Prolonged start for civ that may come with an expansion:
The setting:
You start out in 10000 BC. The world is just as it will be in a normal civ game. Two terrain changes are necessary: tundra is changed to glacier that is impassable and desert is savannah. Both will change to its normal tile once the proper game starts.
There is no commerce yield and no production yield in the beginning. Tiles only generate food. There are no barbarians, but wild animals.
The start:
You start out with your basic unit, a gatherer. This unit has 1 movement point and at the end of each turn, it collects food from the tile where it is. You cannot collect food from a tile twice in a row, there is a cooldown until a tile may generate food again. So you are forced to wander around. Your gatherer collects the food you need to generate another gatherer. He does not consume food himself in terms of game mechanics (lets assume he collects enough for himself every turn). Once you have enough food, you can advise your gatherer to produce another one. So now you have two gatherers that produce food and reproduce.
Advancing:
You can also advice your gatherer to spend a turn not gathering food, but creating a (very) small amount of science and culture instead. There are a civic and a tech tree available. The first techs in both are obviously very cheep. One of the first techs is Hunting. It allows your gatherer to be upgraded to a hunter. Hunter cannot gather food and cannot create science or culture. But they can hunt wild animals, that pose a real threat to your gatherers. If the hunt (=kill) a wild animal you receive a one time food boost. So they still create food, but are also your defensive unit. The fishing tech allows hunters to fish in coastal tiles, too.
The hunter is the first of three available specialists in this nomadic era. Two others, the Elder (a culture specialist) and the Inventor (a science specialist) are unlocked very early too. Once they are unlocked, you can upgrade your gatherers to these. They cannot gather food or hunt, but they create science and culture each round when not moving. However, both consume food (maybe not 1 per unit but 0.5). So you need enough gatherers and hutners to support them. With some specialists, you can go through the tech trees. Civics like ceremonial burial increase the culture that is created by Elders. Techs like the throwing spear give a ranged attack to hunters and the fire leads to less food consumed by all units and less food is used to create a new gatherer.
Settling down:
Once you get the techs domestication, agriculture and the civic village life, you can advice a gatherer or hunter to settle down. He then creates a village. Villages have a radius of 1 hex around them as usable tiles, however, they only work their own tile from the beginning. A village sustains itself, but it also produces not more than that. You can advice other gatherers and hunters to settle down adjacent tot he village. They will not create a new village, but a farm that is worked by the village. The village has a food surplus now. You can now advice an Elder or an Inventor to settle in the village. He will now consume some surplus food, but all villagers in the village create culture (or science respectively). Once you have your first village, Elders and Inventors dont create yields any more, only if you settle them down.
Of course it is possible to create more than one village. Its a different strategy if you want to start the proper game with one larger city fast, or a bit behind with 2 or 3 smaller ones.
You can now unlock the city in the science tree. If you research it, you can advice your city to start the project city. This takes a lot of culture and several turnst o finish. Once your are done with it, the proper game starts. Your village becomes your first city, that may already have 3 inhabitants. If you have more cities, you may build the city project in all of them to upgrade them to cities. Your farms remain farms, so you may start with some improved land already. The farms should probably be still bad though.
If you have some units that you didnt settle down, you can now upgrade your hunters to warriors or slingers (if you have reserached the axe and sling technologies). Otherwise they become obsolete, just like surplus gatherers.
All yields (and also all tech requirements) may be very small to not unbalance the later game fundamentally or all later yields should be adapted. There is probably a way to balance it out.
All in all, it shouldnt take a very long time, maybe 10-20 minutes until you reach the first city.
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I have an idea for a prolonged game until 2500 AD, too. But I have trouble with some victory conditions. Well, to be fair, I only have solutions for science and conquest victory, the latter doesnt need a change for my ideas.
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Thoughts? Boring? Pointless? Might be fun?
The setting:
You start out in 10000 BC. The world is just as it will be in a normal civ game. Two terrain changes are necessary: tundra is changed to glacier that is impassable and desert is savannah. Both will change to its normal tile once the proper game starts.
There is no commerce yield and no production yield in the beginning. Tiles only generate food. There are no barbarians, but wild animals.
The start:
You start out with your basic unit, a gatherer. This unit has 1 movement point and at the end of each turn, it collects food from the tile where it is. You cannot collect food from a tile twice in a row, there is a cooldown until a tile may generate food again. So you are forced to wander around. Your gatherer collects the food you need to generate another gatherer. He does not consume food himself in terms of game mechanics (lets assume he collects enough for himself every turn). Once you have enough food, you can advise your gatherer to produce another one. So now you have two gatherers that produce food and reproduce.
Advancing:
You can also advice your gatherer to spend a turn not gathering food, but creating a (very) small amount of science and culture instead. There are a civic and a tech tree available. The first techs in both are obviously very cheep. One of the first techs is Hunting. It allows your gatherer to be upgraded to a hunter. Hunter cannot gather food and cannot create science or culture. But they can hunt wild animals, that pose a real threat to your gatherers. If the hunt (=kill) a wild animal you receive a one time food boost. So they still create food, but are also your defensive unit. The fishing tech allows hunters to fish in coastal tiles, too.
The hunter is the first of three available specialists in this nomadic era. Two others, the Elder (a culture specialist) and the Inventor (a science specialist) are unlocked very early too. Once they are unlocked, you can upgrade your gatherers to these. They cannot gather food or hunt, but they create science and culture each round when not moving. However, both consume food (maybe not 1 per unit but 0.5). So you need enough gatherers and hutners to support them. With some specialists, you can go through the tech trees. Civics like ceremonial burial increase the culture that is created by Elders. Techs like the throwing spear give a ranged attack to hunters and the fire leads to less food consumed by all units and less food is used to create a new gatherer.
Settling down:
Once you get the techs domestication, agriculture and the civic village life, you can advice a gatherer or hunter to settle down. He then creates a village. Villages have a radius of 1 hex around them as usable tiles, however, they only work their own tile from the beginning. A village sustains itself, but it also produces not more than that. You can advice other gatherers and hunters to settle down adjacent tot he village. They will not create a new village, but a farm that is worked by the village. The village has a food surplus now. You can now advice an Elder or an Inventor to settle in the village. He will now consume some surplus food, but all villagers in the village create culture (or science respectively). Once you have your first village, Elders and Inventors dont create yields any more, only if you settle them down.
Of course it is possible to create more than one village. Its a different strategy if you want to start the proper game with one larger city fast, or a bit behind with 2 or 3 smaller ones.
You can now unlock the city in the science tree. If you research it, you can advice your city to start the project city. This takes a lot of culture and several turnst o finish. Once your are done with it, the proper game starts. Your village becomes your first city, that may already have 3 inhabitants. If you have more cities, you may build the city project in all of them to upgrade them to cities. Your farms remain farms, so you may start with some improved land already. The farms should probably be still bad though.
If you have some units that you didnt settle down, you can now upgrade your hunters to warriors or slingers (if you have reserached the axe and sling technologies). Otherwise they become obsolete, just like surplus gatherers.
All yields (and also all tech requirements) may be very small to not unbalance the later game fundamentally or all later yields should be adapted. There is probably a way to balance it out.
All in all, it shouldnt take a very long time, maybe 10-20 minutes until you reach the first city.
--------
I have an idea for a prolonged game until 2500 AD, too. But I have trouble with some victory conditions. Well, to be fair, I only have solutions for science and conquest victory, the latter doesnt need a change for my ideas.
--------
Thoughts? Boring? Pointless? Might be fun?
