Potential for new ages being added in future DLC

[chaosprophet]

While the game still months away from release, I'm curious of what possibilities future expansions may have regarding adding more ages to the game.

I think there is pretty much two ways it can be done:

1) Divide the current ages in a bigger number of ages covering a shorter amount of history time.
2) Add new age(s) before Antiquity.
3) Add new age(s) after Modern.

+Option 1 would likely be the harder to do because from what we see they want each age to be significant, so making a bigger number of shorter ages can easily make them less remarkable, make the crisis / age transition too repetitive, and possibly need to completely rebalance the game to make it work well, as you may need to expand things like tech tree to make the higher number of ages longer than just the same amount of average turns divided in more than 3 now.

+Option 2 is workable but still a bit difficult, as it would impact the start of the antiquity age. If it has no impact, then it is meaningless as a age. If it is long and impacts a lot, then you need to rebalance at very least a lot of the antiquity, and possible of all the game. I think this could work as a short starting age / part of a minor dlc. It could be meaningful for you to as a nomad group explore a little bit of your surroundings, so when antiquity starts, you can have a settler positioned on a best position you want to create a city on turn 1 (helping solve/mitigate the problem of not making your city at turn 1, meaning being 1 or more turns behind every other player because there is a place 1~2 turns away that would be so much better to make the city), maybe pick a very small bonus for legacy, like a starting tech or unit, etc. It would probably be better to not even pick a civ at this age, maybe just a type of nomadic tribe.

+Option 3 is the one that can more easily be done as it would need none to barely none rebalance to the previous ages, and easy to fit the whole idea of each age being different, a crisis to end the modern age, expansion of map, etc. It is easy to come with ideas for crisis for a modern age, like an economic crisis, pandemic, environment, power crisis, that may depends of things like co2 emissions, number of atomic bombs used, having not much sanitation and/or too much connectivity over the world that would allow for easier spread of diseases, overpopulation, etc. The new era can easily allow for the usual map expansion by doing things like giving you a space / atmosphere layer to the world, allowing you to build floating or subterrean cities etc. The main problem with option 3, is that seems like not many civ players are interested in civ games that goes too futuristic / speculative.

Anyway, what do you think about these ideas or if there is any other idea for possible additional ages to the game later on?

 

[Zaarin]

Others have talked about this, and while the part of me that loves granularity would love to see the Bronze Age or Middle Ages added as distinct ages, the bigger part of me wants to change civs as few times as possible--and I agree with the current divisions as hitting the biggest breaking points in history.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I think a "near future quasi-post apocalyptic era" with fictionalized progressions of modern civs is almost an inevitable idea for an expansion. Beyond Earth 2 prelude to an extent.

 

[SeelingCat]

I agree with Zaarin for the most part, but I wonder if the reception to civ switching will/could soften over time to the point that adding another era wouldn't be out of the question

 

[moysturfurmer]

It should be noted that right now we have no evidence that the Modern Age progresses beyond Atomic. Language on website says Modern is Steam Engine to Splitting of Atom. None of the units we’ve seen are post 1950. The space race rocket struck me as quite mid century. Etc.

There’s a chance that a 4th age might cover the last 70 years and near future

 

[Zaarin]

It should be noted that right now we have no evidence that the Modern Age progresses beyond Atomic. Language on website says Modern is Steam Engine to Splitting of Atom. None of the units we’ve seen are post 1950. The space race rocket struck me as quite mid century. Etc.

There’s a chance that a 4th age might cover the last 70 years and near future

While possible, the end game has always gone into the near future, and I'd be a little surprised to see that change. It would also make the final age only about a century long if that were the case.

 

[OzzyKP]

Count me in as someone who thinks they will add another age in an XP.

 

[El Castellano]

Maybe they make a scenario similar to Civilization: Beyond Earth. Or they could make alternative stages type Steampunk or so. It depends on what they want to do.

 

[ggalindo001]

I think the superstructure of how this is being built could result in some very good modularized ages.

I can see DLC (and/or MODs) that have the following ages (on top of the obvious go from 3 to 4 with a medieval/middle ages)

A pre-Antiquity age
A true dark age/ice age
An exploration or modern age based on steampunk
Several alternative modern ages (based on what-if Central powers won WW1, perpetual cold war and/or Eastern Bloc winning cold war, continued age of empires, etc.)
A reverse age of exploration (where it is not exploration but rather inward focus)
A reverse age of exploration and extreme religious focus
And of course alternative future post-modern ages

The more I see what -could- be here, the more I think this modularized system could really be something very cool.

Of course, it will mean a lot more DLC -- but if modable, we could see some very interesting eras.

 

[Zaarin]

A reverse age of exploration and extreme religious focus

...the Protestant Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the Tridentine Reforms were among of the characterizing features of the Age of Exploration.

 

[Zecon365]

Maybe they make a scenario similar to Civilization: Beyond Earth. Or they could make alternative stages type Steampunk or so. It depends on what they want to do.

Ever since BE was announced, I've wanted an extensive future era part of a mainline game that worked like BE, space colonization and all. But I do understand how implementing that would be pretty complex, what with managing a civilization on multiple terrestrial bodies and not just on one anymore. It would be a very different part of the game. Still, the possibility that it could work intrigues me, especially since the new ages system seems to be leaning more into the "each era being a different kind of game" idea a bit more.

 

[UWHabs]

The biggest flaw with a current/future age is it becomes a trickier situation maybe to decide which civs "deserve" to be modern (ie Industrial-WW2) vs atomic era civs. And the way modern countries are thought of, you don't have quite the dynastic periods that let you split the other eras into. Every civ is pretty much going to be "Modern America" vs "Atomic America". "Modern Japan" vs "Atomic Japan", etc... I mean, sure, maybe you arbitrarily stick Canada as a Modern civ, and Australia as an Atomic civ because whatever reason you want. As much as it might be cool to have a focus on the future, it just feels a little clunky to deal with.

I think the biggest gap in-game in the ages is probably the medieval period. I think you could stretch one more age out there, and it probably wouldn't be impossible to code it in. I would guess it would only come in an expansion pack, since it will have to re-align every civ in some ways - assuredly some civs would switch to the new era since they fit better there, and you'd also have some game features maybe feature differently. The medieval period would be the start of religion and the crusades, whereas the Age of Exploration would be Reformation times.

I 100% expect it will come. But not until the first major expansion for the game.

 

[Mazisky]

It should be noted that right now we have no evidence that the Modern Age progresses beyond Atomic. Language on website says Modern is Steam Engine to Splitting of Atom. None of the units we’ve seen are post 1950. The space race rocket struck me as quite mid century. Etc.

There’s a chance that a 4th age might cover the last 70 years and near future

My theory is they haven't showed anything mmodern yet because it is not graphically ready.

The lighting isn't finished, the lights (flames, braciers) don't cast light and the windows of every building are black void.

I think they are waiting for the lighting to be finalized so they can show modern era with night shots, because skyscrapers, golden gate, modern wonders, etc. are all very spectacular at night with all the lights on as they were in Civ 6.

So i guess we will see the more modern stuff later on with finalized lighting and night shots.

 

[The_J]

It should be noted that right now we have no evidence that the Modern Age progresses beyond Atomic. Language on website says Modern is Steam Engine to Splitting of Atom. None of the units we’ve seen are post 1950. The space race rocket struck me as quite mid century. Etc.

There’s a chance that a 4th age might cover the last 70 years and near future

I do think Ursa Ryan said something about space victory, but I am not 100% sure.


For the proposed options:
1) is not going to happen. This would mean essentially re-designing and re-balancing everything.
I think 2+3 are possible options. Millennia just added a stone-age/ice age megafauna kind of start, and I think some people here would enjoy having this as an option. And in Civ4 we had the official "Next War" mod with GDRs n near-future stuff. Both seem likely to me.

 

[rocksinmypath]

A new age would be the sort of scale of change you'd expect from an expansion. By the time the first expansion comes out, including the ones introduced by the expansion, I'm hopeful there will be ~60 civs in the game, which should be enough for a four-age split. The only problem is the logistics of potentially having to rework tech/civic trees and crises of existing ages.

If Civ wasn't such a big franchise, it'd make more sense for the base game to contain just the first age or two, and add subsequent ages chronologically through expansions. It would be logistically less challenging to add new ages, and there'd be less noise about the culture transition mechanism.

 

[Olleus]

A whole new era would be a pretty major DLC.

You'd need a LOT of new civs (~15) to make it feel like the others. And add a new crises, with all the options, policies, and changes that entails. And a whole other tech tree, a bunch of buildings, units, wonders, and so on. And add multiple new mechanics - because it sounds like there will be some era-specific mechanics for the base 3. That's a lot of content to add. Specially as that content would be essentially boxed away from the rest of the game rather than integrated with it. In other words, it's too big for the standard DLC we've seen, but too separate for the full-blown expansions we're used to.

Not saying that it's impossible, but I'm not sure it would be their first port of call.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Ring me up as another "change cultures as few times as possible" supporter.

Adding a near-future sci-fi Age would be sort of neat, but there's a few problems. One being that everybody hates Firaxis's take on speculative technologies. GDR, anyone? The other being that it's the fastest way to offend someone by implying that their current nation won't be a dominant or noteworthy world power within a hundred years.

Adding a neolithic Age would be less problematic, I think. Firaxis would have to assign some rather arbitrary abilities to various pre-agriculture cultures, but there's plenty to choose from. I'm just not sure it would be fun.

 

[Zaarin]

My theory is they haven't showed anything mmodern yet because it is not graphically ready.

It's always been normal for them to delay talking about the late game. Plus, they showed the leader models...

 

[The_J]

A whole new era would be a pretty major DLC.

You'd need a LOT of new civs (~15) to make it feel like the others. And add a new crises, with all the options, policies, and changes that entails. And a whole other tech tree, a bunch of buildings, units, wonders, and so on. And add multiple new mechanics - because it sounds like there will be some era-specific mechanics for the base 3. That's a lot of content to add. Specially as that content would be essentially boxed away from the rest of the game rather than integrated with it. In other words, it's too big for the standard DLC we've seen, but too separate for the full-blown expansions we're used to.

Not saying that it's impossible, but I'm not sure it would be their first port of call.

Well... we'll hopefully get 2 full addons, as usual .

Adding a near-future sci-fi Age would be sort of neat, but there's a few problems. One being that everybody hates Firaxis's take on speculative technologies. GDR, anyone? The other being that it's the fastest way to offend someone by implying that their current nation won't be a dominant or noteworthy world power within a hundred years.

A lot of people might also be interested in a more distant sci-fi version, a'la moon or mars colonization.
Or post-apocalypse. Plenty of options.

Adding a neolithic Age would be less problematic, I think. Firaxis would have to assign some rather arbitrary abilities to various pre-agriculture cultures, but there's plenty to choose from. I'm just not sure it would be fun.

Oh, easier: Make this a small era, let everyone start with an empty default civ, and then make future civ choices entirely dependent on your playstile. Problem solved. Also more "accurate".

 

[Professor Phobo]

An Age 4 and an Age 0 are what I could see happening in expansions. Age 0 would be fantasy Earth occurring before actual history; Atlantis, Conan the Barbarian, that sort of stuff. Adds in magic mechanics that vanish when the Great Disaster happens. And then Age 4 is just the Beyond Earth prequel technofuture nightmare.