A neolithic age for Civ VII?

[Citron]

That happened in the Bronze and early Iron Age though

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That happened in the Bronze and early Iron Age though

Ended then, but the earliest Indo-European speakers have been pushed back to around 6100 BCE, in Anatolia, and appear to have started spreading onto the steppes/central Asia well before bronze, let alone iron, was being used by any of the cultures involved.

The 'big' Indo-European spread, of course, was when the Yamnaya culture started moving into Europe after about 3000 BCE, a group which did use bronze - and spoked wheeled chariots and horseback riding, spreading the language group into the areas where it would progress into the modern European languages.

That migration also appears to have brought Bubonic Plague into Europe, which makes me wonder why the phrase:

"Aaaargh! I'm dying of the plague!"

isn't the same in all modern European languages . . .

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Ended then, but the earliest Indo-European speakers have been pushed back to around 6100 BCE, in Anatolia, and appear to have started spreading onto the steppes/central Asia well before bronze, let alone iron, was being used by any of the cultures involved.

The 'big' Indo-European spread, of course, was when the Yamnaya culture started moving into Europe after about 3000 BCE, a group which did use bronze - and spoked wheeled chariots and horseback riding, spreading the language group into the areas where it would progress into the modern European languages.

That migration also appears to have brought Bubonic Plague into Europe, which makes me wonder why the phrase:

"Aaaargh! I'm dying of the plague!"

isn't the same in all modern European languages . . .

What is all this hype around the plague about?

Btw, you nailed it with the Yamnaya culture perfectly. I couldn't have done better.

Anatolia and neighbouring cultures have an amazing depth in historical context about neolithic age.

The underground city complexes of Anatolia seems to have been linked amongst themselves consistently, and more and more
underground settlements keeps being discovered, revealing a huge network of cities in those areas.
In central Italy also the Etruscan *believed to be of a mix of native Italic, Aeolian, and Anatolian people, also have underground complexes
built in Ancient antiquity.

So what I'm suggesting, is to have some kind of alternative settlements for this age, to allow some kind of
gameplay that is not about building huge cities, but small settlements of some kind.

Rising sea levels would be also cool as Age ending event, or crisis, instead of generic plague...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What is all this hype around the plague about?

Recent analysis of DNA from ancient Europeans found evidence that a large percentage of them had yersina pestis, the Bubonic or Black Plague famous from the Middle Ages, in their bodies, indicating that the Plague reached Europe (Possibly brought in by the Yamnaya group) several thousand years earlier than expected. There's still a fierce debate about whether the plague resulted or contributed to the major population loss in Europe that occured around the same time.

 

[mitsho]

You’re right when you distill it down; most of the ideas for a Neolithic age that I read here are just descriptions of early game (with the removal of the key, interesting tension of when to settle).

So I don’t know what’s missing. Do people want a shiny pop up banner that says Neolithic Age?

I think civ 3 had three different starting techs and depending on your civ, that made the game play differently at the start. I want somehing like that, allowing for a diversity.

I want Stonehenge in the game but it feels wrong to build it in a city.

With civ switching, it also makes sense to have a build up to that choice. Having to chose only 5-15 turns in removes the tension of having to chose my civ before the game. Someone mentioned disliking the tension right at the start of the game. Well I have that before. ;-)

Gameplay-wise the Neolithic Age for me would give me a set range of options to do while not making it possible to do all of them. Like
- explore the map
- build Stonehenge/Gobekli Tepe/etc giving me a bonus
- start with two cities
- start with one tall city
- start with more units
- …

You get the idea. But mainly I like the choice of chosing my first civ in-game. (But then again, I have to chose my leader beforehand)

 

[Citron]

Civ 1 and 2 also had starting techs depending on which civilisation you are playing as too

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The biggest problem with any 'pre-city' or Neolithic period is making it interesting enough compared to the rest of trhe game.
As Humankind showed, if all you get to do is wander around exploring the map and building up until you can slap down a first settlement/city, a simple extension of the first turn via the type of Mods I mentioned earlier will do it and save a heap of time.

I think, then, to make a Neo-Age work at all, it has to include some real preliminaries to making Game Deciding Choices - like, which Civ and Leader you get to play. That means at the least, making those decisions dependent on something that happens after the game set-up, which given that Civ VII supposedly chooses your terrain around rthe starting point after your choice, is probably going to require some programmers to jump through hoops at Firaxis between now and Release or X DLC that implements it.

IF that's what a sufficient number of gamers want (as in, far more than all the posters here at the CivFanatics Trivia Team), then I suggest that the Pre-Age has to include:
Influences that lead to certain Civ/Leader choices:
Discover Resources and exploit them somehow
Discover terrain features with a purpose
Probably slap some kind of sub-City Settlement down to sequester those resources and that terrain
Discover (or start with) some specific Technological beginnings
Develop certain Civic/Cultural beginnings
And after a certain period of such discoveries/deveopments, be told that you have available a choice of X Civs/Leaders to choose - the same choice that Humankind gives you after 6 - 15 turns, but hopefully with many more things to do to guide that choice than Humankind gave you:

Examples:
Discover Horse Resources, get Animal Husbandry/Domestication Tech, and Scythia as an Antiquity choice should be in the bag. Put a primitive Settlement along a navigable river, and Hatshepset or Amina should be potential Leader choices.

The problem still remains: this requires a basic change in the way Civ VII is apparently programmed to start now, and the Neolithic/Preliminary Age is still just that: a Preliminary to what Civ has been as a game since the original version: a City Management/Building/Development game masquerading as a Civilization building game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Civ 1 and 2 also had starting techs depending on which civilisation you are playing as too

In Civ 1 and 2, your starting tech was random.

There was some talk on this forum that in Civ 2 your choice of civilization affected your % chance to get each starting tech, but that wasn't documented in the game and, in any event, it was still random.