Pre-historic era idea!

I have an idea for an era before the current ancient era. So basicly a prehistoric era I'd like to create a techtree for this era that will lead up to the current tree. To make this era interesting instead of empty I have a few ideas.

1. Hidden resources
All luxury resources are hidden at the beginning of the game, but can be unlocked through different techs. For example:
Fishing will reveal pearls, whales and turtles.
Organized labour will reveal mined resources (copper, salt etc.)
Architecture will reveal marble.
Agriculture will reveal plantationbased luxuries.
Hunting will reveal campbased luxuries (ivory, truffle)

2. No palace
Your capital starts without a palace, this will have to be constructed. This can be seen as a national wonder without preriquisites. The palace can be unlocked with the Hierarchy technology. However, other techs will be needed before the palace delivers culture, gold, science and production. As follows:
Language: palace now earns science
Music: Palace now earns culture
Trade: Palace now earns gold
Architecture: Palace will earn production

3. New unit: axemen
The axemen will replace the current warrior, and the warrior will be upgradeable to axemen, which in turn is upgraded into swordsman. The axemen will be buildable once the ''Warfare'' tech is researched (needs a better name).


All together this leads to a very new beginning of every game. You will still be able to build a monument, scout, warrior or worker. Settlers will be unlocked at the Trade technology. However, you will need to invest in finding luxuries based on your surroundings. If you're in a desert you can expect mining or plantation resources, on the coast you ofcourse expect seabased resources. The bonus resource will still be visible and an indication of which luxuries there might be. You'll also have to actually build and develop your own palace. This means you can choose to put it in the second city!

So what I want to do is actually create this techtree. In which order should the techs come? Did I leave out something? How should it be linked to the current tree?


Techs so far
Agriculture: Reveals plantationbased luxuries, allows building of farms
Architecture: Reveals quarybased luxuries, Palace gives +3 production
Fishing: Reveals oceanbased luxuries
Hierarchy: Allows building of the palace
Hunting: Reveals campnased luxuries
Language: Palace gives +3 science
Music: Palace gives +2 culture
Organized labour: Reveals minebased luxuries
Trade: Palace gives +3 gold, allows the building of settlers
Warfare: Palace gives + 2.5 defense, allows building of axemen

I don't know, this could be fun, or it could just be 'Ancient Era 2/Plus.' Not sure how much it would add to gameplay, other than just extending the amount of eras. This could be a problem because it could make for less time in the other eras. Lots of players already never make it to Modern times, and this might make that ever worse.

I don't see how this makes the game more fun. If anything, it's just more tedious since you can't see luxuries right away, meaning your city placement either has to wait or will be guesswork.

Well, the idea is not so much extending the game by another era, but to create an ''intro'' era. So it's not meant to actually build cities or expand heavily. The focus during this part is really to get to know your surroundings. Where as right now your surroundings are known (except strategic resources).

I agree it will mean the game gets longer, though it's not meant to speed up any type of victory. By the time you reach the ancient era you should be about as far as you are currently on turn 1 (sure, you might have a few more units or buildings. But you won't be able to see all resources yet and maybe you haven't even build a palace).

Still though, it should probably be optional (as a mod) and not a part of the maingame you can't turn off.

There was an insanely cool (and fun) mod that someone did years ago for a previous version of Civ, I think Civ III. It was a complete rebuild of the game, where all of your units were dinosaurs and the tech tree was replaced by an "evolution tree", allowing you to build bigger/better units & basic buildings. Anyway, that was a prehistoric mod.

The mod you're suggesting...meh. I think it could be interesting, but probably in a "play it once or twice then move on" kind of way.

Have to agree that hiding the luxury resources does not sound like a good idea, particularly given the happiness reboot done in G&K.

Perhaps you are right about hiding luxuries. How about hiding all the bonus resources instead? They are less vital for expansion.

This might be an interesting scenario where it's more like a prequel experience that dovetails into the start of a regular game where you research everything like techs revealing all the luxury pops, with the final tech being agriculture, what you start the regular game with.

However, a pre-historic era isn't really civilization. Maybe tribes subsisting and harvesting wild grain and processing it in their nomadic settlements.

So you wouldn't even have cities, but camps. Your goal in this scenario is to produce a settler.

I like the concept but I think it's a little beyond the scope of Civ, it's more about using the hex system to have a little fun moving pre-historical 'barb' like units representing your nomadic population around to reach the point of civilization where they finally decide to settle down.

Harv72b said:

There was an insanely cool (and fun) mod that someone did years ago for a previous version of Civ, I think Civ III. It was a complete rebuild of the game, where all of your units were dinosaurs and the tech tree was replaced by an "evolution tree", allowing you to build bigger/better units & basic buildings. Anyway, that was a prehistoric mod.

Click to expand...

It was a Civ2 scenario found in the Fantastic Worlds expansion. Very fun. Here is a link with more info:

http://planetcivilization.gamespy.com/View.php?view=FAQ.Detail&game=6&id=7

It's the first scenario detailed. The Age of Reptiles