More Ages!!!!11!!!!111!!

[dh_epic]

I agreed with everything you said, tmarcl, up until "And that's where ages come in".

I really do think you can invent rockets without having even a sense of National identity. It's obviously possible to have Nuclear Weapons without seperating Church and State. And it's possible to have Capitalism without Democracy.

Ages have little do to do with it.

 

[sir_schwick]

@tmarcl

You bring a good point about developemental goals being part of what defines ages. Unfortunately in civilization developement has little to do with ages, as technology is the only defining aspect. The Dark Ages(approx. 600-1000) were that because they lacked organization and developement, but they still had much of the technology of the Roman era. Development has to be part of ages, as tmarcl. Having said that, here are a couple directions this can head:

Age Status
Although new technology usually solves many problems, it often requires a certain amount of infrastructure, physical or social, to be effectively or usefully utilized. Societies that gain new technology they do not have the infrastructure for will have many problems as a result. Some of these problems can be solved by creating that infrastructure once the technology is in place. Others will have lasting impressions and effects for long duration and possibly forever. I'll have more later. GIve some ideas if you know what i mean.

 

[painkiller]

I hate the idea of having more ages! How many techs should each age have. With a total of 8-9 ages it would be hard to find time to get 20+ techs/age. If you are REALLY fast you can get techs at a rate of 4 turns/tech. so 4 X 20 X 8 = 640 turns. The limit is 540 turns... If you trade like crazy maybe you can reach the final tech but then you never research all techs at 4 turns/ tech... Having less techs in every age would make the ages come and go to fast.

The only thing I want is more techs in the existing ages but not to many. 3-5 new techs in every age would be great!

 

[sir_schwick]

I think ages should be seperate from technology. These ages would be based upon developemental goals, many of which would require a minimum level of technology to achieve, but likely a lot more then the minimum.

All technology is on one giant tree, but parts of the tree are cut off until you reach the appropriate age to unlock it. Also, technology usually requires a certain amount of infrastructure to utilize fully. Being under these developmental goals for the setting(city by city, or by nation) would lessen the effectiveness.

 

[DBear]

What will probably happen, which we've seen somewhat with Conquests, is that each age will have an epic game in its own right. The epic campaign as it is now will disappear.

 

[citizen001]

Why is it necessary to have more ages for modding?

So that scenario makers can add even more techs and also some scenarios need more ages to increase realism.

 

[dojoboy]

I don't know if more ages is the answer, but rather an intricate tech tree that offers more than just, "researching the top branch or researching the bottom branch" approach.

 

[dh_epic]

You can add more techs without ages. And, in fact, I'd make a case that ages are unrealistic -- might describe the experience of a few Civs, but fail to capture the essence of a few other Civs.

Ages don't help.

Again, two words:

Tech web.

 

[sir_schwick]

I highly doubt that Civ could keep its player base by eliminating the epic game altogether. It is one of the main reasons that most players do play, to replay all of history.

On the modding issue, why not add that kind of functionality? It would have been stupid of the programmers to hard-code something like that so it was stuck at four.

One big tech tree would allow for more interesting research paths. If you are worried about jumping ahead to far, you could make many stop points that must have certain goals to alleviate them. In this model, ages would be kept but would represent more than technology. Ages and their benefits/uses would also need to meet devlopemental goals and technology goals both to reach them.

 

[kevincompton]

Ages are important for aesthetic purposes of modders. The more the better.

 

[sir_schwick]

Basically, you can have a lot of technology, but if your civ is a squaller then you are stuck in a more primative age. Ages are more then technology, and technology would not have a particular age associated with it.

 

[dh_epic]

Pulling ages apart from technology, what would be the importance or value attached to an age? Right now they're really just symbolic landmarks, and a convenient time to give someone a bonus tech, or a change in graphics.

 

[sir_schwick]

In my above post I suggested that different ages would allow different levels of control, different kinds of devleopment to happen, more evolution, etc. I'll have to think about some benefits of ages, but this way developement actually reflects your civs development, not just what techs you traded for.

This is an extension of the idea that technology allows the improvement of human society(in some manner) and is aimed in that direction. Man moved into the next age because they had a certain level of development. Some part of that could nto be achieved without technology.

Here is an example:

Suppose you have a very progressive society that has plumbing, Civic forums, etc. However, they don't have techs to even construction or iron working. If they were developed enough they might go into the next age because they were highly developed. Unlikely, but it would allow for really strong builder types to get ot the next age. Also, it would force players who constantly expand be somewhat stuck by the fact they have almost no developement. Their society is disjointed and somewhat backward. Through 'negotiation' they may have many techs into the current Middle ages in Civ 3, but not be developed enough to progress to the next age. Part of this involves such factors as trade, civic developement, etc.