Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
Ladies, Gentlemen
I came up with this crazy and sort of new take on the civ Franchise, which I think need a fresh reorientation, yet staying true to its roots. Here are my 12 points up for discussion.
1. Eras.
Prior to 4000 BC, every nation got a civilizational "DNA"
Bronze Age 4000 - 2000 BC
Iron Age 2000 - 1000 BC
Classical Age 1000 BC - 1000 AD
Medieval Age 1000 AD - 1500 AD
Age of Discovery 1500 AD - 1750 AD
Age of Industry 1750 - 1900 AD
Modernity 1900- - 2000 AD
End Times 2000 - 2050/2100 AD
2. Civilization Forms
Riverine
Nomadic
Islander
Civilizations
Remove recent "Civilizations". Americans, Brazillians etc.
There should be a sort of "Civilization Designer" in the beginning of the game, whereas the time up to 4000 BC and the time leading up to 2000 BC is mostly figuring out the basics of the civilization.
Interestingly, many of the so-called civilizations became due to some empires getting to split, yet influenced by the dominating force culturally. Roman Empire, British Empire, and so on
These splits could occur from the Classical Age and onwards throughout Medieval Age.
The Age of Discovery mixes this up a bit, as more migrations occur. Migrations could occur from barbarian migrations or colonizing migrations, or even refugee migrations, all replacing the host population.
Some civilizations splinter into civil wars.
3. World Map
The world map is pretty close to what it should be. Pentagonal works real well, and even Hexagonal could be taken a look at. What matters more is the accessibility and scale of the map. The world should be much bigger in general. Even in 2020 we have vast lands of untouched land on Earth, for example. City location and choice should be even more important, and in addition to cities, the core of the game, should be more detailed provinces. There should be a capital city, and possibly up to 20 or cities total, before it becomes micromanagement hell. More so, there should be provinces, where you can pass regional or global edicts and policies at routine intervals. Each city should have a character leader per Age (born at beginning, and dies during, or at the end of it), same applies to provinces. The nature of each city and province should evolve and fill up the map over the ages.
Bronze Age First small city, 10-50 000 people
Iron Age First major city, 50 000- 200 000 people
Classical Age First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Medieval Age First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Age of Discovery First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Age of Industry World Cities 1-8 000 000 people
Modernity Global Cities 5-30 000 000 people
End Times Cities could go in all directions, but max 100 000 000 people
A weather and epidemic model should work with the map, so we can see a major plague per age, as well as 1-5 weather/geological disasters as well, big and small.
4. Terrain and units
There should be severe restrictions in moving certain units until certain technologies are met for certain terrain, there may even be cultural variables preventing exploration.
The map should only be revealed in stages, then, for a
5. Great People
We need to add some more great people, and possibly remove some.
Bronze Age Great Ancestral Father/Mother (Mythical)
Iron Age Founding Dynasty
Classical Age Great Prophets
Medieval Age Great Heroes
Age of Discovery Great Explorers
Age of Industry Great Industrialists
Modernity Great Ideologues
End Times Great Tycoons
Scientists, Engineers, Artists, Generals, Merchants,
6. Mechanisms 1. Science vs. Magic, Culture vs. Organization Compass
Faith, Culture and Science as enumerated counters should be taken away, and replaced with.
Instead, there should a sort of compass with sliders, between Faith vs. Science on one vector (x) and Culture vs. Organization (Y). These compass sliders can only be altered by the beginning of each age, and a semi randomized tech tree will emerged for that period. As the ruler of a civilization, you would see the general trend of the civilization development. Here the interaction with the map and resources would help drive the process, along with specific buildings. Once in a while, the ruler will be presented by two to five options on what to choose of a new technology.
7. Mechanisms 2. City Production Units
What should be kept, clearly, is gold (Sudden), production hammers (x turns), the new unit that could be added, would be "Elan", which is the civilization struggle to keep on challenging prolonged religious wars, exploration and finally the qualitative element of training-education of each unit (promotions). Elan could use heart logo and training use scaled weights. Additionally, each unit would be influenced by access to local resources, treaties etc, for degrees of customization of the unit. Do they have horses? war dogs? falconeers for surveillance? war elephants? cattle for movable food? Is the ground flat enough to invent wheel transportation ? Would the uniforms be of cotton, or skin, or half naked with feathers and painted mud, or simply some metal armor and textiles? What color uniform, height of the hats etc should be chosen with different pros and cons?
8. Mechanisms 3. Exploration
The most reworked mechanism, which is the key mechanism for the one more turn success formula, is to make sure that the great explorers really matter and count. On one side, the present route of exploring the map in 1-3 turn increments have worked in an average way, but not very inspiring way. Each exploration should rather be seen as a subgame, and you could only do one or two exploration campaigns per era, as seen in the real world.
Bronze Age If Riverine, first city, Nomadic, homeland, Island, first culture etc neighboring areas, 5 %
Iron Age The immediate regional world, about 10 % of the area of the total game
Classical Age Initial exploration of the oceans in primitive ships, about 30 % of the game area
Medieval Age Building up trade routes and trading systems in known world, about 40 %
Age of Discovery Most of the world mapped by oceans and coasts 80 %
Age of Industry Exploration of large continental interiors (Clark, Livingston, Australia, Brazil, Siberia). 95 %
Modernity Exploration of Arctic and Subarctic Region, Archaeology (Scott, Amundsen).100 %
End Times (First landing on planet in solar system, could be barren, could have life, could even have sentient life at either pre-historical or even advanced, or maybe there is an environmental disaster, eschatological apocalypse as forecasted by Isaac Newton etc.
9. Mechanisms 4. Borders
Borders are not cultural, they are most of the time legal. However, there are steps leading up to a border being formalized. Presence. Claims. Ownership. Finally, the four step would be "Core". Blood and soil.
Bronze Age There are really no borders here, just settlements with local yields, and barbarians.
Iron Age Borders set by extent of realm, as per cultural strength of the core (culture here only)
Classical Age Borders set by rivers and mountains, as well as oceans and deserts/Ice, border walls
Medieval Age Borders resolved by setting up buffer states between empires, by building major border walls, Rarely someone had resources for border posts, unique architecture too as well.
Age of Discovery Borders decided on by Religious Conference (Tordesilla), as well as bilateral agreements of states. Oceanic maps kept secret by major seafaring powers. Trade Monopolies.
Age of Industry Nation state concept of law, the nation owns what is inside the border, borders created by
setting early claims, ending up in Continental colonial Conferences (Berlin)/Doctrines (Monroe) and Treaties (Russia vs. China) and finally national congresses (Vienna)
Modernity Maritime Law and Economic Zones. Regulated rights of People Law for borders.
End Times OVerpopulation and migrations. People start to desert their nations, and choose new ones, yet bring with them part of what drove them away. There may be border processes on the new planet etc, as well as border revision with global warming or cooling/hell opens.
10. Wars, Exploration and Colonization
Wars, exploration and colonization should not be done slow and incrementally, but in pulses, akin to other board game strategy, turnbased formats.
For the Magellan Expedition, which took place 1519 to 1522, incidentally the same time as Hernan Cortez took Mexico, is obviously not a monument to be built like earlier in the series, or come about from a Galley sailing for 2000 years.
A great explorer episode should have elements of an oddysey or heroic adventure, with sequenced decisions of real consequence. Which routes to pick (Ship condition and travel distance), where to resupply (water, food, forests for timber? slaves?civilized port? Dangerous natives?). Expeditions should last 3 to 12 years in the game, but be a hyper unit with many actions and outcomes, but not too impactful ones but map expansions, early diplomacy and potential heroic surprise war like Cortez, Pizarro etc. In bursts.
A War is a very resource intensive process, and should have a preparation stage, a politics stage, maneuvering stage, battles stage and an outcome phase.
Wars should reduce local population, resource and reduce buildings as well as decline science etc. It could however increase training and elan.
Colonization of new cities is more long term and complex, and locked to the fates of the regional city. For example, it took several centuries for us to figure out if Charleston, New York or Boston would turn out the biggest city. I leave this for others to figure out, but I guess any city development and land development is good.
11. World Wonders
I think world wonders have a place in civilization, but should be restricted in the form, number and impact, more as an interesting indicator of where the civilization is going. The Great Lighthouse, the Great Library, the Pyramids and the Great Wall are all classic and very indicative for seafaring, science, burial rites of elite and religion and border protection respectively. You may need an open steppe border situation to even need a great wall, or get the population to support build it. You may need a bigger body of water to even consider a great lighthouse. You need a cultlike situation to even inspire building pyramids for dead leaders (culture and faith) and so on. There should be stronger criteria in place for building them, and more options as well as how we interpret of what is a wonder, and why. A wonder could have a more inherent organizational value, not only manifest in the units, but in the overall discipline of a nation, like the Roman Legion and Zulu Impi, which enabled them to dominate more structure building types with other types of "wonders" in the shape of organizational wonders. You can make the people shape gigantic structures, or the people can become capable of great achievements through organizations. You can argue they did something to the organizational skills of the Egyptians to build the Pyramid in the first place. The Standardized Roman Legion Fort would be the Roman answer, not a nebulous interpretation of organization. There could be as many as 88 wonders, or 11 per era for giving the world a sense of flavor or richness, but maybe only 56 before add ons.
12. Endgame
The endgame is the real problem with many civilization games, there is no grand finale. Also, with leaders like Trump, situations like Brexit and space barons like Musk and Bezos, we could consider new scenarios.
1. Isaac Newton like Apocalypse
2. Global Warming. Oceans Rise.. Populations moving north, or
3. Global Cooling. Ice caps grow. Populations moving south, or.
4. Space race for dead planet life planet, no aliens, less developed aliens, comparable aliens, advanced alien
5- Global World War
6. Global Culture Conflict
7. Global Diplomatic Institution (arbiting border and resource disputes)
8. Global Welfare (happiest people, HDI etc)
9. Anti-global isolationist response (Strongest nation)
10 Global search for ancestry (Archeological greatness/tradition)
11 Religious conflict (Most believers)
12 Scientific, technology and industry moral dilemma.
Points could be indexed, averaged, aggregated, or kept to selected priorities
I came up with this crazy and sort of new take on the civ Franchise, which I think need a fresh reorientation, yet staying true to its roots. Here are my 12 points up for discussion.
1. Eras.
Prior to 4000 BC, every nation got a civilizational "DNA"
Bronze Age 4000 - 2000 BC
Iron Age 2000 - 1000 BC
Classical Age 1000 BC - 1000 AD
Medieval Age 1000 AD - 1500 AD
Age of Discovery 1500 AD - 1750 AD
Age of Industry 1750 - 1900 AD
Modernity 1900- - 2000 AD
End Times 2000 - 2050/2100 AD
2. Civilization Forms
Riverine
Nomadic
Islander
Civilizations
Remove recent "Civilizations". Americans, Brazillians etc.
There should be a sort of "Civilization Designer" in the beginning of the game, whereas the time up to 4000 BC and the time leading up to 2000 BC is mostly figuring out the basics of the civilization.
Interestingly, many of the so-called civilizations became due to some empires getting to split, yet influenced by the dominating force culturally. Roman Empire, British Empire, and so on
These splits could occur from the Classical Age and onwards throughout Medieval Age.
The Age of Discovery mixes this up a bit, as more migrations occur. Migrations could occur from barbarian migrations or colonizing migrations, or even refugee migrations, all replacing the host population.
Some civilizations splinter into civil wars.
3. World Map
The world map is pretty close to what it should be. Pentagonal works real well, and even Hexagonal could be taken a look at. What matters more is the accessibility and scale of the map. The world should be much bigger in general. Even in 2020 we have vast lands of untouched land on Earth, for example. City location and choice should be even more important, and in addition to cities, the core of the game, should be more detailed provinces. There should be a capital city, and possibly up to 20 or cities total, before it becomes micromanagement hell. More so, there should be provinces, where you can pass regional or global edicts and policies at routine intervals. Each city should have a character leader per Age (born at beginning, and dies during, or at the end of it), same applies to provinces. The nature of each city and province should evolve and fill up the map over the ages.
Bronze Age First small city, 10-50 000 people
Iron Age First major city, 50 000- 200 000 people
Classical Age First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Medieval Age First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Age of Discovery First Metropolis, 200 000 - 1 000 000 people
Age of Industry World Cities 1-8 000 000 people
Modernity Global Cities 5-30 000 000 people
End Times Cities could go in all directions, but max 100 000 000 people
A weather and epidemic model should work with the map, so we can see a major plague per age, as well as 1-5 weather/geological disasters as well, big and small.
4. Terrain and units
There should be severe restrictions in moving certain units until certain technologies are met for certain terrain, there may even be cultural variables preventing exploration.
The map should only be revealed in stages, then, for a
5. Great People
We need to add some more great people, and possibly remove some.
Bronze Age Great Ancestral Father/Mother (Mythical)
Iron Age Founding Dynasty
Classical Age Great Prophets
Medieval Age Great Heroes
Age of Discovery Great Explorers
Age of Industry Great Industrialists
Modernity Great Ideologues
End Times Great Tycoons
Scientists, Engineers, Artists, Generals, Merchants,
6. Mechanisms 1. Science vs. Magic, Culture vs. Organization Compass
Faith, Culture and Science as enumerated counters should be taken away, and replaced with.
Instead, there should a sort of compass with sliders, between Faith vs. Science on one vector (x) and Culture vs. Organization (Y). These compass sliders can only be altered by the beginning of each age, and a semi randomized tech tree will emerged for that period. As the ruler of a civilization, you would see the general trend of the civilization development. Here the interaction with the map and resources would help drive the process, along with specific buildings. Once in a while, the ruler will be presented by two to five options on what to choose of a new technology.
7. Mechanisms 2. City Production Units
What should be kept, clearly, is gold (Sudden), production hammers (x turns), the new unit that could be added, would be "Elan", which is the civilization struggle to keep on challenging prolonged religious wars, exploration and finally the qualitative element of training-education of each unit (promotions). Elan could use heart logo and training use scaled weights. Additionally, each unit would be influenced by access to local resources, treaties etc, for degrees of customization of the unit. Do they have horses? war dogs? falconeers for surveillance? war elephants? cattle for movable food? Is the ground flat enough to invent wheel transportation ? Would the uniforms be of cotton, or skin, or half naked with feathers and painted mud, or simply some metal armor and textiles? What color uniform, height of the hats etc should be chosen with different pros and cons?
8. Mechanisms 3. Exploration
The most reworked mechanism, which is the key mechanism for the one more turn success formula, is to make sure that the great explorers really matter and count. On one side, the present route of exploring the map in 1-3 turn increments have worked in an average way, but not very inspiring way. Each exploration should rather be seen as a subgame, and you could only do one or two exploration campaigns per era, as seen in the real world.
Bronze Age If Riverine, first city, Nomadic, homeland, Island, first culture etc neighboring areas, 5 %
Iron Age The immediate regional world, about 10 % of the area of the total game
Classical Age Initial exploration of the oceans in primitive ships, about 30 % of the game area
Medieval Age Building up trade routes and trading systems in known world, about 40 %
Age of Discovery Most of the world mapped by oceans and coasts 80 %
Age of Industry Exploration of large continental interiors (Clark, Livingston, Australia, Brazil, Siberia). 95 %
Modernity Exploration of Arctic and Subarctic Region, Archaeology (Scott, Amundsen).100 %
End Times (First landing on planet in solar system, could be barren, could have life, could even have sentient life at either pre-historical or even advanced, or maybe there is an environmental disaster, eschatological apocalypse as forecasted by Isaac Newton etc.
9. Mechanisms 4. Borders
Borders are not cultural, they are most of the time legal. However, there are steps leading up to a border being formalized. Presence. Claims. Ownership. Finally, the four step would be "Core". Blood and soil.
Bronze Age There are really no borders here, just settlements with local yields, and barbarians.
Iron Age Borders set by extent of realm, as per cultural strength of the core (culture here only)
Classical Age Borders set by rivers and mountains, as well as oceans and deserts/Ice, border walls
Medieval Age Borders resolved by setting up buffer states between empires, by building major border walls, Rarely someone had resources for border posts, unique architecture too as well.
Age of Discovery Borders decided on by Religious Conference (Tordesilla), as well as bilateral agreements of states. Oceanic maps kept secret by major seafaring powers. Trade Monopolies.
Age of Industry Nation state concept of law, the nation owns what is inside the border, borders created by
setting early claims, ending up in Continental colonial Conferences (Berlin)/Doctrines (Monroe) and Treaties (Russia vs. China) and finally national congresses (Vienna)
Modernity Maritime Law and Economic Zones. Regulated rights of People Law for borders.
End Times OVerpopulation and migrations. People start to desert their nations, and choose new ones, yet bring with them part of what drove them away. There may be border processes on the new planet etc, as well as border revision with global warming or cooling/hell opens.
10. Wars, Exploration and Colonization
Wars, exploration and colonization should not be done slow and incrementally, but in pulses, akin to other board game strategy, turnbased formats.
For the Magellan Expedition, which took place 1519 to 1522, incidentally the same time as Hernan Cortez took Mexico, is obviously not a monument to be built like earlier in the series, or come about from a Galley sailing for 2000 years.
A great explorer episode should have elements of an oddysey or heroic adventure, with sequenced decisions of real consequence. Which routes to pick (Ship condition and travel distance), where to resupply (water, food, forests for timber? slaves?civilized port? Dangerous natives?). Expeditions should last 3 to 12 years in the game, but be a hyper unit with many actions and outcomes, but not too impactful ones but map expansions, early diplomacy and potential heroic surprise war like Cortez, Pizarro etc. In bursts.
A War is a very resource intensive process, and should have a preparation stage, a politics stage, maneuvering stage, battles stage and an outcome phase.
Wars should reduce local population, resource and reduce buildings as well as decline science etc. It could however increase training and elan.
Colonization of new cities is more long term and complex, and locked to the fates of the regional city. For example, it took several centuries for us to figure out if Charleston, New York or Boston would turn out the biggest city. I leave this for others to figure out, but I guess any city development and land development is good.
11. World Wonders
I think world wonders have a place in civilization, but should be restricted in the form, number and impact, more as an interesting indicator of where the civilization is going. The Great Lighthouse, the Great Library, the Pyramids and the Great Wall are all classic and very indicative for seafaring, science, burial rites of elite and religion and border protection respectively. You may need an open steppe border situation to even need a great wall, or get the population to support build it. You may need a bigger body of water to even consider a great lighthouse. You need a cultlike situation to even inspire building pyramids for dead leaders (culture and faith) and so on. There should be stronger criteria in place for building them, and more options as well as how we interpret of what is a wonder, and why. A wonder could have a more inherent organizational value, not only manifest in the units, but in the overall discipline of a nation, like the Roman Legion and Zulu Impi, which enabled them to dominate more structure building types with other types of "wonders" in the shape of organizational wonders. You can make the people shape gigantic structures, or the people can become capable of great achievements through organizations. You can argue they did something to the organizational skills of the Egyptians to build the Pyramid in the first place. The Standardized Roman Legion Fort would be the Roman answer, not a nebulous interpretation of organization. There could be as many as 88 wonders, or 11 per era for giving the world a sense of flavor or richness, but maybe only 56 before add ons.
12. Endgame
The endgame is the real problem with many civilization games, there is no grand finale. Also, with leaders like Trump, situations like Brexit and space barons like Musk and Bezos, we could consider new scenarios.
1. Isaac Newton like Apocalypse
2. Global Warming. Oceans Rise.. Populations moving north, or
3. Global Cooling. Ice caps grow. Populations moving south, or.
4. Space race for dead planet life planet, no aliens, less developed aliens, comparable aliens, advanced alien
5- Global World War
6. Global Culture Conflict
7. Global Diplomatic Institution (arbiting border and resource disputes)
8. Global Welfare (happiest people, HDI etc)
9. Anti-global isolationist response (Strongest nation)
10 Global search for ancestry (Archeological greatness/tradition)
11 Religious conflict (Most believers)
12 Scientific, technology and industry moral dilemma.
Points could be indexed, averaged, aggregated, or kept to selected priorities
