Rename Civ Eras- they're too Eurocentric!

[Gatsby]

The Era's Civ1, 2, and 3 generally go :
Ancient-Medieval/Renaissance-Industrial-Modern
But these names are too Eurocentric to reflect developement of human civilization. Not only that, but these names don't make too much sense. For example:

"Ancient" is too broad and vague, and it covers about 3500 years of human history-a very broad sweep of time.

"Medieval/Renaissance" is also too vague, glossing over many important eras such as the Dark Ages, Reformation,the rise of Islam, the Mongol Invasions, Enlightnment, Colonization etc.

"Industrial" applies just as well to today as it did to the late 18th and 19th Centuries.

"Modern" means "contemporary"- a very ego-centric term to use to define a particular era in human history. Future historians will not call the 20th century "the Modern Age" (unless they want to be sardonic), because they will consider their own era to be "the Modern Age".

Also, not all parts of the world went through this pattern of developement, only the West. For example:
The Mid-East could never really be said to have gone through "the Renaissance"
The Meso-American civilizations never had anything like the "Industrial Age"
- not because they didn't get that far, but because these terms don't even remotely apply to their pattern of developement- these Era names really apply only to Western Civilization.
So a more universal set of Era names is needed for Civ4.

 

[Gatsby]

Perhaps a better set of era names would be based around key resources which have universally defined the developement of civilizations.
The new Eras could go something like this:

Stone Age- Start to Bronze Working*

Bronze Age- Bronze Working to Iron Working*

Iron Age- Iron Working to Gunpowder*

Gunpowder Age- Gunpowder to Steam Engine*

Coal Age- Steam Engine to Combustion*

Oil Age- Combustion to Nuclear Power*

Uranium Age- Nuclear Power to Future Technology*

*Age not inclusive of these advances-they are limits to that age

I'm not sure about the Uranium Age though, as Oil is still far more important to human civilization than Uranium.

Example:

Now in order to get from, say, the Bronze Age to and through the Iron Age, you need to get all essential (like in Civ3) Bronze Age advances as well as have access to Iron. You can research Iron Working (which gives Iron), but otherwise Technological Progress grinds to a halt for your civilization until you actually acquire Iron (by whatever means). Once you're in the Iron Age, if you lose access to Iron your science progress automatically stops until you regain access to Iron. However, once you enter the Gunpowder Age, to make the game flow more easily, losing Iron will not halt your science research, although losing saltpeter will.

This system would apply to all Ages except the Stone Age (you start in the Stone Age, and stone is abundant) and the Stone Age-Bronze Age transition (to make the game more playable).
I believe this system of Eras would better reflect historical developement of civilizations worldwide- it also helps the game to reflect why certain Civilizations such as the Meso-American Ones never advanced technologically as far as the Europeans or the Chinese- ie largely because of resource constraints.

 

[warpstorm]

Better yet, ditch the idea of ages and return to the previous one big tree style of technology (with some enhancements - I would love to see the flavor concept enhanced). By dividing into ages you force the game into a small number of fixed development patterns (you essentially listed the history of Western Civ with bland names based on the key resource of the era and by doing so forced the game to do exactly what you stated you didn't want). The one tree scheme is a little more open and will occasionally yield a game where technology progresses in an unusual pattern. If you combined this with the limited selection or blind research this could be more interesting.

 

[The Last Conformist]

There not being any culturally neutral division of history into ages, why not, if your going to have one in the first place, chose the one that is most familiar to players (most sales are in North America and Europe), appropriate for the largest number of civilizations, and frequently extended outside of the Western world in other media, sometimes even being adopted by non-Western writers writing about their own cultures?

 

[Diogenes183]

Actually I like the era system and its naming convention. It allows the player to focus on a smaller subset of technologies. If someone really just wants to reach the next era, they avoid the optionals and focus on the gateway techs. Of course sometimes optionals are the best techs in the game, like Chivalry (as it should be). I like that each era has its own distinct flavor linked to tech, and the appearence of cities and civ leaders.

The ancient era lasts the longest (by far) in terms of the number of years. However, the ancient era is not especially long in terms of the number of turns.

As for being Eurocentric. Well, you can either use someone else's terms ("Shogunate Era") or you can use a bland, generic Politically Correct term ("Tech Era III"). If you use some else's term, its no less unfair (except to whoever now has the ball). If you use a bland, generic PC term then the game becomes that much closer to being bland and PC.

On further consideration though, maybe this would be reasonable: tech era names would change based on which civ or civ group you are playing. Shogunate really doesn't apply to China (unique to Japan only), so maybe it would have to be civ specific. Maybe each civ group whould get its own custom tech tree with civ group specific technologies (with substantial overlaps so it doesn't screw up tech trading). I don't know if I'd actually like these features or not, I'm just throwing out ideas.

Edit:
7 Resource based eras? This is a good idea.

 

[Mewtarthio]

^ That forces the Civilizations to follow a specific tech tree. What would the Aztec tree be like, for instance? And what if I'm Mongolia and I decide I'd like the Colossus? Why don't we also force each civ to found cities and eventually self-destruct based on actual history?

My favorite idea is the one tech tree. Your advisors, cities, etc. could change with certain techs for aestetic purposes (eg "Chivalry" give the Mil. Advisor a knight's helmet).

 

[Gatsby]

Okay, I suggested names like "Oil Age" and "Iron Age" because when you look at history from an archaelogical and anthropological viewpoint, civilizations evolve technologically based largely on the type of resources they have access to. Also, certain resources tend to dominate a civilizations' way of life at different stages of development.
If you really want to keep names like "Modern Age" and "Middle Ages" , (even though they are vague, generic, and narrow-minded), or even do away with eras entirely (I didn't think of that) then so be it.
The most important thing however, is to make sure that a civilizations' scientific progress is conditioned/limited by its resource base. After all, if you don't have a certain resource, why would you / how could you research advances that are based on or contingent upon said resource?

 

[dh_epic]

I think you dudes are overthinking this one. If "Industrial Era" applies today as much as 2 centuries ago, then so does "Iron Age". The only really tricky one is the second age. And even then, it's not that bad. Talking about civilizations that died out before the industrial era isn't exactly evidence that the industrial era is unsuitable to them.

I'd like to see the tech tree have a lot more contingency and flexibility than just following a teleological path, to me that would be 100% cooler.

 

[Verowin]

I like the idea of the one tech tree. Get rid of the sections by ages.

 

[Evie]

Agreed. Civilization II had it right with the one big tech tree - the division in age is jsut a pointless waste of time that force everyone to follow the same age paths, whereas in Civ II it was possible to go very far up certain parts of the tree while not touching others - which is far more relevant to how the history of the world developed.

For example, it's possible to get all the way up to Theory of Gravity without discovering the Wheel. Which is entirely sensible : since when does one need to know how to make round piece of wood to make chariots roll along in order to be able to figure out why apples fall from the tree?

Answer is, you don't need to. But Civ III forces you to all the same because according to them if you don't know how to make wheels then you are forcibly an ancient civilization (even if wheels would be perfectly irrelevant to what your civ needs - for example if you are in the middle of a jungle), and it would be IMPOSSIBLE (yes, that was sarcastic) to develop such a thing as the notion that apples fall from trees because of a force you'd call "gravity" until one reached the medieval age (which is a stupid misnomer anyway since the game's medieval era covers a lot more of renaissance-classical-enlightenment than it covers the medieval age).

It'S ridiculous. Bring back the one tech tree.

 

[Gatsby]

Now that I think about it Oda Nobunaga, you're probably right-1 seamless tech tree like in SMAC would make more sense. Nonetheless, certain advances should also have strategic resources as prerequisites as well. For example:
Iron- Magnetism, Metallurgy
Oil-Plastics/Synthetic Fibers, Flight, Automobile, Combustion
Coal-Industrialisation, Electricity
Uranium-Nuclear Power
Aluminium- Space Flight, Satellites
Mind you, the tech tree might have to be tinkered with a bit- but it doesn't make much sense for Gunpowder to be a prerequisite to Theory of Gravity anyway.(see http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3tech_tree2.shtml)

It makes more sense that certain advances could only be achieved/utilised in situations where there is a plentiful availiability of certain resources.Otherwise, in real life anyway, how would you develope such technologies and why would you bother?
Civ1,2,3 were all good at reflecting the fact that a civilization's overall performance was largely based on its terrain quality (Teturkhans' Test Of Time scenario did this very well eg with India and China). It would make perfect sense for Civ4 to expand on this idea, by making a civilizations' scientific developement at least partly dependent on certain strategic resources. This could also really spice up geopolitics, trade and war strategy in Civ4.

 

[Gatsby]

What could also be done in Civ4 is split up the tech tree into two or more parallel (rather than sequential like in Civ3) tech trees. You could have 1 tech tree for cultural advances, and another tech tree for technical advances. These tech trees would share some common starting point advances(Writng/alphabet) but then diverge.
That way, you would decide whether you wanted to research a cultural or technical advance, so you could end up with a culturally advanced but technically primitive civilization, and vice-versa.
Discovering certain information-related advances eg Education, Democracy (cultural) or Computers (technical) would give a percentage boost to science research for both trees.
Perhaps you could research both trees at once, with the Science Advisors' screen allowing you to further subdivide your scientific research between the cultural and technical advance trees (once writing was dicovered).

 

[gazdeluxe11]

While, yes, civ development in the real world is dependant on certain key resources... keep in mind that this is a game. From reading in the story forum, it seems people already restart the game serveral times to get a "perfect" starting location. Maybe harping too much on the resources in your territory adds too much randomness to the game?

Just a thought,

-john

 

[Oni]

I like the tech tree of Civ 3 and I don't. I really liked the tech tree of Civ2... But Civ3 is just cooler.

As for what direction the tech tree should go in Civ4.. Well I don't want to see a total revert back to Civ2... If I wanted the tech tree from Civ2 I would play Civ2. But changes should be made. Nothing insanely drastic ofcourse. Having total civ specific tech trees is too drastic. Having Tech tree soley based on resources is alst very drstic... and as was just pointed out this would make too much randomness for playability. It would kill the game.

My very tech research game is MoO2. They did it very good... But then again MoO1 had a really cool one too.. er maybe better.

I guess what I would like to see firstly is a tech tree where some civs cut themselves off from certain acheivments/culture mods/military units/relgion type/ government type/ etc etc.
They come to a choice and make their choice. IF they later want an acheivment they passed they must trade for it... But ofcourse some will be very valuable then.

So I guess I just think a tech tree should be multiple tech trees.... And each has various stuff like city improvements, terrain improvements, military units.. You name it they all got it... But you can only pick one out of these groups. And at the same time your are researching multiple groups (you allocate importance just like taxation/science/luxary.. From that science is again divided).

I do agree that civs have advanced in time with the resources they have at their disposal. BUt a direct implimentation of that to the tech tree will hurt alot of gameplay IMO.

 

[sir_schwick]

There seems to be a lot of threads that touch these subjects, so I'm probably posting an opinion I already stated elsewher(Soren listen up).

Ideas I liked:
-One large tech tree
-Some branches of tech tree require a certain resource to open up
-Blind research
-Non-requesite techs

Ideas I hated:
-Eras
-Making research stop without a certain resource
-Seperate tech trees

New Ideas by the Duke of Petoria:
-Unique tech trees for all Civs
These tech trees could all be turned off for the 'standard' tech tree for everyone. it would just make playing each faction more interesting.
-Many resources avaliable much earlier
Native Americans were using crude petroleum long before its fuel applications were discovered. Sighting of resources should occur much earlier, so that they can be linked and researched.

Conclusion:
There is one giant tech tree, but it is organized so that you need a lot of base techs to get higher, althogh you can be relatively much higher in one area before having to stop. This tech tree has some branches(non-foudnation) that require certain resources to develop.
Here are some of the results of that recent point. Civs with Horses in their territory would be able to develop a tradition of Horse units for war and better agriculture using pack animals. Civs with Gunpowder would only have primative(cultural and entertainment) uses before they developed better techs that could incorporate gunpowder. Even Uranium coudl be discovered and its properties better known early on.
Any resource parts of the tech tree should be non-compulsory for developement.
Blind Research is the key to my system. First you would have the standard Reserach goals to choose from: Culture, Science, Military, Economic. You would also have Resource categories for whatever resources you control. THis system leads to somewhat of Ear like developement, but everyone is unique based on what is avaliabel to them.

 

[Jon Shafer]

The reason the eras have Euro-centric names is because the game is Euro-centri, the tech-tree is Euro-centric, and the development of "civilization" is Euro-centric. After the rise of Islam and the Mongolian invasions, basically everything revolved around the West and how the West interacted with the rest of the world.

Better yet, ditch the idea of ages and return to the previous one big tree style of technology (with some enhancements - I would love to see the flavor concept enhanced). By dividing into ages you force the game into a small number of fixed development patterns (you essentially listed the history of Western Civ with bland names based on the key resource of the era and by doing so forced the game to do exactly what you stated you didn't want). The one tree scheme is a little more open and will occasionally yield a game where technology progresses in an unusual pattern. If you combined this with the limited selection or blind research this could be more interesting.

 

[sir_schwick]

This is strating to sounds like another thread about the Euro-centrism of Civlization. Its something that needs to be phased out so Civ games play a lot more uniquely. Currently you only play the hjistory of WEstern Civlization.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Well, the people who play the game belong to western civilization, so what do you expect. You don't see many Indians or Indonesians playing Civ, after all.

New tech trees, new names, new units, etc. are all available through modding, for those who want such a thing. How many eastern-centric mods exist?

 

[Longasc]

I agree with the idea to get rid of the Eras. Give us a more diverse tech tree instead. Changes in graphics can be tied to certain developements, e.g. industrial age look after the discovery of factories.

I am absolutely against the unique tech tree for every civ.

How about unique techs, like unique units instead of this?

The Aztecs would have an early and bloody unique tech (UT), they can sacrifice captured units for... well, it should be good for something...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

For my part, I actually PREFER Civ3's age-based tech tree over the ridiculous civ2 tech tree-because it gave me a FAR better sense of a movement through history. Thats not to say that it cannot be refined and finnessed!
For instance, I definitely feel that you should start with a 'Stone Age/Agricultural Age', and then move into an 'Ancient age' (early bronze age), followed perhaps by a 'Classical Age' (its interesting to note that the Mayan civilization also had a 'classical age' around the same time as the one in Europe! The Middle ages should be broken up into a Middle Ages and either 'Enlightenment Age' or an 'Imperial Age'. This could then move into the 'Industrial age'-which ends c1945, and then moves into an Atomic Age/Information Age-followed by a future age?? Each age also does require many more techs, with several gateway techs leading into 'flavour' branches of the tech tree!
Also, as I have stated in another thread, I also think that set Age-PR techs should be dropped in favour of a 'minimum techs' for age progression system. These minimum techs would be in areas related to your civ characteristics. So an Agricultural/Seafaring civ would need a minimum # of agricultural and/or seafaring techs in order to be considered in the next age!
Anyway, just some thoughts!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.