My fear: that there are screens with text "xxx years later" between ages"

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I might have said this in another thread but it's definitely a complete cop out. It might work, of that I'm fairly confident, but it's not the best solution for sure

I have an issue with the negativity implicit in the phrase "complete cop out".

All we really know is that a) the designers recognised end game tedium / snowballing was a problem, and b) that they chose to implement a three Age system as a way to combat this.

This may be a drastic solution, a big change, and contrary to what many people were expecting / hoping. There may be other ways to fix the problem that are less drastic, I don't disagree with that at all.

But that doesn't make it a "cop out". We have no idea what other solutions they discussed, tested, rejected. We don't know why they chose to go down this route, we just know that they did.

Any creative endeavour is subjective, making a Civ game is no different. There isn't a right or wrong, just different opinions. Calling every design decision that we disagree with a "cop out" is quite unfair.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

it's better to have "X years later" rather than "immediate instant Civ change".

I'm really not sure - we've had Scenarios and Non Ancient Era starts for a long time now and they're just not popular probably because people feel no ownership for things they haven't developed themselves.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Those mechanics certainly did work, otherwise paint the map people wouldn’t have complained about them like they did.

The corruption mechanic especially added much needed strategic depth, because you had to think about whether taking a city might actually make your civ weaker because of overall corruption. It modelled history pretty well.

Civ6 solved the “just raze” problem with grievences, as razing cities would make the rest of the world view you as, well, a genocidal maniac.

All of the tools were there, it just needed some refinement, as the mods for 6 demonstrated.

Or you could just hit a reset button at each era change, which is what we are getting instead of doing actual development.

This mechanic already existed in previous titles, it was called “Hitting Restart and deleting old saves”

This is certainly the first time that “feature” became mandatory

 

[Siptah]

But @aieeegrunt if the tools were there and in mods, why should development time for a new game be wasted on implementing it? If you like modded civ VI, great. You can still play that, no one is taking it away from you. New games should be made to incorporate new ideas, new designs, and new philosophies - and the things that cannot be done "easily" in the old environment but require fundamental changes. There are a few franchises I've been following for a long time, and the last thing I want them to do in any of them is simple "refinement." Anno 1800 is (aside from the setting) the perfect Anno game for me and apparently many others. I was afraid they would go with refinement and make it stale (aside from choosing a great new setting). And then they introduce different upgrade paths to citizens! With EU4 it is similar, for me it's a near perfect game, besides its many obvious flaws. But then you read about what's happening in EU5 and it's simply astonishing what's possible without the restrictions of the former game. The opposite is Pharaoh: A New Era. I don't see single reason to play/buy this game, despite having played almost 10 times through the original. Or Definitive Editions of AoE games, if it weren't for new DLCs that aren't available for the older options. If I pay for a new game, I want a new game in which a lot of creative and smart people invested their fresh ideas of what's never been possible so far, not the a monster still caught in the chains of the previous game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Moderator Action: *SNIP* Quote removed as original post deleted per mod action. -lymond
I didn’t requote because your reply is verbose enough without adding a tangle of spaghetti to it.

I addressed your points and made an argument with concrete examples, as opposed to a vague assertation that said mechanics are “impossible”. If you can’t or won’t engage with it, that’s not on me.

@Siptah I was giving succinct concrete examples that anti anowball mechanics have existed in this franchise in the past, and given that modders were able tp refine it, it’s not like it’s some impossible task

Now whether or not completely changing the core identity of a franchise is wise or not is a seperate discussion.

 

[Binkov]

Okay, so after all the preview videos it seems clear that the 1st age will most often end between 1200 bce and 500 bce.
And we know that the 2nd age alwys begins at 400 ce.
That's a gap of 1000 or more years.

But what about the gap between 2nd and 3rd age? Have there been any indications about when does the 3rd age begin?
And when does the second age usually end?

 

[Krikkit1]

Okay, so after all the preview videos it seems clear that the 1st age will most often end between 1200 bce and 500 bce.
And we know that the 2nd age alwys begins at 400 ce.
That's a gap of 1000 or more years.

But what about the gap between 2nd and 3rd age? Have there been any indications about when does the 3rd age begin?
And when does the second age usually end?

3rd age begins 1750
no info on usual ending
(however….this is something they can definitely deal with…the year shown for each turn doe affect anything else, so they could modify it to reflect what’s happening during the age for less of a gap on transition)

 

[Thenewwwguy]

The most absurd thing is that mechanically, the dark age is caused by *technological advancement*

And it happens for everyone at the same time?

the real dark ages weren’t times of no advancement, it was just when we don’t have records of it or when that advancement wasn’t happening in europe.

 

[AriochIV]

3rd age begins 1750
no info on usual ending
(however….this is something they can definitely deal with…the year shown for each turn doe affect anything else, so they could modify it to reflect what’s happening during the age for less of a gap on transition)

In Ursa Ryan's Exploration Age stream, he ends the Age in 1145 CE.

Yes, that's right... a 605 year gap between Ages.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Don't says that THREE AGES System has a long 'lost ages' between the two, rather than continious connections.
That means. Antiquity ended 900 BC (or 400 AD) and Exploration Age begins 900 AD or what?

 

[AriochIV]

Don't says that THREE AGES System has a long 'lost ages' between the two, rather than continious connections.
That means. Antiquity ended 900 BC (or 400 AD) and Exploration Age begins 900 AD or what?

Ages always begin at the same time regardless of when the previous one ended. They end whenever you hit certain criteria, and the better everyone does, the faster it ends.

The Antiquity Age begins at 4000 BCE
The Exploration Age begins at 400 CE
The Modern Age begins at 1750 CE

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Ages always begin at the same time regardless of when the previous one ended. They end whenever you hit certain criteria, and the better everyone does, the faster it ends.

The Antiquity Age begins at 4000 BCE
The Exploration Age begins at 400 CE
The Modern Age begins at 1750 CE

So did continious age progression possible? with no 'Lost ages' between.

 

[AriochIV]

So did continious age progression possible? with no 'Lost ages' between.

No.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

No.

Then you say there will be Lost Ages gap between the two ages no matter how long every players tried to drag on. no 'seamless progressions' as in previous Civ games and other similiar 4X games here?

 

[gdr_willter]

So did continious age progression possible? with no 'Lost ages' between.

Turn off the Crisis, or set the Age speed. It will longer the Age and shorter the gap.

 

[AriochIV]

Then you say there will be Lost Ages gap between the two ages no matter how long every players tried to drag on. no 'seamless progressions' as in previous Civ games and other similiar 4X games here?

That is correct, there is always a gap between Ages.

Civ7 is really three connected campaigns rather than a single continuous playthrough.

Turn off the Crisis, or set the Age speed. It will longer the Age and shorter the gap.

Or play worse. But though you can shorten the gap, you can't eliminate it.

I don't think turning off the Crisis affects the Age length. As I understand it, the Age length is determined by Legacy Path progress. The Crisis is just a negative effect that ramps up toward the end of the Age.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Turn off the Crisis, or set the Age speed. It will longer the Age and shorter the gap.

that doesn't address the problem which is that the ages are largely three seperated hard resets and that there will be a large gap of time inbetween end of an age and the beginning of the next

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

that doesn't address the problem which is that the ages are largely three seperated hard resets and that there will be a large gap of time inbetween end of an age and the beginning of the next

In an Exploration Age demonstration video, the gap was very wide. ONE AND A HALF MILLENIUM!

 

[Krikkit1]

Then you say there will be Lost Ages gap between the two ages no matter how long every players tried to drag on. no 'seamless progressions' as in previous Civ games and other similiar 4X games here?

The only change is the displayed date…there maybe “lost years” but no “lost turns”

and as mentioned fairly easy to mod/update/patch since I don’t think it interacts with any other game systems

 

[Teproc]

I've been playing Civ since the very first one, and I remember building SETI in BC years being an objective because its bonus scaled better the earlier you built it. Years have always been meaningless in Civ.