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Can we Speculate a Potential 4th Age from Civ 6's Era system?

Contemporary warfare is just modernised WWI and WWII tactics.

Contemporany warfare is straightforward to understand, basically it's an arms race between the side who wants to specialise in air supremacy versus the side who wants to specialise in air defense . The side which specialises in air defence wins in the end

If you introduce a mobile radar station unit to the game, everything naturally falls into pieces:

 
There should have been four ages:

1. (up to 500)
2. (500 to 1500)
3. (1500 to 1900)
4. (1900 to 2050)
I really don't mind this but I think they picked the periods they did was so you could have civs in their pre and post WWII forms. I really don't mind the modern age ending around 1960 though so the Contemporary Age can focus more on the rise of things like the rise of computers and mass media rather than sharing that space with the industrialization of the world.
 
I'm not entirely thrilled about a contemporary Era, but as long as It's restrained to WWII, Cold war, and a bit of present day I'll be fine, just no Giant Death Robots Firaxis please.

Given past iterations, it is highly likely that if they make an expansion with a fourth age that they will set it in the present day and near-future, with some sci-fi elements thrown in. I'd be willing to bet that the Giant Death Robot will make a return. The last three games have had a Giant Death Robot (albeit in IV it was in an official mod, not the regular game), so it's basically a civ staple going on two decades now.
 
Given past iterations, it is highly likely that if they make an expansion with a fourth age that they will set it in the present day and near-future, with some sci-fi elements thrown in. I'd be willing to bet that the Giant Death Robot will make a return. The last three games have had a Giant Death Robot (albeit in IV it was in an official mod, not the regular game), so it's basically a civ staple going on two decades now.
It might make sense as a mod. Probably in a fantasy mode where the Antiquity age has gods and the Global age has UFOs/GDRs

In the normal 4th age it should probably militarily top out at various different drone swarms (or antiswarm units)
 
I don’t want to see a separate 4th age. I’d rather the modern age just get expanded.
There are a lot of stuff which could be explored as game mechanics specific for 4th age - decolonization, UN, satellites, Internet, etc. Of course, it depends on the implementation, and I wouldn't want it to be done unless it's really interesting. But at least it has reasons to exist.

I don't see any reasons to expand modern age. That would work like in previous civ games where contemporary things like nuclear weapons come so late what they fail to actually matter.
 
I don't believe in the 4th age. To fill Europe and North America, you would have to duplicate most of the civilizations of the modern age already present. And adding a 4th age would be a headache to add new civilizations then in the 3rd AND 4th age (they already invented Normandy from scratch in the 2nd age...)
 
Ok. So I think there are 2 things which make a 4th age after the current less likely.

1) Controversies. Firaxis have tried to steer clear of contemporary leaders and civs - especially evident in 6 - probably due to any controversies associated with them being much fresher. A 4th age gets very difficult to avoid these as you're pushing into the era where firaxis has been actively avoiding selecting historical figures to draw upon.

2) Logistics. There have already been a lot of complaints about available numbers of Civs per age. In an hypothetical contemporary age, firaxis wouldn't just need to add 10 new civs, it would be 10+however many DLC civs have been added for each age thus far. It's gonna get messy fast! I will credit that adding in an earlier age would mean you could reassign some civs. E.g. Normans could go into an hypothetical medieval age. But it's still a messy change.

People are looking at civ names like "French Empire" as evidence, though these could also infer that there would be civs planned in earlier ages and not that a 4th age is coming.

I don't think it's impossible, but I'd put the likelihood at, say, 10% max. It's probably better for firaxis to continue fleshing out the current age.

Also, the biggest argument against it. They'd need a bigger C in the logo! Actually, serious question, have firaxis changed the Civ logo with expansions before? The logo explicitly contains 3 ages and 4 victories... If they shake that up (and I could see them adding diplomatic victories far more than adding a 4th age) would they have to change the logo?
 
I really don't want to see a new pool of civilizations for a potential fourth age, they really need to expand the ones in the three ages already available which will take time.

Though, I'd like a system where once you reach the fourth age, you can look back at all three civilizations you played in the previous ages, and upgrade one to become your fourth age civilization, gaining access to one or two unique policy cards, but nothing more. It'd not only make earlier decisions matter, as it would allow you to carry the legacy of a previous civilization into the fourth one, so you can play Maya or Songhai in the last age, but more importantly would tremendously reduce the workload.
And rather than having you civilization choice dictating your play style, the diverse mechanics of the new age would.

As for the mechanics we could see, climate change and a world congress are somewhat a given, I'd like to see tourism come back in some ways, and maybe a stock market or corporation system. I'd also like to see more in depth modern warfare, including nuclear, with better missile defense (anti-ballistic missiles, radars ...), nuclear escalation and mutual assured destruction, borrowing ideas from games like DEFCON ...
 
I don’t want to see a separate 4th age. I’d rather the modern age just get expanded.
Same with the other two era's, to be honest.

Age Progession in general seems to accelerate too quickly. Which is weird because Science and Culture are the two least important yields in the game, because a lead in either is meaningless and leads to faster Crisis penalties.
 
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Same with the other two era's, to be honest.

Age Progession in general seems accelerate too quickly. Which is weird because Science and Culture are the two least important yields in the game, because a lead in either is meaningless and leads to faster Crisis penalties.
Yeah l agree totally. I hope any new content is added to existing eras, not carved out for new ones.
 
Yeah, I believe it gets down to the acceptance of age/civ switching. If you embrace the new system, 4th age looks logical with new mechanics, new civs, etc. If you view age switching as a source of problems, 4th age seem to make them bigger. All the issues with 4th age, which were highlighted here, could be applied to other ages as well.
 
I just don’t see Civ releasing an iteration without global warming/climate change and some kind of world congress.

Also, we seem to be forgetting that the version we have now of a third age can be retrofitted when there is an additional fourth age. In VI, we saw civs and other mechanics consistently evolving over the development of DLC.
 
Climate Change is not a new thing (I'm pretty sure Boris Gudenof knows a thing or two he'd like to add here), what we're going through is a naturally occuring event which has been vastly accelerated by human interference.

So, you can easily incorporate it in all three ages without needing to add an extra Era at the end of the game.
 
Climate Change is not a new thing (I'm pretty sure Boris Gudenof knows a thing or two he'd like to add here), what we're going through is a naturally occuring event which has been vastly accelerated by human interference.

So, you can easily incorporate it in all three ages without needing to add an extra Era at the end of the game.
The drastically accelerated by human interference is what makes it a gameplay mechanic. otherwise it’s just an idea for an extra mild crisis.
 
We had ice age coming in the 70s, global warming coming in the 90s, climate is never stagnant, so calling it climate change fits nicely into narrative.

Into the topic of possible 4th Age.
We had future era added in CIV VI. I see no reason why we would not have a possible 4th Age in CIV VII.
Although what would be the gameplay interesting enough to justify such addition. Retaining civs from Modern plus additional tech and civic tree with world war crisis before and battling climate change whilst building Giant Death Robots is not that appealing.
 
I don't see any reasons to expand modern age. That would work like in previous civ games where contemporary things like nuclear weapons come so late what they fail to actually matter.
I agree. If 4th age is not a possibility and I had to choose between expanding the modern age or keeping the game ending at around 1950, I would go with the latter, just expanding it to have the end be non consequential would be a waste.

At most I could see it work if they completely revamp the current modern age delete / compress some things to make space for more recent stuff. And we would need to get to play the game to know better but that age already seems full with mechanics, things to do to make this revamp likely to be fruitful.
 
It might make sense as a mod. Probably in a fantasy mode where the Antiquity age has gods and the Global age has UFOs/GDRs

In the normal 4th age it should probably militarily top out at various different drone swarms (or antiswarm units)
I think they can get a little bit sci fi ish given it's likely to end at 2050, just to reward high science players. Better camoflauge tech or exoskeletons for infantry
 
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