~Corsair#01~ said:
The problem is: what if I wanted to play as the Americans in the Ancient Age?
Also, giving different UU's and traits in each Era would remove all the strategy and skill of choosing your own civ. Also, you'd have to readjust your civ every era to adjust for losing traits every era.
Perhaps this problem could be dodged somehow (remember, not everything in this game has to reflect historical reality 100%) by allowing your civ to do its bronze age, iron age, medieval age as a kind of non-specific or maybe a generalized European version of each. There are certainly a wealth of archaeological sites/settlements in Europe that didn't turn into the major cities of today's civilizations that it would be cool to pretend you were building up; and could, in a way, be said to represent precursor stages in the development of the people who migrated to the American colonies and later the USA. Immigrants to America did not just come from one European culture, but from all of them, and from the rest of the world too at this point; so it would be fitting to reflect that somehow in the pre-Rennaissance eras (the Rennaisance era being the one in which the colonization of America can best be said to have occurred).
Some examples of possible names include:
Bronze Age : Halstatt, Stonehenge/Salisbury, La Tene, Ggantija, Mycenae, Corsica, etc.
Iron Age : Roma, Glanum, Dubrovnik, Tara, etc.
Medieval Age : Dublin, Avignon, Napoli, Aachen, Santiago de Compostela, etc.
The particular sites chosen would be geographically broad and would be those sites that were the most important in their region and/or that best capture or reflect the values of European civilization at the time (Santiago de Compostela, for example, was the major Christian pilgrimage site in Europe).
As the American player progressed to the next age, the name of his "city" would progress to that of the most important site for the same geographic region. For example, in Ireland the progression might be something like: Bronze Age-Newgrange; Iron Age-Tara; Medieval Age-Dublin. Then when the American player progresses into the Rennaisance age, things would shift to reflect the colonization period, so Dublin might be connected to Boston, for example. Then when the Modern Age begins, if the city is no longer that important, it could change again to represent the full spectrum of American city names. In this example, however, Boston would remain the same because Boston is still a major American city.
I think this would be a workable solution to the "there was no American civ during the Bronze Age" problem. What do you think?
Alafin Bahahotep
. Of course i want to see my own civ in civ4 too, even if it's very senceless. The only important thing we ever reached was the bank secret and i am the only one who would have fun to play with the bank secret as a world wonder (this doesn't say that i like the bank secret !!).
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