Adding a prehistorical era?

[SupremacyKing2]

I know this idea has been brought up before but I thought I would discuss it again.

Adding a prehistoric era before the ancient era. Here is how I think it could be implemented:
- the player starts with a hunter-gatherer unit. The unit would have a small melee attack (less than the warrior). I would bring back the wild animals of civ4 that could attack your unit. I would make it so that your unit would be stronger but just by a little bit, not much. But in some cases you might want to run away. There would be no barbarian units on the map yet, only wild animals and other civ's hunter-gatherer units. So you might fight another hunter-gatherer tribe or fight off wild animals. Defeating a wild animal unit would collect "food". More on that later. The unit would also have a foraging ability similar to the harvest ability. When on a forest tile, you could "forage" and collect "food". Food would be the resource to research "agriculture". So you could collect "food" by killing wild animal units or by foraging. When you complete the research of agriculture, the ancient era would begin, you would see bonus food resources like wheat and rice on the map and your hunter-gatherer unit would convert into a settler unit.

What would be the point of adding this new era? A couple reasons, I think:
1) It would further help create the sense of building a great civilization as you would be starting at an even more primitive level. So when you win a game, you did not just start as an ancient era town, you started as a hunter-gatherer tribe that could barely subsist. So it would add even more of a sense of accomplishment when you reach the information age!
2) It would add new gameplay in the early game. Instead of starting with a first city and basically already starting at a level where you can spam more cities and build an empire, you would have this new era that would play very differently, where you would have to survive and fight off wild animals and forage for food.

 

[killmeplease]

and there could be mammoths instead of goody huts

actually theres no need to make the prehistoric era a much different gameplaywise, just make cities (=camps) moveable and resources depleteable (or providing a temporary bonus yield)

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I think this could suit a small expansion. Maybe be accompanied by a pair of civs.

I'm thinking Ethiopia and Siberia/Inuit.

 

[JamesMarsh]

It makes no sense, because prehistorical era doesn't contain any clue civilian technologies.

 

[killmeplease]

It makes no sense, because prehistorical era doesn't contain any clue civilian technologies.

most 'ancient' techs in the civ's tech tree (agriculture, pottery, animal husbandry, archery, sailing, astrology, mining) -- are really prehistorical techs

 

[old_andy]

I like this.

What would be interesting is to introduce a commodity specially for the prehistoric era, like Hunger, represented by Hitpoints.

The hunter/gatherer unit starts off at 50% health -so you could say they're hungry.. and it can exist in one of two modes;
a gatherer camp (which is static).
a Hunter unit (which is mobile),
It costs one turn to swap from one mode into another and costs one hitpoint (because packing in or setting up a camp makes for hungry people)


**Gatherer Camp**
The gatherer camp has to be on, or next to a (food) resource

A 'wildlife' resource like cattle, deer, horses, elephants etc.. can migrate around, and will eventually do so if it's continuously exploited for too many turns in a row (randomly moves one tile away). These resources can also simply vanish for a random number of turns if there are wild animal units in the area.
Plant resources will simply vanish for a number of turns if over exploited, and then reappear again. This adds to the migrational need of gatherer camps, and with the new climate events in GS, there would be even more reason to 'go somewhere else' for awhile.

The camp has an attack strength (used for defense only) of 1. Natural defense modifiers still stack, so a camp in the hills adds +3, in the forests adds +3, and together adds +6.

As a foraging camp it gains +2 hitpoints per turn.


**Hunter Unit**
The hunter unit slowly loses hitpoints (-2 per turn), because it's hunting and not foraging.

+1 hitpoint per turn for standing stationary on any 'wildlife' special resource like cattle, deer, horses, elephants etc.. these resources migrate faster when exploited by hunters.
either a net gain or net loss in hitpoints for killing a wild animal unit (because you know, hunting is risky..)

Hunter units can attack other hunter units, as well as other gatherer camps.

It's attack strength is more than one, but it's still crap.


**Now for the Fun Stuff**
If a hunter/gatherer unit can stay at 100% hitpoints for a number of turns, it can raise another hunter/gatherer unit next to it (both reset to 50% hitpoint health), that have adjacency bonuses in foraging as well as defense bonus if they stay next to each other. If one is a hunter unit, and the other is a gatherer unit, the hitpoint gains/loss is cancelled out. Working the same resource means it will become over exploited faster, again adding to the need for moving camps. As long as hunter/gatherer units are at 100% hitpoint health, new units can be generated.

It can raise a shaman unit, which has one heal charge.

Two gatherer camps (at 100% hitpoint health) can also raise one slinger unit, or one scout unit. The units starts off at 50% hitpoint health (as well as both of the gatherer camps), but heals normally as long as it stays on or ajacent to a hunter/gatherer unit.

Four gatherer camps at full health can raise a Warrior unit, that starts out at 50% hitpoint health (as well as all four of the gatherer camps), and also heals normally if on or adjacent to a hunter/gatherer unit.
If at full health, they can also combine into a settler unit, that can now settle a city!!

 

[Krajzen]

I don't think it is feasible as part of regular civ game, but now I have a crazy idea for a potential "prequel to civ" scenario

So, generally the idea is, all players start with few units in the cradle of homo sapiens (East Africa on TSL map, anywhere else on random map) and they can't fight each other for some time. All players people are featureless, they are not any civs. The date is 60 000BC, of homo sapiens exodus from Africa (IIRC). Their goal is to leave "the cradle", migrate and find some good place on the world map to settle (and in the far future - found a city here). As I said, for some initial period they can't fight each other (and in fact the best solution would be if they were completely invisible to each other). Instead they fight various species of animals inhabiting Earth, as well as harsh climate (stuff from GS but mortally dangerous). The further from the cradle (Africa) you migrate, the more points you get. Your units can embark (boats are prehistoric invention).

Once you secure your perfect spot, you put a settler on a tile where your future city should be. You still cannot settle, but you need to keep "future settler" unit alive at all costs until it can. It has the special action "develop agriculture" - which takes a lot of time for settler to accomplish.
You also have warrior units, prehistoric bowman units (idk why civ6 has slingers, bow is paleolithic weapon) and hunter gatherer units which need to gather food for all of them to stay alive. Food can be gathered from fresh water tiles, grass, forests but especially all kinds of food-associated resources.

It is now when players become visible to each other and may fight each other, also "barbarians" (all other migrating humans) spawn all over across the world and the chaos begins.
You need to keep your settler unit alive until roughly 4000 BC (depending how fast he finishes his action) - but by 10 000 BC late game apocalypse of Ice Age happens in moderate climate zones. To balance that, hot climate zones would get some other catastrophe, such as doubled spawn rate of "barbarians".

Once the settler finishes "develop agriculture" action, you discover your first tech - agriculture - and you reach the end. Now players receive points depending on how far from the cradle they migrated, how many units they have kept alive, how much exp they gathered etc.

And! Now you can all play the regular civ game. You choose what civ your once featureless people become - based on where is your first city settled. For example, if you settle on desert floodplains you can choose between Egypt, Sumer and Nubia. All other surviving players also turn into civs and city states (if there are too few of them remaining, barbarian camps can turn into civs too). Wild animal units mostly or entirely die out, to represent animals being no longer a dangerous force to human collectives.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

A "Prehistoric" Civ Era comes up as a suggestion every 6 - 9 months or so, sort of like the swallows returning to Capistrano or Bats returning to their Belfry.

We don't need an earlier Civ Era, we just need an Ancient Era that reflects the fact that very few of the 'Civilizations' in the game built cities that early. As examples, the Greeks, Romans, and Germans were pastoral groups until after 2000 BCE, and the French, modern British/English, Scots, Australians, Americans, and most of the other Civ VI civs weren't even recognizably separate culture groups in 4000 BCE.
In short, we need a way to represent Pastoral or Nomadic Groups between about 4000 BCE and 1000 BCE without terminally crippling anyone who doesn't start a city right away, as has always been the case in Civ games now and in the past.
The mechanism for the Maori in GS looks like a potential way to do that.
Give us a more mobile 'Settler' that generates Science/Civics while moving on land as the Maori apparently do on the ocean, perhaps 'harvesting' Resources of some kinds so starting an immediate city is not a Prerequisite for staying competitive in the game. Add, say, a generation of unique military units (Chariots, Horse Archers, a more-mobile 'Warrior"?) while still 'un-citified' so there are good reasons for not starting a city right away, and all the wandering about people recommend for a Prehistoric Era will fall where it belongs, in the ancient and classical eras.

Rather than extend the game for a number of Very-Little-Happening turns at the beginning, let's make the Ancient and Classical Eras more interesting by including the variety of Civilization/Cultural types that actually existed 4000 - 1000 BCE and even later.

 

[Patine]

I think this could suit a small expansion. Maybe be accompanied by a pair of civs.

I'm thinking Ethiopia and Siberia/Inuit.

Why would Ethiopia, the oldest URBAN, SETTLED, PERMANENT AGRARIAN CIVLIZATION OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, CONTEMPORARY TO ANCIENT GREECE, EGYPT, AND MIDDLE-EAST be introduced in an expansion that enables pre-Ancient, hunter-gatherer cultures as a new civ along with Siberia or the Inuit, pray tell? How is they thematically appropriate for addition there?

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Why would Ethiopia, the oldest URBAN, SETTLED, PERMANENT AGRARIAN CIVLIZATION OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, CONTEMPORARY TO ANCIENT GREECE, EGYPT, AND MIDDLE-EAST be introduced in an expansion that enables pre-Ancient, hunter-gatherer cultures as a new civ along with Siberia or the Inuit, pray tell? How is they thematically appropriate for addition there?

Precisely because they were there first, and because human migration is traced back to the Lake Tarkana/Chew region.

Technically the Inuit aren't a good representation of prehistoria given that they were actually the third or fourth wave of migrants to come across the Bering strait. But they (like Ethiopia) would be mechanically/aesthetically easier to develop than actual prehistoric cultures.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Why would Ethiopia, the oldest URBAN, SETTLED, PERMANENT AGRARIAN CIVLIZATION OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, CONTEMPORARY TO ANCIENT GREECE, EGYPT, AND MIDDLE-EAST be introduced in an expansion that enables pre-Ancient, hunter-gatherer cultures as a new civ along with Siberia or the Inuit, pray tell? How is they thematically appropriate for addition there?

Thank you. Aside from clarifying Ethiopia, your post proves my point: every one of the civs mentioned except Possibly 'Middle East' is Post 4000 BCE, post current Start of Game:

Ethiopia: the earliest civilization in the area were the D'mt, which has been dated back to about 900 - 1000 BCE: 3000 years After Start of Game. Because so little archeological work has been done, I grant that they may have had 'urban settlements' earlier, but not 3000 years earlier.

Egypt: earliest city (found so far) is Men-Efer (Memphis), dated to 'before 3000 BCE'. Earliest Dynasty governing an Egyptian Civilization was about 3400 - 3200 BCE (there is debate over exact dating). So, marginal for founding cities in 4000 BCE, to say the least. On the other hand, there were people living along the Nile as far back as 40,000 BCE, and making stone tools there: possible 'settlements' but nothing resembling any concept of City. In Game Terms, then, 'Barbarian' Camps or Tribal Huts!

Greece: The 'Greeks' - Indo-European pastoralists, didn't arrive in Greece until 1500 - 1200 BCE: before that a group known (to the Greeks) as 'Pelasgians' lived there, and many City Names in Greece actually date from the earlier people: Corinth, Argos, Thebes and Athens for examples - but none of the earlier cities date back further than about 2400 - 2000 BCE. The Greeks then, at Start of Game would be in Game Terms Barbarian Nomads or Mobile Tribal Huts for at least the first 2500 years of the Game . . .

 

[Patine]

Precisely because they were there first, and because human migration is traced back to the Lake Tarkana/Chew region.

Technically the Inuit aren't a good representation of prehistoria given that they were actually the third or fourth wave of migrants to come across the Bering strait. But they (like Ethiopia) would be mechanically/aesthetically easier to develop than actual prehistoric cultures.

The Hamitic, Cuhorsehockeyic, and Abyssinian Semitic Peoples of the Horn of Africa, and the Bantu and Nilo-Saharic peoples of East Africa were NOT the examples same people who were in those areas at the Dawn of Human History, some 2 million or so years ago, you know? The Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharic peoples migrated there across the Red Sea and up the Nile Valley 10 000-15 000 years ago, and Bantus moved into the area from the modern-day Cameroonian-Nigerian border region as recently as the 9th to 13 Centuries. The direct, unbroken continuity you're probably imagining doesn't exist.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

The Hamitic, Cu****ic, and Abyssinian Semitic Peoples of the Horn of Africa, and the Bantu and Nilo-Saharic peoples of East Africa were NOT the examples same people who were in those areas at the Dawn of Human History, some 2 million or so years ago, you know? The Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharic peoples migrated there across the Red Sea and up the Nile Valley 10 000-15 000 years ago, and Bantus moved into the area from the modern-day Cameroonian-Nigerian border region as recently as the 9th to 13 Centuries. The direct, unbroken continuity you're probably imagining doesn't exist.

Chill. You're imagining that I'm imagining such a continuity.

I'm talking spiritual representation here. Reconstructing a prehistoric civ with an animated leader would not only be extremely difficult to the point of impossibility, but would probably not be as resonant and would not sell as well as "proper" civs.

Scythia is a perfect example of this, since instead of attempting to design a PIE nomadic kurgan culture, they pivoted to the earliest iteration of steppe nomads that could reasonably inform a "civilization" with a leader, and language, and city names. While the historical connections between PIE and Scythia are spurious, I genuinely believe they are the best the devs could do in a game that requires more sophisticated art design to represent that pivotal period of history. Even then you can tell the developers are stretching, but the fact that our steppe nomad representative is not mechanically a nomadic prehistoric civ implies that it is extremely unlikely we will ever get a true prehistoric nomad civ.

So instead the devs will likely just select civs which happen to have thrived in pivotal regions of human migration, and who either by association or volition are identified as descendants of that legacy.

So yes, I stand by the fact that since the African disaspora and the Bering strait migration are two of the most resonant diverging points in common knowledge, that a prehistoric pack would likely add requested civs from those regions, regardless of whether the civs themselves are portrayed in a prehistoric light.

 

[Patine]

Chill. You're imagining that I'm imagining such a continuity.

I'm talking spiritual representation here. Reconstructing a prehistoric civ with an animated leader would not only be extremely difficult to the point of impossibility, but would probably not be as resonant and would not sell as well as "proper" civs.

Scythia is a perfect example of this, since instead of attempting to design a PIE nomadic kurgan culture, they pivoted to the earliest iteration of steppe nomads that could reasonably inform a "civilization" with a leader, and language, and city names. While the historical connections between PIE and Scythia are spurious, I genuinely believe they are the best the devs could do in a game that requires more sophisticated art design to represent that pivotal period of history. Even then you can tell the developers are stretching, but the fact that our steppe nomad representative is not mechanically a nomadic prehistoric civ implies that it is extremely unlikely we will ever get a true prehistoric nomad civ.

So instead the devs will likely just select civs which happen to have thrived in pivotal regions of human migration, and who either by association or volition are identified as descendants of that legacy.

So yes, I stand by the fact that since the African disaspora and the Bering strait migration are two of the most resonant diverging points in common knowledge, that a prehistoric pack would likely add requested civs from those regions, regardless of whether the civs themselves are portrayed in a prehistoric light.

But Ethiopia - as ETHIOPIA, and not just people who lived in that area thousands of years ago - is not the same civilization. When people think of Ethiopia as a civilization, they of Yakub, Menelik, the Land of Punt, the Queen of Sab'a, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church and it being a defiant bastion of Christianity surrounded by Islam, and even - in some circles - Haile Selassie - not an amorphous, prehistoric, hunter-gatherer, proto-culture.

 

[PhoenicianGold]

But Ethiopia - as ETHIOPIA, and not just people who lived in that area thousands of years ago - is not the same civilization. When people think of Ethiopia as a civilization, they of Yakub, Menelik, the Land of Punt, the Queen of Sab'a, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church and it being a defiant bastion of Christianity surrounded by Islam, and even - in some circles - Haile Selassie - not an amorphous, prehistoric, hunter-gatherer, proto-culture.

Yes, but I ask you, what other civ ideas--regardless of what period they draw from--feel old and enduring enough to suit a proto-history pack? Perhaps Sumeria or Scythua or a Polynesian civ, but we have that already. Perhaps the Olmec, but the Maya are extremely likely to appear again.

We're not going to get a prehistoric civ in a prehistoric pack. So what I'm saying is that Ethiopia is a great civ to illustrate how far the region has come and how it remains one of the epicenters of modern pan-Africanism sentiment. What I am saying is the devs likely wouldn't release a prehistoric pack without referencing the out of Africa hypotheses. And the three predominant points in Africa are around Oyo National Park, Lake Tarkana, and the Red Sea. So although it is possible that we got a Yoruba or Swahili civ, it is equally if not more probable that we got an Ethiopia civ since that is the point of theorized transcontinental migration. It's not unlikely and really depends on what the devs want to develop.

 

[Patine]

Yes, but I ask you, what other civ ideas--regardless of what period they draw from--feel old and enduring enough to suit a proto-history pack? Perhaps Sumeria or Scythua or a Polynesian civ, but we have that already. Perhaps the Olmec, but the Maya are extremely likely to appear again.

We're not going to get a prehistoric civ in a prehistoric pack. So what I'm saying is that Ethiopia is a great civ to illustrate how far the region has come and how it remains one of the epicenters of modern pan-Africanism sentiment. What I am saying is the devs likely wouldn't release a prehistoric pack without referencing the out of Africa hypotheses. And the three predominant points in Africa are around Oyo National Park, Lake Tarkana, and the Red Sea. So although it is possible that we got a Yoruba or Swahili civ, it is equally if not more probable that we got an Ethiopia civ since that is the point of theorized transcontinental migration. It's not unlikely and really depends on what the devs want to develop.

I still strongly disagree. That's not how people see Ethiopia as a civilization. Plus, Ethiopia, as the great CIVILIZED EMPIRE, MONARCHY, AND ANCIENT URBAN NATION that was never colonized in the Scramble for Africa, is a topic of admiration, in THAT view, to MANY African-Americans and Anglo-Caribbeans (and not just the ones who built a religion around it's last monarch, but it's a big historical and symbolic ideal), but that image and vision, like most people's on Ethiopia, does not centre on a prehistoric hunter-gather proto-culture. I think you're in a tiny minority, perhaps even may out in left field, for your view of Ethiopia, as a civilization in this way and for this kind of ideal. There's probably a lot better choices (like maybe the Khoisians, or Twa, in Africa, or the Shoshone, from whom a lot of the Great Basin/Great Plains/Rocky Mountain/North Mexicans ethnicities of Indigenous Americans are believed by some to have schismed off of as a source group by some anthropologists, quite probably even the Mexica before they headed south from "Aztlan," or the Tupinamba or Yanomamo, in the Amazon Rainforest, or maybe a Papuan, Melanesian, or Micronesian representative - all VERY different than Polynesians despite being Oceanians, and other than Papuans, generally speaking Austronesian languages) but for the love of all that is good in the world NOT the Ethiopians!

 

[PhoenicianGold]

I still strongly disagree. That's not how people see Ethiopia as a civilization. Plus, Ethiopia, as the great CIVILIZED EMPIRE, MONARCHY, AND ANCIENT URBAN NATION that was never colonized in the Scramble for Africa, is a topic of admiration, in THAT view, to MANY African-Americans and Anglo-Caribbeans (and not just the ones who built a religion around it's last monarch, but it's a big historical and symbolic ideal), but that image and vision, like most people's on Ethiopia, does not centre on a prehistoric hunter-gather proto-culture. I think you're in a tiny minority, perhaps even may out in left field, for your view of Ethiopia, as a civilization in this way and for this kind of ideal. There's probably a lot better choices (like maybe the Khoisians, or Twa, in Africa, or the Shoshone, from whom a lot of the Great Basin/Great Plains/Rocky Mountain/North Mexicans ethnicities of Indigenous Americans are believed by some to have schismed off of as a source group by some anthropologists, quite probably even the Mexica before they headed south from "Aztlan," or the Tupinamba or Yanomamo, in the Amazon Rainforest, or maybe a Papuan, Melanesian, or Micronesian representative - all VERY different than Polynesians despite being Oceanians, and other than Papuans, generally speaking Austronesian languages) but for the love of all that is good in the world NOT the Ethiopians!

I am done letting you talk over me and project your stupid straw men into my mouth. I have never once suggested that Ethiopia be a "prehistoric" civ, merely that it accompany a prehistoric DLC pack. Full stop.

Go home, you're drunk.

 

[Patine]

I am done letting you talk over me and project your stupid straw men into my mouth. I have never once suggested that Ethiopia be a "prehistoric" civ, merely that it accompany a prehistoric DLC pack. Full stop.

Go home, you're drunk.

I have never been drunk or high in my life, speaking of false assumptions. My statements can be backed in your own posts on this thread. Your assumption that I'm drunk is nothing but a PERSONALLY INSULTING dismissive of my viewpoint (not a sharp agreement of opinion, like I have with you here), and a complete lack of knowledge of anything about me (such as the fact I have NEVER once been drunk or high in my whole 42-year life). There is the difference here.

 

[Carazycool]

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!

 

[Patine]

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!

I'm not yelling. I capitalize certain specific words for emphasis. That was very common in typing back in the '90's - I just never fell out of the habit.