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

Civ games always have some scifi elements and I think it's time to move the final line to 2070.
Makes sense, 2050's been the end for a while and we've only gotten closer to that irl. By the time Civ 11 hits we'll probably have reached it
 
I could see 1750-1945 as the "Modern Age", ending with the world wars, 1945-2025 or so as the "Information Age" ending with pandemic/climate/nuclear war/social crises, and then 2025-2050 as a sci-fi ish "Misinformation Age" epilogue age with "cyberpunk dystopia/AI rebellion/asteroid impact" as your crises.
 
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
They haven't even added air mechanics that would justify the construction of insanely expensive stealth planes

Which, as we have seen the past 30 years, are far too expensive and its stealth does not make the plane impervious to interception
 
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.
This is very similar with what I want for the 4th Age.
 
I was thinking what ways there are to make a 4th age interesting and distinct. There needs to be something that happens in the years between the end of the 3rd age and start of the 4th that breaks the continuity similar to what happens between the other ages. Without this disrupture (and an added 3rd Age crisis), adding a 4th age is basically meaningless.

So, what could happen? I think the blueprint can be the fall of the USSR and the European Empires, and the rise of multinational organization. This means that you start the 4th age without full control over your empire. What you've built up in the 1st to 3rd age is no longer a cohesive Empire, it is a rump state of 2-3 cities and many roughly associated settlements around that can't be controlled, don't deliver resources to the rump state, but also aren't completely independent for diplomacy. The presence of these former empire cities and towns means that there is no more need to introduce other IPs or CSs in the fourth age. You can now choose: do you want to continue as rump state (keeping your civ with some updated bonuses) or do you want to play as one of the roughly associated settlements (and choose a new civ) and strive to reach full independence, leaving behind your imperial past and instead work towards a multilateral world order?

The mechanics could revolve around reunifying the empire or getting as many settlements as possible into a sphere of influence (where you benefit from them similar to civ 5's puppet cities) for the rump states. As independents, you need to get out of the sphere of influence, and get your own - or create a multinational institution that includes other independents (and maybe some rump states), and try to dominate this through diplomacy and trade. For both types of play, conquered settlements would be very likely to revolt.

Time frame: 1970-2050
Civs: all modern era civs with slight changes, but no new unique infrastructure or associated wonders (potentially with a name change for some) + a select few Post-Colonial ones (Australia, Nigeria, Algeria, Malaysia, Cuba, Estonia, Mongolia, Pakistan).
 
I think it's more likely they will extend the ages than create an entirely new one with new civs which would also make 33% longer games.
I would like them to make the crisis more interesting for ages 1 and 2, better representing the history they are based on and then have an extended final with improved victories in the "information age"
 
I was thinking what ways there are to make a 4th age interesting and distinct...

Arguably it would be the most mechanically dense of all the ages; you need mechanics to properly represent nuclear proliferation in terms of ICBMs and what not which means you need to also work it into the diplomacy system, you need something that represents the United Nations and NATO/Warsaw Pact, you definitely need mechanics surrounding the founding of the internet, mechanics involving the first forays into space such as satellites and attempts to weaponize them, and you would need diplomacy options to facilitate proxy wars. Furthermore, it should be a lot harder to obtain autarky so sanctions and the like should be even more dangerous.

For the 1970 transition I would say you would just pick bonuses, pick an aesthetic and rename your civilization - basically just take a play from Millennia's national spirits.

Crisis would be: Fallout / Metro 2033 if nukes go off, Skynet, meteor hits Earth or something, etc.

As far as what you speculated in the 'what could happen' I think just having your cities revert back as usual would be fine since that is an abstract stand in for nations losing their oversea colonies and nationalism on the rise causing divisions in the social fabric of empires, though maybe something you suggested except any settlement that you don't turn into a city becomes a CS that way you're rewarded for doing well in the previous age.
 
Crisis would be: Fallout / Metro 2033 if nukes go off, Skynet, meteor hits Earth or something, etc.
These would be fun, even if its more than likely it will be moreso things like Global Warming, which is important I just don't think they'll handle it as well as they did in 6 if it's just a crisis
 
These would be fun, even if its more than likely it will be moreso things like Global Warming, which is important I just don't think they'll handle it as well as they did in 6 if it's just a crisis
If global warming is just a crisis that would be sad, maybe if they added it in as a crisis initially but then later on made it its own mechanic; I always felt like there could be a lot more interaction between players when it comes to global warming, perhaps sanctions for not reducing CO2 foot print and more terrain damage that simply can't be solved by throwing up some flood barriers and mostly ignoring all the other environmental effects.
 
I've said it before (when Civ VI was released) and I've said it again (when the ages first were introduced I created a thread about it), but I want to see an age beyond earth! Did you hear me @FXS_Sar ? :lol:

The way they developed the game is perfect in my opinion for introducing (finally) a hybrid mainline Civ and Beyond Earth. Invent new Civilizations that have certain aspects making them unlockable from earlier Civs and accomplishments. Have us win the Space Race to get a boost in that age. Make a crisis like overpopulation, disease, climate, and off we go to a new planet, or even a drowned version of earth, or a new ice age. I don't know, something weird and futuristic and entirely skippable for people who do not like it. Make it a spin-off that's integrated and charge me 30 credits!

Sorry.. I'm getting a bit too hyped...

My original thread on it:
 
I think there will be fourth age.

But one problem is that all Civs in there will need to be invented.

For example
So, either we will have something like France -> EU, or France -> NATO, or France -> Tehnocratic France ... etc

Or
Just Regular Civs from 3rd age which will remain same in 4th age but with some additional bonuses and twists.


That is my main question about 4th age
 
Arguably it would be the most mechanically dense of all the ages; you need mechanics to properly represent nuclear proliferation in terms of ICBMs and what not which means you need to also work it into the diplomacy system, you need something that represents the United Nations and NATO/Warsaw Pact, you definitely need mechanics surrounding the founding of the internet, mechanics involving the first forays into space such as satellites and attempts to weaponize them, and you would need diplomacy options to facilitate proxy wars. Furthermore, it should be a lot harder to obtain autarky so sanctions and the like should be even more dangerous.
I don't think that one age should be denser than the others, and I honestly see no reason why a near past/near future age requires this.

- MAD doesn't require much changes or mechanics. It's basically a modifier that makes wars more unlikely (which is probably already there based on military strength)
- United Nations, maybe - but they could as well add that to the Modern Age.
- NATO/Warsaw Pact fall mechanically into the Modern Age with its ideologies and are already simulated there with the domination victory and ideology-based diplomacy modifiers.
- while the internet is important in real life, what would it do in civ terms? A project that works as a yield multiplier on all buildings?
- proxy wars aren't that interesting in a game like civ imho - hoping that the AI will win against the AI is quite boring - we don't need them. And historically, they aren't specific to the 20th/21st centuries anyway. They are very common in Europe of the early modern era, and go back to the bronze age. So, historically, it would make perfect sense to the tell an allied CS to attack an allied CS of another civ in any of the current ages.

Hence, I see only two points that you touched upon that wouldn't really fit into the current Modern Age and would require new mechanics:
- globalization, i.e., resources, production, and consume of any good are distributed over several civs, with no one being able to produce the new necessary goods for them (computers, cars, jeans, etc.) by themselves. This would be a logical development of the factory system in the Modern Age but wouldn't fit into that.
- further advances into space, i.e., the game is not just played on the earth map. This is also beyond the Modern Age.

Both of these would make good starting points for a hypothetical fourth age imo.
 
If global warming is just a crisis that would be sad, maybe if they added it in as a crisis initially but then later on made it its own mechanic; I always felt like there could be a lot more interaction between players when it comes to global warming, perhaps sanctions for not reducing CO2 foot print and more terrain damage that simply can't be solved by throwing up some flood barriers and mostly ignoring all the other environmental effects.
Given that fuel resources aren't treated the same and there's no more chopping of plants outside of districts I don't know how they'd implement it but I hope they find a way and reimplement it
 
Not necesarily, just modernize the existing civs to their post 19th century versions
They would still need uniques (in particular the unique civics take a little caution, especially not to be too tied to particular governments or ideologies)
 
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