Archaeology brainstorming

[Publicola]

Per Leoreth's suggestion, I'm breaking the discussion of a future 'Archaeology' mechanic out to a new thread.

I see two possible approaches for an archaeology system.

The first is a 'fire-and-forget' approach, comparable to the proposed Natural Wonders mechanic: certain tiles have archaeology-related features, which give a one-time bonus to whoever discovers them, and an ongoing yield to whoever owns that tile.

The second is a more involved approach, comparable to the 'archaeology' mechanic used in Civ 5 and 6: certain tiles have 'antiquity sites' or other archaeological features, which can only be exploited by specialized 'archaeologist' units (or explorer/worker units with a special promotion) and 'archaeological dig' improvements.

The first approach would be a lot easier to include, and significantly more user-friendly. However, the second approach strikes me as more immersive and potentially more fun.

Perhaps we could try to incorporate both sides: a basic 'discovery' system so most of the benefit comes from normal exploring, along with a special unit/improvement so players can follow up for additional (though lesser) benefits. The overarching goal should be to include archaeology as a cool 'mini-game' without making it essential for a cultural victory.


As far as possible archaeological features, there are six main categories that we can look at:

• 'Fossil sites' -- these should be early human fossil sites, like the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, but we could expand this to include pre-human fossil finds, such as the La Brea Tar Pits or the Burgess Shale. C2C has features for both 'fossils' and 'tar pits', so this should be easy to incorporate.
• 'Prehistoric settlements' -- these would include early human habitations that do not have monumental architecture, like Monte Verde or Blombos Cave. These are treated as wonders in C2C, but I don't think they have special art attached. On the other hand, we could just use C2C's art for generic prehistoric cities, which would fit really well.
• 'Cave art' -- these would include major cave paintings otherwise unrelated to prehistoric settlements, such as the Lascaux Caves or the Cave of Altamira. We could probably use C2C's 'cave' feature for this.
• 'Megaliths' -- these would include any examples of monumental architecture before the rise of in-game civs of that area. This would include the Stonehenge and Göbekli Tepe, as well as more recent megaliths like the Nazca Lines or the Cahokia Mounds. All of these are treated as wonders in C2C, with unique art for each.
• 'City ruins' -- these already exist as features on the map, so it'd just be a matter of making them usable for archaeology. I'd suggest we add a variant 'ruins' feature for cities that once had wonders, to make those sites more valuable.
• 'Ancient battlegrounds' -- I'd love to include this element from the Civ 5 system, since such battlegrounds are a major source for archaeological exploration in the real world. I have no idea how this might work, though -- any battle before the Middle Ages has a 2% chance of creating a hidden 'battleground' feature for later explorers to reveal? Perhaps battles that involve unique units would increase the chance of a 'battleground' feature appearing (something like 10% odds if one side is a UU, 25% odds if both sides are a UU?) I don't know if there's any art for this in any existing Civ IV mod.

Thoughts?

 

[Steb]

In get slightly annoyed when people confuse archeology with paleontology, so I don’t know how I feel about including fossil sites here... I suppose they do fit better here than in the natural wonders framework.

In any case, stuff like battles creating archeological sites has the potential to be really cool.

We’ll also have to think about the benefits of archeology. I guess it would make sense to link them with the museum building.

 

[Leoreth]

Both involve digging up stuff to learn about history, and both started at around the same time, so it makes sense to group them conceptually.

As far as effects go, a scientific effect seems obvious, but actually I think especially archeology was actually more about international prestige. It would be cool if there was a way to do something with that.

 

[Vectors]

Both involve digging up stuff to leThiarn about history, and both started at around the same time, so it makes sense to group them conceptually.

As far as effects go, a scientific effect seems obvious, but actually I think especially archeology was actually more about international prestige. It would be cool if there was a way to do something with that.

"This belongs in a museum" -The British towards historical artefacts across most of the world, and specifically belonging in a British museum.

 

[1SDANi]

Archaeology could lead to an interesting form of peace economy. Cities with a museum can build tier 3 Scout line units (let's call them Archaeologists because of the thread's title) when an Archaeologist sets up a site, it produces a lump sum science in the city which it was built. As long as the tile is not owner by a city or there's a path to said city* the player will gain science per turn in that city in exchange for also creating culture in of the origin city (if applicable) and spreading culture between the two cities.

* or if it's a minor player, maybe not counting independents

This:

• Adds another use for open borders
• Adds more function to culture. England starting an archaeological dig in France is pretty risky if your culture's not up to snuff, but conversely it can be a way to bolster an attempted cultural takeover of a rival nation, especially if they're far away.
  
• It doesn't actually add any culture to your cities and actually adds culture to your enemies', so it doesn't help a cultural victory. (Unless culture levels count foreign culture. Do they do this? If so remove that when adding this.)

 

[Publicola]

I really like that cost-benefit idea, so that an archaeological site would benefit both the archaeologist's civ and the civ that owns the tile. This is frequently the case in the real world -- Turkey, for instance, allows foreign archaeology teams to excavate various sites, but on the condition that it receive any major artifacts from the dig.

I wonder if it'd be possible for that sort of arrangement to come into existence in the late-game. After all, the earliest archaeologists rarely asked permission to claim all kinds of artifacts and bring them back to (e.g.) the British Museum. OTOH, that might be reflected in the fact that Britain was a colonial power that had conquered quite a bit of land, but the empire later fell and the land gained its independence as a new country.

I'd also point out that any benefits (especially for culture and tourism) from archaeological digs rarely benefit the site itself, but rather the museum(s) where artifacts get displayed. I'm not sure if it's possible to pair an archaeologist or archaeological site to a specific museum or a specific city. If it is, great. If not, perhaps the benefits could accrue to each civ's capital city?

 

[need my speed]

The existence of an archaeological site can trigger a (frequently occurring) random event where the owner of the site gets gold from the player in which this site is located ('the British stealing artefacts'), but depending on the diplomatic relations (e.g. Friendly) and relative power balance (e.g. anything better than 0.9?), the options to swap gold or science for culture, or for both to share in gold / science and culture, would also exist?