Prehistoric Era

[Hydromancerx]

I was thinking of all the missing technologies that come before human settle down into cities. My idea is to add a new era before the Ancient Era called the "Prehistoric Era". The way I imagine it could work is if set in place all civilizations would start with the same 2 starting techs. And they would work their way up to the "Ancient Era". Note that i would really like it to work were you could choose it as a check box in the custom game menu. That way if you did not want t play the ancient era then you would not have to. However this may not be possible both from a modular point of view and possibly ancient techs being moved back to prehistoric tech, such as hunting.

Here are some ideas for the techs...

* = Existing Techs moved back to Prehistoric Era

- *Hunting
- Gathering
- Scavenging
- *Stone Tools
- Fire Making
- Cooking
- Language
- Shelter Building
- Cave Dwelling
- Cave Painting
- Petroglyphs
- Folklore
- Counting Sticks
- Boneworking
- *Weaving
- Prehistoric Music
- *Pottery
- Bead Making
- Canine Domestication
- *Fishing

EDIT: Here is a Tech Tree Concept (see Attachment)

[Afforess]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

Note that i would really like it to work were you could choose it as a check box in the custom game menu. That way if you did not want t play the ancient era then you would not have to.

Completely possible. If you add an era, you could set the default starting era to prehistoric, but still have ancient there too. Just like we can have modern starts now, you can have ancients starts with this...

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Personally I would go for "Oral Tradition" rather than (or as well as) Petroglyphs for Ritualism and there should be an or link from weaving to pottery or maybe not.

BTW did you ever play "Paths to Glory" in Civ III? It broke down almost all the early techs but ended with the Iron Age due to problems with the Civ III engine.

I also assume you have seen the Stone Age mod in Civ IV. Has some excellent ideas and events for this era.

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by Afforess

Completely possible. If you add an era, you could set the default starting era to prehistoric, but still have ancient there too. Just like we can have modern starts now, you can have ancients starts with this...

I am just worried about how the starting tech would work. Since with this all of the existing starting techs such as fish, agriculture, ritualism, stone tools, etc. would now be in the middle of the tree rather than the start.

Originally Posted by Dancing Hoskuld

Personally I would go for "Oral Tradition" rather than (or as well as) Petroglyphs for Ritualism and there should be an or link from weaving to pottery or maybe not.

BTW did you ever play "Paths to Glory" in Civ III? It broke down almost all the early techs but ended with the Iron Age due to problems with the Civ III engine.

I also assume you have seen the Stone Age mod in Civ IV. Has some excellent ideas and events for this era.

Yeah I think Oral Tradition should maybe be after langage but before say folklore.

Nope I only played the demo of Civ3. But I use to play Civ2 all the time. In short I totally missed Civ1 then played Civ2 skipped Civ 3 and love Civ 4.

I have taken a look at the Stone Age mod once but any refreshers on it would be great since i really don't remember much. In addition i have had my own "Sim Caveman" forum games which had their own tech tree but they were not very historic.

[DRJ]

I think cooking goes along with fire making, so this tech could be spared. It's a dead end anyway.

I like your plan and would gladly play prehistoric era, too.

[strategyonly]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

I was thinking of all the missing technologies that come before human settle down into cities. My idea is to add a new era before the Ancient Era called the "Prehistoric Era". The way I imagine it could work is if set in place all civilizations would start with the same 2 starting techs. And they would work their way up to the "Ancient Era". Note that i would really like it to work were you could choose it as a check box in the custom game menu. That way if you did not want t play the ancient era then you would not have to. However this may not be possible both from a modular point of view and possibly ancient techs being moved back to prehistoric tech, such as hunting.

Here are some ideas for the techs...

* = Existing Techs moved back to Prehistoric Era

- *Hunting
- Gathering
- Scavenging
- *Stone Tools
- Fire Making
- Cooking
- Language
- Shelter Building
- Cave Dwelling
- Cave Painting
- Petroglyphs
- Folklore
- Counting Sticks
- Boneworking
- *Weaving
- Prehistoric Music
- *Pottery
- Bead Making
- Canine Domestication
- *Fishing

EDIT: Here is a Tech Tree Concept (see Attachment)

I just saw this thread, i was planning on doing this after 2.9 came out, i have been planning this for over 6 months already, but am too lazy too do it now. Actually you can add era's before Ancient but the HARD part is re-doing the techs (if you want to keep a one page tech screen that is, unless you add techs before the normal page, but alot of people dont like that idea. Heck i used to have techs that were two pages up and down and it worked fine for me before.

[Afforess]

Originally Posted by strategyonly

I just saw this thread, i was planning on doing this after 2.9 came out, i have been planning this for over 6 months already, but am too lazy too do it now. Actually you can add era's before Ancient but the HARD part is re-doing the techs (if you want to keep a one page tech screen that is, unless you add techs before the normal page, but alot of people dont like that idea. Heck i used to have techs that were two pages up and down and it worked fine for me before.

Ugh, I know what you mean. Messing with a almost full tech tree is not fun. I guess he could just shift the whole tech tree over 3-4 columns and put his techs in those new columns in the start...

[Blue Anteater]

I had a similar idea, but rather than settling into a population center, you just wandered around as a Nomad unit. Your Nomad would build a campsite near temporary food resources (megafauna such as mammoths and mastodons included, depending on where your people live) that can be depleted. If you discover a technology called "Settlement", you will be able to found your first permanent settlement that will become a city in the future.

If you just settled into a permanent residential area right away, I don't think this proposed era would be as fun.

By the way, what year does this "Prehistoric Era" begin?

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Technically "Prehistoric" means "before writing"

Anyway here is my attempt form before RoM existed cut down a bit and partially based on "Paths of Glory" from Civ III. Clear boxes are the technologies, yellow are units and brown-pink are buildings in the city. Only technologies have their also needed links done in this diagram.

i removed most of the extra resources since we have hit the limit in RoM. I also remover the civics since they cluttered everything and I want to check them agenst Afforess's new suggestions. there is also two more pages of this which take us up to the iron age and includes such as the War Rhino from India.

[Hydromancerx]

Yeah I have a weird tech tree too. Note this is made before RoM as well. See attachment.

[Mister Giggles]

There was a time before Rise of Mankind?

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by Mister Giggles

There was a time before Rise of Mankind?

Yep it was called Civ3. :P Actually it was more like original Civ4 before the expansions.

[Mister Giggles]

Spooky.

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

Yeah I have a weird tech tree too. Note this is made before RoM as well. See attachment.

There were a couple of great ideas in "Paths of Glory" firstly it was possible to advance through the eras in those areas you wanted to specialise in. So you could go all military and war (land or sea, foot or wheeled or any mixture of these). Or you could concentrate on the agricultural side, or the "liberal arts". Naturally you had to balance this against what your neighbours were doing.

Another great thing was that what units you could build depended on both your techs and resources in a better way than in Civ IV. As you can see I am having trouble describing it.

[zappara]

Adding new era requires you to edit at least following RoM files:
BugNJAACOptionsTab.py
Not Just Another Game Clock.xml
Civ4CityLSystem.xml (+ additional art work if you want the graphics to be different on this era)
Civ4PlotLSystem.xml (+ additional art work if you want the graphics to be different on this era)
Civ4LeaderheadInfos.xml (music settings)
Civ4CivilizationInfos.xml (starting techs)
Civ4EraInfos.xml
Civ4TechInfos.xml
+ all the art and art defines needed (buttons, era specific buildings etc).

Adding new prehistoric era also breaks all civs in the game and you need to adjust their starting techs (this applies to all civ / leader modules as well). So are you planning to make modular patches for all the released civs?

Civ4CityLSystem.xml and Civ4PlotLSystem.xml changes are required as these files handle all the art work for each era.

Not an easy task, I can tell you. It took 3 months from me to add the Transhuman era and fill it (though that patch did require other things as well than adding the era).

[Hydromancerx]

Originally Posted by zappara

Adding new prehistoric era also breaks all civs in the game and you need to adjust their starting techs (this applies to all civ / leader modules as well). So are you planning to make modular patches for all the released civs?

I realized this before I posted the topic. I was hoping that making every civilization have the same 2 starting techs that the job would be a little easier than when you re-did the beginning techs.

HOWEVER! I was trying to think of a way in which the beginning techs could remain and those techs just get moved back to the Prehistoric Era. What are all the beginning techs? I know Fishing, Agriculture, Stone Tools, Mining, The Wheel, Ritualism ... am I missing any?

[DRJ]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

What are all the beginning techs? I know Fishing, Agriculture, Stone Tools, Mining, The Wheel, Ritualism ... am I missing any?

Hunting.

[Afforess]

Originally Posted by zappara

Adding new era requires you to edit at least following RoM files:
BugNJAACOptionsTab.py
Not Just Another Game Clock.xml
Civ4CityLSystem.xml (+ additional art work if you want the graphics to be different on this era)
Civ4PlotLSystem.xml (+ additional art work if you want the graphics to be different on this era)
Civ4LeaderheadInfos.xml (music settings)
Civ4CivilizationInfos.xml (starting techs)
Civ4EraInfos.xml
Civ4TechInfos.xml
+ all the art and art defines needed (buttons, era specific buildings etc).

Adding new prehistoric era also breaks all civs in the game and you need to adjust their starting techs (this applies to all civ / leader modules as well). So are you planning to make modular patches for all the released civs?

Civ4CityLSystem.xml and Civ4PlotLSystem.xml changes are required as these files handle all the art work for each era.

Not an easy task, I can tell you. It took 3 months from me to add the Transhuman era and fill it (though that patch did require other things as well than adding the era).

Bah, that's no bar to modding. Do you have any idea how many python files I had to edit to add "A New Dawn Concepts" to the game? Like 1/3 of them. I gave up just making users install the changed files, and just overwrote the folder with my python folder.

[Hydromancerx]

So was any modmoder interested in making such a mod if it was fully planned out?

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Originally Posted by Hydromancerx

So was any modmoder interested in making such a mod if it was fully planned out?

Oh, I thought you were going to try your hand at it. My plate is too full atm.