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Universal History (Version 1.01)

UncivilizedGuy

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UncivilizedGuy submitted a new resource:

Universal History - Eras renamed to the Universal History system.

UNIVERSAL HISTORY

This is a simple mod that changes the era names to the eras that historians use when presenting world history on a macro scale.

Eras
Prehistoric Era
replaces Ancient
Ancient replaces Classical
Post-classical replaces Medieval
Early Modern replaces Renaissance
Modern replaces Industrial
Late Modern replaces Modern
Contemporary replaces Atomic
Late Contemporary replaces Information

Read more about this resource...

Unzip here:
My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Mods

It should create a folder named: Universal History

Be sure to activate it in the game under Additional Content.
 
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Thank you for making this! Would this interfere with mods, such as Slower Tech, that refer to the era names to increase technology costs?
 
Do historians refer in this context to a "classical period" as well, because otherwise I'd find it weird not to have that but have a "post-classical period". I'd stick with Ancient and Classical in the beginning, since writing is already part of the first era, and afaik that is considered the mark between pre-historic and ancient history.
 
I find it weird too, but this is what they call it. Believe me I have looked around at all of my options. The Middle Ages is also used. But Postclassical is what they seem to prefer. And yes you are correct that Writing should start the Ancient era. It is researched just before the Ancient era in the current tree. Close enough. Actually the only techs that i would consider to be Prehistory would be Pottery, Animal Husbandry and Mining. The next column of techs all appear around the same time in history. But the first era would look funny with one column... or maybe not.

Classical era isn't bad in my opinion. Most regions around the world experienced a Classical period in history.

I could do another mod with alternate era names. There is whole freakin' list of them.
 
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Nice mod! Thought about creating one for CiV, too, at some point.

Interestingly enough, here in Germany the most common periodisation goes (roughly) as follows:

Ancient History (4000BC-500AD)
Middle Ages (500-1500)
Early Modern Period (1500-1789)
Modern Period (1789-1914)
Contemporary History (1914-today)
 
Shouldn't it be "Postmodern", or do historians use a hyphen between the terms? I haven't seen this term hyphenated in a long time.
 
Interestingly enough, here in Germany the most common periodisation goes (roughly) as follows:

Ancient History (4000BC-500AD)
Middle Ages (500-1500)
Early Modern Period (1500-1789)
Modern Period (1789-1914)
Contemporary History (1914-today)

Interestingly enough we are using a different periodisation here in Tübingen (I am a history/archaeology student):
The game uses roughly a beginning in the Neolithic around 10000BC and combines it with the Bronze and Iron Age.
Ancient History I would consider from the Archaic period in Greece around 800BC to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800AD.
Middle Ages from 800-1492 (Columbus discovering the new world, would also consider Luther and the Reformation)
Early Modern Period around 1500 to depending on location. For Germany I would probably use the Congress of Vienna in 1814.
Modern Period up to 1945
Finally Contemporary History or better called Zeitgeschichte from 1945 onwards. Apart from the obvious 1945 this is also correlated to the foundation of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich in 1949, which heavily influenced on how we are working with history in Germany from my understanding.
 
Shouldn't it be "Postmodern", or do historians use a hyphen between the terms? I haven't seen this term hyphenated in a long time.

Post-Modern is hyphenated in Wikipedia.

This era is a comprimise. Technically the Contemporary era starts at WWII. But the existing game splits the era into two and I needed to call it something. Post-Modern is mentioned in the Wiki article for Universal History so I went with it. I also split the Late Modern era into two. That's why there is a generic Modern Era. I could remove these extra eras but game balance is tied to 8 separate eras. Also the game technically starts at the beginning of the Ancient Era. Only the first column of techs are Neolithic. Prehistory is used as a generic era in more than one Wiki article that refers to time before recorded history. I got these eras from the wiki article for Universal History.
 
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Interestingly enough we are using a different periodisation here in Tübingen (I am a history/archaeology student):
The game uses roughly a beginning in the Neolithic around 10000BC and combines it with the Bronze and Iron Age.
Ancient History I would consider from the Archaic period in Greece around 800BC to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800AD.
Middle Ages from 800-1492 (Columbus discovering the new world, would also consider Luther and the Reformation)
Early Modern Period around 1500 to depending on location. For Germany I would probably use the Congress of Vienna in 1814.
Modern Period up to 1945
Finally Contemporary History or better called Zeitgeschichte from 1945 onwards. Apart from the obvious 1945 this is also correlated to the foundation of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich in 1949, which heavily influenced on how we are working with history in Germany from my understanding.
Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age are all acceptable and more likely to be used by Archaeologists. If I divide the Ancient era into Bronze and Iron then I would have to add an era to the game. Although I could just start the game with the Bronze era I suppose. It's basically what is done anyway in the game. If there were a true Neolithic era there would be many more early techs. I was tempted to call the first era Neolithic.
 
Nice mod! Thought about creating one for CiV, too, at some point.

Interestingly enough, here in Germany the most common periodisation goes (roughly) as follows:

Ancient History (4000BC-500AD)
Middle Ages (500-1500)
Early Modern Period (1500-1789)
Modern Period (1789-1914)
Contemporary History (1914-today)
Middle Ages is a Eurocentric era name. My Saga of Man mod for Civ 5 has the Universal eras.
 
Interestingly enough we are using a different periodisation here in Tübingen (I am a history/archaeology student):
The game uses roughly a beginning in the Neolithic around 10000BC and combines it with the Bronze and Iron Age.
Ancient History I would consider from the Archaic period in Greece around 800BC to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800AD.
Middle Ages from 800-1492 (Columbus discovering the new world, would also consider Luther and the Reformation)
Early Modern Period around 1500 to depending on location. For Germany I would probably use the Congress of Vienna in 1814.
Modern Period up to 1945
Finally Contemporary History or better called Zeitgeschichte from 1945 onwards. Apart from the obvious 1945 this is also correlated to the foundation of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich in 1949, which heavily influenced on how we are working with history in Germany from my understanding.

Don't get me wrong: I did not say it's the only periodisation (since it is a purely artificial construct and always susceptible to debate), just a very common one. I'm a (doctoral) student of history, too. :) Greetings to Tübingen
 
Don't get me wrong: I did not say it's the only periodisation (since it is a purely artificial construct and always susceptible to debate), just a very common one. I'm a (doctoral) student of history, too. :) Greetings to Tübingen
I may just change it to Middle Ages. I'm not a big fan of the Postclassical name myself. I'm trying not to let my personal Eurocentric bias get in the way.
 
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It's futile to not frame this Mod from Europe regardless due to the way the game works and all the civilizations included. African and Far East countries never went through many of the ages represented in the game or had them play out very differently so that the name doesn't fit anyway. Unless you're making a Mod to somehow make it so each Civilization goes through its own unique or semi-unique Era progression, which I think would be a great mod, there's no reason to not stick with the European Model.
 
It's futile to not frame this Mod from Europe regardless due to the way the game works and all the civilizations included. African and Far East countries never went through many of the ages represented in the game or had them play out very differently so that the name doesn't fit anyway. Unless you're making a Mod to somehow make it so each Civilization goes through its own unique or semi-unique Era progression, which I think would be a great mod, there's no reason to not stick with the European Model.
Well in this game all civilizations are starting from square one. So to have Eras with euro centric names seems a bit silly. It's difficult for people who have grown up in the Western world to see the world from other perspectives. All I'm doing is using an agreed-upon system that historians use.

The other reason to use more generic eras is because other civilizations have not experienced what is already in the game.
Why have the renaissance when not all civilizations have experienced it? Why have the dark ages when all civilizations have not experienced it? You're forcing other civilizations down the path of Europe by using the era names that the developers chose.
 
Right, but this is a video game and you're really veering off into 'Social Justice' nonsense here. I already pointed out that the game's structure makes your utopian "not forcing european views" impossible without significant modification beyond changing some text.
 
Right, but this is a video game and you're really veering off into 'Social Justice' nonsense here. I already pointed out that the game's structure makes your utopian "not forcing european views" impossible without significant modification beyond changing some text.
You're absolutely right. That's why I created a massive overhaul for Civ5. The game does OK for the most part in my opinion. Oh yeah and that American flag I'm staring at is just a piece of cloth. It's all nonsense.
 
Post-Modern is hyphenated in Wikipedia.

This era is a comprimise. Technically the Contemporary era starts at WWII. But the existing game splits the era into two and I needed to call it something. Post-Modern is mentioned in the Wiki article for Universal History so I went with it.

It might be more useful to split it up into Contemporary and Information. We might be on the verge of calling it just that in scientific history right now. I'm not that big into the issue because I don't have too many ties to the contemporary department, but there are definitely ongoing discussions on calling it a new era from 2000 onwards. You just have to consider that scientific history is a little bit on the slow side to adapting to recent events. Most historic sources have a time of disclosure of at least 30 years at least from a perspective of looking at governments, states etc.

While I really like the idea of giving all the in between eras from ancient to modern times a world wide view, I also think it is hard to pull of, because the eras are inherently tied to the tech tree, which is very euro-centric in a lot of aspects. A lot of techs don't make much sense for civs other than European ones.

Personally I would love to see a mod expand on the early times a little bit more. So either two eras before ancient history dividing lithic and metal ages or dividing the ancient era into two with a multitude of options like a having a pre roman-greko ancient era and then the classic times or dividing ancient eras into roman republic and then monarchy until around 800.
I just don't think it makes much sense to have the "industrial" and "modern" times as two eras. On a world wide scale there could be an argument for starting the contemporary era with WW I tech, but this is a flaw in the game that would need bigger adjustments. At the moment I just feel that the later eras fly by to quickly without much difference between them. Also why do you discover coal after you can build factories and even worse build the Ruhr valley before you discover coal.
All this stuff would need a rework of the tech tree of course. I don't know how much you would be into that :D

Another fun mechanic could be the introduction of roaming civs. But I'm not even sure this could be made possible with mods that go deeply into game mechanics at a later point in time. This is probably just a dream.
 
It might be more useful to split it up into Contemporary and Information. We might be on the verge of calling it just that in scientific history right now. I'm not that big into the issue because I don't have too many ties to the contemporary department, but there are definitely ongoing discussions on calling it a new era from 2000 onwards. You just have to consider that scientific history is a little bit on the slow side to adapting to recent events. Most historic sources have a time of disclosure of at least 30 years at least from a perspective of looking at governments, states etc.

While I really like the idea of giving all the in between eras from ancient to modern times a world wide view, I also think it is hard to pull of, because the eras are inherently tied to the tech tree, which is very euro-centric in a lot of aspects. A lot of techs don't make much sense for civs other than European ones.

Personally I would love to see a mod expand on the early times a little bit more. So either two eras before ancient history dividing lithic and metal ages or dividing the ancient era into two with a multitude of options like a having a pre roman-greko ancient era and then the classic times or dividing ancient eras into roman republic and then monarchy until around 800.
I just don't think it makes much sense to have the "industrial" and "modern" times as two eras. On a world wide scale there could be an argument for starting the contemporary era with WW I tech, but this is a flaw in the game that would need bigger adjustments. At the moment I just feel that the later eras fly by to quickly without much difference between them. Also why do you discover coal after you can build factories and even worse build the Ruhr valley before you discover coal.
All this stuff would need a rework of the tech tree of course. I don't know how much you would be into that :D

Another fun mechanic could be the introduction of roaming civs. But I'm not even sure this could be made possible with mods that go deeply into game mechanics at a later point in time. This is probably just a dream.
I am working on a tech tree. This is part of it. Just thought I'd release this as a small mod. There is really no right answer actually. Every civilization has experienced their own eras. Removing eras altogether would be the most neutral thing to do . Eras are just labels to give us perspective on history. Nothing more.
 
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