Modern Times etc. etc. or at least, combine Renaissance and Baroque time periods into something. I can see why the game designers did it...it is a simplification. They wanted the game to flow well. It would be nice...a pity its hard coded to 4 ages

Really? I think the ancient era could be broken-up a little more. I'm thinking bronze age --> iron age --> middle ages. The ancient era encompasses such a large number of years, it needs to be broken down.

	29-01-2005 09:34									#7
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

The ancient age is a lot of time, but not a lot of turns.

	29-01-2005 22:06									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

It's always faintly annoyed me that the Middle Ages era should mostly be about the "Early Modern Period", ie the roughly the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Also, the last Ancient techs seem to be about the early Roman Empire, while Feudalism - that gives us pikemen, a late medieval unit essentially - is first tier Medieval tech. What happened to the intervening millennium?

Medieval Infantry and Pikemen predating Knights is fairly galling, too.

	30-01-2005 04:24									#9
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by vmxa1 The ancient age is a lot of time, but not a lot of turns.

Exactly!

What I'm trying to say is the ancient age should contain a lot more turns. Maybe double the number it currently has.

	30-01-2005 06:08									#10
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Xorbon Exactly! What I'm trying to say is the ancient age should contain a lot more turns. Maybe double the number it currently has.

Try making all optional techs in the Ancient Era required including the govt ones.

Also, this is considerly longer on Archepello than Pangena.

	30-01-2005 06:19									#11
	Inflate your Upload Space

I guess I could mod the game to make a longer ancient era, but I had Civ 4 in mind when I was refering to adding turns to it.

	30-01-2005 09:34									#12
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Why not just make all tech more expensive, if your goal is longer ages?

	30-01-2005 10:21									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'm not just looking for a longer ancient era, though that is part of it, I'm looking for more depth, including units and tech. That would take too much work and rebalancing of the rest of the eras to keep it a 400-turn game for my liking. That's why I'm saying I'd like to see it done for a future version of Civ. I think 4500 out of 6000 years of history deserves more than 1/4 of the number of turns.

	31-01-2005 19:51									#14
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Xorbon Really? I think the ancient era could be broken-up a little more. I'm thinking bronze age --> iron age --> middle ages. The ancient era encompasses such a large number of years, it needs to be broken down.

I rather prefer to have it based on weapons technology than anything else. In the ancient age its still spear and sword until metallurgy and gunpowder changes the equation.

	31-01-2005 19:55									#15
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Smiley Why not just make all tech more expensive, if your goal is longer ages?

For me personally, I like having the units available for quite a period before moving to the next generation units. By just doing the end techs it allows you to hack about with all of the units available in the age before the next level begins.

	01-02-2005 06:54									#16
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by mkqest I rather prefer to have it based on weapons technology than anything else. In the ancient age its still spear and sword until metallurgy and gunpowder changes the equation.

Yes, but there still were advances in the ancient days: bronze, iron, as well as advances in tactics and training. Just because they didn't involve the exciting world of firearms, it doesn't make them any less significant.

	01-02-2005 21:52									#17
	Full PM-box? Change here!

The Mesopatian conquest breaks down the Ancent Era.

And there actually are some advances of interest during the Ancient Era.

Best starting offensive unit : Archer. 2-1-1
Best starting defensive unit : Hoplite. [Greek only] 1-3-1

Irq Warrior 3-1-2 requires Horseback riding and Horses.
Gallic Warrior 3-2-2 requires Iron working and Iron.
Statue of Zeus can also be built early enough to spawn off 3-2-2 units before the ancient era ends.

	04-02-2005 20:50									#18
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Xorbon Yes, but there still were advances in the ancient days: bronze, iron, as well as advances in tactics and training. Just because they didn't involve the exciting world of firearms, it doesn't make them any less significant.

Agreed. Not disputing that.

I guess my point is that the game is ultimately a game of conquest making military units the focal point.

	04-02-2005 20:55									#19
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by Mace In Civ3, the "Middle Ages" does kind of encompass a lot of history (500AD to 1800 AD).

Especially in weapons development in firearms, unit structure such as the introduction of the "Division" size military unit to the modern armies.

	11-02-2005 02:09									#20
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Dont you love mods? If you guys wanna get the rise and rule mod for conquests that should solve most of your tech problems. although there are no different ages there is ALOT mor stuff to reaserch. Also there is a tech ratio thing somwhere in the editor that changes the cost depending on the map size you could try that although im not sure what it does or how it works.

	15-02-2005 09:30									#21
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by Xorbon Really? I think the ancient era could be broken-up a little more. I'm thinking bronze age --> iron age --> middle ages.

Yes, the ancient era could be broken down more. But I think about it this way...if you had a sword, in 1000 BC, you could fight in a war in 1200 AD just the same (that's 2200 years later)...and be pretty effective. But in 1700 AD, just 500 years later, you might get cut down by a volley of musket shot. And of course if you had a musket from 1700 AD, you wouldn't be able to fight much against a machine gun of 1900 AD--and that's only 200 years later.

Besides, from a historical standpoint, most historians agree that the quote, "Ancient World" ended with the Romans, and the "Dark Ages" or Middle Ages followed. But yeah, I see what you're saying there...about the Iron age, Bronze Age, etc.

Of course it's all a moot point with Civ3, since there are 4 hard-coded ages...

But for Civ4 we can hope. At least maybe the number of eras won't be hard-coded. That's mainly what I want, a fairly open architecture for modding. Civ3 is really a big improvement over Civ1 and 2 in that department.

	15-02-2005 20:53									#22
	Suffering from ads?

It's also worth noting that there was considerable overlap between the Iron Age & Bronze Age as some countries had Swords centuries before their neighbors.

	16-02-2005 08:43									#23
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Mace But for Civ4 we can hope. At least maybe the number of eras won't be hard-coded. That's mainly what I want, a fairly open architecture for modding. Civ3 is really a big improvement over Civ1 and 2 in that department.

I'd like to see the eras made more flexible with respect to techs. I never have liked the way Civ 3 did the tech trees. They are too linear. I liked the tech tree for Civ 2 much more, though it could use much improvement.

	16-02-2005 16:12									#24
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by Mace Yes, the ancient era could be broken down more. But I think about it this way...if you had a sword, in 1000 BC, you could fight in a war in 1200 AD just the same (that's 2200 years later)...and be pretty effective.

That's not exactly true; there were many developments in sword making with how they were made, their strength, materials, etc.

	17-02-2005 04:14									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Hellcat That's not exactly true; there were many developments in sword making with how they were made, their strength, materials, etc.

Well, if something is fact, then it can't be false.

I said, or meant to say, that the sword was a major battlefield weapon for thousands of years. That's fact. Of course advances were made in swordmaking--that's also fact--but that isn't the point I was making.