Modern Age Gripe

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I think the Modern UU models at least switching out their weapons would be nice. Same goes for the Tercio, actually, they should start with spears and only pick up the guns once you actually have guns.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think the Modern UU models at least switching out their weapons would be nice. Same goes for the Tercio, actually, they should start with spears and only pick up the guns once you actually have guns.

Having some exploration and Cavalry/Naval Modern UU update their Graphics at different Tiers would be good.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Technically Hussars, and other Cavalry like them, fought in WW1.

Cavalry was used in WW2 as well, although it was much more advanced and mostly in the beginning. So, having cavalry units for modern period totally makes sense.

Photo from the victory parade of 1945

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Right now, the Tech Tree throws Industrialization (Factories and Rail Stations) into the end of the first third of the Age (Tier 2 Techs) where they coincide with Field Guns, Howitzers and Rifle Infantry - all graphically WWI units. This is Flat Wrong since Industrialization largely took place 30 - 100 years Before WWI or even the advent of WWI infantry and artillery units, which date to approximately 1900

This is by far my BIGGEST problem with the Modern Age. It's literally pitched as thrusting your civ into the "Industrial Resolution," but industrialization is just a brief blip on the Tech Tree. You go from being not industrialized to industrialized in a matter of years.

Where is the rapid urbanization? What happens to the rural areas of our empire (our Towns) that once supported our economy? How does industrialization affect farming? What is the impact of mass production on our military and civilian Units? With the advent of the steam engine, how does our relationship with nature and power change? What resources become crucial, and which ones fall to the wayside?

None of this is explored in an Age that should, charitably, be all about this. It's simply bizarre. The missed potential is painful.

 

[Phrozen]

Yes, the industrial age should be turned into its own age with the ending crisis being WWI-WW2. Then a cold war or atomic age from ~1950 to ~1990.

 

[Yzman]

I don't care about this...my main gripe with modern is that very little of the unique civs even matters for it.

Maybe I am playing wrong, but modern to me is a rush to a goal. So for example, am I going to go with natural to hegemony as fast as possible or do my civ's unique civics? I typically don't even go for the unique civics until I am done with hegemony which means I don't get to use them much. But I don't see another option, especially in higher difficulties.

Modern victories need to get pushed way back, otherwise I ignore 90% of modern.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

This is by far my BIGGEST problem with the Modern Age. It's literally pitched as thrusting your civ into the "Industrial Resolution," but industrialization is just a brief blip on the Tech Tree. You go from being not industrialized to industrialized in a matter of years.

Where is the rapid urbanization? What happens to the rural areas of our empire (our Towns) that once supported our economy? How does industrialization affect farming? What is the impact of mass production on our military and civilian Units? With the advent of the steam engine, how does our relationship with nature and power change? What resources become crucial, and which ones fall to the wayside?

None of this is explored in an Age that should, charitably, be all about this. It's simply bizarre. The missed potential is painful.

I think both the Industrial Era Crisis, which was largely a factor in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Ideological Crisis, which manifested most egregiously in the mid-20th century, as a result of that separation in time could be handled within a single Modern Age, with Industrial mostly the product of Tech developments and Ideologies that of Civics.

The effects of both are, of course, myriad and far-reaching, but here's my 'quick and dirty' take on potential 'solutions' to the Industrial:

1. Move Factories to Industrialization, so that both Railroads and Factories come in Tier 2. You get Tier 1 Techs to prepare before the impact of Industrialization hits you.
* A Factory without a Railroad Station or Port gets adjacencies for Production from any adjacent Resource.
* With a Railroad Station or Port in the same city, it gets Production bonuses from every Resource in your Civ that is also in a Settlement with a Railroad Station or Port. That should begin to show the massive increase in productive output from rail-connected Factories in the middle-19th century and later. Costs of Units from Tier 2 on would also increase, so that without Industrialization, you will inevitably have a much smaller military, and really expensive Units like Dreadnaughts, Battleships, Landships, Tanks and Heavy Bombers will be prohibitively expensive.

2. Ironclad moves to Steam Engine Mastery, because it didn't come along until 80+ years after the original, stationary, steam engines (1769 - 1776 for Watt's perfected steam engine, 1859 for the first steam-powered Ironclads)

3. Dreadnaughts and Landships move to Mass Production Tech in Tier 3 (The World War One Tier), replacing Cannery and Factory, which move to Urbanization and Industrialization Techs, respectively.
* Note that this makes both Dreadnaughts and Landships very ephemeral units, because the replacement Tanks and Battleships come along a Tech or two later. Given that the coal-burning Dreadnaught only lasted from 1906 to 1915 and the Landship from 1916-1917 to 1929, even this is probably giving them too much importance.

4. Tenement also moves to Urbanization in Tier 2, because you will need it. Each Factory increases the Urban Population of your Settlement by 1, 2 with a Railroad Station, and each additional Pop also decreases Happiness in that Settlement by 5. A Tenement halves that Happiness deficit. These figures may have to change with testing, but the point is that the Industrial Working Population (Proletariat) will need to be kept happy with at least housing and food (which could be represented by a similar Happiness bonus from the Cannery) or they will start tearing down your Settlement or even revolting and defecting to another Civ (or become a City State?)

5. The Destroyer and Submarine also came into their own in WWI, so really should move to Mass Production also. Note that 'Rifle Infantry', Howitzers and Field Guns were all developed in the late 1880s, so should stay where they are - if anyone wants to fight WWI in the 1890s while also trying to solve the Proletariat Problem, by all means they should be allowed enough rope to hang themselves . . .

6. The Fighter and Dive Bomber should both move to Mobilization in Tier 4, because both were developed in the late 1930s, BUT the Heavy Bomber should stay in Tier 5, because while the aircraft were developed starting in the late 1930s, the techniques of target finding and marking and organizing massive simultaneous or near-simultaneous bomb strikes were not perfected until 1943 - 1944.

7. And finally, let's get the nomenclature (Unit Designations) right for once:
*The in-game Assault Gun isn't: it is Heavy Artillery. IF someone is enamored of the term Assault Gun, it should replace the Antitank Gun as the upgrade of the Field Gun - Self-Propelled or Assault Artillery.
*The 'Infantry Company' of Tier 4 is in fact, Assault Infantry, with increasing amounts of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and infantry Heavy Weapons in each unit compared to the Rifle units that they replaced.

With something like these changes, the Industrial Era gets firmly moved to Tier 2 - 3 in the Tech Tree, so the first 50/60% of the Modern Age (roughly, 1750 - 1890) while the World Wars that ushered in and expanded the Ideology Insanity are firmly in Tiers 3, 4 and 5, and WWI and WWII units are separated by Tech Tiers so, unless you are behind, you aren't building and fielding units from both world wars at the same time.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't care about this...my main gripe with modern is that very little of the unique civs even matters for it.

Maybe I am playing wrong, but modern to me is a rush to a goal. So for example, am I going to go with natural to hegemony as fast as possible or do my civ's unique civics? I typically don't even go for the unique civics until I am done with hegemony which means I don't get to use them much. But I don't see another option, especially in higher difficulties.

Modern victories need to get pushed way back, otherwise I ignore 90% of modern.

The funny thing is that it's much less rush toward the goal than before. In previous civ games, the last third of the game is just a railroad to a chosen victory, in Civ7 I often don't know which way I'm going to win in the middle of Modern.

The problem here is that with age transition system we expect Modern to be fully functional age, so we compare it with other ages, not with end game experience of previous games.