Hi guys, thanks for all the support. I do have someone helping me on this now. I don't know if he posts here or just at Apolyton, but his nick is Fireb on Apolyton. He's been dividing the techs up into Ages, and here is his first post - feel free to comment and I'll pass them on to him.
Ok, here goes. Once I get some feedback and get things more or less in order i'll make a nice graphical version
Ive been assuming a few things,
- Each period needs to offer something different in terms of activities/game-play.
- Each civ should advance from one age to the next at its own pace, rather than a fixed pace (to allow for primitive native civs and to reward fast development)
- Some sort of compromise between historical accuracy and game-play. The game-play can be modded of course, but this will come later.
STONE
The activities of this period should concentrate mostly on survival and exploration. Very little research, no mining or agriculture yet, as these require development and sophisticated tools. There should be some possibility for early tribal raiding and squables over territory.
Mysticism, Fishing and Hunting are the only appropriate techs that I see for this age, which means that either each of them should take a long time to research, or else the tech tree redesigned to reflect this period in greater detail.
COPPER
An age of expansion, development, agriculture, mining and of course an escalation of tribal warfare into something more brutal, common and widespread. Full-scale invasions should now be viable (if still expensive and difficult), rather just raiding. Civs should be able to start to choose divergent tech. paths to explore, between early industrial development, religious pursuits and warmongering.
Mining, polytheism, meditation, sailing, pottery, archery. Maybe something to reflect copper weaponry and the edge it gave to those who had it?
BRONZE
A time also of (naval) colonisation. Large-scale warfare and pitched battles should be more common. Early warships start to appear.
Bronze working, masonry (most cities did not build walls until well into the Iron Age), priesthood (not monotheism), writing, animal husbandry.
IRON
An age of incessant warfare, regular invasions. A time when money became vital, could be used to bribe enemies, hire allies and mercenaries, decide politics at home. A time also of relative political enlightenment, republics, democracies, monarchies. Road building. A time when tribes coalesced into early nations, factions, alliances, treaties. Walls and siege warfare start to come of age. Warships get bigger and stronger, though still cant cross-seas safely.
Horseback riding (and stirrups, etc), Ironworking, monotheism, monarchy, alphabet, literature, drama, mathematics, currency, calendar. Philosophy?
MEDIEVAL
Enduring siege warfare and castle building as set out by Vegetius. Sea crossing is now more practical, if still risky. Basic laws are created. Early cannon appear. Nation-states consolidate and expand. Full invasions are common, including by sea. The last religions appear at this time. Mostly nations are too engaged in warfare and witch-hunting to bother with science and culture.
Metal casting, compass, construction, code of laws, feudalism, divine right.
RENAISSANCE
For the first time, warfare starts to decrease (as it becomes more expensive, and more destructive). Mostly an age of cultural flowering, art and music.
Theology, Machinery, Music, Banking, Guilds, Paper, Gunpowder
AGE OF REASON
A time of logic and science and books, but also of revolution. Regular periods of short but extremely bloody warfare. Armies abandon their castles and take to the field once more, and now number in their hundreds of thousands.
Civil service, Engineering, Optics, Education, Printing press, Liberalism, Nationalism, astronomy, Military tradition, democracy
INDUSTRIAL AGE
Factories, urbanisation, the dawn of modern warfare.
Rifling, corporation, steam power, replaceable parts, artillery, railroad.
AGE OF STEAM
Isnt this the same as the industrial age?
AGE OF ELECTRICITY
Chemistry, Communism, Assembly line, Fascism, Scientific method, steel, physics, electricity, combustion, industrialism.
ATOMIC AGE
Biology, Medicine, Refrigeration, Fission, flight, rocketry, radio, mass media.
INFORMATION AGE
Technology gone wild. Politics gone haywire, and warfare digitalised.
The last nine techs.
Some concerns: The way UUs are currently implemented, there is the risk of affecting relative civ strengths by limiting research to each epoch. This is not necessarily negative, but should be looked at closely.
Archery was only effective for hunting, not warfare until well into the Iron Age. Romans only started using formations of archers a long time after Caesar. The Persians were famous for them, but that was in the early middle ages. Horse archers were terrifyingly effective, but only from about 500 AD (Huns, Heruli etc and later Mongols). The Numidians employed effective spear/javelin-throwing cavalry, but they hardly count as archers.
Disciplined infantry formations could be highly effective against loose barbarian formations. Early heavy cavalry came a long time before horse archers (e.g. Alexander). Horse archers pretty much rendered elephants obsolete. Should something be done to reflect all this?
The ages are not, currently, balanced. Some have far more techs to research than others. Whilst they can be balanced out, I think it's better to have some ages when research goes faster, some when development is the main activity, and some when there isn't all that much to do except fight. Any thoughts on this?
Finally, the more feedback I have, the better this will become. So tell us what you think!
, so it will probably take a few weeks (at best) to get the "alpha" version of the mod out (unless I get a slave work....err...umm... helper or two 
).
