Age medieval

[Paisley_Trees]

Both were shown as Independent Peoples. ETA: I think Carantania was the city name. I think the people were called Slavs.

oh yes my mistake, I've edited it also!

 

[Nikolai II]

CFC to the rescue.

 

[Arent11]

Only if the game were made in the 19th century. There was nothing dark about the Middle Ages except that the Victorians couldn't stop drooling over the Romans.

Yes, yes, but if the medieval period was no "dark age", what was?

A dark age is usually defined by breakdown of civilization, widespread wars, superstition & technological stagnation.

What time period would qualify as dark age instead of the "not that dark" dark age?

Only short periods of revolutions or wars? That wouldn't be an "age". It would just be a decade.

 

[Zaarin]

Yes, yes, but if the medieval period was no "dark age", what was?

A dark age is usually defined by breakdown of civilization, widespread wars, superstition & technological stagnation.

What time period would qualify as dark age instead of the "not that dark" dark age?

Only short periods of revolutions or wars? That wouldn't be an "age". It would just be a decade.

These things happen locally, but the Middle Ages were not characterized by a breakdown of civilization, superstition, or technological stagnation (on the contrary, while the Middle Ages marked a decline in theoretical science, they also marked the explosion of practical technological innovation that has continued to the present time), nor was war any more widespread in the Middle Ages than at any other time (it turns out humans are quite violent). Like I said, dark ages are local. The Bronze Age Collapse was a dark age in the Middle East; related were the Greek Dark Ages following the collapse of Mykenai. The Early Middle Ages were most certainly not a dark age.

 

[Zaarin]

Well, possibly none, and it's not a historically valid notion? Or the late-bronze age collapse could be an example of that - although the chronology of archeaology remains used to construct it is not all that certain.

I also cited the Late Bronze Age Collapse, but even then Assyria and Phoenicia came out of the collapse flourishing.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I think this needs to be looked at from a crisis perspective. Is there some major crisis that the Medieval period could culminate in? Is there a story that can be told in the era? I'm confident that the era is merged into the Exploration era but that doesn't mean the developers don't have plans make major changes in the future.

 

[Zaarin]

I think this needs to be looked at from a crisis perspective. Is there some major crisis that the Medieval period could culminate in? Is there a story that can be told in the era? I'm confident that the era is merged into the Exploration era but that doesn't mean the developers don't have plans make major changes in the future.

Black Death and the Mongol invasions are the obvious crises; could also add the peasant revolts and Protestant Reformation, though those are more Eurocentric. More saliently, though, I don't feel like the gameplay would be as unique. Early Medieval would play like Antiquity; late Medieval would play like Exploration. Maybe some players would enjoy the smoother transition, but I don't think that's the devs' stated goal of unique Ages.

 

[AntSou]

Too many ages. For what they are attempting to achieve, 3 sounds like the right number. You need them to be long enough otherwise you get into the same disorienting issues that you have to deal with playing Humankind.

They could, and they might, add flavour within each age. This could be as simple as different background images for different portions of the tech tree, two or three different background images per Age, signalling the conventional historical stages of previous Civ games.

If there is to be a 4th Age, I suspect this will come as a future Age in post release DLC. It's just easier to attach a fourth Age at the end of the base game tech tree, rather than in the middle.

 

[Arent11]

These things happen locally, but the Middle Ages were not characterized by a breakdown of civilization, superstition, or technological stagnation (on the contrary, while the Middle Ages marked a decline in theoretical science, they also marked the explosion of practical technological innovation that has continued to the present time), nor was war any more widespread in the Middle Ages than at any other time (it turns out humans are quite violent). Like I said, dark ages are local. The Bronze Age Collapse was a dark age in the Middle East; related were the Greek Dark Ages following the collapse of Mykenai. The Early Middle Ages were most certainly not a dark age.

Ok, so why didn't industrialization take place in the middle ages? After all, you just claimed there was an "explosion" of innovation? A thousand years of explosive innovation should have been more than enough to develop AI and colonize Mars?

There are always some scholars that frown upon "Victorians enamored with the Romans" and there is certainly a reason to call them biased. But it's also pretty obvious that these scholars themselves are just as biased in their judgement.

I do think people like Galileo & Copernicus had problems with the church for stating facts. And I don't think many people in the medieval era were literate. But of course I lack statistics about the literacy, superstition and life expectancy of the Roman empire.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Too many ages. For what they are attempting to achieve, 3 sounds like the right number. You need them to be long enough otherwise you get into the same disorienting issues that you have to deal with playing Humankind.

They could, and they might, add flavour within each age. This could be as simple as different background images for different portions of the tech tree, two or three different background images per Age, signalling the conventional historical stages of previous Civ games.

If there is to be a 4th Age, I suspect this will come as a future Age in post release DLC. It's just easier to attach a fourth Age at the end of the base game tech tree, rather than in the middle.

I believe this is correct. Having two ages means you change civs once, and it's difficult to justify the mechanic. Changing six times like HK is far from ideal for reasons noted numerous times. Changing three times means that you play as a civ for just 1/4th of a game and doesn't seem like it would be satisfying. So, settling on three ages, with two culture swaps seems about right. It wouldn't suprise me if Firaxis played around with different variations through the course of development.

 

[pokiehl]

Too many ages. For what they are attempting to achieve, 3 sounds like the right number. You need them to be long enough otherwise you get into the same disorienting issues that you have to deal with playing Humankind.

They could, and they might, add flavour within each age. This could be as simple as different background images for different portions of the tech tree, two or three different background images per Age, signalling the conventional historical stages of previous Civ games.

If there is to be a 4th Age, I suspect this will come as a future Age in post release DLC. It's just easier to attach a fourth Age at the end of the base game tech tree, rather than in the middle.

I agree about Future Age. They wouldn't even need to add Civ-switching for that, which makes it most likely of any other options for additional ages IMO.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

(Again, commenting just on history)

Bear in mind that whatever age breakdown we use would have to be plausible worldwide.

 

[Zaarin]

Ok, so why didn't industrialization take place in the middle ages? After all, you just claimed there was an "explosion" of innovation? A thousand years of explosive innovation should have been more than enough to develop AI and colonize Mars?

Because industrial-grade steam engines require steel. Also, science doesn't travel in a straight line nor does it work like beakers in Civilization.

There are always some scholars that frown upon "Victorians enamored with the Romans" and there is certainly a reason to call them biased. But it's also pretty obvious that these scholars themselves are just as biased in their judgement.

There's no such thing as "objective historic truth," but saying the Middle Ages were not a dark age is overwhelmingly supported by evidence.

do think people like Galileo & Copernicus had problems with the church for stating facts.

Copernicus had no trouble with the Church. Galileo didn't have a problem with the Church; he had a problem with being an irascible jerk who couldn't keep his mouth shut. The pope was a big fan of Galileo's work; Galileo's response was to tell him to go to hell. Galileo made political enemies. Worth remembering that the Church was always a patron of science and scholarship, and the Scientific Method and the Protestant Reformation walked hand in hand. The idea that religion and science are at odds is another Victorian fairytale.

And I don't think many people in the medieval era were literate.

Widespread literacy results from a religion based on reading: Jews, Muslims, and Protestants promoted universal education and widespread literacy because personally reading the Torah/Quran/Bible is fundamental to their religion. In other times and cultures, literacy has always been restricted to specialists.

 

[Josephias]

Ok, so why didn't industrialization take place in the middle ages? After all, you just claimed there was an "explosion" of innovation?

Well, Gothic architecture took place in the middle ages, and progress on glass management, plus other navegation instruments was set-up there for the upcoming world exploration. There was some sort of "industrial revolution" with the extension of the usage of water mills to several areas. Steam engine was just too far away, but necessary steps were being put in place.

Middle ages were "dark" (in an eurocentric view) not in the sense it was a time of superstition and lack of knowledge (wich is the general "Renaissance"/"Victorian" propaganda), but in that the centralized power structures (Roman Empire) collapsed, and therefore is more difficult to find "autorished" sources to clarify what happened in the different Kingdoms, Counties and Baronies that formed afterwards. Until all these "isolated" entities start to recconect in a regular way (trough trade) and in the low middle age and new centralised power centers (cities) arose historic sources may be obscure and difficult to compare. This meaning of "dark" as "difficult to study" was at least the preferred meaning when I was studying. It was already many years ago, nevertheless, and things may have changed a lot.

Black Death and the Mongol invasions are the obvious crises; could also add the peasant revolts and Protestant Reformation, though those are more Eurocentric.

Altough this messes up with the timeline, I'd consider the Mongol Invasions (nomadic invasion) a "late" Ancient Age crisis and the Black Death (disease spreading trough trade routes) an "early" Exploration Age crisis. Protestan Reformation would be aso an "early" Exploration Age crisis (moving religion away from a organised state tool to a personal belief system), anticipating further religion/tradition/cultural crisis to be brought up by Enlightment.

 

[Ornen]

My rough sense of the timeline is:

• Antiquity: 4000 BC - 300 AD
• Antiquity crisis: 300 - 500 AD
• Exploration: 800 - 1700 AD
• Exploration crisis: 1700 - 1800 AD
• Modern: 1800 - 2050 AD

I don't really get Ed Beach's "gaps" in the timeline, as any gap between the Antiquity crisis period and Exploration era seems pretty small, and it's hard to imagine much (if any) gap at the other end, given he's dated the Exploration crisis to the American & French revolutions. Would they really skip the 19th century? I think not.

"Astronomy" is a super broad tech that could cover anything from ancient times to the modern era. In this case, it seems like they've honed in on Islamic advances around 800-1000 AD for their timing on the tech.

 

[Zaarin]

Altough this messes up with the timeline, I'd consider the Mongol Invasions (nomadic invasion) a "late" Ancient Age crisis and the Black Death (disease spreading trough trade routes) an "early" Exploration Age crisis. Protestan Reformation would be aso an "early" Exploration Age crisis (moving religion away from a organised state tool to a personal belief system), anticipating further religion/tradition/cultural crisis to be brought up by Enlightment.

I agree; I was simply answering the question, "What crises would you include in a hypothetical Medieval Age?"

 

[Potworny]

I have an unreasonable gripe with the inconsistency of the Ages naming scheme. Ancient and Modern relate to time periods, while Exploration is an era defining concept. It grinds my gears. If they'd make it consistent, they could add 12 ages for all i care...

 

[Zaarin]

I have an unreasonable gripe with the inconsistency of the Ages naming scheme. Ancient and Modern relate to time periods, while Exploration is an era defining concept. It grinds my gears. If they'd make it consistent, they could add 12 ages for all i care...

In English, at least, we use Age of Exploration (also Age of Sail) for the time period from the sailing advances in the Late Medieval period that led to the rediscovery of Macaronesia, the exploration of coastal Africa, and ultimately the crossing of the Atlantic until roughly the time when colonies started going full swing (the end date is kind of nebulous). It's overlappy with Renaissance, but a little less Eurocentric since Arabs, China, and Japan also participated in the Age of Exploration.

 

[E.C.H]

I must admit, I like the idea of 4 Ages too, although I'm certain Firaxis studied and tested a variety of age counts a million times and landed on 3 for a good reason. That being said, if I was doing my desired 4, I wouldn't section off Medieval as it's own thing, but probably bundle up the Renaissance in there as well. Either keep 'Exploration' as it's name or maybe 'Age of Rebirth'; then a Enlightenment-to-Industrial Age (roughly 1700-1900), then an Modern age incorporating some Info era and maybe Future era content (obviously with civs largely pre-WW2, World-War-centric or post-colonial probably).

 

[ehecatzin]

I think the 3 Era system is boiled down to It's most useful, if we start adding more granularity in either direction, it feels off and you kinda have to add Another era to balance it out...For example I'd prefer it if there was a split for Antiquity and classical, but, now that'd be half the game, so now you add another era, maybe industrial or enlightenment to make up...and now we are 5 eras in, and all the designs have to cropped and reduced for space for the now faster era change, faster culture switch, crisis events now have to be reduced to simplier events, tracking who is who is harder (and lo and behold we are in Humankinds problems)

As much as I'd love more granularity in the earler eras, I'd rather have a slower paced era system and more time to spent with each civ.