Advanced Era Start Facts?

James T

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 17, 2011
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I play a weekly MP game with family members scattered across the country, and last night they decided they wanted to try starting the game in a different era. We settled on Renaissance, and it was really pretty fun. I had not ever played this way, so I had to adapt a new strategy on the fly - if you haven't tried this and are finding the game growing a little dull, I suggest you try it.

I searched the forums here for some concrete information about what changes in the game when you start in an advanced era, but only found threads on cIV and prior versions, so I'm hoping the brilliant minds here can help me. The following are the obvious differences I noted in a Renaissance start:

1. We all started with 2 settlers, 1 worker, and 3 military units (most started with 3 pikemen, but Germany started with 2 Landsknechts and 1 scout)
2. All cities founded (even after initial 2 settlers) started with 2 citizens.
3. All cities founded started with a granary and a monument.
4. All cities founded adjacent to coastal tiles started with a lighthouse.
- I did not think to check if these buildings cost the usual maintenance; we did not start with additional gold, so I'm unsure -
5. "Recent" wonders were available to build, but older wonders were not. My guess is all wonders from the previous era were available, while wonders from eras previous to that were not, but I did not confirm.
6. We all started with 300 culture, and could pick 4 policies on turn 0 (as long as capital was founded). Similar to the mechanics of a culture ruin, if you click on the culture stat at the top of the screen, you could pick these policies at turn 0, but were not prompted until the following turn (every little bit helps :)).

A few other things I suspect based on how the game went, but don't have any actual evidence for:

a. It felt like hammer costs had been reduced to compensate for the fact that cities would be much smaller relative to where they would be at that time in a standard start.
b. The "food bucket" for population growth also felt like it might have been smaller at each increment.
c. I did not get the same feeling about tech costs, but it certainly still could have been (I didn't check beaker values, but the first tech started at 57 turns with 1 size 2 city, and was around 21 turns or so a couple turns later when I settled the next 2 size 2 cities (Start with 2 settlers, plus Liberty settler on turn 0).

If there's an existing table somewhere that lists all the differences for each starting era, I would love to peruse it, and thank you in advance for providing the link. Failing that, I'd love to get your concrete and/or anecdotal knowledge. Please remember to note the starting era; my lists above only apply to a Renaissance start.
 
I went through recently and put together a collection of start-era facts. This thread seems like the perfect place to make them available.

First, we have the number of settlers, units, buildings, etc. that you get when you start in another era.



Next we have a list of unique units and buildings, with everything color-coded based on the era when it normally becomes available. This chart may be useful for deciding which civ you want to use when you start in a different era.



Finally, here is a list of world wonders, again color-coded by the era when they normally become available. When you start in an advanced era, every wonder from the immediately preceding era is immediately available for construction. Howevre, any wonder from two eras earlier can never be constructed. (This has implications for people used to building the Great Library, for example.)

 
That's fantastic, thank you for sharing. What does the MinEra column represent?

Also, is that excel and can you post the file?
 
MinEra (I think) was supposed to be the earliest era when one of the civ's UU or UB is available. But it might mean "earliest era when I would want to use this civ"...

I have attached the Excel file that the images came from; you just have to unzip it. use the updated version: View attachment 319911
 

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Renaissance start sounds fun. I think I'll try it next match.

Awesome job, krc!
 
MinEra (I think) was supposed to be the earliest era when one of the civ's UU or UB is available. But it might mean "earliest era when I would want to use this civ"...

I have attached the Excel file that the images came from; you just have to unzip it. View attachment 319895

Polynesia appears misclassified then because their UU doesn't require any techs.

I guess this could use a MaxEra for some civs as well. (Those that get 2 UUs)
That would be an era in which both of their UUs are already obsolete.
 
Polynesia appears misclassified then because their UU doesn't require any techs.

I guess this could use a MaxEra for some civs as well. (Those that get 2 UUs)
That would be an era in which both of their UUs are already obsolete.

Well, yeah.... The problem I had with MinEra arose because I couldn't decide how to incorporate UB in addition to UU. (I think I did this differently for Polynesia than for some other civs.) I would probably have the same difficulty assigning MaxEra.
 
You omitted Future Era in the "advanced start".

Probably because it hadn't occurred to me to see what happened with a Future Era start. I edited my earlier post to put in the correct image for Future Era.

I'll also try to edit the post with the spreadsheet to point to the updated one (View attachment civera.zip)

With a future era start, is going for a scientific victory the best choice?
 
With a future era start, is going for a scientific victory the best choice?

UN might be faster:
Just give yourself the free GE from Liberty and rush the UN.
Focus on gold improvements while making contact with all the city states.
There might be an advantage to playing Spain as well, if Natural Wonders discovered by Satellite counts

Science victory would likely choose the Rationalism tree for the two spaceship future techs. Focus on production to build the ship.
 
UN might be faster:
Just give yourself the free GE from Liberty and rush the UN.
Focus on gold improvements while making contact with all the city states.
There might be an advantage to playing Spain as well, if Natural Wonders discovered by Satellite counts

Science victory would likely choose the Rationalism tree for the two spaceship future techs. Focus on production to build the ship.

I just played though a very fast game heading for a science victory with a Future Era start. Got Arabia in a random start, on an isolated continent. Zipped through Liberty, settling four cities right away, one near coal (to build factories right away) and one near aluminum. Started the Apollo Project immediately, and then started building spaceship parts in all the cities. I managed to complete one of the parts even before I could get roads up to connect to my capitol. One of the other civs built the UN and went through two rounds of voting (where four different civs had two CS allies each) and then finished the spaceship. Even with the extra cash from trading off extra luxuries with Arabia (after sending a couple of destroyers around to meet everyone), I think science was faster than diplomacy would have been.
 
I'm still curious about my second set of items above, in the OP. Does anyone have any facts or guidelines around hammer, research, and growth costs in advanced era starts?
 
I'm still curious about my second set of items above, in the OP. Does anyone have any facts or guidelines around hammer, research, and growth costs in advanced era starts?

I had (subjectively) noticed some of the same things. I finally dug into the XML files. The relevant information is contained in a file called ".../assets/Gameplay/XML/GameInfo/Civ5Eras.xml". I extracted all of the information I could find about differences between eras and put it into an easier-to-read table:


I don't know exactly what these all mean, but there are a lot of items labeled "..Percent" that change from era to era and almost certainly affect costs.
 
No Goodies - Ancient Ruins won't spawn (wouldn't make much sense that there's so many Ancient Ruins in Future Era)
No Barbs Unit - I would assume this prevents Barbarians from spawning, which makes a lot sense since i don't see Barbarians running around my city xD
No Barb Cities - Left over crap, there's plenty of stuff from what would seem Civ 4 code, including the names of U.N Resolutions, Religion in Leader's attitude, and this as well as Event Chance Per Turn.

However, the other Percents, I have no idea :/
 
I believe the event chance/turn is the chance that something like Global Warming will happen. That could also be a mod-friendly setting to help modders who have mods that incorperate random events happening.

I have also heard it is a secret coding, that there is a like 1/1Mil. chance an alien invasion will happen. 1 city turns to another civ that you cannot contact, it is always hostile, starts with 3 GDRs (Giant Death Robots) and units built start with 5 promotions. I don't remember the website I saw this on, and I doubt it is real, but something to think about :)

It was a game review website, if anyone can find it please post, it was a pretty interesting read
 
Since this thread has been necro'd, I figured I'd just point out that when you start in the Industrial era you start with musket-men now.
 
Since this thread has been necro'd, I figured I'd just point out that when you start in the Industrial era you start with musket-men now.

It would also be nice if someone (I'm not volunteering at the moment since I don't have time right now...) updated the charts for G&K to include new civs, wonders, UU, etc.
 
It would also be nice if someone (I'm not volunteering at the moment since I don't have time right now...) updated the charts for G&K to include new civs, wonders, UU, etc.

Likewise for BNW. It would really be sweet if anyone had the time to do this.
 
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