Dark Ages mod

I have an idea for a new modmod that will introduce Dark Ages (as opposed to Golden Ages). I'll implement it myself, but first I'd like to gather more feedback about the idea itself.

The main goal of the mod will be to make large empires prone to dissolution in modern times. As the game is now, if you make it to 1000AD as the strongest empire, there's almost no chance you'll lose the game in 2000AD. Also, if you're very weak civ in 1000AD, you'll remain like that till the end. Basically, the winners are determined in the first halftime, second halftime is played 'just for the audience'.

I want more dynamic growth and falls of the empires. I'll mention here again the forums-favorite Roman Empire, but also the English colonial superpower, which has lost one of it's vassals (as it would be defined in BtS) that has become many times more powerful than its master (talking about USA if someone missed it ) - just impossible in current RoM.

So - dark ages. They'll introduce the effect opposite to golden ages. Decreased production and commerce (and maybe even food). Those levels will be defined in XML, that's easy. My dilemma is what to use for triggering them? Here are some suggestions, feel free to comment and add more:

• start of a golden age would trigger a dark age in your worst enemy (very easy to implement, but not so realistic)
• falling down in one (or more) of the basic categories: power, land, population, science. This fall would be calculated as delta relative score compared to other known civs.
• outdated civics, compared to the most powerful civs (this 'outdateness' should be defined more precisely)

Maybe a dark age should be triggered if a civ loses a certain number/percentage of its cities to foreign conquest. The loss of population and infrastructure would certainly be cause for a "dark age".

Alternatively, if a civ's capitol is sacked, a dark age could trigger -- like the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD is viewed as a landmark in the decline of the Roman Empire.

GREAT IDEA!!!!
(sorry for the capitals, but you're absolutely right about the last 1000+ years of the game, and hopefully this will counter it.)

Supercheese said:

Maybe a dark age should be triggered if a civ loses a certain number/percentage of its cities to foreign conquest. The loss of population and infrastructure would certainly be cause for a "dark age".

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Yes, but that's not the goal of the mod. If a civ loses a lot of cities and pop, no dark age is needed to cripple it more. What I need is to somehow dissolve the big empires that become 'boring', i.e. they just know they are the best, build the defenses and wait till the end of the game, staying the best without much fuss.

Supercheese said:

Alternatively, if a civ's capitol is sacked, a dark age could trigger -- like the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD is viewed as a landmark in the decline of the Roman Empire.

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This is an interesting thought. Even better, I think that losing wonders (world and national), in addition to palace, would be a better trigger (just the capital itself may be not so important and developed).

And yes - losing holy cities should be a big issue!!!

The challenge will be to code the AI to target those cities when attacking a strong enemy.

dexy said:

I want more dynamic growth and falls of the empires. I'll mention here again the forums-favorite Roman Empire, but also the English colonial superpower, which has lost one of it's vassals (as it would be defined in BtS) that has become many times more powerful than its master (talking about USA if someone missed it ) - just impossible in current RoM.

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Well Britain was a colony of the Roman Empire at one point in history. So one could say America is a colony of a colony. And i suppose if America ever colonizes Mars we would have a colony of a colony of a colony! Crazy huh!

Hydromancerx said:

Well Britain was a colony of the Roman Empire at one point in history. So one could say America is a colony of a colony. And i suppose if America ever colonizes Mars we would have a colony of a colony of a colony! Crazy huh!

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And Rome was a Greek colony before that and parts of Greece were vassels of Minoa before that.

The problem about conquests triggers is the strongest (and this is most often the human player) most likely wont loose any cities.

One trigger could be the plague (or other disease), if the civs population gets too big.
There was a ROM version with diseases in, but it seem to have been removed. I didnt get it for a loooong time)
Another could be an unexpected revolution if some city gets too unhappy or is too far away (alot of maintenance)
A third could be a random rebellions

Maybe the revolution mod can be tweaked better, so it is more difficult to have mega empires.
(I never had a revolution, even though I always play with it on, and I usually end up with half the world in area/population)

My 2 cents.

Dark ages should be caused by stagnation in your empire. By stagnation, I mean not expanding, wars that end with no gains, little to no city growth, etc...

Also, Dark ages should make cities grow slower, not reduce the food, but just raise the threshold for city growth.

I have to agree with Afforess. I do want to have one world empire eventually because I always play with Conquest only victory. If you were ot destroy my empire with this mod mid-game just because it is too big, it would ruin my goal of Conquest. However, if you just make it more hard and delay my conquering till late in the game, then it would be a great modmod!

os79 said:

If you were ot destroy my empire with this mod mid-game just because it is too big, it would ruin my goal of Conquest. However, if you just make it more hard and delay my conquering till late in the game, then it would be a great modmod!

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Well, that will just depend on your skills (and the AI level you play), won't it? Bad players will be devastated, better ones just slowed down.

dexy said:

Well, that will just depend on your skills (and the AI level you play), won't it? Bad players will be devastated, better ones just slowed down.

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It will probably need fine tuning, like revolutions did for a long time. I have complete faith in this project.

dexy said:

Well, that will just depend on your skills (and the AI level you play), won't it? Bad players will be devastated, better ones just slowed down.

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Ah, but am I a bad player just because I play differently to the way others do? I have had to turn off Religious Victory because I was always getting it as soon as the Apostolic Palace was built. This was because I like to found all the religions. Now that I have Revolutions on, I do try to limit the religions I get to just over half. However I do not fight wars except against barbarians and those who attack me first. I keep a large defensive force.

What is stagnation anyway

Dancing Hoskuld said:

What is stagnation anyway

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Not growing nor shrinking, just standing still.

I would definitely have to agree with Afforess with the dark age trigger. However another trigger could be is if you lose too many units at any one time or too much gold at any one time, i.e. Germany entered their Dark Age right after WWI since their armies were basically torn apart and they had to pay impossible reparations to the Allies.

Civ Fuehrer said:

Not growing nor shrinking, just standing still.

I would definitely have to agree with Afforess with the dark age trigger. However another trigger could be is if you lose too many units at any one time or too much gold at any one time, i.e. Germany entered their Dark Age right after WWI since their armies were basically torn apart and they had to pay impossible reparations to the Allies.

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And the opposite could be a trigger as well. The Spanish decline just as the Renaissance began was because they had too much gold. Inflation ran rampant, and nearly destroyed their economy. So, earning creating tons and tons of wealth should hurt you too.

Lol Afforess, you just reminded me of my last game in 2.7. I had dominated my continent (of the 4), and was teching up, but had atheism so I didn't want to get edu and found islam. Spent a bunch of turns at 0% research til an AI got it, and ended up with like 40k gold :O

I fully support this modmod's concept, and Afforess's suggestions. I'd make a dark age greatly increase chances of revolts when playing with revolutions on as well. Maybe need a trigger to prevent multiple consecutive dark ages tho, so you don't get stuck in a loop.

Blackflag421 said:

Maybe need a trigger to prevent multiple consecutive dark ages tho, so you don't get stuck in a loop.

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That's a good idea. Also, perhaps, if a nation meets some prereq's set in the SDK, and get's their nation "out" of a dark age (By conquering another nation, getting very happy cities, revitalizing their economy, etc...) , they will end it early, and jump into a golden age. A little reward for successfully navigating tenuous times.

Dancing Hoskuld said:

This was because I like to found all the religions.

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You really need to get of the noble steed and sit in an emperors palace

Darg Ages could be triggered by all sorts of things. Lack of money, staganation, excessive growth, war weariness, bad leadership, ...
I guess it could be helpful to group the causes into (some of) the civics categories. democracy is, for example, less prone to cause a dark age for political reasons, but it could still be caused by e.g. health or economy related problems.

SO, I guess my conclusion is:
1: It needs to be random (a very small chance)
2: The probability should depend on the civics you choose
3: I guess effects would primarily be related to the civic type that caused the dark age.

The really bad thing about this is that you don't really have much control over it. You can loose your carefully constructed empire to a random die roll. But then., you can always play without this modmod.

Losing your capital or a holy city (especially if its the holy city of your religion) should definitely have a serious and adverse effect, and either cause a Dark Age or heavily raise the probability of one (like in Revolutions). And perhaps, if a big revolution occurs, and subsequently fail to subdue it, that could also bring about a dark age.

I have been thinking and isn't anarchy almost like having a dark age already? Its turns in which you cannot research or produce anything. And if you on snail it can last for a long time. Once it lasted 16 turns for me which is an eternity on snail.