Civ7 seem to leave space for the 4th age?

[GeoGeo]

The base game ages are a three-act structure. Fourth age could be an epilogue--and therefore, shorter (~100 turns?). How many years it's meant to cover could depend on how much of the IRL polycrisis they decide is a third rail.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The base game ages are a three-act structure. Fourth age could be an epilogue--and therefore, shorter (~100 turns?).

That is an interesting concept. It would keep the 3 act structure and not require any changes to the victory conditions. And it could be added more easily as an optional game mode. So with the mode turned on, you would still win at the end of the modern age but get to play an extra ~100 turns as an epilogue. With mode off, the game would end at the end of the modern age as normal. I like it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The base game ages are a three-act structure. Fourth age could be an epilogue--and therefore, shorter (~100 turns?). How many years it's meant to cover could depend on how much of the IRL polycrisis they decide is a third rail.

While I like storytelling theory, I don't think it applies to strategic games

 

[ehecatzin]

Man, I really hope this age 4 is just an extension of age 3, like a final showdown of the last 2 standing ideologies. I sincerely hope they don't add a FULL age 4 with new civs, personally I don't find it that interesting, I was really surprised the game ended at 1950'ish tech level, I thought it was elegant and restrained.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Man, I really hope this age 4 is just an extension of age 3, like a final showdown of the last 2 standing ideologies. I sincerely hope they don't add a FULL age 4 with new civs, personally I don't find it that interesting, I was really surprised the game ended at 1950'ish tech level, I thought it was elegant and restrained.

There's a lot of interesting gameplay things, which could be implemented in contemporary age - from satellites and information war to aquatic cities. Previous civ games had those things too late to play with them, but games set in futuristic settings like Alpha Centauri or Beyond Earth had some interesting things with them.

Also, recent civ games played a lot with post-colonial civs like Australia and I expect those to appear again as they are decent markets.

So, I think this age could actually be a full thing. Whether Firaxis will succeed in making it interesting is another question.

 

[Potworny]

The only reason I don't like the idea of the fourth age for is that it will require more civs (possibly about an extra year of dev time) to have a satisfying and balanced roster. Say, if in a couple of years we get an amount of civs like 72, it's either going to be roughly 24 per age (decent), or 18 (abysmal! get out of here! barely better than it is now!). We can also get some unholy split like 20/20/20/12 (the last of which would be locked behind an expansion...) and that would be the worst outcome IMO.

Now, if we were to get a mechanic for keeping our civs name, emblem and city list, and have an option to only acquire the new civ's other characteristic to either enhance or evolve our culture with, that would not only benefit the whole game as it is now, but also greatly increase the number of civs we'd see in any era, including a hypothetical 4th one. At this point it would mean that in any game we'd get to play as one of 10 civs in ancient era, one of 20 in exploration and one of 30 in modern. The same goes for the civs that we see, as on a standard map we would start with seeing 5 of 10 possible civs in the first era, then 8 of 20 in the second and 8 of 30 in the last one. And if it was implemented I'd have absolutely no problem with the inclusion of the fourth age, whether or not it would mean new civs specific to it or not. We'd be able to play as Egypt, Greece, the ancient and forgotten civilization of Mexico in the 2000s that way.

(I think I could go to any thread on this forum and propose the option to keep old civs signifiers across ages as a solution to any issue that this game may have. Many people have mentioned it and it's so obvious of a solution to increase variety and replayability and satisfaction of players who want to play civs like Rome across ages, that I'm surprised they haven't implemented it.)

 

[moondog385]

The only reason I don't like the idea of the fourth age for is that it will require more civs (possibly about an extra year of dev time) to have a satisfying and balanced roster. Say, if in a couple of years we get an amount of civs like 72, it's either going to be roughly 24 per age (decent), or 18 (abysmal! get out of here! barely better than it is now!). We can also get some unholy split like 20/20/20/12 (the last of which would be locked behind an expansion...) and that would be the worst outcome IMO.

Now, if we were to get a mechanic for keeping our civs name, emblem and city list, and have an option to only acquire the new civ's other characteristic to either enhance or evolve our culture with, that would not only benefit the whole game as it is now, but also greatly increase the number of civs we'd see in any era, including a hypothetical 4th one. At this point it would mean that in any game we'd get to play as one of 10 civs in ancient era, one of 20 in exploration and one of 30 in modern. The same goes for the civs that we see, as on a standard map we would start with seeing 5 of 10 possible civs in the first era, then 8 of 20 in the second and 8 of 30 in the last one. And if it was implemented I'd have absolutely no problem with the inclusion of the fourth age, whether or not it would mean new civs specific to it or not. We'd be able to play as Egypt, Greece, the ancient and forgotten civilization of Mexico in the 2000s that way.

(I think I could go to any thread on this forum and propose the option to keep old civs signifiers across ages as a solution to any issue that this game may have. Many people have mentioned it and it's so obvious of a solution to increase variety and replayability and satisfaction of players who want to play civs like Rome across ages, that I'm surprised they haven't implemented it.)

A fourth age with unique civs would mean less civs added to the previous three ages which is a definite negative in my view.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I think Canada in Age 3 wouldn't be too forced. It would work reasonably well. However, being too young, Australia would feel a bit out of place.

I would think they would both be in a hypothetical 4th age. Canada would presumably come from Modern French or British, unless you have them only come from the Normans and another Native American tribe, or First Nation tribe in regards to Canada.

 

[Disgustipated]

there's a limit of 20 tiles for Railroad transfer in this particular age

Pretty solid evidence. I missed hearing that yesterday.

I do hope if there is a 4th age they just allow you to continue on with your 3rd age civs.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think its more likely that if there is a 4th era they will be the types of civs we saw in Beyond Earth

It's possible, but it would surprise me. Adding modern states will drive more DLC sales than made-up federation names (or ever worse, real life multinational organizations). If they have a strong design vision for the 4th age that transcends nation states, maybe they'll go that way, but I consider it less likely than filling in their civ roster with more nations.

 

[Zaarin]

Adding modern states will drive more DLC sales than made-up federation names

I'd buy the United Federation of Planets, the Tau'ri, and the Earth Alliance over Australia, the PRC, and Monaco.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I think i've saw someone here giving names of Age 4 civilizations. My idea is that the Global mentality had moved beyond Empire into Federations.
And choices will be rather compulsory.
- Siam will become ASEAN
- USA Becomes NATO
Only few countries became a new 'self' this depends on politics
- Qing will be either
A. Republic of China. If at the end of Age3, Communism is not taken
B. People's Republic of China. if Communism is chosen.
- France becomes EU
- Germany becomes Baltic League
- Mughal becomes India.
Just for example.. crude ones.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think i've saw someone here giving names of Age 4 civilizations. My idea is that the Global mentality had moved beyond Empire into Federations.
And choices will be rather compulsory.
- Siam will become ASEAN
- USA Becomes NATO
Only few countries became a new 'self' this depends on politics
- Qing will be either
A. Republic of China. If at the end of Age3, Communism is not taken
B. People's Republic of China. if Communism is chosen.
- France becomes EU
- Germany becomes Baltic League
- Mughal becomes India.
Just for example.. crude ones.

Qing would just be China, no point in antagonizing anyone.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Buganda becomes ZAR.
Mexico becomes NAFTA. (or other 'fedral' names.... CONCACAF maybe?)
All based on known civs so far.
There's good reasons why Siam becomes ASEAN. rather than Singhapore being a successor...
ASEAN (Original members) covers Thailand + Malaysia + Indonesia + Brunei and The Phillipines. They were not really united under a same leader but are all at some point backed by the USA. as a countermeasure to Communist Bloc. Before 1995 (or 1998) when CLMV joined. ASEAN means 'something'. that could potentially becomes either NATO or EU.
Capitol is Jakarta. (where the main office is).

 

[Buni0ns]

4th age or no, we know that DLC & expansion(s) are coming. Whether it takes the form of extending each age, adding a prelude and epilogue, or adding a 4th age is academic.

They obviously left themselves a lot of room for expansion into the "information age". Exactly how they do it will be interesting to see, but failure to acknowledge it's coming is naive.

 

[UWHabs]

4th age or no, we know that DLC & expansion(s) are coming. Whether it takes the form of extending each age, adding a prelude and epilogue, or adding a 4th age is academic.

They obviously left themselves a lot of room for expansion into the "information age". Exactly how they do it will be interesting to see, but failure to acknowledge it's coming is naive.

Yeah, I'd bet a lot of money that before the end of the civ 7 development cycle, we'll have drones/satellites/lasers/Computers/etc... everything we know and love and hate from the current information age.

I feel in the current structure, it doesn't make sense to have a whole new roster of civs. If I were designing things, I think I would probably have it where when you reach one of the current "Victory" conditions, it would essentially transition into like the Information Era as the crisis. And then you basically end up with, say, 4 information age mini-games you can play through.
If someone completes the Domination Victory, then you essentially transition the game into like a World War/Cold War end-game. In that mode, the ideological blocks turn into strict alliances, and we basically get a domination battle royale to the death.
The Cultural Victory basically turns into a game where maybe the civ 6 tourism game heats up, where your goal is to spread your culture around the planet to become the dominant force.
Economic Victory maybe your aim is to become the global economic power, and you have to spread your factory resources into every reach of the globe. Maybe the diplomatic game heats up more and you get a whole bunch of diplomatic options like embargos, sanctions, blockades, etc...
Science you could continue with the Cold War/Space Race.

With all of them, you could have a mix of tech from the last 50 years, and then bring the game to the next 50 years. Bring in all those like orbital satellites from Alpha Centauri, bio-habitats, ocean technology, etc...

 

[Krajzen]

I am not to happy about this, as I hoped the new civ game is going to focus less on the modern eras... If think we all agree that the eras closest to real life are the least "magical" so to speak.

I also find the idea of base game ending in Cold War, not near future or at least 2020s, incredibly strange and anticlimactic - it's kinda natural for this type of games to go all the way till the present day.

And the idea to introduce fourth tier of civs seems miserable for me - you mean the Cold War was the time when France and America ceased to exist?

 

[Krikkit1]

Yeah, I'd bet a lot of money that before the end of the civ 7 development cycle, we'll have drones/satellites/lasers/Computers/etc... everything we know and love and hate from the current information age.

I feel in the current structure, it doesn't make sense to have a whole new roster of civs. If I were designing things, I think I would probably have it where when you reach one of the current "Victory" conditions, it would essentially transition into like the Information Era as the crisis. And then you basically end up with, say, 4 information age mini-games you can play through.
If someone completes the Domination Victory, then you essentially transition the game into like a World War/Cold War end-game. In that mode, the ideological blocks turn into strict alliances, and we basically get a domination battle royale to the death.
The Cultural Victory basically turns into a game where maybe the civ 6 tourism game heats up, where your goal is to spread your culture around the planet to become the dominant force.
Economic Victory maybe your aim is to become the global economic power, and you have to spread your factory resources into every reach of the globe. Maybe the diplomatic game heats up more and you get a whole bunch of diplomatic options like embargos, sanctions, blockades, etc...
Science you could continue with the Cold War/Space Race.

With all of them, you could have a mix of tech from the last 50 years, and then bring the game to the next 50 years. Bring in all those like orbital satellites from Alpha Centauri, bio-habitats, ocean technology, etc...

They could do that (the 4th age has no new civs because it still uses the same mechanics as the third age)…..
However,
A 4th age with MAD, decolonization, environmental effects, globalization, internet…..
1. really should have separate / unique mechanics
2. would be a place to get all those modern postcolonial civs for DLC

One thing they Could do for a 4th age so that the current age civs can be more readily produced and don’t drag on the 1 st 3 eras

Custom civs…. you select a
1 civ name/emblem / city list/ regional graphics style
… no civ specific wonders, unique infrastructure or civics/traditions in the 4th age
2. select unique ability
3. select unique civilian unit*
4. select a unique military unit*

*different regional graphics if it is not a mechanized unit

2-4 could have gameplay unlocks (like you must complete a certain Legacy path)

 

[UnknownHuman]

I don't necessary think the game needs a fourth age, they could simply expand the three ages we currently have, or at least if we get a fourth age I hardly see the devs adding another pool of brand new civilizations, but rather have the modern age civs evolving into their nation state equivalent, so America becoming the United-States, giving them maybe a unique civic, and have the new mechanics being the sole interest of the fourth age.

 

[Krikkit1]

I don't necessary think the game needs a fourth age, they could simply expand the three ages we currently have, or at least if we get a fourth age I hardly see the devs adding another pool of brand new civilizations, but rather have the modern age civs evolving into their nation state equivalent, so America becoming the United-States, giving them maybe a unique civic, and have the new mechanics being the sole interest of the fourth age.

The issue is having the new mechanics means that you can’t carry over uniques (since some will rely on age 3 mechanics and not work with age 4 ones)

Which means you will probably have new uniques…. If there are
1. less uniques
and
2. if they are swappable

then that lets them make the civs quicker and easier and gives you a custom civ. so Argentina plays the way I want it to play.