First of all, thanks to the OP for the compillation of information.There is a lot to discuss and guess in here. Especially intriguing for me are two pieces that have not been dealt in detail in preview info:
>> Legacy paths, that as presented seem to work as "victory objectives" for the Era. This will, of course, be a more underestandable feature if you play (as Ed says you can) a single-age game. As far as I can tell from the screnshoots and released images (specially
IGN video, as far as I have seen, makes a good tour throug the screens), the further you advance trough the victory/legacy paths for an era, the most bonuses you can add to your "new era" civ (so, "winning" an era may be interesting just be cause of this). I expected many legacy bonuses to be bonuest of "old era" civ that you can retain for your "new era" civ, (would make sense: a triumphant past will be remembered even when the world and ideas changes) but as I have re-checked the videos, the legacy bonues seem pretty generic.
"victory"/legacy path advancement seems as well one of the main factors to push forward the "era bar" towards the inevitable crisis that brings it to an end. As far as i gather of info shared, this would not be the only factor increasing the bar, but I'd bet these "+5 of era progress for all players" in each legacy path milestone are one important driver (and are applied to all players, ensuring all of them see the increase in the era bar at once).
>> And this introduced the second intriguing point: the crisis period. It also makes sense, tematically, that as you approach the "victory" on an era you also trigger the factors that would end it, making it not ony a random event "just because" the timer run out, but the natural order of things, as you become more refined and peak specific heights, the world counter-reacts with the unfathomable events that lead to a crisis. Still to be seen nevertheless if crises have different options and how these options are triggered, but I'd love that this would be dependant. I would love if crises are ideed logically/historically related to the most progressed legacy path. As some example the crisis related when an antiquity cultural path (wonders of the world) is most fulfilled by several players may be internal corruption -"babel tower" mith + satraps and other local governors competing amongst themselves for most beauty, while the crisis associated to a more evolved military path might be internal rebellion (echoing praetorian guard + rebel legion "caesars"), and the crisis effects associated with a more progressed economic legacy could be barbarian invasions... another clear example, on exploration age, having the "plague" crisis linked to the commerce peak, wile revolutionary crises (e.g. french revolution) being associated to scientific progress...). I guess these effects could "stack" in different order as the crisis period intensifies.
I see as well the crisis periods as "intermediate" Ages (Middle Ages from antiquity to exploration, Revolutionary Age from exploration to modern), that are associated to big switches in the way the world is configured (not discounting they use the WorldWar/Cold war period as a crisis age in the future to move to a fourth "Information Era" that moves into future, but this seems expansion material), and -eurocentric or not- tend to have a widespread impact (e.g. things like black plague impacted all eurasia with some years delay, but connected by peak old age trade routes).
Crisis seem as well a sort of rubberband as, altough the negative events will impact everyone, they should probably impact harder those in the lead, making them need to invest some of their advantage on surviving the crisis (not to say crises will not impact other civs, and even that too weak civs may not be able to cope with it and dissapear, but that at the end the one with "200 points" might have lost 100, and the one with "400 points" might have lost 200 (so their difference is reduced from 200 to 100). But it is a rubberband that feels even logical the way history is told (and, if you were the underdog with a different strategy, and the crisis, as comemnted above, is focused on lead civs strategy type, you may even take advantage of the crisis to gain some positions in the leaderbaord).
But there is still to much to see in these mechanics. They have potential for the best and the worst... I'm crossing fingers.
