Preventing Advancement to Next Age

[Tachikaze]

Although I enjoy the benefits of railroads and other industrial techs, I would sometimes like to play a game that will not advance beyond the end of the Ancient Times or Medieval Ages.

I am using Civilization III with no expansions, just patched to v1.29.

Is there a mod for this? I have searched, but haven't found one yet. It seems like it would be simple.

Thanks.

 

[Ozymandias]

It is very simple: if you literally want to play only the first two eras- and have them play exactly as they would in a 4-era game - simply create a mod by going into the editor, create a new .biq, and manually delete every tech in the last two ages. Stick one tech in each of the 3rd and 4th ages called "Impossible" or some such thing and either make it impossibly expensive or have it require an Era=None tech that it doesn't have access to.

Alternately, add a mandatory tech at the end of the second age and (once again) make it impossible to research.

Best,

Oz

 

[WildWeazel]

Actually, it's impossible to prevent advancement to the later eras with techs. If you add techs that require an era-none tech, they will be ignored as far as advancement is concerned. But you can still delete all the later stuff and continue to play.

 

[Tachikaze]

Thanks, Weasel and ozymandias, I'll work with eliminating the techs. I thought maybe I wasn't the first to want to do this, so maybe there was already a mod for it. I'll give something a try.

 

[Plotinus]

If you simply eliminate the later techs, anything that requires those techs will become available without needing techs. So you'd be able to build all the late-game stuff right at the start of the game. This means that you need to delete the late-game units and improvements in the Editor as well.

It would be simpler just to make a new tech at the end of the second era that takes for ever to research. You will need to make it impossibly expensive, and also increase the Maximum Research Time. There's no problem with doing this as such a tech shouldn't require an era-none tech.

 

[Synobun]

And once you reach that last mandatory tech, set your research to 0%.

 

[Plotinus]

That wouldn't help, because the AI might still be researching. You want to make that last tech so expensive it will never be researched. If that is too much, then make several such techs.

You'd probably want to make all the techs in the first and second eras more expensive, too, to slow down the rate of research. I suppose they should all be twice as expensive, since the aim is to make two eras last for as long as four eras normally would.

 

[WildWeazel]

You can also make everything from the later eras require a no-era tech, which is guaranteed to prevent anyone from getting access to it. You will still technically be in the Industrial/Modern eras though.

 

[Bluemofia]

Normally I would suggest using flavors to make it impossibly long to research (like they did in the Fall of Rome Scenario), but this is just vanilla.

You can still add a no-era tech for the purpose of eliminating worker jobs, and/or unwanted improvements and units.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Why not play TAM. It's pretty straightforward to install. Then you've got a full game of the eras you like.

 

[Quinzy]

Same with Anno Domini too

 

[Blue Monkey]

Same with Anno Domini too

I believe he only has vanilla Civ3. Otherwise I would have mentioned both AD & MEM.

 

[Quinzy]

Ah drat. He should upgrade

 

[Tachikaze]

Thanks for the help. I'll look into TAM, and I wouldn't mind upgrading. Which expansion do I need for AD & MEM?

I'll see if I can find the AD & MEM threads.

 

[Blue Monkey]

You need Conquests, often referred to here as C3C. Get Complete - it has both PTW & C3C. Here are the thread links:
MEM
AD, remember AD is a beta test; we're still helping R8XFT polish it up.

 

[Gary Childress]

Although I enjoy the benefits of railroads and other industrial techs, I would sometimes like to play a game that will not advance beyond the end of the Ancient Times or Medieval Ages.

I am using Civilization III with no expansions, just patched to v1.29.

Is there a mod for this? I have searched, but haven't found one yet. It seems like it would be simple.

Thanks.

Hi Tachikaze,

I'm playing the Rise of Rome mod that comes with the Conquests package now and it is completely restricted to the ancient period techs. Every following technology has been deleted from the game, except for something called "hidden railroads" which simply doesn't show up in the game (not sure why it's there). Anyway, when you go to the next three eras all it shows are question marks.

So it looks like you can indeed just make every technology you want part of the Ancient period and just leave out the other eras.

 

[Virote_Considon]

@Gary: Hidden Railroads was put in place so that things that would be able to be built without a preq. (such as Railroads, Radar Towers, etc.) that aren't wanted in the scenario cannot be researched

 

[Tachikaze]

Excellent! Thanks.

Hi Tachikaze,

I'm playing the Rise of Rome mod that comes with the Conquests package now and it is completely restricted to the ancient period techs. Every following technology has been deleted from the game, except for something called "hidden railroads" which simply doesn't show up in the game (not sure why it's there). Anyway, when you go to the next three eras all it shows are question marks.

So it looks like you can indeed just make every technology you want part of the Ancient period and just leave out the other eras.

 

[Tachikaze]

I took a few days to explore the editor, and it turned out to be easier than I thought to restrict the game to certain eras. I did some playtesting during my experiment.

In my little project, I stayed in Ancient Times. I just deleted the more advanced units, improvements, advances, etc. The results were interesting.

First of all, there are some balance issues. Since the most powerful universal unit is the swordsman in Ancient Times, iron is at an absolute premium. In a standard game you can overcome a lack of iron with gunpowder or advanced horse units. Only when you get to railroads does iron become critical again.

You can remove the prerequisite of iron for swordsman in the editor, because, without swordsmen, you'll have a hard time taking territory to secure an iron resource deep in enemy territory. You kinda lack offensive umph. You don't want to remove the swordsman from the game because it makes spearmen defending a city almost invincible.

Then, there are the Immortals and Legionaries, both super-swordsmen. This gives Persia and Rome a military advantage, but not insurmountable.

Another surprise is when my Persian opponent began making a railroad in about 400 AD. With the restriction to Ancient Times, civs only need iron as a prerequisite for railroads, since steam power was deleted as an advancement, and therefore as a possible prerequisite.

I'm still working with it. Perhaps I will next add a few units to attempt to improve gameplay.