[MOD]Stone Ages : Pre Alpha

You want an actuall set of dates....

Well this mod has atm 4 eras...

Prehistoric Paleolithic - covers the range of time between Ice Age and 200,000 BC, maybe even includes the ice age
Mesolithic - covers 200,000 BC to 8,000 BC
Neolithic - covers 8,000 to the dawn of bronzeage
Chalcolithic - the dawn of the bronzeage - tin had not yet been utilized, but raw copper had been discovered and was used, intended is to include the most basic of smelting skills, but when the advent of mixing tin, and the bronze age starts this mod finishes up.

My direction with this mod is to be historical, RPG version will be available at a later date in my Ranori mod, but I want to get this going first.

BTW - I don't feel this mod is playable ATM, it needs some major tweaking and more techs and some balancing - I am working on the sumeria civ as I speak, and there is just a lot of things that need to be done - that said - by all means download and take a look (Hitites are still unlooked at and very likely to be glitched), comment - and point me in any direction you think the mod should go, I have a moderatly open mind, and as mentioned, this was put up to get some ideas for it.
 
Almost all civilizations that are named in this thread, are neolithic civs.

Before settling and decent culture, the civs were more like tribes who traded with each other. Many tribes together could share same technologies, philosophics, ... but were not of the same civilizations.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe you could name the civs after their racial background:

Northern European
Indo-European
Oriental
African
Aboriginal
Indian
...
 
Bevertje: that could be an idea, I just did Sumer, and looking it up, it is very late in the stone ages, extending indeed into the early bronzeage.
I had planned on making the start of the game ('Prehistoric Paleolithic' Era) so that the player is limited to one city, until Chiefdoms is discovered, which will allow more, depending on how well the player has established their economy, I was going to make it so that cities(or in the case of this mod 'Camps') were an expensive thing to manage, these plans are just loose ideas atm, and in actual implementation you can build tribes which can settle into camps after tribalism, ie the gouvernment civic one step before chiefdoms.
Chiefdoms I might add is the dawning of the mesolithic era, so that would make the entire paleolithic era a one-city game - unless you find the uber-rare tribe in a hut(not that I done this bit yet - gimme time :p )

**EDIT**:Actually - I been thinking about it Bevertje - I think your idea of dividing up the civilizations that way is an exceelent idea - but there will need to be more divisions in the classes, I had planned on about 18 civs in total, one for each slot of the game - so I might further break up Northern European into something a bit more broken up, I'm not exactly sure what - I have no real education on the stone ages, and other than commonsense things about this period I know no real history on the subject(which is why I am here to learn - and is one of the reasons why this went up so early)

**EDIT2**:I am going to rewrite Sumeria - since I had included a lot of Akkad stuff in it anyhow(like city names and leaders), to be a basic meospatmian civilization, I am then going to incorporate your brief list of racial backgrounds, they are not much, but they will make a definitive start to the civilizations list, and then the mod will be playable at least :p
 
And of course, you could include in your mod the retreat of the icecaps. ;) (that would be quite a challenge to mod I think)
 
Southern African (Tribes on plains)
Central African (Tribes in jungle)
Northern African (Egypt, Carthage)
Middle Eastern (Sumeria, Babylonia)
Indo-Eurasian (Arya)
Northern Asian (mostly steppes raided by the Aryans)
Central Asian (Harappa, Mohenjo-Djaro)
Eastern Asian (China, Japan)
Northern European (Celts, Bretts, Saxon)
Southern European (Greek, Roman)
Australian (Aboriginal)
Arctic (Eskimo, Inuit)
Northern American (Indian Tribes)
Central American (Maya)
South American (Inca)

15 "civilizations"
 
Hi AS,
Here is an updated list, per Wikipedia, for human species of the Stone Age.

Homo Habilis
Homo Erectus
Neanderthals (yeah homo neaderthalensis)
Cro Magnon

I almost feel like these civs shouldn't be civs at all, they are species. In fact they are the progression. When you've completed all of the techs for Homo Habilis, maybe you are erectus, and so on through the fourth age Cro Magnon? Puts Cro Magon's run in with Neanderthals in an interesting light.

The idea of regional civ break up is actually kind of interesting as there is an arguement over whether Habilis and Erectus evolved into itself in various regions, or if they migrated from the N Africa/fertile crescent.

Making leaders/civ names/city names will be quite a chore. It will not be possible to be historically accurate b/c we have no idea what these peoples called themselves. I'm sure you will do fine, just follow the spirit of things.
 
Isn't there a problem with starting at 200,000 years ago in that Homo Saipiens only lived in Africa until about 60,000 y.a. when they migrated out? I suppose this could be simulated with a nomadic hunter/gather migration period in the beginning where every civ could start in Africa and spread across the globe until they randomly developed a certain technology and could form cities or something.
 
Yeah, that's why I liked the idea of a movable city, and redistributing resources. The idea of hunter gathering is that you go hunt and gather resources from an ever changing world. The idea of founding a permanent city at any point but the very end of this mod, is fairly incongruous. It was only later that tribes could master agriculture and other resources that they began to settle.
 
Susendinlight: Yeah I had thought about that - but I was going to allow for one central point of organization - maybe not 100% historical - but not totally unbelievable of people of the era - and that was going to be YA city, you see the way I've done it, ya can't have more than one city until you develope Tribalism, which I am later going to change so that you can't have another till you develope Chiefdoms, which is the start of the mesolithic era, which is much further down the track then 200,000 BC, and until then you are really playing the one-city wonder, I was thinking of adding a tribe(settler) to the goody huts like what you normally get, but make them much rarer than in the standard game, allowing you to maybe have a second city in the paleolithic era, and on the odd chance a third, but this is only a possibility that I havn't looked at yet.

I've gone with Bevertje's idea and made up 8 civilizations just to muck around with in the mod so I can get a bit of a feel for what I have done so far, they are

IndoEurope - with 5 partially created leaders
Asia - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
Africa - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
India - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
Northern Europe - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
Australia - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
South America - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope
NorthAmerica - with 5 cloned leaders from indoEurope

These areas all had stoneages, but at very different times, and for varying durations<----

I have uploaded the file which is also much smaller now since I took the unused music out (which I will put in again later)

The link is here Era_Stone_Age_v0.00.02.rar and on the front page, I think the mod is slightly playable at the moment, but don't get to upset when you run out of technologies early.

If you downloaded it before - have another look now(if you have time)

I need suggestions for leaders of the races I included, and thanks for everything so far - I'm going to have a quick game of what I created, and see what elase needs to be done in the immediate future

One last note -> if man was having such a hard time building cities in these times, what should we do with the barbarians?? - I don't want to eliminate them - you can do that from the options in custom game, but I can't see them having much potential at city dwelling.
I was think that perhaps we could change them to some kind of missing-link creature that is part neanderthal and part beast or something, and denying their ability to build cities - at least in Paleolithic Era, any ideas??

**EDIT** WARNING: upon checking out what I had done in depth I realise that I havn't update the diplomacy info in the new civs - so you will get a string of errors when starting up, and maybe booted when you stumble into another civ - my apoligies (oops)
 
Barbarians shouldn't just be rival tribes, though there should be those too. Maybe animal barbarians that last the whole game, and can enter your culture area. Insert giant sloths, cat dens, a tribe of semi giants or half men, sabretooth, cave bears, mammoth herds etc... This could also open up a minor mythology angle here. Again, killing these beasts should give your tribe something in addition to experience. Is there a way, maybe with promotions, to bring back food and production to the camp after killing said beasts?
 
Also it wasn't that man in the stone ages had trouble building cities. The problem was that they spent all of their time hunting animals and gathering resources. You can't stay in the mountains/hills gathering flint, and follow the heard. They took what the could, and followed dinner. Until the Neolithic revolution which came about at different times in different places, and allowed sedentary behaviors because of farming, resource mastery, and food surplus.
 
Starship: as too the mamoths, I only really want them in the early Paleolithic, and then only sparsely, they were dying out by this time, half-giants might be a bit mythical, though certainly I will include them in my fantasy version of this mod - which is still to come.
Also Humans WERE having a hard time building cities, it might not have been for economic reasons, more so the fact that survival was a full time occupation, this is evident in the fact that man dwelt in caves frequently, it wasn't that they didn't really know how to make a shelter, they simply didn't have time or want to risk it, solitary shelters were targets for the wild beasts, communal dwellings in caves were ideal, no construction time (unless of course you consider Gaias endless efforts), and more frequently, only one access point, with many defendable places heading inward. When man could communicate, and the caves were getting full, and relative peace between the cave people had developed(ie. they put pecking order aside, and stopped booting the weak into the wild when the cave filled up) - then maybe they went out enmass and started building tree cities, shelters from bark, or dig-outs in which to sleep.
The other theory that exists is one of the holy place, such as a quickly constructed shrine which was frequently visited - ie. a pissing post, at some point people remained nearby, and then later built dwellings around it, perhaps initially dig-outs, then tents, then mud-brick houses, depending on when and where you want to look in history.
I'm sure there are a few theories as to how civ begins, I am willing to hear them all if there is space on the forum.

The link to the most uptodate version is here Era Stone Age V0.00.03 it now includes Zuul's Exotic Animals v0.1

**EDIT**: Another thing I was thinking of doing, was having no animal resource that remains sationary, tweak them so that they are like the Lions/Panthers/Bears/Wolves, that spawn more frequently, and provide big bonuses if defeated (some animals will be easy, some harder), not sure yet - but you can see where I am going with this idea, perhaps even have pig hunting grounds as a stationary resource, where pigs are more likely to spawn, but you just can't see them till later in the game(ie. after you discover a technology, like 'Patterns of the Wild' or something) - to do this though I still have to figure out the graphics importer just recently released - so far I have had zero success in putting 3D graphics in game - I am hoping that it even works with GMax since I can't affoard 3DS and I couldn't even be bothered using something that expires in 30-days :p
 
I love your mod idea, I think it could be one of the most fun and original once it reaches completion.

I've kind of been vomitting ideas at you because I think it is and could be such a great mod, and don't mean to annoy you. If I have.

One of the large hurdles here is that the Stone Age peoples incorporated many different species of people, and different survival strategies over a vast amount of time. However, this is what could make the mod really fun.

We are kind of both right. The great migrations out of Africa did follow game, the people were transient non city builders, and they did prefer cave shelters!

I think this mod will really break through with SDK.

On the 3dsmax thing. I feel the same way. It's very difficult to use, and to be useful within 30 days isn't going to happen. We might be able to collaborate with the sheep/swine herder guy for his graphics, and how he did them for live action resources.

Seriously, if there is something that I can do to help I will, just let me know.

I'll play test the new version this evening.

One last thing. I know Kael is waiting for something (I'm assuming SDK, but have no idea) so that the animals can roam through cultural boundaries, and last longer. That would be useful here once implementable.
 
One final thought for city names:

How about a random name generator? It would be a lot easier than trying to name a whole bunch of cities for civs we don't even know the names of, right? Just make it so that names wouldn't repeat for different civs. There is already an excellent mod out there for this actually.

Deep Grottoe
Ha Ha Tonka (Laughing Springs)
Field of Many Elk
Clan of the Cave Bear
Pass of Three Sons
Edin
Pissing Post

etc....
 
The random names might be ok - I'll have to think about it, no your not anoying me, what is anoying me is the blasted resources not coming up in game, they can be placed by worldbuilder, they just don't get placed by the map script, I have spent the past few hours trying to get it to happen and still I am no closer to it.

Another thing the is inconsequential ATM is the fact that the civilizations flags are not showing up either, to this date I have only had that happen once(the civs flags showing up), and I can't remember what I done to make it happen.

I've been going over the skin and add resources tutorials, and the create a civ tutorial all morning :[

**EDIT**
Another thing - the civilization leaders shouldn't be too hard to muster, and yeah I will be going with the civilization list that Bevertje left - that looks pretty comprehensive, just thinking though that I might further divide Europe into another catagory or something - 15 is ok, but I really wanted 18 /whinge /whine /sob

I am going to start doing some more of the paleolithic resources right now, and get them ready for the game - I am hoping it is a simple oversight on my part as to why they are not being incorporated into the maps
 
hey I love the sound of this mod.. is it just the "stone ages" or are you planning on bringing it up to present day? This is a good site to hit up http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/whwhwh.asp?selection=SELECTION%20SUBJECT='WhatWhenWhere'%20THEME='251'%20%20AREA='511'&D=-90000&main=False

note to Bevertje:

Eskimos are Inuit

and too my understanding peoples back then weren't know as "greeks" "chinese" probably more know by there language, ie: Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Afro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Malayo-Polynesian, Niger-Congo, Dravidian, ect... good site to look at.. http://www.krysstal.com/langfams.html
 
Khakhan007:I do kind of plan on bringing it about as far as the early renaisence, but that is a long way off yet, first I want to get this mod singing like a charm, and it is only early days on it so far, but yeah - when I finish it, I am planning on tossing a coin to decide on whether to move to the bronze age, or doing a fantasy version on the same mod, there is lot lost when you switch between historical and sureal.
Yeah - I have rewritten the mod to reflect the lack of civilization names, and in doing research - yes you are right - people were known either by their colourings or language - but more often then not, by their language

**EDIT** A little side experiment has blown out into a full blown project that I am working on - not saying what I am doing ATM - might not work out - but I'll get back to updating any time soon...

GEOMODDER: Yeah I was going to write the tech tree so that base technologies cost heaps, ie, Fiber Crafting, Agriculture(even early gathering), Stone Knapping, and so that you would have to specialize and trade with other civs, I was thinking of making it so that you would have to specialize in only one tech tree, knowing that many will try to do 2 or 3. But so that after you had got the initial technology base techs the rest were fairly easy, kind of like the concept of a wondertechnology at the start :p

**EDIT 2** I just had to re-install CIV 4, and if that were not enough - I accidentally erased the 1.52 patch :(

**EDIT 3** I'm at the end of my teather :p
Has anybody had any success in ADDING terrain graphics, I have blown about 30-40 hours on this subject and have come up more clueless then when I started, there appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with what I have done - it just doesn't show up on the map, even though it is in world bulder - I'll remove the affected files and upload them - perhaps somebody can take a squiz and maybe suggest something that I havn't seen - I have really gone hard at it this time - I need more terrain tiles and I am just not getting them - in particular I want to add terrain features, ie:New Growth Forest, Light Forest, Medium Forest, Heavy Forest, and Old Growth Forest, then with the jungles, I wanted - Light Jungle, Medium Jungles, Thick Jungles, Heavy Undergrowth Jungles, and High Canopy Jungles, I got all the buttons made for the 3 variety of 5 different forests, and the 5 different jungles, and I have done about every darn thing I can think of except give it to someone else to look at (I even loaded all the graphics in SceneViewer - then renamed them and tried saving them in place of the others (all CIV graphics- I just wanted them scaled was all) - Nothing /roar)

**EDIT 4** Nope whatever I had done to get it into the worldbuilder I have lost, and I am too tired to muck around, but hey, it was worth a day, (why did it have to be today :()
 
I bet in those day they were also known in what they specialized. For instance one tribe could have perfected river fishing, and another deer hunting. Most likely because those were most prelevalent in the places they lived.
 
ok - I been doing some work, blows me away a little cause I am so not used to it.

After doing enmass search for stone age leaders, I've come up with very little info, even Gilgamesh who "I" thought was a real person at some point in history is so shrouded with mythology that you are left with a spartan clash of the tiatns that just don't fit in with what consensus says is real - sooooooooooooo, I was thinking that, considering the time period, and the fact that so many of the mesolithic tribes and beyond have such very few documented leaders, why not go with the idea that you play the part of some prehistoric god (I know it really s$%ks - heard it before), but seriously, many of the myths and legends that existed in bronzeage times were built upon verbal law of the mesolithic and paleolithic eras (at least from what I can tell), and I was thinking that for leaders(but only on this issue- at least don't push me for any more breaking away from factual) I could maybe use some of these so called lesser gods, kind of like hercules for the greeks - but perhaps going back a bit further than that, since hercules with definitavely in the bronze<->iron age (they had METAL weapons!)

Now I might need some help with graphics, I've spent a few hours searching on google, but have turned up blank on a few,
what I need MOST atm is a few good leaderheads, namely

North African - Need 1 more
Central African - Need like 5 or so (hehe)
South African - Need 1 more
Midle Eastern - I got enough
North Asian - Need 5
Central Asian - No need
East Asian - No need
North European - No need
South European - No need
Aboriginal - No need
Arctic - No need
South American - No Need
Central American - No Need
North American - Need 5 (Which really suprises me that I couldn't even find 1)

If you have any pictures of great people from the stone age (any period of it) that would apply to any of these catagories (even the full ones) could you send me a PM about it, since some of the ones I am using really arn't that crash hot to begin with (like one of them is actually a 64x64 blown up to a 512x512 then smoothed/blurred to hell just to make it moderatly acceptable)

Going to get on with the rest of the civ making, I am hoping to have the rough basis for a game going in about 2 weeks - I'm not promising much here so don't take it the wrong way - but I expect that the game will be playable through to the mesolithic period, though it will still need tweaking a bit - I am just guessing that by not this weekend but next, the mod should have evolved inbto a moderatly playable game (I am going this mod full time till then - maybe after I will slow down a bit)

Also see my previous post - I really need to know about the Terrain Feature Graphics, can it even be done - if so I'll keep mucking around, but I don't want to waste anymore time on it - a simple straight cloning of the FEATURE_FOREST, and FEATURE_JUNGLE, with the only difference between them being the scaling, I got the python code to put the forests into the game already done, but I still can't get them in - even with worldbuilder.
 
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