How would you like civ7 divided into eras?

Sexual things shouldn't be put in the game, civ isn't a sex game. How would you even model the sexual revolution in Civ? "Birth control has been invented, now your cities take 4 times as long to grow?" By modern times, cities are usually done growing in Civ games anyway.
Sexual revolution mean gender indentity, open artistic expression and professional developtment without prejudices. In game can be representad by bonus to cultural yield or science since more women started to get involved in the academies. Even just plain happiness* would add value to it.
 
Well Civ 6 has a separate Civics tree for cultural advancements, which can also help you reach a new era. It's not just with science anymore.

Oh you know, I did forget about the social policies from Civ 5 too. Well, yeah, you're right.

Maybe there could be a separate system of Artistic eras to reflect progress through the culture tree?
 
Sexual revolution mean gender indentity, open artistic expression and professional developtment without prejudices. In game can be representad by bonus to cultural yield or science since more women started to get involved in the academies. Even just plain happiness* would add value to it.
And this should be in Civ 7 because?

I wouldn't say that happiness, culture, or science are higher today than they were in 1950. I mean, look at how politically polarized the USA is these days, we're one disputed election away from an outright civil war.

Women are, on average, less happy today than they were 50 years ago (https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/...son_ParadoxDecliningFemaleHappiness_Dec08.pdf)

The golden age for scientific research and inventions was the 1940s-70s

Modern culture is, in many ways, worse than culture was decades ago, I mean compare this (warning: profanity)


To this

 
And this should be in Civ 7 because?

I wouldn't say that happiness, culture, or science are higher today than they were in 1950. I mean, look at how politically polarized the USA is these days, we're one disputed election away from an outright civil war.

Women are, on average, less happy today than they were 50 years ago (https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/...son_ParadoxDecliningFemaleHappiness_Dec08.pdf)

The golden age for scientific research and inventions was the 1940s-70s

Modern culture is, in many ways, worse than culture was decades ago, I mean compare this (warning: profanity)


To this

Of course, under 1950's social conventions, "Bobby Shmurda," would be made to sit at the back of the bus, make half of his White counterpart's wages at work, and denied service because of race by any private business that wished to, and women would be denied a lot of legal protections and rights that are taken for granted today, many just given to either her father or husband.
 
Oh you know, I did forget about the social policies from Civ 5 too. Well, yeah, you're right.

Maybe there could be a separate system of Artistic eras to reflect progress through the culture tree?

Realism Invictus actually does have a pretty good implementation of this. I understand that you advanced players of the base game aren't necessarily interested in mods for your regular play of 'IV, but I think it has value for a hypothetical game design discussion. It's not a perfect system (inasmuch as any mod is inherently confined by the original game's engine, after all) but I think it's a huge step in the right direction.

In the mod (and I'm not sure if you already know this, but in case you don't), there are 3 features of eras, instead of them being purely aesthetic as in vanilla: modifiers associated with the actual era change as it normally occurs, art eras, and definitions of statehood contingent upon the era in play.

When you enter a new era, both unhappiness and unhealthiness increase by one, reflected in the city screen with "We're not as happy/healthy as our forefathers!" I like how this loosely integrates an "instability from era shift" while having something of a realistic basis in truth. Even if not literally true in every case, the perceived nostalgia is definitely a real phenomenon, and there's a pretty good case to be made that continued urbanization and modernization haven't been inherently positive influences on public health. At the same time, each era offers even greater ways of increasing both health and happiness, so it's mostly about timing a slightly rough transition than punishing a sense of progress, which still occurs per all of the novelty of the new era.

There are also art eras reached within each proper game era, with a small infrastructure requirement. So, when you research drama and build a certain number of theaters, "classical art" becomes a buildable "idea/project" which boosts culture output in all cities by 10%. Likewise for the other iconic (usually Eurocentric, but oh well) artistic movements throughout history. The same tech which unlocks the building prerequisite for the art era project also unlocks several "great works of art" which are like wonders inasmuch as their availability is first come, first serve, and they are only unlockable by great artists. These replace the culture bomb of the base game, and instead output somewhat more culture than simply settling the artist (and also come with an additional token bonus for flavor and to distinguish them from one another), but the drawback is that they eventually expire, so that you have to make a strategic "now vs. later" choice, kind of like whether or not to wait for a math chop. It's a relatively simple work-in altogether, but it adds a lot of flavor (for instance, when you build the great works, you get a splash screen showing them IRL :) ) and a nice "feel" like, "Hey, my civilization just reached baroque art, and is now outputting just slightly more culture than those renaissance guys, all else being equal."

With revolutions and separatism (probably my favorite feature) being worked into RI, there are now notifications you get for a changed "definition of statehood," which is determined by the average number of civs having reached the associated era, rounded down. This definitely prevents era shifts from being purely aesthetic, since modifiers for separatism become typically become more and more punishing until the modern era (when "the end of history" occurs), but also modeled to reflect the driving historical forces of the associated time. So, for instance, the "age of faith" definition associated with the medieval era has the negative separatism influence from foreign religion greatly increased, while nationalism in the industrial reduces this aspect significantly, with foreign culture instead representing a huge domestic threat to stability. You use a combination of garrison strength, espionage, domestic culture, and certain civics to fight separatism, while these things' opposites as well as unhappiness and unhealthiness work against you. Really it's an incredibly depth-enhancing dynamic and I think Civ 7 should include something along these lines. There are some engine limitations with 4 which keep it from being seamless, but conceptually it's an excellent mechanic, IMO.
 
I wouldn't say that happiness, culture, or science are higher today than they were in 1950.
- Science objetively is. There are more educated people, specialist working on science, more researchs, patents and economic value in them than never before.
- Culture is subjetive but in CIV terms as a medium to expand influence over others like turism, mass media and big entertaiment projects it is also. Whatever some people dislike the "quality" of current most popular cultural productions they are being produced in mass for global markets.
- Happiness with all its vagueness and standardization problems it still shows a trend to improve in the long term world wide. A global pandemic, autocrat's invasions, the regular economic problems and even a year of bad weather are not so different from others low points in a 7 decades graph.

I mean, look at how politically polarized the USA is these days, we're one disputed election away from an outright civil war.
The world is not USA, neither USA have the best indices of gender parity, sexual rights and diversity. As a whole the countries with more sexual freedom have also better HDI and happiness. Also, are we supposed to blame sexual revolution for USA polarization? And even if sexual revolution is "le bad thing" the game let you play as fascist and communist, why some "civilization destroyer" ideologies are good to play and others not?

Women are, on average, less happy today than they were 50 years ago (https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/...son_ParadoxDecliningFemaleHappiness_Dec08.pdf)
The article itself explain the problems about their premise. Apart of the problems to measure happiness in a long term and world wide along different cultures, education, economy, etc. There are some possible reasons for these:
- Old ways gives women a more "simple" objetive, marry and be a good housewife and mother. So the initial goal was easy (marry) to achieve and the long term role included a level of selfness that even self sensured most of the complains and unhappiness.
- Now women have a society (goverment and media) that said them "You are equal! You can (MUST) be as sucessful as any men" but in reality huge part of the system still have prejudices againts them at the point that want a mix of the old ways "female role" plus the new socio-economic pressure from the "male role".
These new generations of women are still under sexist double standars but now they can demostrate that frustration more openly. Also what about the fall of women suicides, these old housewifes werent so happy after all :sad:

So, women lost "happiness" in relation to men even with sexual revolution but try to built a society with the same socio-economic pressure for women and men but with official sexual liberties only for heterosexual men, you can be sure that neither women of other men would be happier in that brazenly unequal society.
The golden age for scientific research and inventions was the 1940s-70s
The same above about science, inventions are the aplication of the understanding about nature's phenomena, basic/general concepts should not overshadown the current development in the tuning, aplication and interconnection of those principles.

Modern culture is, in many ways, worse than culture was decades ago, I mean compare this (warning: profanity)


To this

A terrible song to justify the fail of sexual revolution is like use a lone shooter as the fail of gun owning rights.
60's Rock and all that come from it is deeply related to the Sexual Revolution (rock bands like the ones in CIV6 :mischief:)
So Billy Joel? Like this...
 
Last edited:
Of course, under 1950's social conventions, "Bobby Shmurda," would be made to sit at the back of the bus, make half of his White counterpart's wages at work, and denied service because of race by any private business that wished to, and women would be denied a lot of legal protections and rights that are taken for granted today, many just given to either her father or husband.
We've merely traded in one set of societal problems for another. The 2020s have some positive aspects the 1950s lacked, but the same is true vice versa, and none of it's really relevant to Civ games, since by 1950, in most civ games, you already know if you are winning or losing the game. Even RFC and DOC, which are historically based and go into the 21st century, don't really have civil rights, the sexual revolution, any of that, because it doesn't improve the game to put it in.
- Science objetively is. There are more educated people, specialist working on science, more researchs, patents and economic value in them than never before.
- Culture is subjetive but in CIV terms as a medium to expand influence over others like turism, mass media and big entertaiment projects it is also. Whatever some people dislike the "quality" of current most popular cultural productions they are being produced in mass for global markets.
- Happiness with all its vagueness and standardization problems it still shows a trend to improve in the long term world wide. A global pandemic, autocrat's invasions, the regular economic problems and even a year of bad weather are not so different from others low points in a 7 decades graph.
- Most of the major scientific discoveries are decades in the past
- Quality over quantity
- The paper I linked to you about women's happiness decreasing in the past decades predates those things.
The world is not USA, neither USA have the best indices of gender parity, sexual rights and diversity. As a whole the countries with more sexual freedom have also better HDI and happiness. Also, are we supposed to blame sexual revolution for USA polarization? And even if sexual revolution is "le bad thing" the game let you play as fascist and communist, why some "civilization destroyer" ideologies are good to play and others not?
Because the sexual revolution was not a form of government. You can play as fascists, communists, etc...because those were forms of government. Civ, as a game, is about macro-level stuff like empires, armies, cities, not micro-level stuff like sex, dating, etc...
The article itself explain the problems about their premise. Apart of the problems to measure happiness in a long term and world wide along different cultures, education, economy, etc. There are some possible reasons for these:
- Old ways gives women a more "simple" objetive, marry and be a good housewife and mother. So the initial goal was easy (marry) to achieve and the long term role included a level of selfness that even self sensured most of the complains and unhappiness.
- Now women have a society (goverment and media) that said them "You are equal! You can (MUST) be as sucessful as any men" but in reality huge part of the system still have prejudices againts them at the point that want a mix of the old ways "female role" plus the new socio-economic pressure from the "male role".
These new generations of women are still under sexist double standars but now they can demostrate that frustration more openly. Also what about the fall of women suicides, these old housewifes werent so happy after all :sad:
Or maybe being a wage slave in a corporate office is a less fulfilling way to spend your life than raising a family? Even though I'm male, I would have much rather been a 50s housewife than a modern office worker.
Women's rate of committing suicide is only slightly higher, and is still a fraction of the male suicide rate.
So, women lost "happiness" in relation to men even with sexual revolution but try to built a society with the same socio-economic pressure for women and men but with official sexual liberties only for heterosexual men, you can be sure that neither women of other men would be happier in that brazenly unequal society.
The sexual revolution also decreased marriage rates, depriving many people, both male and female, of the stability a marriage brings. Yes, I know, going out to the clubs and hooking up with a different person every night is more exciting than being married with kids, but it is less fulfilling in the long run.
The same above about science, inventions are the aplication of the understanding about nature's phenomena, basic/general concepts should not overshadown the current development in the tuning, aplication and interconnection of those principles.


A terrible song to justify the fail of sexual revolution is like use a lone shooter as the fail of gun owning rights.
60's Rock and all that come from it is deeply related to the Sexual Revolution (rock bands like the ones in CIV6 :mischief:)
So Billy Joel? Like this...
The song had nothing to do with the sexual revolution, I was using it to point out that we have deteriorated culturally.
 
Women's rate of committing suicide is only slightly higher, and is still a fraction of the male suicide rate.
Dentists, as a profession, have an inordinately high suicide rate. Would anyone argue, though, that modern dentistry is not a definite improvement to the standard of modern living. My point is, statistics can be manipulated, and not necessarily take into account WHY these things are so, but to make assumptions that it must back one's current point because the raw numbers are there.
 
And this should be in Civ 7 because?

I wouldn't say that happiness, culture, or science are higher today than they were in 1950. I mean, look at how politically polarized the USA is these days, we're one disputed election away from an outright civil war.

Women are, on average, less happy today than they were 50 years ago (https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/...son_ParadoxDecliningFemaleHappiness_Dec08.pdf)

The golden age for scientific research and inventions was the 1940s-70s

Modern culture is, in many ways, worse than culture was decades ago, I mean compare this (warning: profanity)


To this


Well in my own county of Poland which doesn't care that much about foreign declining states, I despise old cultural approaches of sexuality and gender just as much as I despise golden music from 50s - 80s in favour of modern music, especially rap which is my favourite genre, so I guess at least my personal happiness and perception of Polish civilization is much better in 21st century than it would be in that damned 20th with all misery that happened during it.

Which collision of views, I think, portrays how hard to measure, sort of vague, controversial sociopolitical/philosophical topics and claims, with perceptions heavily varying between individuals probably shouldn't be portrayed as objective stuff ingame, or really maybe game should avoid such topics in general. For all my fascination with intersectional feminism and feminist history/anthropology, I don't think there is much point in putting cultural wars and modern political arguments in historical strategy video games, nor is this part of forum very good at discussing them.
 
Well in my own county of Poland which doesn't care that much about foreign declining states, I despise old cultural approaches of sexuality and gender just as much as I despise golden music from 50s - 80s in favour of modern music, especially rap which is my favourite genre, so I guess at least my personal happiness and perception of Polish civilization is much better in 21st century than it would be in that damned 20th with all misery that happened during it.

Which collision of views, I think, portrays how hard to measure, sort of vague, controversial sociopolitical/philosophical topics and claims, with perceptions heavily varying between individuals probably shouldn't be portrayed as objective stuff ingame, or really maybe game should avoid such topics in general. For all my fascination with intersectional feminism and feminist history/anthropology, I don't think there is much point in putting cultural wars and modern political arguments in historical strategy video games, nor is this part of forum very good at discussing them.
Digressing sidenote - rap would not exist if it were not for jazz, blues, R&B, soul, Motown, disco, small club techno, and old school rap, itself, all from the '50's to '80's period (or earlier, in some cases) of music you so disparage.

That being said, I do not believe that the 20th Century or the 21st Century (thus far) can be accurately said to have one be BETTER, objectively, in social and lifestyle matters - it's all a matter of trade-off's, and depends on more than simple dichotomies and metrics, but is much more nitty-gritty, and tied to individual world view and taste.
 
It's interesting to me how assertions of oftentimes very arbitrary metrics of social liberation tend to assume a trump card over even the hypothetical possibility of greater individual happiness in their absence.
 
Dentists, as a profession, have an inordinately high suicide rate. Would anyone argue, though, that modern dentistry is not a definite improvement to the standard of modern living. My point is, statistics can be manipulated, and not necessarily take into account WHY these things are so, but to make assumptions that it must back one's current point because the raw numbers are there.
If I had to stick my fingers in other people's mouths all day, I'm not sure I would enjoy life, either.
Well in my own county of Poland which doesn't care that much about foreign declining states, I despise old cultural approaches of sexuality and gender just as much as I despise golden music from 50s - 80s in favour of modern music, especially rap which is my favourite genre, so I guess at least my personal happiness and perception of Polish civilization is much better in 21st century than it would be in that damned 20th with all misery that happened during it.
Well, obviously, Poland wasn't a very pleasant place in the 1939-1989 era. I fully agree with you on that, but from my own vantage point, in my own country, given my own demographic characteristics, I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have been better off in the 50s than I am today. Sure, other people, both in my country, and in other countries, would have been worse off then, but not me.
I just wish we could get back to the days of bipartisanship and consensus politics, and to a culture with better values and aesthetics. Gangsta rap is a huge drop off the cliff of quality compared to classic rock, and decades ago, there was more bipartisanship, and less radicalism on both sides.
Which collision of views, I think, portrays how hard to measure, sort of vague, controversial sociopolitical/philosophical topics and claims, with perceptions heavily varying between individuals probably shouldn't be portrayed as objective stuff ingame, or really maybe game should avoid such topics in general. For all my fascination with intersectional feminism and feminist history/anthropology, I don't think there is much point in putting cultural wars and modern political arguments in historical strategy video games, nor is this part of forum very good at discussing them.
Agreed. The "Ideology" thing in Civ 5, with fascism, democracy, and communism is as close to current politics as I want the game to get.
 
Agreed. The "Ideology" thing in Civ 5, with fascism, democracy, and communism is as close to current politics as I want the game to get
I would love to have an expansion of that system to 5 ideologies, or 1 ideology tree for however many victory types are in the game. There’s more that can be said about modern ideological movements than boiling it down to those 3:
- Freedom (classical liberalism/social democracy)
- Equality (Communism/Command Economy)
- Strength (Fascism/Militarism)
- Prosperity (Libertarianism/Technocracy)
- Piety (Conservatism/Theocracy)

Edit: could maybe even have an anarchism m/post nationalism tree, though that one would be more speculative and harder to support with civ gameplay.
 
- Most of the major scientific discoveries are decades in the past
- Quality over quantity
- The paper I linked to you about women's happiness decreasing in the past decades predates those things.
1- Again, you are ignoring the development process that explain why some periods produced more milestones. Science (non-social that are their onw thing in CIV) works over the limitation of the natural laws, people can not just create infinite amounts of "major" (subjetive) discoveries.
2- Ignore the new applications, abundant, deeper, more accessible and efficient science and techs in the recent decades is contrary to their role in both CIV and real life.
3- You are also losing the point about the bonus for more science yield, in game science is not just the techs but also about how to produce it.

Because the sexual revolution was not a form of government. You can play as fascists, communists, etc...because those were forms of government. Civ, as a game, is about macro-level stuff like empires, armies, cities, not micro-level stuff like sex, dating, etc...
The original mention of "sexual revolution" by Krajzen was in the definition of the era that start around 60's, your negative about this in game should be understood as part of the government+culture (civics, etc.) system and was justified by their "negative" effects of sexual revolution in real life.
My point was that the government+culture in civ already include "negative" elements, also civics represent below goverment social elements that had significative impact in history.
You yourself are indicating some examples of the impact of sexual revolution so it fit as an element that could be significative enough to be represented in game.

Or maybe being a wage slave in a corporate office is a less fulfilling way to spend your life than raising a family? Even though I'm male, I would have much rather been a 50s housewife than a modern office worker.
Women's rate of committing suicide is only slightly higher, and is still a fraction of the male suicide rate.
The sexual revolution also decreased marriage rates, depriving many people, both male and female, of the stability a marriage brings. Yes, I know, going out to the clubs and hooking up with a different person every night is more exciting than being married with kids, but it is less fulfilling in the long run.
So, lets make in game corporations decrese happiness :rolleyes: You said it "civ is not about dating" so contemporary era dont care about each citizen personal life it care about the production boost provided.

The song had nothing to do with the sexual revolution, I was using it to point out that we have deteriorated culturally.
Again, sexual revolution is closely related to the development of Rock music (also in game). Cherrypicking an awful recent "rap" when talking about sexual rights is force a negative relation while ignoring their more possitive cultural weight that could perfectly be represented as a bonus in game.
 
1- Again, you are ignoring the development process that explain why some periods produced more milestones. Science (non-social that are their onw thing in CIV) works over the limitation of the natural laws, people can not just create infinite amounts of "major" (subjetive) discoveries.
2- Ignore the new applications, abundant, deeper, more accessible and efficient science and techs in the recent decades is contrary to their role in both CIV and real life.
3- You are also losing the point about the bonus for more science yield, in game science is not just the techs but also about how to produce it.


The original mention of "sexual revolution" by Krajzen was in the definition of the era that start around 60's, your negative about this in game should be understood as part of the government+culture (civics, etc.) system and was justified by their "negative" effects of sexual revolution in real life.
My point was that the government+culture in civ already include "negative" elements, also civics represent below goverment social elements that had significative impact in history.
You yourself are indicating some examples of the impact of sexual revolution so it fit as an element that could be significative enough to be represented in game.


So, lets make in game corporations decrese happiness :rolleyes: You said it "civ is not about dating" so contemporary era dont care about each citizen personal life it care about the production boost provided.


Again, sexual revolution is closely related to the development of Rock music (also in game). Cherrypicking an awful recent "rap" when talking about sexual rights is force a negative relation while ignoring their more possitive cultural weight that could perfectly be represented as a bonus in game.
Even if I didn't see the social/cultural "developments" of the last 60 years as negative, I still don't think they are relevant to the Civ game.
 
Centering back to the thread topic, I've been studying Neolithic recently and realized an impressive amount of knowledge was accumulated over the period. As a matter of fact, writing was first invented for accounting needs in order to keep track of an already developed trading and manufacturing society, making of it more an ending point than a starting point. Writing is key to Historians as it allowed keeping track of what actually happened, but it's not because we are more ignorant about what happened earlier that it means nothing happened.

For some times now, I've been working on a more economically-focused version of a "Civilization" game, and as a matter of fact, a significant number of trading yields were developed before writing. Trying to build a tech tree, I actually needed to start it much earlier than I thought, at the end of paleolithic in 20,000 BCE. Here's a little summary of the early ages I defined for my needs.
  • Paleolithic (starting point)
    Hunting, Gathering, Fishing, Spirits
  • Mesolithic (first techs to be discovered)
    Archery, Carpentry, Pottery, Pirogue, Mysticism
  • Neolithic
    Agriculture, Animal husbandry, Mining, Meditation, Polytheism
  • Chalcolithic
    Masonry, Tanning, Gastronomy, Fermentation, Weaving loom, Smoking
  • Bronze Age
    Bronze working, Wheel, Writing, Sailing, Monotheism
  • Iron Age
    Iron working, Horseback riding, Mathematics, Code of laws, Monarchy
  • Classical Age
    Construction, Currency, Calendar, Map making, Philosophy, Drama, Theology
I would already be glad if I succeed making a playable prototype to that point so I haven't really thought what to do next. :lol:

Recent studies based on genetics and linguistics allow us to much better track demographic change which happened since 10,000 BCE. It appears clear that agriculture developed in Anatolia has lead to a first demographic booming. Other successive demographic boomings happened at Bronze Age and at Iron Age, massively changing the demographics in Europe, Asia and Africa.
 
Inspired by Marla's post, I also think there's plenty of room to expand in the opposite direction – i.e. the future.

At the moment, the future era in Civ VI is pretty haphazard, dragging it's feet in some ways (when it comes to units like machine guns and helicopters for example, or "future tech") but taking huge leaps in others (giant death robots, interplanetary missions, seasteads, etc.).

I think something worth thinking about is splitting this into two separate, more detailed eras.

The Near-Future era
  • This would represent the upcoming decades, maybe to 2050 or so.
  • It would encompass a lot of nascent or impending technologies, for example:
    • quantum computing and communications
    • automated or predictive supply chains
    • blockchain
    • next-generation network infrastructure, and the Internet-of-Things
    • advanced manufacturing
    • virtual/augmented realities
    • brain-computer interfaces
    • space tourism and habitation
    • precision medicine and genetic therapies
    • 'smart' and/or 'super' materials
    • energy transition and decarbonisation
    • maglev trains
    • direct-energy weapons
    • hypersonic missiles
    • advanced stealth composites
  • And potentially more far-fetched advancements like:
    • fusion reactors
    • general AI
    • species de-extinction
    • theories for gravity and/or dark matter
    • advanced recycling (plastic reclamation, waste gasification, etc)
    • 'smart' currencies
    • active camouflage (e.g. cloaking)
    • oceanic habitats (seasteads, basically)
    • space habitats, industrialisation (such as asteroid prospecting), or even militarisation (with the potential for orbital weapons or troop deployments if not outlawed)
    • space elevators (could begin during this era at least, requiring a smart/super materials tech)
    • universal basic incomes (more of a civic really)
  • It would also be the era where climate change (if it occurs to the same extent as real-life) would begin to exert some severe effects, causing widespread droughts, floods, polar melting, extinctions, refugee crises, etc.
  • Units for this era would comprise the last generation of human combatants, interspersed with considerable automation:
    • High-tech ground forces with exoskeletons, drones (land and air, potentially including drone swarms and microdrone scouts), advanced sensors and communication networks, 'optionally-manned' support weapons, etc.
    • A combination of manned and unmanned vehicles – futuristic tanks and IFVs, next-generation aircraft/ships with autonomous wingmen, 'smartillery', etc.
The Far-Future era
  • This would encompass the years beyond 2050.
  • It would encompass more out-there concepts, for example:
    • anything from the "far-fetched" list in the above Near-Future section
    • a 'theory of everything'
    • automated workforces
    • advanced cybernetics (including brain, organ and sensory implants... basically transhumanism)
    • decentralised fabrication (printing whatever you want, whenever you want)
    • advanced nanotechnologies
    • cryonics, therapeutic rejuvenation, or even immortality
    • extensive space infrastructure – energy relays, orbital superweapons (if not outlawed), large orbital habitats (around Earth, potentially the Moon or even Mars), even Dyson swarms maybe
    • interstellar travel (so a colony ship, if the game needs to have one)
    • antimatter reactors
  • Unless mitigated, climate change impacts would be at their most pronounced here. Basically the previous era but worse – huge swathes of coastal territory underseas, severe droughts, floods and heatwaves, high risk of ecological collapse, etc.
  • Units for this era would be entirely automated, for example:
    • Androids and/or non-humanoid combat drones
    • Nanite smart-clouds
    • Where vehicles still exist, they are entirely automated, far smaller and sleeker, and may be capable of replication (of themselves, or of subservient drones) in the field
    • If we absolutely need to have a GDR, it goes here
As an aside to this, future eras could also bring the chance of 'superdisasters' that act as late-game crises and disruptors. For example, cosmic threats (such as asteroids, solar ejections or gamma ray bursts) or just souped-up natural disasters (like magnetic pole reversal, or a Yellowstone/supervolcanic eruption event).

These detailed future eras could also very easily arrive in the form of DLC that appends the existing game, which may be highly attractive from a developer viewpoint.

Maybe I'll make this a separate post at some point.
 
Last edited:
Inspired by Marla's post, I also think there's plenty of room to expand in the opposite direction – i.e. the future.

At the moment, the future era in Civ VI is pretty haphazard, dragging it's feet in some ways (when it comes to units like machine guns and helicopters for example, or "future tech") but taking huge leaps in others (giant death robots, interplanetary missions, seasteads, etc.).

I think something worth thinking about is splitting this into two separate, more detailed eras.

The Near-Future era
  • This would represent the upcoming decades, maybe to 2050 or so.
  • It would encompass a lot of nascent or impending technologies, for example:
    • quantum computing and communications
    • automated or predictive supply chains
    • blockchain
    • next-generation network infrastructure, and the Internet-of-Things
    • advanced manufacturing
    • virtual/augmented realities
    • brain-computer interfaces
    • space tourism and habitation
    • precision medicine and genetic therapies
    • 'smart' and/or 'super' materials
    • energy transition and decarbonisation
    • maglev trains
    • direct-energy weapons
    • hypersonic missiles
    • advanced stealth composites
  • And potentially more far-fetched advancements like:
    • fusion reactors
    • general AI
    • species de-extinction
    • theories for gravity and/or dark matter
    • advanced recycling (plastic reclamation, waste gasification, etc)
    • 'smart' currencies
    • active camouflage (e.g. cloaking)
    • oceanic habitats (seasteads, basically)
    • space habitats, industrialisation (such as asteroid prospecting), or even militarisation (with the potential for orbital weapons or troop deployments if not outlawed)
    • space elevators (could begin during this era at least, requiring a smart/super materials tech)
    • universal basic incomes (more of a civic really)
  • It would also be the era where climate change (if it occurs to the same extent as real-life) would begin to exert some severe effects, causing widespread droughts, floods, polar melting, extinctions, refugee crises, etc.
  • Units for this era would comprise the last generation of human combatants, interspersed with considerable automation:
    • High-tech ground forces with exoskeletons, drones (land and air, potentially including drone swarms and microdrone scouts), advanced sensors and communication networks, 'optionally-manned' support weapons, etc.
    • A combination of manned and unmanned vehicles – futuristic tanks and IFVs, next-generation aircraft/ships with autonomous wingmen, 'smartillery', etc.
The Far-Future era
  • This would encompass the years beyond 2050.
  • It would encompass more out-there concepts, for example:
    • anything from the "far-fetched" list in the above Near-Future section
    • a 'theory of everything'
    • automated workforces
    • advanced cybernetics (including brain, organ and sensory implants... basically transhumanism)
    • decentralised fabrication (printing whatever you want, whenever you want)
    • advanced nanotechnologies
    • cryonics, therapeutic rejuvenation, or even immortality
    • extensive space infrastructure – energy relays, orbital superweapons (if not outlawed), large orbital habitats (around Earth, potentially the Moon or even Mars), even Dyson swarms maybe
    • interstellar travel (so a colony ship, if the game needs to have one)
    • antimatter reactors
  • Unless mitigated, climate change impacts would be at their most pronounced here. Basically the previous era but worse – huge swathes of coastal territory underseas, severe droughts, floods and heatwaves, high risk of ecological collapse, etc.
  • Units for this era would be entirely automated, for example:
    • Androids and/or non-humanoid combat drones
    • Nanite smart-clouds
    • Where vehicles still exist, they are entirely automated, far smaller and sleeker, and may be capable of replication (of themselves, or of subservient drones) in the field
    • If we absolutely need to have a GDR, it goes here
As an aside to this, future eras could also bring the chance of 'superdisasters' that act as late-game crises and disruptors. For example, cosmic threats (such as asteroids, solar ejections or gamma ray bursts) or just souped-up natural disasters (like magnetic pole reversal, or a Yellowstone/supervolcanic eruption event).

These detailed future eras could also very easily arrive in the form of DLC that appends the existing game, which may be highly attractive from a developer viewpoint.

Maybe I'll make this a separate post at some point.
The game should also model the obvious negatives and awaiting disasters-in-the-making in these things, many of which are apparent even now, and others by obvious and believable cautionary statements and even plausible fiction. But do it in the way that is not nearly as cartoonish or arbitrary as the last Civ6 expansion handled which of those issues it did (which, admittedly, were not many, but the style of handling was clearly there).
 
Top Bottom