One thing that I would really like to see is random events throughout the game that affect a civilization's ranking.

Too often there is little movement after the middle-ages and even less after gunpowder.

I would like to see much greater swings in the rise and fall of empires. No civilization should run the gamut from start to finish. UB's and UU help (slightly) with this but not near enough, IMO.

In Railroad Tycoon II (Yes I still play it almost 10 years later) there is an economic model that has 5 stages: Depression, Recession, Normal, Prosperity, Boom Times.

The economy moves cyclically through these cycles. I.e. it will move from Boom times to depression to boom times. The current economy affects many factors, revenues, passenger traffic, Interest rates, etc.

Excerpt from Strategy guide:

"It tends to change up or down a level every 6 to 18 months, often making a full swing from depression to boom times or back in about 5 years. The economy also has momentum, if it has just moved up a grade, it is probably more likely to move up another grade than to move back down."

With all that said, I would like to see something similar in Civilization. Maybe more golden ages and more dark ages. The science rate, production, gold, happiness, etc could be adjusted by the current stage of a particular civilizations era. It can also be customized, too. Perhaps there could be specific modifier for each unique civilization that makes it more likely that a civilization will experience an upswing about the time of their UU and/or UB.

However the exact implementation occurs would be an interesting discussion, to me. Is there anyone else that would like to see this in-game or in a mod?

I would love to see a cultural, scientific, change in the rankings that is beyond my control. I am not saying that it should dominate game-play but that there should be a factor. 10% extremes, maybe...

What do you all think?

I think this would add more flavor to the game. Maybe limit Science to Normal and less until scientific method to make that tech more desirable since you lose so many religious benefits at that point. Also, possibly have key techs cause an instant reversal towards a boom for all or certain civs or have highly friendly civs sync up with their swings.

I like the idea of a dark age, either civ, continent, or world wide to highly restrain tech growth for a certain number of turns.

I think dark ages were removed because they were "unfun"

I think dark ages were removed because they were "unfun"

From Soren Johnson's design notes in the vanilla manual, they removed the dark ages and replaced them with the golden age instead.

in effect, you're always in a Dark Age unless you trigger a Golden Age ;)

narmox

I think dark ages were removed because they were "unfun"

I think it had more to do with the implementation than the idea itself.

I think this would add more flavor to the game. Maybe limit Science to Normal and less until scientific method to make that tech more desirable since you lose so many religious benefits at that point. Also, possibly have key techs cause an instant reversal towards a boom for all or certain civs or have highly friendly civs sync up with their swings.

I like the idea of a dark age, either civ, continent, or world wide to highly restrain tech growth for a certain number of turns.

As long as each civilization experiences the Rise and Fall randomly (w/ momentum) equally then over the course of a large population of games the effect would be equal to all Civ's.

I think it would be good to create an unpredictable randomness to the game which is sorely lacking once the top 3 or 4 civilizations have been established.

From Soren Johnson's design notes in the vanilla manual, they removed the dark ages and replaced them with the golden age instead.

in effect, you're always in a Dark Age unless you trigger a Golden Age ;)

narmox

Thanks for contributing.

I think that there should be both and ages in between.

As long as it is cyclical and random (w/ momentum)and equal then I think it would keep the early-mid to late game more interesting.

In most games--in my experience--which ever civ comes out of the middle ages with the lead will usually lead for the rest of the game.

I would like to see more very slow last to first back to last swings. Maybe 2 or 3 swings (not neccessarily Depression to Boom times but possibly) per 500 turns.

I would also like to see something more game breaking occur later on in the game. Civilizations should go through different economic stages, etc.

I like this idea. However, I wouldn't apply it in the early-to-middle part of the game. It should be tied to a tech discovery.

Off the top of my head, Corporation seems appropriate, though it might come a little late. Other possibilities are Economics and Guilds.

Off-Topic:
Thanks for reminding me of RT2. I was addicted to that game for a few months at the end of '98. I can still hear that crazy old guy snoring when you waited too long on a menu screen. Good times...:cool:

There should be some techs from the Renaissance on that give the first to discover a Golden Age. As for a Dark Age... maybe when every Civ but 1 has discovered those techs, that Civ gets a Dark Age?