guys i dont get why this is so hard
civ 7 4th age is obviously going to be released as a major expansion, and be shipped with ten contemporary superpowers, organized neatly by continent:
USA + Brazil, the EU + the Soviet Union, Nigeria + South Africa, China + Korea, India + Australia
there are cultural flavors to each superpower but unlike the other 3 ages the civs are more cosmetic, with only mild gameplay differences.
in age 4, no more settling of the map -- all unpopulated land at the end of modern age is filled with IPs of various sizes. they will effectively be like nations, in a contemporary sense.
suzerainty disappears, is replaced with ideology / culture alliance / "sphere of influence" mechanic.
ideologies selected in the modern age carry to the 4th age and culture is used to push the ideology to other civs and IPs. your ideology can be converted to another if enough of that ideology is present in your settlements.
food is shared globally & creates trade surplus/deficit if you grow more/less than your pop needs.
to keep things simple, population does not grow or shrink naturally anymore. a town/city's rural district population remains constant. urban district population / specialists can (somewhat freely) move between cities in civs with open borders, based on a happiness/culture/etc mechanic.
researching a tech means you get a certain number of turns of exclusivity to its benefits (i.e. research "AI" first and get a boost to all yields for 5 turns) before it becomes common knowledge to all civs
diplomacy and influence become powerful in their own right, sanctions or embargoes are crippling when many resources are globalized
victory conditions on each legacy path are different for each civ based on a random draw or a pool of choices, like mission cards in some board games. espionage actions can also now reveal a player's mission objective. cyberwarfare is also a thing.
military campaigns can result in annexing tiles (culture bombing with actual bombs) not just capturing settlements.
economic legacy obviously is corporations.
ideas for crises at the end of the 4th age:
*climate change
*terrorism
*nuclear escalation
*lack or loss of natural resources
*pandemics
*natural disasters
space race could essentially be a prelude to a fifth age = Civ VII: Beyond Earth II
i'm now accepting all offers of money and fame for predicting the future
