More eras... please?

[Princeps]

Civ needs more eras, because for example ancient times poorly done... its just ''spears and despotism''. The ancient times needs to shared into (atleast)
two eras: Late stone age and the antiquity. Well anyway, the game needs at least seven eras:

Late stone age
Kind of tribal era. Migrations, lack of metals, no proper cities...

the antiquity
Hoplites, legions, philosophy... Kind of awakening...

Middle ages
Middle ages. Knights, pikemen... but no gunpowder units, nor exelent ships.

Age of discovery
Gunpowder units, colonialism, better ships.

napoleonic age / early idustrial age
Early industrial era... age of nationalism, line infantry...

Idustrial age
first and second world war type era.

Modern Age
you know... you live in it.

Suggestions? criticism?

 

[warpstorm]

I always thought that eras were contrived. I'd rather they scrap the idea and go back to the way Civ1, Civ2, and SMAC did it i.e. one huge tech tree that you can pick and choose from (personally I'd like them to add a random factor in so that you couldn't guarantee the One True Path through the tech tree every game).

 

[sealman]

I agree with Warpstorm. Eras are meaningless.

 

[Drakan]

No more eras, four is fine. Just expand on them. In Rise and Rule you go crazy with 200 techs and 33 or 50 great wonders, "more is not always better", Soren Johnson. The game is very balanced as it is, that's what has us coming for more.

 

[Princeps]

I agree with Warpstorm. Eras are meaningless.

Yeah they are.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, not only are eras meaningless, but they tend to make me feel like I'm jumping through European history. I'd like to rewrite my own history.

I hope civics changes some of that -- where not everyone can discover Democracy. Or where you might be able to discover Democracy, but it takes time and energy to bring your nation into it. The idea of rewriting history means that someone can be very progressive in one way, while being very conservative in another way. A King with Nuclear Weapons. Or a President of a country that hasn't even industrialized, really.

 

[Benitus]

I think the ancient era should be split into 2 eras like naziassbandit said, but the others era r fine.

 

[Mei]

I agree with dh_epic- it'd be good to have a game with a tech tree like that- where not everyone discovers feudalism, not everyone discovers religion (or stays polytheistic) etc. Maybe even a country with computers but no industrialisation!

The entire tech tree does feel very European/ western at the moment, especially with the unit graphics/ tech names as they are.

 

[MattII]

I never really liked eras in the first place and tried to create a Civ3 mod without them, but I never had the time to finist it. I would like to see a few more eastern styled techs.

 

[alva848]

(personally I'd like them to add a random factor in so that you couldn't guarantee the One True Path through the tech tree every game).

Also not being a 100% which one you will discover, a la SMAC.

 

[OwieB2003]

Seemed to me, in CivIII, eras were both opening up a new techtree, and changing the city graphics. On that note... why not change city graphics as various technologies are discovered? (e.g., beginning of game, your cities look like little more than a cluster of mud huts with thatch roofs, discover bronze working and masonry, and they turn into stone buildings akin to grecoroman design, or something to that effect...time passes to industrial age, metropoli look like industrial age cities, but prior to researching something like "city planning", they look like whatever the art of that period dictates looks good - not very likely to be organized in any predictable fashion, but looks nice save for the grime associated with the Industrial Age.. research City Planning, and it looks much more organized.. street layout in a cartesian grid system(NYC, Portland Oregon), or maybe polar grid system(Paris?).

 

[brinko]

sry nazi
rewritting history is part of the game.
but there should be a realistic future era after all modern technologies have been discovered. (the age of the unknown)

 

[rhialto]

The era concept should definitely be dropped. However, the scope of the techs should be broadened a little and deepened a lot. I don't want to jump from guys with clubs to guys with bronze armour and long spears with nothing in between. The way military units advance in technology is like some bad stop-motion animation.

 

[Evie]

I'll join with everyone else in the just-drop-the-eras-already faction. They are a needless addition to the game that set too much in stone regarding the needful research path.

The old-style tech trees were great.

 

[Bluetooth]

I think that the tech tree in Civ III is an improvement over how it worked in Civ II. More flexibility is a good idea as well. Slightly different tech trees depending on which culture your country belongs to could also work. And yes; I wouldn’t mind an Age of Discovery.

 

[dh_epic]

The "Ages" are nothing more than names for sections of the tech tree. They don't really add anything to the game.

It's also a catch 22 for other cultures. China never had an age of discovery. Heck, you can't say it had a middle ages with monotheism. But on the other hand, giving each culture it's own eras pigeonhole it -- why CAN'T china have an age of discovery?

The point isn't to choose one or the other but to abandon eras in favor of a more abstract, dynamic tech tree.

 

[Loaf Warden]

I'm going to cast my vote with the "drop the eras altogether" camp. The eras used are too Eurocentric, first of all. Secondly, it's entirely too contrived to force us to discover a specific set of techs in order to "complete" an era so we can move on to the next.

Thirdly, most of the era names would have been meaningless to the people who actually lived at the time. The eras are named retrospectively by historians to help us more easily discuss the past. No one in the Greek city-states thought of himself as living in "Ancient" times. No one in the Carolingian Empire thought of himself as living in "Medieval" times. No one in Lorenzo the Magnificent's Florence thought of himself as living in "the Renaissance". To all peoples, in all times, their own period was simply "modern times". We call our era "modern", but historians two hundred years from now won't. They'll have their own name for our era, and probably one we wouldn't recognize or even really understand without knowing what comes after us.

I like having the city graphics, leaderheads, and so on update as time goes by. But it should be based on specific techs rather than some arbitrary system of "eras". In Civ II, when you discovered Industrialization, your city graphics changed to an industrial look, but nothing else changed. You hadn't suddenly graduated into the "industrial" era with a whole new set of techs to discover. They should revive that system for Civ IV. Have certain techs that can change the look of things, but without sharply dividing it all into pre-set "eras".

 

[MCHunter]

There is flexibility in the tech tree! You don't HAVE to research Democracy, Free artistry, Music Theory, or printing press in the middle ages meaning you can be an ultra oppressive monarch for the whole game. You don't have to research Monarchy or Republic so you can be a despot or feudal lord (Which puzzles me as to why Monarchy comes before Feudalism). You don't have to research anything in the Modern age and you don't have to pursue the political section of the tech tree in the industrial age. Ages are there so that you can't get tanks in 1000ad or Airplanes in 1200a.d.

 

[sir_schwick]

If you are good enough your in the modern era by 1000 AD anyway. But besides the point, there was way more flexibility with the Civ 2, Civ 1 tech trees, and blind research made the SMAC tree very effective. While there is some flexibility, it is pretty rigid compared to previous titles.

 

[LouLong]

I always thought that eras were contrived. I'd rather they scrap the idea and go back to the way Civ1, Civ2, and SMAC did it i.e. one huge tech tree that you can pick and choose from (personally I'd like them to add a random factor in so that you couldn't guarantee the One True Path through the tech tree every game).

I second that fully !