How would you like civ7 divided into eras?

[Equilin]

btw on a slightly different topic, is it just me that thinks "Research" should not be an option until a bit into the game?

To me, "Research" is your civ putting efforts into researching/trying to do something new. It feels silly that you can pick a research focus for the entire civ and continue with it since the beginning of the game. It should only become an option when your civ has a more organized society than the game start.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

personally I see nothing wrong with the way it's been done up to now.

from a game designer's perspective, the "eras" aren't really representative of what is happening in the grand scheme of things, as much as they are meant to invoke the things you could be doing from the perspective of a player within it. Like the different-themed "levels" and "worlds" in other games like Super Mario and so on.

 

[reddishrecue]

I also think the way it got divided is right even though there were many good suggestions on the topic before.

 

[mitsho]

What if we make it LESS complex?

- The Dawn (of Civilization): The Pre-Game as known from Humankind, call it Neolithic Era.
- The Expansion of Cities, call it Antiquity (up to Empires and the medieval Era, it‘s all the same, up to Gunpowder and Oceangoing-Ships:
- The Mapping of the World, call it Age of Exploration (no Early Modern, no Colonialisation, no, … no good name available).
- The Changing of the World to our needs, call it Modernity (encompassing Industrialism, Flight and Computers).

I feel you can have four distinct playstyles in those eras. And you can find special effects for three eras for every civ you want and you can make change up the game to make it interesting to play on. I feel sometimes the eras pass way too fast.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Iron - the Democratic metal. Available in such near-universal quantities that once you learn how to work it, the tools and weapons are potentially available to everyone, and the old aristocratic Warrior Elite of Bronze has to change: enter Greek Demokratia, 'social contracts', Roman Universal Citizenship, etc. The changes are as much political and cultural as physical

How Iron brought One God to mankind? Isn't Phillosophy a starter to the concept of Ethic-based 'Religions' which abruptly replaced Old Gods Pantheons and summarize acceptable and unacceptable human behaviours as 'good and bad' rather than weird rituals and fiestas to please those gods like Aphrodite Orgy?

 

[Evie]

That is one weird view of the history of religion...

("Abrupt" replacemenr? Old pantheons had no moral teachings of right and wrong? Dismissing all non-monotheistic religions as "weird rituals and fiestas"?)

 

[pecheneg]

How Iron brought One God to mankind?

Quite elementary - dramatically accelerating progress at the initial stage. This made the investment meaningful. Hence the need for a cheap cult, and the simplest way to make it cheaper is to reduce the number of objects of worship. In the same way as during the transition to the New Time, Protestants directly demanded a cheap church. At the same time, retreating into the early Bronze Age, one can find the same picture: formally, there are many Sumerian gods, but one was actively worshipped in each particular city.
And vice versa - slow progress = an expensive church with a huge number of objects of veneration. Because the zero-growth economy is fundamentally different from the model we are familiar with. It's a long time to describe it, it's easier to bring the end result - "practical" investments are required there limit.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

That is one weird view of the history of religion...

("Abrupt" replacemenr? Old pantheons had no moral teachings of right and wrong? Dismissing all non-monotheistic religions as "weird rituals and fiestas"?)

^ I did discuss with an Anglican fellas (Who's now studying at Durham Union to become Anglican 'priest'). He explained the Rise of Christianity in Roman Empire and how it replaced 'Old Olympian Gods'. He even cited that 'Wellwishing Old Gods' no longer functions well in 'Iron Age' society, particularly with the Pantheons 'no longer provied' care to fellow worshippers, (nor even provide any), and he even cited that the final days of Old Gods of Rome, their temples became blatantly brotels.... something that only wealthy (and so often elites) could afford to join any such rites in these temples, while poor fellas in and around Roman Empire simply couldn't. this provided fertile grounds for Christian missionaries (many of which became saints) to fill in.

 

[pecheneg]

Isn't Phillosophy a starter to the concept of Ethic-based 'Religions'

Moral progress stands on the solid foundation of more affordable "food" and more deadly guns, alas.
1. To begin with, more ethical behavior should be generally possible. See the point about food - more precisely, all life support resources.
2. There must be a need for it. That is ,
a) initially there should be a need to save the lives of as many people as possible - and not to remove the surplus. The Aztecs and Co. will confirm that this is not always the case.
b) at the second stage, we are faced with the task of limiting violence, and the restriction should be the stronger the more effective the weapon. If expensive bronze is replaced by "democratic" iron, and armies grow at times, you urgently need to move to the next ethical level. Because the "bronze" level of cruelty will kill you sooner or later - reducing the effectiveness of conquests, etc.

 

[Evie]

...maybe not the best source for an unbiased history of religion there?

 

[Marla_Singer]

Well the discussion is getting a bit off topic. I'll only recall that India never renounced its polytheism and that didn't prevent the country from becoming extremely high tech, launching rockets into space among other things.

Let's just remember that history isn't as linear as depicted in the game. That's a limitation Sid Meier was very conscious of since the very first Civ in 1991. In a video, he told he never liked the idea of a tech tree making specific techs necessary to develop other techs, as it was making the game too linear. He wanted it more random in the first place.

Unfortunately, testing proved that players hated it. In the first game, it was fine because they were discovering the game and didn't fully understood yet how it worked, but in later games, if it doesn't happen as it happened the first time, the player hates it. As he told, the player knows that there's gunpowder somewhere, and if he doesn't get it as early as he did the first time, the player interprets it as being "punished" for no reason. Generally speaking a player hates "RNG" (random), as he needs to fill in control to consider the gaming experience interesting.

So yes, linear eras are fictional, the tech tree is fictional as well. They are only there to prevent the game from being too random (depending too much on luck) for the player to appreciate it.

 

[pecheneg]

Well the discussion is getting a bit off topic. I'll only recall that India never renounced its polytheism

1. Actually, the brand "Indian religion" hides a lot of diverse teachings, up to and including atheistic ones. At the same time, there is no pure polytheism even in the Rig Veda. And the later Middle Ages is the spread of the teachings of "polymorphic monotheism" - the one god in many hypostases. That is, quasi-Protestantism with a reduction in the number of objects of veneration.
2. "Ancient" India was to a great extent Buddhist. And there... a lot of things.
3. In general, even in the field of ideology, the entourage can be very different, but the basic mechanics and patterns are the same.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Well the discussion is getting a bit off topic. I'll only recall that India never renounced its polytheism and that didn't prevent the country from becoming extremely high tech, launching rockets into space among other things.

Also Japan, since technically Shinto is polytheistic.

The idea itself that copper or iron are related to liberty, equality, ethics and moral is exaggerated and did not have clear correlation along time and regions.

 

[pecheneg]

Also Japan, since technically Shinto is polytheistic.

Shintoism since the 8th century is mainly a grassroots folk religion, Buddhism and Confucianism dominated. Which integrated Shinto beliefs in much the same way as the Christian cult of saints - the cults of pagan deities. At the same time, the attempt to brush the dust off shinto after the Meiji restoration generally failed.

The idea itself that copper or iron are related to liberty, equality, ethics and moral is exaggerated and did not have clear correlation along time and regions.

You are arguing with the whole official anthropology in fact. The connection there is very tight. Take an interest, for example, in the level of violent mortality among Neolithic tribes. It is very high even in difficult conditions, when mortality from natural causes is sharply increased, and the population is very sparse. If this factor is not present, thrash becomes total in general.
"The Yanomamo, who have earned the nickname "cruel people" from anthropologists, have a homicide rate of 1.66 tribesmen per 1,000 people. Among the New Guinea Papuans, this figure is much higher. Among the Khiva, murders amount to 7.78 per 1,000 people, and 35.2% of men and 29.3% of women die at the hands of tribesmen in Gebusi."
There were local/isolated exceptions. But they once again emphasize one unpleasant fact: pacifist ideas have always been present, but without technological prerequisites they either remained unclaimed or did not survive.

 

[BuchiTaton]

You are arguing with the whole official anthropology in fact.

Not really...
1- I was talking specifically about the possible difference between the impact of copper and iron, your additional examples are not even about this.
2- It is obvious there are always academics with different points of view so say "the whole official" is also an exageration.

Conclusive robust, deep and broad (range of societies, regions, etc.) studies comparing the timing and level of changes in a significative magnitude are needed before accept as an universal true such generalization.

 

[pecheneg]

Not really...
1- I was talking specifically about the possible difference between the impact of copper and iron, your additional examples are not even about this.
2- It is obvious there are always academics with different points of view so say "the whole official" is also an exageration.

1. Emm... Well, in the case of iron and bronze, everything is quite obvious. Axial Time" - the emergence of developed ethical systems that limit violence - this is the Iron Age. At the same time, the ideology of the Bronze societies and the societies of the early Iron that inherited the "bronze ethics" is too well illustrated to allow for discrepancies.
At the same time, the balance mechanism is as simple as a stone chopper. For example, if the availability of metal weapons has increased significantly, and you continue to kill the vanquished in the same way as during the Bronze Age, firstly, you kill many times more, secondly, you kill people whose economic value has increased. As a result, more humane conquerors will bury you sooner or later.

2. The high level of violence in the vast majority of "Neolithic" societies is simply an objective fact. Which has long been impossible to deny within the framework of academic science.

Conclusive robust, deep and broad (range of societies, regions, etc.) studies comparing the timing and level of changes in a significative magnitude are needed before accept as an universal true such generalization.

Studies of primitive violence, showing an unambiguous picture, have been going on for 60 years. Moreover, both on modern groups from Eskimos to Papuans, and on archaeological material, from Europeans to Californian Indians and at large intervals of several thousand years for individual regions.

 

[BuchiTaton]

1. Emm... Well, in the case of iron and bronze, everything is quite obvious. Axial Time" - the emergence of developed ethical systems that limit violence - this is the Iron Age. At the same time, the ideology of the Bronze societies and the societies of the early Iron that inherited the "bronze ethics" is too well illustrated to allow for discrepancies.

There are not universal correlation between laws that are objectively ethic in Iron age and not ethic in Bronze age. The introduction of Iron do not mean an average time of development of higher morality in every society, Iron was used by tribal societies in northen Europe and sub-saharan Africa, can we say they were less violent and more ethic than bronze age Egypt or Sumer?

Give me significative numbers of how Iron Age societies at level of chiefdoms, city-states, kingdoms and empires are less violent than their equivalents of the Bronze Age.

At the same time, the balance mechanism is as simple as a stone chopper. For example, if the availability of metal weapons has increased significantly, and you continue to kill the vanquished in the same way as during the Bronze Age, firstly, you kill many times more, secondly, you kill people whose economic value has increased. As a result, more humane conquerors will bury you sooner or later.

2. The high level of violence in the vast majority of "Neolithic" societies is simply an objective fact. Which has long been impossible to deny within the framework of academic science.

Studies of primitive violence, showing an unambiguous picture, have been going on for 60 years. Moreover, both on modern groups from Eskimos to Papuans, and on archaeological material, from Europeans to Californian Indians and at large intervals of several thousand years for individual regions.

Again, Neolithic societies are not the point I made.

 

[pecheneg]

There are not universal correlation between laws that are objectively ethic in Iron age and not ethic in Bronze age. The introduction of Iron do not mean an average time of development of higher morality in every society, Iron was used by tribal societies in northen Europe and sub-saharan Africa, can we say they were less violent and more ethic than bronze age Egypt or Sumer?

Do you seriously think that the basic conditions in Mesopotamia, Scandinavia and central Africa were the same? Matching makes sense for similar conditions.

Give me significative numbers of how Iron Age societies at level of chiefdoms, city-states, kingdoms and empires are less violent than their equivalents of the Bronze Age.

You clearly didn't understand. If you have a multiplicity of increasing availability of weapons with which you can effortlessly kill civilians, you will have to change your ethics simply so that the level of violence remains at least at the same level.
That is, you need to prove that, for example, the Seleucids massacred the population many times more actively than the figures of the Middle Assyrian period. Because the opportunities have radical grown, and ethics, in your opinion, have not changed.
That is, you need to prove that Syria, for example, has become radically depopulated compared to the Bronze Age. I say right away - this is a very unusual look.

Again, Neolithic societies are not the point I made.

That is, the transition from the Neolithic to metal changed ethics, but the transition to a truly "democratic" metal did not?
At the same time, yes, archaeology clearly demonstrates outbursts of violence after the gun revolutions among the same Californian Indians - and we have to react to this.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Do you seriously think that the basic conditions in Mesopotamia, Scandinavia and central Africa were the same? Matching makes sense for similar conditions.

If Iron is a key factor that turn bronze societies in more ethic ones the change should be observable also from "tribal bronze" to "tribal iron" as is supposed to be between empires, kingdoms and city states transiting the same material revolution. Even more if the iron is truly that significative this "democratic" metal could possibly produce ethic tribal societies even above the level of those of urban bronze societies. These are relevant to demostrate objetive and measurable correlation of "iron=ethics" over the changes between both similar and different kinds and levels of societies.

You clearly didn't understand. If you have a multiplicity of increasing availability of weapons with which you can effortlessly kill civilians, you will have to change your ethics simply so that the level of violence remains at least at the same level.

The changes with the introduction of agriculture or guns could suggest a similar correlation with the introduction of Iron vs the previous Bronze, but it ishould be demonstrated with evidence. So the people suggesting that "Iron reduced the level of violence" should prove it.
These gives even more value to the point to prove this emergence of "ethics from iron" in tribal societies since those also would have to face this supposed necesity to keep the same level of violence.

That is, you need to prove that, for example, the Seleucids massacred the population many times more actively than the figures of the Middle Assyrian period. Because the opportunities have radical grown, and ethics, in your opinion, have not changed.
That is, you need to prove that Syria, for example, has become radically depopulated compared to the Bronze Age. I say right away - this is a very unusual look.

The evidence should be provided first from the people proposing this role of iron, with both proof of changes in the level of violence and clear changes in their ethics. A significative change need proof of its effects, have not changes do not demostrate this nebulous "ethics". Provide specific ancient texts that show a new vision of the value of human life that appers in X or Y society when it enters the Iron Age, or show me the clear average more violent life of equivalent societies between their Bronze and Iron Eras.

That is, the transition from the Neolithic to metal changed ethics, but the transition to a truly "democratic" metal did not?

It must be proved, this is how science works. They can seem similars but positive evidences are needed to demostrate a clear, universal and significative correlation in the specific scenario of Iron vs Bronze.

At the same time, yes, archaeology clearly demonstrates outbursts of violence after the gun revolutions among the same Californian Indians - and we have to react to this.

This is context to suspect something similar but one again appart from help to built an hypothesis, such hypothesis need now to be proved.

 

[pecheneg]

If Iron is a key factor that turn bronze societies in more ethic ones the change should be observable also from "tribal bronze" to "tribal iron" as is supposed to be between empires, kingdoms and city states transiting the same material revolution.

There can be no perfect match in different conditions. As the most straightforward factor: in order to make it profitable to protect the population, population must produce enough surplus product to make control profitable instead of slaughter. Even the "iron revolution" does not always lead to sufficient profits. For example, if you still have hoe farming on unproductive lands, the result is predictable.
However...

Even more if the iron is truly that significative this "democratic" metal could possibly produce ethic tribal societies even above the level of those of urban bronze societies. These are relevant to demostrate objetive and measurable correlation of "iron=ethics" over the changes between both similar and different kinds and levels of societies.

Actually, where you can trace the written tradition, that's exactly what happened. Moreover, due to the relative scarcity of an already profitable population, the semi-barbarians are at least in one case more humanistic than the Bronze empires. See Zoroastrianism in the ideological plane and Cyrus the Great in the practical.

The changes with the introduction of agriculture or guns could suggest a similar correlation with the introduction of Iron vs the previous Bronze, but it ishould be demonstrated with evidence. So the people suggesting that "Iron reduced the level of violence" should prove it.
These gives even more value to the point to prove this emergence of "ethics from iron" in tribal societies since those also would have to face this supposed necesity to keep the same level of violence... It must be proved, this is how science works.

Uhm… So, on the one hand, we have population growth and direct indications of a change in ethics in historical sources. On the other hand, the statement that ethics has not changed, the change of rhetoric occurred from scratch and at the same time the growth of armies magically did not result in total genocide. Moreover, with an acute desire to cut out the defeated, they were cut out almost to zero in the Bronze Age, and not only on the scale of a separate settlement – see the genetic map of western Europe. The "Bronze Age disaster" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse also looked impressive, although military violence is not the only factor there.
In other words, the version of immutable ethics contradicts elementary logic. In science, such hypotheses are naturally not considered as an alternative – otherwise, you can endlessly refute anything.

This is context to suspect something similar but one again appart from help to built an hypothesis, such hypothesis need now to be proved.

It is curious how the mechanism, clearly visible for some weapon revolutions, could not work in the case of iron – despite the fact that for some reason there was no total self-genocide.