I'm Fairly Certain One of Civ 7's Gathering Storm sized DLC that Shakes up the Game Will be Focused on Adding a Final Age

sTAPler27

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The mainline civ games have usually steered clear of going to far into the future (usually saving that for spinoffs) but it does feel odd cutting off the game in such an early point in time (relatively speaking). While the late game has usually not been the most fleshed out portion of any civ playthrough the devs have always tried to represent the more contemporary portion of civilization, whether that be with researching the internet to switching to clean fuels. The abscence of an extended modern era feels like playing Civ 5 without Gods and Kings, like something is missing but its absence feels like it wasn't pushed into the games DNA so it can be implemented later.

My best guess is that the new DLC with with either extend all eras by fleshing them out with new techs and civics, or the game will add a new age (Probably just sticking with the Information age name because modern and contemporary are a bit too samey). I sense it will encapsulate the final 2 1/2 eras you'd find in Civ 6. I could see a return to global warming as a concept but its implementation depends on how they implement fuel type resources. I can see them simplifying it a bit unfortunately, instead of a direct correlation to resource use = CO2 it would just be higher production yield = worse for enviornment. Hope they don't go that route because Humankind fumbled with that system. Its possible they also add a more fleshed out future era. We haven't seen something like that in a while. with civ 6's tech tree ultimately just being focused on one unit and the various missions.
 
I'm currently unconvinced they'd add a separate fourth age as I don't see it synergising well with civ 7's mechanics, but aye I do think it's likely they'll lengthen the modern age sometime.
 
In the Modern Age Gameplay Reveal, Ed Beach basically said there will be a future 4th age eventually being released.
 
I don't see it synergising well with civ 7's mechanics
Actually, I think that the age system does actually synergy a lot with adding one more age at the end, allowing all the new things from the atomic and Information era being able to be represented in innovative ways for the series, as it being divided on it's own era can make they add and change some mechanics that would be relevant for 100+ turns of that era, instead of just the last 50 turns of a game that are mostly meaningless in most civ because of the snowballing (which civ 7 ages at least plan to reduce, but we will see if it will work as intended.)
 
Actually, I think that the age system does actually synergy a lot with adding one more age at the end, allowing all the new things from the atomic and Information era being able to be represented in innovative ways for the series, as it being divided on it's own era can make they add and change some mechanics that would be relevant for 100+ turns of that era, instead of just the last 50 turns of a game that are mostly meaningless in most civ because of the snowballing (which civ 7 ages at least plan to reduce, but we will see if it will work as intended.)
The aspects I don't see it working well with are civ-switching as they'd need to add significantly more civs to match the other eras (I don't see customised civs/civs extrapolated from who you were in previous ages being likely considering how many abilities and uniques civs come with in Civ 7) and the three age system itself - either a fourth age would have to be mandatory (extending the amount of time it takes to reach a victory by a whole other era, and likely necessitating crises for the end of the modern age) or an optional extra era if needed (which would result in the same extra stuff to mess around with while you wait for someone to win as in Civ 6).
With how central they've made the three-age system to Civ 7, a seperate fourth age doesn't align well with that vision compared to just making the modern age longer imo.

Plus, civ seems to have generally depicted at least near-past civs/leaders rather than anything contemporary, the most modern leaders having been dead for abt 50 years. Playing as a country with present-day uniques/abilities or a leader that's still alive would feel v strange to me lol.
 
I'm currently unconvinced they'd add a separate fourth age as I don't see it synergising well with civ 7's mechanics, but aye I do think it's likely they'll lengthen the modern age sometime.
I disagree

A lot of the selling point of the Ages was that they were utterly independent of each other. Your actions in one age had smaller impact in the next one. The only thing you kept were some of your units, some of your buildings/resources, and some of your Empire. Each Age is meant to function as an indepedent act and game. A Game within a Game so to speak.

So I could completely see them shoving in ages between other ages and at the end if they can come up with good mechanics to back them up.
 
I disagree

A lot of the selling point of the Ages was that they were utterly independent of each other. Your actions in one age had smaller impact in the next one. The only thing you kept were some of your units, some of your buildings/resources, and some of your Empire. Each Age is meant to function as an indepedent act and game. A Game within a Game so to speak.

So I could completely see them shoving in ages between other ages and at the end if they can come up with good mechanics to back them up.
See, the problem with shoving ages between each other is that most likely, civs will have to be moved to fit in in a certain age. That, or they just make even more civs to fit in those ages specifically, which makes less sense than just making more civs to fit in our current age system.
 
So I could completely see them shoving in ages between other ages and at the end if they can come up with good mechanics to back them up.
Them adding ages between the existing ones is even less plausible to me, considering how intentionally they reduced the amount of ages to three. They'd be undoing everything they aimed to do by breaking the game into simple, manageable chunks and upping their workload by needing to keep the amount of content per age high yet consistent.
 
There may be some possibility of introducing "sub-ages" more akin to the system in Civ 6: So early and late antiquity/exploration/modern. The main function would be to put further breaks on snowballing and allow catchup, or to either add more crisis periods or to divide up the ones in the base game. But it remains to be seen how necessary any of that will be. I like early/late (maybe even middle?) for flavor, if nothing else.
 
People are basing that on Ed saying, at the 54 minute mark, that there is a 20-hex limit for rail movement "in this particular age."
 
People are basing that on Ed saying, at the 54 minute mark, that there is a 20-hex limit for rail movement "in this particular age."
There is that bit too but I think most came from this part I mentioned:
I think the main reason people are thinking a 4th age is likely is this part: "(...) This is the fullest age we have. It's already set up sort of perfectly in terms of the way the history lays out and we're just going to say that's our third age that's perfect for the end of a civilization game. Now there's some content after that that players are familiar with. The Cold War kicks in. and obviously history has marched on to the present. That's not something you're going to see in civ7 at launch but we'll be talking about the plans for how that gets into the game when it's the right time."

So they basically mentioned they have plans to add more to the game tech wise, but with the age systems and mentions about how the modern age already is the fullest one, it would indicate they likely will add it as a fourth age.
 
There is that bit too but I think most came from this part I mentioned:
Could as well be a scenario, an option to continue after the game is over (as an epilogue), a toggle to have an end game crisis also in the third age, etc.
 
There is that bit too but I think most came from this part I mentioned:
Yeah, I came back to add that.

an end game crisis also in the third age
There's some clown on the site who has worked that out in some detail:

This has helped me formulate my own guess.

There won't be a fourth age to fill up 1950-2025, but rather a third crisis. The third crisis will be triggered by some civ completing one of the "total victories" of the Modern Era. At that point, the game will say, "You thought you achieved a victory? by triumphing over other nations? Ha ha ha! Here's a global threat, and the only way it can be faced is by cooperation among nations. So there's a kind of even-more-final victory. It's a kind of diplomatic victory, in that the only way to achieve it is to bring all of the players together despite fragmenting, centrifugal forces like the ideologies, MAD, decolonization, internal polarization of your society, etc.

You collectively hit a global temperature target; or launch a multi-society ship to Alpha Centauri; or build a world culture, so that all the border markers on the map are one color. Something like that.
 
There is that bit too but I think most came from this part I mentioned:
Interesting - I'd somehow completely missed that mention (probably was too distracted looking at all the stuff on the screen at the time lmao) and only seen people talk about the railroads line, changes my opinion on whether they will add a fourth age ngl. Still consider a fourth age less likely but I'm more hestitant to rule it out as much.
There's some clown on the site who has worked that out in some detail:
Also aye this is similar to what I was hoping the modern age might be like, with a final crisis at the end tied into a victory. Hadn't considered it could also be possible to involve a diplomatic victory in that way, that'd be cool - also occurs to me, solving/reversing global warming could be an interesting alternative science victory. We've had 'build a rocket/spaceship' be the usual science victory for so long, it'd be neat to have something different and more topical.
 
As far as i remember, every previous Civ game has had some sort of future era expansion at some point. As i already said in the other thread, if they are going to add a 4th age (which i consider very likely as the age system is modular and a much better basis for large scale expansion packs than previous titles that ended up a little bloated by new mechanics), they will probably go for something sci-fi. Adding an entire age for the 75 years of 1950-2025 seems a bit strange when previous ages cover several centuries, or even millennia. Then there is the issue of which civilizations to add to that age. Unless they copy some modern age civs with different abilities, the newer powers that emerged during those last 75 years are highly problematic to include in a Civ game.
On the other hand, going Sci-Fi opens tons of options for new mechanics and the Civilizations can be purely fictional, avoiding current day political traps. For the first time in Civ history, the future era can be an interesting part of the game thanks to the age-specific mechanics and they are probably well aware of that.
If they want to include current day stuff into the game however, expanding the modern age is more likely than adding a separate 4th age.

Just my 2cents, and i'm not always good at predictions 😉
 
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