Copper- Tin- bronze?

I think it`s a pity not more was done to demonstrate the development of the ancient days in CIV5. I like modern combat, but I also like ancient warfare stuff too and I really feel not enough emphasis was put to stuff like the Bronze to iron age...

Also, ancient warfare isn`t as immersively put together as modern warfare. I just get the impression that whoever designed this was more into guns and left swordy stuff behind.

Thoughts?

I agree. The early part of the tech tree doesn't seem to offer as much. It feels like the first few ages are about getting a small edge on everyone else, rather than being a major part of the game. It boggles my mind that the only improvement to writing, ever, is the printing press.

However, after electricity, there are very obvious updates in electronics and robotics, and 2 other techs give you two different kinds of power plants.

I am hoping another expansion comes along and expands on the early game. Right now, it's over too quickly and many of the units are ignorable, at best. G&K did really help out the later game, however, but the concentration of the expansion on the industrial and later eras really took those eras to another level, while the first half of the game was left without major changes, and that is part of the problem, perhaps, just that modern times were so greatly improved.

I don't know without G&K very well, but I do remember the industrial bottleneck, lack of melee unit progression, and total lack of non-siege ranged units really hampering the fun of teching and combat pre-G&K.

Copper was never used in combat and it's in the game as a Luxury. (it's a fairly soft metal)

Bronze on the other hand is a case of gameplay vs history. It's a game, gameplay should take over first when it's practical.

If you created a mod or scenario that stretch and expands Classical warfare, much like Into the Renaissance they made, putting more strategic requirements can make sense since you have the time to properly acquire said resources and it's not a huge lottery. As it is right now the only real bronze unit are spears, and people would get annoyed if getting Spears or Pikes "the backup/no strategic melee" suddenly required some.

Furycrab said:

Copper was never used in combat

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Incorrect. Copper weapons were used for combat, before tin was discovered for bronze weapons.

Furycrab said:

and it's in the game as a Luxury. (it's a fairly soft metal)

Bronze on the other hand is a case of gameplay vs history. It's a game, gameplay should take over first when it's practical.

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It`s a gameplay decision they made. it does not mean they made the correct decision. Sorry, but you come along talking like you`re a Dev who made the game or was there while it was being made. You even make incorrect statements and state them as fact. I`m not that easily told what to think since I know my facts.

Socratatus said:

Incorrect. Copper weapons were used for combat, before tin was discovered for bronze weapons.



It`s a gameplay decision they made. it does not mean they made the correct decision. Sorry, but you come along talking like you`re a Dev who made the game or was there while it was being made. You even make incorrect statements and state them as fact. I`m not that easily told what to think since I know my facts.

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Wrong or not about copper weapons, did take the time to read up on it, doesn't really matter. It's relative time use as a commodity and luxury vs the time it spent being used as weapons should be taken into consideration.

You can believe whatever you want, good game designers aren't historians either. Classical warfare when not in a scenario and playing on standard speed represents settling about 2-5 cities (and the 5 is pretty extreme since you'll likely be in medieval well before then) and about 40-60 turns. AIs might not be ruthless pillagers, but players can be. The game needed some resourceless units, and spears fill that roll as well as keeping to many civ games.

Units in CiV need to be much more valuable individually than in any previous civ game. Strategics are only fun till you are trying to come up with a strategy without them. The game currently has you juggling about 2-3 strategics at any given point in the game, it doesn't need to add 1 or god forbid 3 to the period of the game where you are quite restricted in how you can safely expand/trade.

Furycrab said:

You can believe whatever you want, good game designers aren't historians either. Classical warfare when not in a scenario and playing on standard speed represents settling about 2-5 cities (and the 5 is pretty extreme since you'll likely be in medieval well before then) and about 40-60 turns. AIs might not be ruthless pillagers, but players can be. The game needed some resourceless units, and spears fill that roll as well as keeping to many civ games.

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I think most people in the camp to expand the Classical Era (myself included) want it to be a bit longer than it is.

In my experience and game pace, I usually hit the medieval period ridiculously early, and it's only later on that technology falls back to a more historically satisfying time period. That's because the Classical Era in game is really very short.

I don't agree that the way to fix that is making combat more resource-dependent, and I really don't know how to lengthen the early eras. Doesn't mean I don't want them lengthened, though - there's bound to be a satisfying way somewhere.

Furycrab said:

Wrong or not about copper weapons, did take the time to read up on it, doesn't really matter. .

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It does matter, because you were proven completely wrong and obviously had no idea what you were talking about. If you dismiss the fact that you were wrong so easily, then why should I pay attention to anything else you say? I won`t.

Furycrab said:

Wrong or not about copper weapons, did take the time to read up on it, doesn't really matter.

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Socratatus said:

It does matter, because you were proven completely wrong and obviously had no idea what you were talking about. If you dismiss the fact that you were wrong so easily, then why should I pay attention to anything else you say? I won`t.

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Moderator Action: this is not the type of conversation we want to see here. Please discuss on a more civil and friendlier level.

Of course copper was used as a weapon 4-5000 years ago, until they figured out to smelt different stuff. Spearheads and arrowtips have been found, but were they really used for war?

Never found any good info on copperswords, except for a very fine timeline, before bronzeworking was made. So in reality, maybe copper swords was used for this or that, but they certainly existed.

Hunter-gatherers used copper-weapons for sure, but it doesn't say they couldn't have been used in wars for a brief time of history.

And really, who cares? Don't we have enough weapons in Civ already?

gozpel said:

Of course copper was used as a weapon 4-5000 years ago, until they figured out to smelt different stuff. Spearheads and arrowtips have been found, but were they really used for war?

Never found any good info on copperswords, except for a very fine timeline, before bronzeworking was made. So in reality, maybe copper swords was used for this or that, but they certainly existed.

Hunter-gatherers used copper-weapons for sure, but it doesn't say they couldn't have been used in wars for a brief time of history.

And really, who cares? Don't we have enough weapons in Civ already?

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And technically, you can make weapons out of anything.

Will anything be an effective weapon? Subject to opinion, but there is of course the most efficient weapons.

In the grand factor of it all though, gameplay stability is more important than historical accuracy. It's already hard enough to attack someone early in civ 5, if we had even more limiting factors by adding more strategic resources then we might end up going back to vanilla where catapults required Iron again.

Not to say you can't go ahead and make mod's that add in more depth, there's some nice mods out there already that add on more prehistoric technology to extend the early game, but it all boils down to just how much depth are you expecting the players to have. In the end it's all personal preference.

gozpel said:

Of course copper was used as a weapon 4-5000 years ago, until they figured out to smelt different stuff. Spearheads and arrowtips have been found, but were they really used for war?

Never found any good info on copperswords, except for a very fine timeline, before bronzeworking was made. So in reality, maybe copper swords was used for this or that, but they certainly existed.

Hunter-gatherers used copper-weapons for sure, but it doesn't say they couldn't have been used in wars for a brief time of history.

And really, who cares? Don't we have enough weapons in Civ already?

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I'd say rejiggering the current units would probably be better than adding lots of new ones.

I've suggested adding one new unit line up to gunpowder that is cheap, weak, and counters the spear line hammer for hammer, and iron simply isn't important enough I would say, and it is placed on the wrong units. The basic units of an era shouldn't require a resource, while siege and specific counter units probably should, but the specifics aren't for here.

As far as extending the early eras, simply adding new techs and putting some things in different places could go a long way. Move Walls and Stone Works to Cement, and National Epic to Alphabet (and change to Drama and Poetry leads to Writing leads to Alphabet) and maybe make it a requirement to found a religion. By flipping Writing and Calendar, you could add Law as a requirement for Theology and Civil Service (in place of Drama and Poetry), complete with Courthouses and probably something else (I'm making this up 100% on the spot). One could claim that Horseback Riding and Mathematics could lead to Sports.

That's 4 techs right off the top of my head to add to those early eras. Just adding a new building or two would likely help lengthen the early eras, and so long as there aren't too many empty techs (one or two would even be ok if the payoff for researching it or getting access to another tech is worth it, maybe Magnetism between Optics and Compass for very quick access to the Medieval era, for instance), but the combat in early eras would still need some work, but, again, that wouldn't require new units really.

However, G&K really did focus on the later eras, so maybe the next expansion will really flesh out those early eras too.