Prehistoric Age

[hugojackson18]

Someone posted this on reddit and I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea. This is a major change that could justify a new Civilization game, the founding idea for the new game like Sid has mention in interviews.

Posted by koiven on reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4jvkxd/prehistoric_age/

So I've been thinking recently that human history did not start with the settling of cities, and that civilization as we know it came about less linearly than the game presents. To solve this, I came up with a "Prehistoric Age" that starts the game off. First, instead of a Settler this is a Founder unit. These found settlements, which are not cities yet. Founders are hunter-gatherers, settlements are the beginning of a sedentary lifestyle. The founder doesn't start in the most ideal city location. Its not a terrible location, and is fairly decent, but spending a few turns moving and exploring is not a huge penalty and can be more worthwhile. The Founder would have high mobility and sight, and would be tough enough to fight off any wild animals (that replace barbarians at this stage). I thought it would be nice if the Founder generated, say, +1 faith and culture. To compensate, the initial tenets/policies would be more expensive. When you find a acceptable location, the Founder founds a settlement, and also spawns a Scout. The settlement does not produce any culture or faith anymore. The settlement can build workers and scouts. At this point, two of four technologies are discovered. You get the choice of which two you want, and you then set about researching the other two. When all four are known to you, you advance from the Prehistoric age into the Ancient one, and the settlement becomes a proper city. The four technologies also 'unlock' the base features of a city. They are: Agriculture (which lets tiles generate food and workers to build farms), barter (allows tiles to produce gold), language (allows settlement to build monuments [which gives +1 to both faith and culture]) and authority (allows tiles to produce hammers and settlement to build warriors.) By the time it becomes a city, the only thing it can't do is build Settlers. When it does become a city and you enter the Ancient Era, you lose that restriction and can expand your empire. So i'm not sure whether this is a good idea or not, so let me know what you think. Some of the names of things are pretty weak, and I'm sure there are some loopholes that i've missed. any questions i can try to answer.

 

[unpossible251]

Mmm. We've had beyond earth, colonization, lots of scenarios... I'd love to pay for a spin off game called "sid meiers precivilization" - a whole new game.

Based on not founding cities, you set up nomadic camps. The technologies are things like stone, flint, rope, cloth, fire... The wonders are prehistoric cave paintings and statuettes... Civilizations are homo sapiens, neanderthals, homo florens, homo erectus... Religions are language streams... Megafauna pose a threat... The game builds through gradually improving your clans population, wise elders, art, weaponry etc so that you build up a surplus of everything until you win the game by settling a city.

Hope i'm not wastinmy million dollar idea... Firaxis should probably focus on civ6 for now

 

[Lazy sweeper]

i would call it pre flood civilizations, the four tech are though similar, language stream looks good, being the other agriculture, tool making, and astronomic buildings/gathering; megafauna also present, but also some Dino's and Giants all over... the flood come as triggered event and all techs become available, plus some minor issues, like being totally wiped out from the flood or the giants prior to reach an high altitude point in the map in time, or in a settler/boat/ark if no high points are near enough...

 

[lp_04]

Yeah, a prehistoric CIV would be something very interesting, but I also don't think it should be part of the main game. Perhaps something like Beyond the Earth. It could be called "Before Civilization", as the true western concept of civilization does not relate to prehistory (The concept as we know it today was developed arround the 19th century evolutionist theories and the early 20th century historical-cultural perspective. It is stated that it actually began in 4000/3500 BC - the terminus post quem in which we play civilization games).

Mmm. We've had beyond earth, colonization, lots of scenarios... I'd love to pay for a spin off game called "sid meiers precivilization" - a whole new game.

Based on not founding cities, you set up nomadic camps. The technologies are things like stone, flint, rope, cloth, fire... The wonders are prehistoric cave paintings and statuettes... Civilizations are homo sapiens, neanderthals, homo florens, homo erectus... Religions are language streams... Megafauna pose a threat... The game builds through gradually improving your clans population, wise elders, art, weaponry etc so that you build up a surplus of everything until you win the game by settling a city.

Hope i'm not wastinmy million dollar idea... Firaxis should probably focus on civ6 for now

npossibleu 251 - Nomadic camps, wonders, megafauna as a threat are nice ideas. But I don't think language = religion or human species = civilization is a good perspective. Personally, a game where you actually develop the path for founding a CIVILIZATION as it is recognized in civ VI, for a large number of thousands of years (100.000 or 50.000), would be much more interesting.

i would call it pre flood civilizations, the four tech are though similar, language stream looks good, being the other agriculture, tool making, and astronomic buildings/gathering; megafauna also present, but also some Dino's and Giants all over... the flood come as triggered event and all techs become available, plus some minor issues, like being totally wiped out from the flood or the giants prior to reach an high altitude point in the map in time, or in a settler/boat/ark if no high points are near enough...

Lazy Sweeper - I wouldn't buy your idea. It is to much of a fantasy game.


Here is my perspective on how such a game should be:
- Residential AND Logistic encampments - which is the basic notion for settlement in prehistory (paleolithic and neolithic). Residential settlements are encampments which stand on the center of a region (it is the core settlement) from which the population go around logistic encampments in order to collect a diversity of resources (hunt, gathering, flint, ...). If you consider it well, it is a system similar to the district system from civ VI, and actually means a symbiosis with the map. The way a city is designed in Civ VI is the way prehistroic societies actually lived. Of course these encampments should become useless at some time, when the resources become sparse or the climate changes.
- Resource gathering - there should be no actual resources on the map. The resources you gather should reside upon the logistic encampments you build (something like districts). A Hunting Camp on grassland should provide more food than a hunting camp on hills. A gathering camp on forest should provide a lot more food than a gathering camp on tundra. There could even be knapping camps (for stone tools) and symbolic camps (for parietal art or, alter, megalithic monuments).
- Climate Change - the amount of resources you receive from a camp should be based upon three things: 1) the type of terrain (and/or adjacent terrains); 2) the amount of time you are acquiring resources (resources decay while you are exploring a region); 3) climate change. this means that a residential encampment ( and therefore all the logistic encampments associated to it) muse be moved/destroyed and created during the game. Earth climate must change so that players must always keep running for new settling spots. If the climate becomes colder, resources become sparse, and you may face starvation.
- The others are the barbarians - as a civ game must have non winning factions to improve complexity, I would really like to see Neanderthals and Homo Erectus (IE, other human species) as the barbarians you found when you move to new lands. Perhaps they may even provide the ability for good relations/genetic transmissions to improve you community, and therefore act more like CS. Megafauna would be a good "barbarian" also.
- Permanent Settlements - at the middle of the game, by combing a series of factors from the tech tree and the cultural progress, a player should be able to settle down permanent settlements and start to research techs that actually provide the location of true civilization non-strategic resources (pig, wheat, dyes...). This stands for the neolithic revolution.
- Progression towards symbolic thinking - the aim of the game should be for a player to settle the basis for a civilization (France, Germany, Egypt, Babylonia, China...). So, the cultural development should be separated from the tech tree and must progress from a simple to a complex society (abstract thinking - art - cult of the ancestors - social organization). At the end of this path (which should have many branches and faces) a player may actually pick a civilization and go from a "Sid Meyer's Before Civilization" to the same map on "Civilization VI" ( archaeology from civ VI will improve a lot)

 

[unpossible251]

npossibleu 251 - Nomadic camps, wonders, megafauna as a threat are nice ideas. But I don't think language = religion or human species = civilization is a good perspective. Personally, a game where you actually develop the path for founding a CIVILIZATION as it is recognized in civ VI, for a large number of thousands of years (100.000 or 50.000), would be much more interesting.

Thanks for engaging

Yeah, i agree with your timeframe, i've read a lot about this period of history and thats about when i'd consider it to work best.

My idea about homo erectus, sapiens, flores, etc, would be that they offer really distinct "unique abilities". Sapiens gain a tech bonus, flores (due to their diminuitive stature) get food and growth bonuses, neanderthals get a combat bonus.

Language? Well, linguistics is fascinating. Language trees illustrate so much of prehistory. My idea was that if you can spread your language tree to neighbouring clans (or adopt theirs) then you get trade and diplomatic bonuses.

 

[lp_04]

The problem in language is that we don't even know the capabilities of those species concerning complex communication. When we talk about human evolution, we can not assume that neanderthals, erectus, ergaster... Have the same mental structure. What we consider human by default (language, culture, abstract thinking and so on) only reports to Homo sapiens sapiens. There is no knowledge on neanderthal language, and the scientific investigation is even further for erectus/floresiensis/ergaster language. Culture is something that reports to a specific species. Language is not necessarily culture, although it helps to define it. And the linguistic branches we consider today are only part of sapiens evolution. No neanderthal. No erectus. I am not saying that those people did no speak (they probably did) but we can not prove that in the current status of the prehistoric science.

Although your idea of language transference to other clans is really interesting! Could actually relate to genetic transference (man/female people moving between clans). Good "diplomatic" mechanisms

About the species correlate to the concept of "civilization" or differentiated factions, i personally don't like it. Floresiensis were small because they lived on a very small island (yeah, it's a thing ), not because they were more adapted to collect resources. Homo floresiensis is a very difficult situation, even more as recently they were dated not for 12.000 BC but for an earlier period of time. Neanderthals are not actually related to war. I mean, there are many other thesis on contact between neanderthal and sapiens. Actually, the first contact between those species was established in circa 70.000 BP (Before Present) and was rather pacific, and the species even performed interbreeding. the neanderthals may have become extinct because sapiens gained control of their territory, but it does not mean that there was any kind of physical conflict.

Finally, the time frame relates specifically to the development of Homo sapiens sapiens, i.e., the development of culture as we know it. The real path to historical Civilizations.

Just one more thing: if there is a species related to a faction, there wouldn't be too many factions... Homo habilis is too early, not to talk about paranthropus or australopitecines. Homo georgicus is no longer a species. So... there would only be 5-6 species/civilization, and two of them (Homo floresiensis and tha Homo desniovianus) lived on very restricted areas.

Although this is a very good exercise - to think about such a game and such a concept . It would be the best Thanks for opening this discussion.

 

[unpossible251]

.

Although this is a very good exercise - to think about such a game and such a concept . It would be the best Thanks for opening this discussion.

It is a good exercise, isnt it? if i had made a career out of developing games, this is the direction I would go. And credit to the original poster here and on reddit, i think he / she was the one that opened the topic.

The fact that there were only half a dozen or so "proto humans" that could be a part of the game wouldn't be such a challenge for a mini game or a spin off game, in my opinion. Civ colonization only had four playable civs and that didn't hold it back, given the more limited scope of the game. Similar mechanisms at work here.

You're right that its mostly speculative as to what happened at a 'year to year' level when sapiens interacted with flores... But thats why i think it would be such a good game. Civ is mostly a speculative game... What might have happened if the aztecs were neighbours of the chinese, thats entirely speculative too.

We know from the archaeological evidence that sapiens outcompeted (perhaps violently, perhaps not) with neanderthals. The knowledge gap would be what this game tries to explore, rather than the knowledge gap holding it back.

Oh, and megafauna? Like megawolves or megacats? What might be fun is to explore the dynamic of either domesticating or exterminating them. They'd be a constant danger, having them lurk around... Do you kill them to buff up the xp of the fighters in your tribe? Or attempt to bring them to domestication, which is much riskier and more costly in the short term, not to mention more mouths to feed, but in the long term provides you with all sorts of benefits? Hunting cats, sentry dogs, load carrying buffalo, pigs, horses, goats....