Help with names of era!

[Steph]

I've difficulty deciding for the names of my era and subperiod. The dates are just guidelines, and shouldn't be seen to stritcly.

I know it's very Eurocentric, but I cannot make civ specific tech trees, it wouldn't work well enough.


So, if you have better suggestions?

Era 1: "Age of metal"
- Early Bronze / Late Bronze = 2000 BC - 800 BC
- Early Iron / Late Iron = 800 BC - 300 AD
- Early Dark Ages / Late Dark Ages = 300 AD - 900 AD
- Early medieval = 900 AD - 1200 AD
- Late medieval = 1200 AD - 1450 AD

Era 2 : "Age of gunpowder"
- Renaissance : 1450- 1550
- 16th century : 1550- 1630
- 17th : 1630- 1720
- Early 18th: 1720-1760
- Late 18th: 1760-1790
- Napoleonic : 1790-1820

Era3 : "Industrial age"
- Early 19th:1820-1850
- Mid 19th: 1850-1880
- LAte 19th: 1880-1910
- WWI : 1910-1925
- Inter-war: 1925-1939
- WWII : 1939-1945

Era4: "Modern age"
- Early cold war: "1945-1960"
- Cold war : "1960-1975"
- Modern "1975-1990"
- Advanced "1990-2015"

 

[Vuldacon]

Looks Good to me Steph unless you reword to "Metal Age" and perhaps "Age of Firearms" but these are basically the same.

 

[Babylon746]

To me, it looks like you should have allround era names, not focused on what weapons were made of. You have that for the 3rd and 4th era (Industrial and Modern Age), but the two others sound odd with it.
I suggest Separated/Segregated Worlds for the 1st era. In the Ancient Age and especially in the Middle Ages, people (first and foremost in Europe) knew very little to nothing about the other continents. It was a bit better for Asian nations, but not that much.
The 2nd era could be named Age of Discovery, but with the Napoleonic wars in it that is a bit off, too.

 

[Ozymandias]

If you want to go by weapons systems, how about:

Era 1: Age Of Melee
Era 2: Age Of Gunpowder
Era 3: (Sorry, I can't think of a commonality spanning 1820 - 1945)
Era 4: Nuclear Age


If by socio-economic-technological:

Era 1: Age Of Metallurgy -OR- Age Of Monarchs
Era 2: Age Of Discovery -OR- Wooden Ships & Iron Men
Era 3: Age Of Total War -OR- Age Of Coal & Oil
Era 4: (Modern Age)

Hope that helps.

-Oz

 

[AndrewG]

You could change "Age of Metal" to "Pre-Industrial Era". "Ancient" could also work, though setting 1450 as ancient could be a stretch.

You might want to divide "Age of Gunpowder" and "Industrial Age" into "Early Industrial" or "Early Modern" and "Late Industrial/Modern" eras.

Age of Discovery or Age of Exploration is also good as a replacement for Age of Gunpowder. Actually, Age of Discovery is pretty good since it covers both military (colonialism) and science/philosophy (Rennaissance and the Enlightenment).

 

[Deth McBones]

The first one could be "Ancient Empires" or "Age of Empires."

 

[Quinzy]

Ancient and Middle Ages
Early Modern Period
Industrial Age
Atomic Age
?

 

[Civinator]

It´s interesting, that now all era-names of CCM are listed in these posts:

Era 1: Ancient Empires
Era 2: Age of Discovery
Era 3: Industrial Ages
Era 4: Atomic Age

 

[Huayna Capac357]

1. Age of Faith
2. Age of Reason
3. Age of Materialism (or Age of Machines)
4. Age of Globalism (or Age of Computers)

 

[Plotinus]

Why not just call them what they are -

(1) Ancient and medieval
(2) Early modern
(3) Modern
(4) Contemporary

 

[AncientOne]

To the point that fourth era can not be Modern: at least in the 60s started such things as post-modern movements and soon name information age was added to that.

 

[Ondskan]

I think you need a clear goal of what you're trying to achive.
I belive you've noted earlier that you're not trying to achive a world that resembles todays but a world that you can shape to your own liking? The only thing that will be similiar to our world is the starting civilizations and the starting techs, right?


As we know for example the Aztecs and Incas took a wastly different path than we did in western europe during the same time yet both civilizations if one may call them that were quite advanced.


Thus I suggest you do not get stuck in thoughts such as "world war 1" or "cold war".
I guess what you need are 4 different names for 4 different epoches in human history.


Why not simply call them:

The First Age
The Second Age
The Third Age
The Final Age, alternatively the Fourth Age. (Noting at perhaps the spaceprogram/MAD/increasing pollution - then again we weren't to limit ourselves to our world so I belive the Fourth Age would be better).


If you'd like to add a spark then why not:

The First Age - The Age of Toolworking. (From 2000BC - 1200 AD - Different materials are tried, different tools are invented)
The Second Age - The Age of Exploration (1200 AD - 1750 AD - The whole world was more or less explored t'll this time except the poles and areas of Australia. First exploration begun in 1200 with China and Europe connecting and South and North America connecting)
The Third Age - The Age of Ideas (1750-1945 AD - A boost if ideas, many of them conflicting. An experimental stage in which many theories were tried out. Both Scientific and Political/Social).
The Fourth Age - The Age of Technology (1945+)


Sounds good?

Ohhh and about the Civ Specific Techs. I agree. that would just be a mess.
That is why I suggest you further develope the idea of Civ 4 in which you did not need both techs to sometimes reach an important tech. I don't remember a clear example but here's a more abstract one.

For the bunny to get to the carrot he may choose one of two or even three paths depending on the bunnies personality that is defined with very simple AI rules as done in Civ 3: Aggressive(Look for military techs, build military units, perform aggressive diplomacy, make alliances), builder(build, grow, work for the benifit of longterm economy and techs helping that), explorer(explore, seek short-term profit, create good diplomatic bonds with everyone, look for techs that make your civilization diverse) etc. Then simply add scripts to each tech which would in most cases fit what civ. Also some techs might fit a civ more or less depending on its traits and such. Each match generates 1 point. Each complete missmatch generates -1 point. The tech with most points generated through the selection system is then selected by the AI to be researched.

One path is perhaps filled with alot of dangerous obstacles and going through that path will improve the Bunny's Ninja skills.
An other is arid and going through that path will improve the Bunny's agricultural skills.
Going through a third is very unique for the Bunny and it will improve its learning abilities.


In the end all three paths in this specific example lead to the main goal for that age. The Carrots!


So what I suggest is simply several different paths of technology which you and the AI may pick that at certain chokepoints get interlocked through special, very important techs.

Simply Civ 4 further developed?

 

[Mithadan]

Why not just call them what they are -

(1) Ancient and medieval
(2) Early modern
(3) Modern
(4) Contemporary

That's what I do, more or less:

1. Antiquity
2. Medieval Times
3. Modernity
4. Postmodernity

 

[Balthasar]

I think, Steph, that after reading all of the already suggested alternatives, your original era names are pretty good, except that I would change "Age of Metal" to "Age of Iron". Of course, I can't help add an era list of my own. I break it into five eras:

1. Age of Gods & Empires (? to 700 A.D.)
2. The Middle Ages: Kings, Popes, and Warlords (700 to 1450 AD)
3. New World: The Age of Discovery (1450 - 1830 AD)
4. The Industrial Age: Invention & Expansion (1830 - 1945 AD)
5. The Electronic Age: Globalism & Challenge (1945 - Present)

Edit:

Then again, there's the peasant's view of history:

Era 1: Sh*t outdoors, slavery, Greeks buggering everyone
Era 2: Sh*t outdoors, slavery, serfdom, random priests buggering everyone
Era 3: Sh*t in smelly shacks, poverty, slavery, random armies buggering everyone
Era 4: Sh*t indoors, slums, economic slavery, politicians buggering everyone

 

[Boss Tweed]

I'm not as clever on the names as everyone here is, but one thing I think might make them have a better ring to them is if they're all named the same way...

like them all be "Age of _______" or "________ Age" rather than a mix of the two.

 

[Steph]

Finally the name will be:
Ancient & Medieval
Renaissance & Enlightment
Industrial ages
Modern age

And I have created the first era tech tree. I now need to add icons and set the cost.

I plan to make first a version with only the first era and a dozen civs.