Eras in civilization 7

[Marla_Singer]

Illustration, not source.

The claim that pregnant women cannot travel is asinine on the face of it. That doesn't require evidence, a source or proof ; all of human history is testament to the point that pregnancy does not prevent travel. Sure, limiting physical exertion is best practice where reasonably feasible, but "best practice where reasonably feasible" and "cannot be done" are miles apart.

My interpretation was indeed wrong, the explanation for the lower fertility of Nomadic people doesn't come from the negative impact of travel on pregnancies. Apparently this is related to breast-feeding. Here's what I could found:

Our ancestors achieved the lowest rate of reproduction of any living mammal by the postponement of puberty until well into the 2nd decade of life, a maximal probability of conception of only about 24% per menstrual cycle even when ovulation had commenced, a 4-year birth interval as a result of the contraceptive effects of breastfeeding, and sharply declining fertility during the 4th decade of life, leading to complete sterility at the menopause. This pattern of reproduction was ideally suited to the prevailing lifestyle of the nomadic hunter-gatherer. The postponement of puberty resulted in a prolonged period of childhood dependency, thus enabling parents to transmit their acquired experience to their offspring. Long birth intervals were essential for a woman who had to wander 1000 or more miles each year in search of food, because she could not manage to carry more than 1 child with her at a time. The lifestyle of comparatively recent times of a settled agricultural economy made possible subsequent rural and urban development, but this transition from nomad to city dweller also stimulated fertility. The cultivation of crops and the domestication of animals led to the development of permanent housing, where the mother could leave her baby in a safe place while she worked in the field. The resultant reduction in mother-infant contact coupled with the availability of early weaning foods reduced the suckling frequency, thereby eroding the contraceptive effect of breastfeeding and decreasing the birth interval.

Source:

Breast-feeding: nature's contraceptive - PubMed

Breast-feeding: nature's contraceptive

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I'm not entirely convinced that is the explanation, but I regularly read from multiple sources that indeed hunters-gatherers only had a pregnancy every 4 years and that was reduced to one every 2 years in sedentary communities.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It is easy to forget in these times, living in technologically advanced situations (at least, everybody on this Thread has regular access to a computer of some kind), with professional health care sort of available (I live in the USA: access on the 'sort of'), that getting pregnant and carrying a child to term was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do healthwise for much of history. And, of course, that infant mortality rates up until the last century or so were just short of catastrophic (as in, up to 50% estimates for some Classical and Medieval societies). - And finally, that life in any urban concentration was a major gamble, because such concentrations also concentrated exposure to epidemic diseases: Rome, one of the ancient cities with the most records available, appears to have suffered a major epidemic every 20 years or so throughout the Imperial period - in addition to such major epidemic as the Antonine and Cyprian Plagues.

The wonder is that any of us are still here at all.

 

[Evie]

I've seen a study that support these numbers, based on actual study of a nomadic hunter gatherer population in the process of sedentarizing, so I can accept four/two as reasonable numbers. And having carted younger siblings around: yes, that's a much more limiting factor to moving around than pregnancy, so that at least is plausible.

Of course, being pregnant twice as often means (roughly) twice the risk of pregnancy-related death, which is a far from negligible risk even today, let alone then, and urban concentration means urban contagion as Boris point out, so one suspects the balance of actual population growth may not have been so stark as "twice the pregnancies" would imply.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

To add to this, in the last year I've read some new archeological studies that suggest that the early urban concentrations in fact may have had near-zero population growth without immigration from outside the 'city'. Apparently the combination of primitive water supply and purification and exposure to disease in general combined with annual cycles of plentiful food after the harvest and 'starving times' in the spring together kept the survival rate compared to birth rate even or negative.

Another bit of evidence for this dynamic may be the fact that early warfare between the early urban-states rarely seems to have involved the complete destruction of a city and its population, but rather the extraction of numerous slaves and captives from the city to the victors. Quite possibly the Haudenosenee-type 'Mourning Wars' to replenish population are much older and more general than anybody thought!

Note that this might indicate that future games need to include, at least as an option, extracting X amount/percentage of the population of a defeated city or city-state as population points to be distributed among the victor's cities - a process which, since it basically represents a form of involuntary servitude, would bring serious Diplomatic negative factors once Emancipation or a similar general International Social Policy is implemented.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Illustration, not source.

The claim that pregnant women cannot travel is asinine on the face of it. That doesn't require evidence, a source or proof ; all of human history is testament to the point that pregnancy does not prevent travel. Sure, limiting physical exertion is best practice where reasonably feasible, but "best practice where reasonably feasible" and "cannot be done" are miles apart.

The importance of the Bible claim is not that the bible says it happened: it's that nobody questions it. Not the people who look for divine intervention in every word of the bible, nor the people who look for proof of biblical error in every word. Nobody has ever raised Mary traveling in her last term as some sort of miracle ; nobody has ever raised it as a proof the bible is wrong. Because nobody who has a clue view the idea of a woman traveling late in her pregnancy as anything other than commonplace.

I was just trying to be funny

 

[Henri Christophe]

About how the eras should be divided should be unique to each civ; I would like to have a Mfecane when I'm playing with the Zulus.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I've seen a study that support these numbers, based on actual study of a nomadic hunter gatherer population in the process of sedentarizing, so I can accept four/two as reasonable numbers. And having carted younger siblings around: yes, that's a much more limiting factor to moving around than pregnancy, so that at least is plausible.

The only thing I don't understand is for what reason would semi-Nomadic foragers breast-feed longer their children than sedentary foragers? If they are semi-Nomadic, that means they are sedentary except twice a year. Therefore beyond those seasonal migrations, I don't see the difference in lifestyle, but maybe I'm missing something.

Of course, being pregnant twice as often means (roughly) twice the risk of pregnancy-related death, which is a far from negligible risk even today, let alone then, and urban concentration means urban contagion as Boris point out, so one suspects the balance of actual population growth may not have been so stark as "twice the pregnancies" would imply.

I agree. The demographics increase was definitely slow. Just to put things in perspective, Natufians are supposed to have become sedentary around 13,000 BCE, agricutlure started being developped around 9,500 BCE, yet early farmers from Anatolia are supposed to have significantly spread over Europe by 5,000 BCE. We're talking 8,000 years here!

 

[Marla_Singer]

About how the eras should be divided should be unique to each civ; I would like to have a Mfecane when I'm playing with the Zulus.

Behind the concept of historical eras we can put two very different things. On one hand there are technological ages, which are somewhat universal in the meaning that technologies can be shared by multiple different cultures. On the other hand we have cultural ages which is something much more specific to different civilizations. Both aren't really of the same nature.

Defining Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Age, Age of Discovery, Industrial Age isn't really a problem as the underlying determinism it requires is technological and we can't really do without it in a game like Civilization. Yet concepts such as Middle Age and Renaissance depends a lot more on historical events and hardly mean anything for the world beyond Europe.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Behind the concept of historical eras we can put two very different things. On one hand there are technological ages, which are somewhat universal in the meaning that technologies can be shared by multiple different cultures. On the other hand we have cultural ages which is something much more specific to different civilizations. Both aren't really of the same nature.

Defining Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Age, Age of Discovery, Industrial Age isn't really a problem as the underlying determinism it requires is technological and we can't really do without it in a game like Civilization. Yet concepts such as Middle Age and Renaissance depends a lot more on historical events and hardly mean anything for the world beyond Europe.

Two big problems I see with Eras or Ages:
1. The game (and several other games using the concept) relates the Age/Era to Game Progress. Civ changes the actual years/turn with each Age, which means the Entire Game World has to move from Age to Age in lockstep or the entire chronology of the game breaks down.

2. Some of the Ages are defined by specific , usually technological, triggers. Others, though, are Relative: the 'middle ages' fell between the Roman Imperial Golden Age (or at least, highly polished Brass) and the Renaissance. The Renaissance, on the other hand, was a Rebirth after a 'dark age'. Both of these require a specific sequence of previous events to be meaningful, and that sequence includes a loss of progress that is absolutely unacceptable given the game's relentless pursuit of Progress towards a defined set of Victory Conditions. Even if the prior coditions could be defined and programmed into the game, no competitive gamer would allow them to happen and if they happened, not restart immediately. Bluntly, this would be Unacceptable as a Basic Design for a competitive game, IMHO.

I suggest, then, that solutions to these might be:
1. Detach game progress/year count from the Eras. This would allow reach country/region Era to be independent of the rest of the world, so that if the native Pacific Northwest Haida and Makah get to Caravel hulls and full ship rigging first, they can sail into an Age of Discovery before anyone else, or if China forges ahead with early iron casting and high level metallurgy they just might reach an Industrial Age 500 years before Europe. Potentially, anyway, this could add a lot of dynamism and Possibility to the game which is sadly lacking now that everyone Must enter the next Age at the same time, regardless of anything else happening in the game.

2. Make progress or movement into another Age require a very specific set of circumstances for each individual Civ - and those circumstances may or may not be purely Technological. In fact, for some 'Ages' they will be distinctly Not Technological. For instance, a better definition of the 'Classical' period would be the Axial Age, when the trans-national, multi-cultural religious and intellectual movements took hold: 600 BCE to 600 CE and the advent of Monotheism and its derivative religions, Greek Natural Philosophy, Kon-Fu-Tse's political and cultural philosophy, Gautama Buddha's intensely personal World View, etc. You could be using Stone Tools exclusively and still adopt any of these and propel your Civ into the Axial Age (and possiblly wind up trying to hack together the Hagia Sophia using stone axes, but that's another problem!)

Right now, the Age or Era is used to define your place in the game as well as the general progress of the game, but at least in Civ that 'progress' is strictly Linear: you go from Ancient to Classical to Medieval along with the entire rest of the game and regardless of what your Civ is actually doing. That results in both a relatively dull, strictly linear game progress and also results in 'progress' rgardless of whether your Civ is actually progressing. This sems to have become a 4X historicalish near-Universal Concept - the new Millennia game demonstrates the same dynamic, of regardless who enters an Age first, they require every other Civ/Faction in the game to enter it as well - so you are dragged into rthe iron Age while you are still only half-way through the Bronze Age, which makes the whole concept of an 'Iron Age' meaningless. For the convenience of it being easy to see just where the game is btween Start and Finish, hat's a high price to pay, IMHO.

 

[Henri Christophe]

Behind the concept of historical eras we can put two very different things. On one hand there are technological ages, which are somewhat universal in the meaning that technologies can be shared by multiple different cultures. On the other hand we have cultural ages which is something much more specific to different civilizations. Both aren't really of the same nature.

Defining Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Age, Age of Discovery, Industrial Age isn't really a problem as the underlying determinism it requires is technological and we can't really do without it in a game like Civilization. Yet concepts such as Middle Age and Renaissance depends a lot more on historical events and hardly mean anything for the world beyond Europe.

Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age is kind of okay; but what is classical age?
In Mesoamerica history we do have pre-classical and pos classical age in reference of after and before Teotihuacán; being the classical period the time of Teotihuacán and it's happen before an Iron Age.

If I'm playing with Aztec it should have an Obsidian age.

 

[Evie]

Boris, Point of nitpick: I'm fairly sure the change in length of years/turns is not actually linked with turning of the ages in the game. It's preset to happen at specific points regardless of actual game gage).

Likewise, I thought the Classical Golden Age - Medieval Dark Period - Renaissance return to golden age conception, while it remains the root of those terms, is generally no longer taken seriously in historical circles. It's my understanding that the relation between the three is far, far more complex than golden age-loss-recovery, and that much of the golden age-loss-recovery narrative came from Latinizing scholars, particularly through the influence of Italian proto-nationalists. But the era they describe remain generally real (Moreover, it should be pointed out that the loss of progress, to the extent it did happen, was largely the fruit of conquest and war, and that is something that is part of the game. Rome did not lose progress; it was conquered by rivals who did not possess those same advances. That, the game does permit).

----------------

Marla: Mesoamerica is the biggest problem with a stone-bronze-iron division, though hardly the only one: many civilizations strayed from that progression and yet did not stop advancing. Africa skipped the Bronze age, China remained a bronze civilization into its imperial era, etc. Stone-Bronze-Iron is largely a Mediterranean/Levantine progression, and one that is limited strictly to toolmaking, with very little influence on what other kind of progress or advancement those societies were capable of.

(Prehistoric)-Ancient-Classical is honestly a much better early game progression. It's also arguably the more universal of the two as, while there were significant difference, the concept of a Classical era is found in the historiography of many civilizations across the world: Mesoamerica, China, Japan, etc. It is hardly limited to the Mediterranean region, even if the Mediterranean region inspired it. Likewise though originating terminologically in Europe, the concept of a Medieval/Postclassical era (the two are largely synonymous between Classical and (Early) Modern has made its way through much of history worldwide (shorn, by and large, of the "dark age" aspect).

Renaissance is the trouble child of the Era tree, but most of the rest is quite fine.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Eras in CIV are like the familiar leader faces and the traditional roster of well know civs a mean of popular recognition and a fundamental elements to build on many other key aspects include ballance and flavor.
The player base has an average historical knowledge that is familiar with certain division of history and those eras have some characteristics that are expected by such players. So the in-game eras are more usefull to be built around what make them recognizable for these public.
Here is were we can represent some "outliners" in an easier way instead of build a whole open system of techs and eras progression. For example:
- China was ahead in many technological aspects during the Classical and Medieval eras this is earsier to represent with a science bonus for China that allows this civ to develop "ahead of time" techs with less or even no penalty. After all in average CIV terms most of these chinese inovations were just one era ahead of the average design.
- In the Americas it was achieved to get complex empire building, densely urban and stratified societies without the use of pratical cars and with basic metalurgy. Something like this in CIV is like have some civs reaching the Classical Era while they still lack a few techs from the previous era. This is pretty easy to be in CIV just by let players lack a minority of techs, for example by compensating two "behind era" techs with one "ahead time" tech (simulating also civs that focused in a "branch" at the expense of others).
- West Africa direct Iron Age can be represented by more powerfull Eurekas.
- Early oversea naval exploration by some CIV is misleading because it was not just about if a culture could put people in far lands but about the capacity of a state to control such lands. Phoenician, Greek, Tamil, Malay, Arab, Persian colonies were on "regional seas", Norse were a middle point and beyond Tongan empire polynesian ones were a "leave an forget" expansion. So in game terms these are either material for civ uniques or something like the suggested "Maritime Society" early specialization that allows some unique abilities/units to expand over sea.
- Renaissance is just a name, it has alternative names like the dull "Early Modern", "Discovery" Era, "Gunpowder" Era, etc. The name is not the important part it is what it represent for players even if there wasnt any real "Renaissance" for neither real history or the player's match.

Still I think is possible and positive to look for a way to make more fexible the time each era start and end, and keep liberty between each civs era and worlds era.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Boris, Point of nitpick: I'm fairly sure the change in length of years/turns is not actually linked with turning of the ages in the game. It's preset to happen at specific points regardless of actual game gage).

Likewise, I thought the Classical Golden Age - Medieval Dark Period - Renaissance return to golden age conception, while it remains the root of those terms, is generally no longer taken seriously in historical circles. It's my understanding that the relation between the three is far, far more complex than golden age-loss-recovery, and that much of the golden age-loss-recovery narrative came from Latinizing scholars, particularly through the influence of Italian proto-nationalists. But the era they describe remain generally real (Moreover, it should be pointed out that the loss of progress, to the extent it did happen, was largely the fruit of conquest and war, and that is something that is part of the game. Rome did not lose progress; it was conquered by rivals who did not possess those same advances. That, the game does permit).

It's been a while since I actually opened the game, so I'll have to check. Somewhere I've got a page with the years/turn on it related to Ages, but I'm not sure where it came from.

The Classical/Roman/Dark Age/Renaissance sequence is old: the term Dark Ages was coined by Petrarch at the beginning of the 'Renaissance' and it's been a fixture in popular history (and, for a time. serious history). Unfortunately, the glorification of Imperial Rome and Classical Greece was not just an Italian, but a European thing. To this day museums in France show lots of Roman artifacts dug out of French soil, but almost nothing of the very sophisticated Gaullic Civilization that preceded and was squashed by the Romans.

Why, How, or even When Rome ever completely fell is a topic that can be beaten to death: it will always resurrect itself and come back for more. As far as I have followed the never-ending debate, current trend seems to be to follow the number of ways in which Nothing Much Changed even after the Roman Imperial political structure collapsed (in the West, anyway). The biggest single thing that did suffer without a doubt was Long Distance Trade: without an over-arcing government with the power to guarantee the safety of trade, you simply couldn't haul anything any distance before being waylaid by bandits - frequently calling themselves the local 'government'. On the other hand, Roman administrative offices were adopted by most of the New Owners, and continued in places for several centuries after The Fall - recent debate centers more on how actually well they were still operating despite the continuity of offices and titles, not (any more) on any complete collapse of administration or authority. And apparently, contrary to previous belief, levels of literacy may not have changed much at all - hey weren't necessarily that high in Imperial Rome, and Latin literacy, at least, remained a requirement for any political or religious administrator from the Fall to the end of the 'middle ages'.

Assuming any of this survives the next round of 'new research' and debate, it means that perhaps any 'Fall' of any large Empire shouldn't be modeled as a Complete Collapse. Perhaps the model of Chinese cycles in which the underlying administrative/production base remains to build from would be more accurate than a catastrophic Everything Goes as we've always assumed for Rome.

 

[dagriggstar]

I think each faction having a specific set of requirements to unlock the next era is going too far into asymmetric gameplay. Players shouldn't be constantly needing to look up changing requirements just to advance to a new era.
Once you settle on a 'one size fits all' age up mechanic (culture threshold, 'event' button, whatever) then trust the player to pick the appropriate age their faction is in.
Unique era names just there for flavour, no different to each city has its own name.

An example dedication might be "Each citizen that consumes 1 unit of power per turn grants +2% science, culture and tourism to their city per turn". This would be reflective of 'the information age'. You obviously would never pick this ability in the first 75% of the game. If you are England and you pick this dedication it might launch the "Windsor era".

 

[BuchiTaton]

It's been a while since I actually opened the game, so I'll have to check. Somewhere I've got a page with the years/turn on it related to Ages, but I'm not sure where it came from.

The Classical/Roman/Dark Age/Renaissance sequence is old: the term Dark Ages was coined by Petrarch at the beginning of the 'Renaissance' and it's been a fixture in popular history (and, for a time. serious history). Unfortunately, the glorification of Imperial Rome and Classical Greece was not just an Italian, but a European thing. To this day museums in France show lots of Roman artifacts dug out of French soil, but almost nothing of the very sophisticated Gaullic Civilization that preceded and was squashed by the Romans.

Why, How, or even When Rome ever completely fell is a topic that can be beaten to death: it will always resurrect itself and come back for more. As far as I have followed the never-ending debate, current trend seems to be to follow the number of ways in which Nothing Much Changed even after the Roman Imperial political structure collapsed (in the West, anyway). The biggest single thing that did suffer without a doubt was Long Distance Trade: without an over-arcing government with the power to guarantee the safety of trade, you simply couldn't haul anything any distance before being waylaid by bandits - frequently calling themselves the local 'government'. On the other hand, Roman administrative offices were adopted by most of the New Owners, and continued in places for several centuries after The Fall - recent debate centers more on how actually well they were still operating despite the continuity of offices and titles, not (any more) on any complete collapse of administration or authority. And apparently, contrary to previous belief, levels of literacy may not have changed much at all - hey weren't necessarily that high in Imperial Rome, and Latin literacy, at least, remained a requirement for any political or religious administrator from the Fall to the end of the 'middle ages'.

Assuming any of this survives the next round of 'new research' and debate, it means that perhaps any 'Fall' of any large Empire shouldn't be modeled as a Complete Collapse. Perhaps the model of Chinese cycles in which the underlying administrative/production base remains to build from would be more accurate than a catastrophic Everything Goes as we've always assumed for Rome.

What about a "Roman like" development for China, a Han dynasty fall is better capitalized by Turkic and Proto-Mongolic tribes that impose a series of kingdoms over Han populations, while just the eastern-central part of the empire remains in Han control. With the time the northern and western kingdoms turn more Turkc-Mongolized while the southeastern ones develop their own Han derived cultures since they were neither recognized or recovered by the only remainder legitime heirs. Also at the same time a religion like Nestorianism, Manichaeism or some for of Buddhism was successful on the independent kingdoms increasing the gap with the imperial remainder. Later another Japanese invasion take over the remanent "True China" and then all the Japanese, Turkic-Mongolic and Han-derived kingdoms claim the title of "New China" for themselves.
At the same time on these kingdoms start a Renaissance inspired by the Classical Han culture and Cantonese kingdoms start to explore oversea to find new trade routes beyond the Japanese hostile waters.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Two big problems I see with Eras or Ages:
1. The game (and several other games using the concept) relates the Age/Era to Game Progress. Civ changes the actual years/turn with each Age, which means the Entire Game World has to move from Age to Age in lockstep or the entire chronology of the game breaks down.

2. Some of the Ages are defined by specific , usually technological, triggers. Others, though, are Relative: the 'middle ages' fell between the Roman Imperial Golden Age (or at least, highly polished Brass) and the Renaissance. The Renaissance, on the other hand, was a Rebirth after a 'dark age'. Both of these require a specific sequence of previous events to be meaningful, and that sequence includes a loss of progress that is absolutely unacceptable given the game's relentless pursuit of Progress towards a defined set of Victory Conditions. Even if the prior coditions could be defined and programmed into the game, no competitive gamer would allow them to happen and if they happened, not restart immediately. Bluntly, this would be Unacceptable as a Basic Design for a competitive game, IMHO.

Even then. the reckoning date of each Age isn't really something to agree upon by historians. and too often subjected to game dev's discretions. and not even the same.
particularly at the break between Middle Ages and Renaissance/Early Modern.
1. in Civ5 Renaissance begins in 1400 AD
2. in Civ6 it begins at 1350 AD (When Anglo-French 'Hundread Years War' still rages on, actually at an early stage with gunpowder weaponry being tested in the field).
3. Naval Historian marked the breaks at 1450. (roughtly by the time Ottomans took Constantinople and its leader claimed the throne of Old Roman Empire). or later (When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the front of his church building. criticizing Roman Catholic Church of indulgence sales to the core.) citing that
- Carrack is Medieval design
- Caravel is Early Modern design
I don't know who's right and who's wrong.

The other dispuited era breaks is 'When Industrial Era begun'?
(or even how 'Industrial Era' is defined. and wheter did 'Industrialization' and 'Industrial Revolution' are one and same. some wiseman doesn't agree that the two are. since some said any agrarian countries that got foreign industrial investments (non-agroindustry) doesn't considered 'industrialized' without the said country citizens or the governement successfully invented any technology, innovations, or inventions for industry. and this explains why such countries stagnated about a generation later after it has industrial investment booms early.)
1. In Civ5 Industrial Era begins late. about the same time as American Revolution War.
2. In Civ6 it begins VERY early (1725)
3. In Empire Total War it begins at 1700 AD
4. Wikipedia entry said the 'Industrial Era is 1760-1840' . it is 'Four Scores Long' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

Each era has its own military history. and at the Early Modern this is when 'Everyone in the World Meets'. some societies that's still in 'Bronze Age' was either conquered by anyone with guns, OR did a big leap towards 'gunpowder era' without having to restructure its own society and politics. and with its own history it means in one era. a unit may be upgraded MORE THAN ONCE.

Renaissance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Early modern warfare - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And this leaves 'Flintlock Military Era' in limbo. regardless how importance to the world history is (Modern Military is very much takes root from this era, and this includes military traditions of the two major branches (Army and Navy)). it never seems to get correct era settings in any grand 4X games.
1. There's no 'Fusiliers' in Civ5. this unit is represented either as 'Musketeers' or 'Riflemen' despite that this footslogger is a separate unit entirely (And Riflemen is quite a debatable in game designs whether did it deserves a separate unit entirely. since this unit was originally 'Fusiliers' with Minie Rifled Musketry, but it has double, triple, or even quadrouple firepower increases due to rifled standard weapons. and rendered oldschool Gentlemen Cavalry Tactics utterly useless. (It was once useful in the Napoleonic Wars, though some nations, like the United States of Amerca, looks forward in the future and thus not bothering invest their efforts training and maintaining (Enlightenment Era) Fancy Cuirassiers but instead developing gunny dirty ragtag 'Cowboy' cavalry)
2. Civ6 Very Late Patch. There's 'Line Infantry' dressed in the 1850s style uniform (or Late Napoleonics to be earliest, outer coat with no tails, shakoes that later looks like peak cap), this is 'Fusiliers' (one and same actually)
Also in the sea. there are indeed significant naval developments that worths its own 'era'. between 1450s (Caravels, Carracks, and Galleons) and 1860s (Steamships, Ironclads and steelhull vessels), there were naval developments that concurrents with ones on the land. note that warships of 1450s and 1700s are significantly different in shapes and performances. For Example. Felipe II's Gran Armada and English Royal Navy consisted of anything that can carry no bigger than 50 big guns. the biggest being Galleon. While Navy of 1760s have ships that's thrice the lenghts of Galleons.
This means. HMS Victory could easily shred big war galleons of a previous century, yet is not a match to Caio Duilio of 1870. and the same would do if US Navy deployed USS Constitution against Confederate CSS Virginia (itself a rebuilt frigate) in 1862. instead of newly developed USS Monitor.
Then again using era. placement of these units are indeed in limbo or requires its own 'era'.

Actually when should an Earlymodern-Industrial break tooks place? (or even there should be 'an era between' (which only valids for West Europe and Continental America, not anywhere else)
A. 1650 AD
B. 1700 AD
C. 1760 or 1776 AD
D. 1800 AD

The only thing that's clear is that. 'Bombards or Cannons comes BEFORE Musketeers'.
Hope Firaxis got it right next time

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I think each faction having a specific set of requirements to unlock the next era is going too far into asymmetric gameplay. Players shouldn't be constantly needing to look up changing requirements just to advance to a new era.

I agree with that complaint but I think it can - and should - be solved with better UI. For example there is a eureka for killing a unit with a slinger but the build queue adviser does not tell you that and clicking on slinger doesn't show that.

 

[Evie]

I mean, you're starting with the concept of the dates of those era being universal and fixed, and...they just weren't. The reason you're getting multiple dates isn't that a lot of historians are wrong and others are right; it's because historical periods are essentially abstract concepts, not actual finite historical events with objective characteristics. They never actually happened as a finite, distinct event we can put precise dates on; they're a vague notion that we can use for helpful categorization, with definitions that vary around a common consensus depending on the needs of a specific study, the events in a particular region, and so forth. Some may be more common, others less, but few if any of them are actually wrong.

And we still shouldn't go Stone-Bronze-Iron for the eras.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What about a "Roman like" development for China, a Han dynasty fall is better capitalized by Turkic and Proto-Mongolic tribes that impose a series of kingdoms over Han populations, while just the eastern-central part of the empire remains in Han control. With the time the northern and western kingdoms turn more Turkc-Mongolized while the southeastern ones develop their own Han derived cultures since they were neither recognized or recovered by the only remainder legitime heirs. Also at the same time a religion like Nestorianism, Manichaeism or some for of Buddhism was successful on the independent kingdoms increasing the gap with the imperial remainder. Later another Japanese invasion take over the remanent "True China" and then all the Japanese, Turkic-Mongolic and Han-derived kingdoms claim the title of "New China" for themselves.
At the same time on these kingdoms start a Renaissance inspired by the Classical Han culture and Cantonese kingdoms start to explore oversea to find new trade routes beyond the Japanese hostile waters.

Actually, the aristocracy of the Tang Dynasty - post Han - included a large percentage of non-Chinese "Northern Barbarians", they provided a large part of the Tang cavalry forces, including their heavy armored lancers, and their large estates of pasturage for their horses cut so severely into the available land to feed the population that it sparked several peasant revolts. Squint a bit, and it doesn't look too different from the post-Roman situation of the 'Medieval' feudal period in Europe . . .

 

[Marla_Singer]

Marla: Mesoamerica is the biggest problem with a stone-bronze-iron division, though hardly the only one: many civilizations strayed from that progression and yet did not stop advancing. Africa skipped the Bronze age, China remained a bronze civilization into its imperial era, etc. Stone-Bronze-Iron is largely a Mediterranean/Levantine progression, and one that is limited strictly to toolmaking, with very little influence on what other kind of progress or advancement those societies were capable of.

(Prehistoric)-Ancient-Classical is honestly a much better early game progression. It's also arguably the more universal of the two as, while there were significant difference, the concept of a Classical era is found in the historiography of many civilizations across the world: Mesoamerica, China, Japan, etc. It is hardly limited to the Mediterranean region, even if the Mediterranean region inspired it. Likewise though originating terminologically in Europe, the concept of a Medieval/Postclassical era (the two are largely synonymous between Classical and (Early) Modern has made its way through much of history worldwide (shorn, by and large, of the "dark age" aspect).

Renaissance is the trouble child of the Era tree, but most of the rest is quite fine.

My point was to differenciate cultural (or historical events-related) eras from technological eras. Those are entirely different concepts and I insist on that.

Also your point here is different and what you're on is about the technological tree in itself. Should it be universal, same for everyone, or culturally-determined (different for everyone)? Personally, I don't like at all the second option because if technologies developped differently between isolated world regions, it's not because of a cultural determinsm. This is heavily based on geographical features, be that available resources or neighbouring civilizations. Also civilizations were dynamic, some being replaced by others which inherited their knowledge despite being different. Therefore making the game more deterministic would mean going towards something more like Europa Universalis with a single fixed real earth map otherwise it would be very artificial.

Civilization is meant to be played on randomly-generated maps in which History would follow alternative pathes. Why wouldn't it be the Chinese that would skip bronze Age in a different world? Why wouldn't it be Spain which would build canal cities and the Aztecs that would develop the wheel? The fact that you can fight a war as the Babylonians against the Incas isn't a bug in Civilization, it's a feature. That is I believe part of the fun.

Now if your point is that the tech tree should be less certain, adding more random to it, for instance with a system of probabilities determining which of next technologies would be proposed, then that breaks another Civ game principle which is perfect information. I've seen Sid Meier in a conference telling that was already tested out with Civ1, and it didn't work. The game relies heavily on forward-thinking, trying to reach some objectives, that is why you can't resist playing "one-more turn" to see how it will go. If the player does everything to get gunpowder, and gunpowder wouldn't be proposed nonetheless, then all the player's plans are falling apart and it could be potentially game-breaking for him.