The Ages of Civ 4 S&T

Okay so can some make an abridged version of what i got wrong? Just briefly make a synapsis of the years I screwed up and I can correct it.
 
Whoa there. These are fighting words.

It is great that this era ended in 2010, which is when the real regression era started, because March 2010 is the beginning of the Great Migration of S&Ters out of S&T to Forum Games and IOT.

The Epic and Parrot Wars. Those solidified the emigration because the old guard wanted nothing to do with the spam. Once IOT gained a subforum, the emigration was complete.

As much as I kept myself out of the Epic and Parrot Wars, I have to dispute this.
Like I pointed out, a lot of the first conscious community building sprouted in the period after 2010 and the Parrot Wars were a major factor for that.
But I do agree that Caterpillar King grossly mis-characterized the eras (Sorry, but it's everything after 2012 that's a Dark Age).
I don't think for one, that the PotU age was all that great, and I lurked the forum long before I joined it.
There were few stories that stood out, PotU being one of them, and the community had not matured into cohesion.
In contrast, 2010-2012 saw a multitude of quality stories being rolled out and more consistent quality among participants.

I don't dispute that a migration to IOT played a role in the death of the forum,
but I do think you're basing the decline on just one segment of the population.

Besides, SK has confirmed my claims, and there is "archaeological" evidence supporting it if you check the start dates of certain stories and the activity in the Social Group.
 
As much as I kept myself out of the Epic and Parrot Wars, I have to dispute this.
Like I pointed out, a lot of the first conscious community building sprouted in the period after 2010 and the Parrot Wars were responsible for that.

When barbarians invaded the Roman Empire throughout the third and fourth centuries and created new institutions, we don't call that period a flourishing. I will argue strongly that the reason the community had to be built in the first place is because the Epic and Parrot Wars kept people from wanting to come back to S&T.

Case and point. If you go to Site Feedback right now, a former moderator still had the image that CivIV S&T is just spam and noise two years after the spam ended. That's how damaging the Parrot and Epic Wars were to the image of this subforum and it is only in the last year or so that this damage is being reversed.

All the organization did little to battle against that, and I would argue further that the community building was thanks to Imperium Offtopicum's influences, as we were organizing prior to S&T's organization, and S&T just happened to be following our playbook, which would make sense given the number of Parrot/Epic Warriors dabbling in IOT in 2011 during and immediately following Iron and Blood and Spirit of Man.

Like any dark ages, you get the occasional work of art, a great piece of writing, and some attempts at creating new institutions such as the organization threads, and those form the bedrock of later improvement and better community later, but the effects of those changes weren't at all immediate.

Because I do agree with you on that point. This community is a community. If you go to CivV S&LP for example, you don't see a community. You just see a ton of video LPs and barely anything there. CivIV S&T, of all the main discussion boards, has the strongest culture of the main discussion boards.
 
When barbarians invaded the Roman Empire throughout the third and fourth centuries and created new institutions, we don't call that period a flourishing. I will argue strongly that the reason the community had to be built in the first place is because the Epic and Parrot Wars kept people from wanting to come back to S&T.

From my perspective, the cause is not so much as important as the effect.
As I've pointed out, population was stabilized post-2010, larger even at both consistent times and peak hours, and I don't think the drop-off from before that was as significant as the growth that came afterward.

Case and point. If you go to Site Feedback right now, a former moderator still had the image that CivIV S&T is just spam and noise two years after the spam ended. That's how damaging the Parrot and Epic Wars were to the image of this subforum and it is only in the last year or so that this damage is being reversed.

I think I understand now, from your POV, that the reputation for being a spamhole is the chief indicator for a period being a Dark Age, and I agree up to a point. I think anything after 2012 is a Dark Age. But then you'd need to re-label your own perception of the Eras, because from my memory, after the mods came in and put an active prohibition on Parrots in place, not just a few, but many stories boomed and flourished, and I reiterate that they were of more consistent quality than of the prior periods.

All the organization did little to battle against that, and I would argue further that the community building was thanks to Imperium Offtopicum's influences, as we were organizing prior to S&T's organization, and S&T just happened to be following our playbook, which would make sense given the number of Parrot/Epic Warriors dabbling in IOT in 2011 during and immediately following Iron and Blood and Spirit of Man.

IIRC, a number of those IoTers were not mutually exclusive at the time, and were still active in S&T.

Like any dark ages, you get the occasional work of art, a great piece of writing, and some attempts at creating new institutions such as the organization threads, and those form the bedrock of later improvement and better community later, but the effects of those changes weren't at all immediate.

I agree that it wasn't immediate. I use 2010 as a jumping off point because it identifies a major catalyst (Epic/Parrots) for the transition.
There was a short period shortly before 2010/early 2010 where there was a lull and the forum seemed dead. But after that, it was like a thousand (hyperbole obviously) stories bloomed. A higher proportion of stories from that era had between 80-10k views, compared to your era, where we have a number of highly stacked stories, due to comparative age, but much less else, indicating that the people present at the time (not yet coalescing into community) exclusively read certain stories, just the popular ones or played in certain IAARs and not much else. I also see wider engagement in 2010-2012 threads by a portion of the same regulars in all the stories from that era as well.

Because I do agree with you on that point. This community is a community. If you go to CivV S&LP for example, you don't see a community. You just see a ton of video LPs and barely anything there. CivIV S&T, of all the main discussion boards, has the strongest culture of the main discussion boards.

I agree.
 
I don't like the Civ V stories and Let's Plays. It's so... bland. If you two could figure out some sort of middle ground and "fix" what I screwed up that would be great :) I'm actually fairly interested in the history of this site :p
 
Does anybody have the links to the original Parrot and Epic wars. I need them for a research piece I'm doing on them.
 
The Second Epic War was all in one thread.
 
Wow this place has changed quite a bit.

The beginning of the Parrot bull was in a Yoshiegg story; he was playing Greece, as I recall, but I don't remember what it was called.
 
I don't like the Civ V stories and Let's Plays. It's so... bland. If you two could figure out some sort of middle ground and "fix" what I screwed up that would be great :) I'm actually fairly interested in the history of this site :p

The major things you need to take away are:

Subforum Genesis (Forum Start - 1st Princes of the Universe):
-place was mostly a watering hole where people posted "Hey, my tank was killed by a Spearman!"
-many stories were very short and died out because the proper audience had not formed
-a continuation of Philosopher Kings was the first longform narrative story in the subforum, and Princes of the Universe came after

Foundation Period
(the start date is nebulous to me, but the end of watering hole stories is the part where I mark the beginning):
-Narrative and comedic stories took off, as well as IAARs. History book style had not yet reached a critical mass though.
Important names to remember: Sisiutil, Flouzemaker, Lighthearter among others
-Princes of the Universe Pt. 2 was largely written during this time.
-The culture was established at this current point, as not being so separate from General Discussion or Strategy & Tips.
A large number of stories from this time display Game Settings in the title.
-There was not yet a sense of community.
Posters often dropped comments of praise,
but seldom interacted or initiated with one another in comparison with the next age to come, with the exception of the IAARs.
Two stratums of stories existed, the mainstays, and smaller ones that never had a chance
-None of this is to say this was a less important era than the next.
In some aspects, this period is more important than the one that followed,
as it set styles of stories into stone and established lineage of influence.
Modern IAARs can trace back to Lighthearter, who brought it over from off-site.
The comedic style was established largely by Flouzemaker.
I was dually influenced in part, from Sisiutil & Helmling,
with the other half from an off-forum site; Zoolooman's Let's Play Civ4 on the LP Archive.
Tycho, my longform contemporary was also influenced by Sisiutil.
(Not implying Tycho and I are from this era. We were the only two longform writers in the next one though, so just talking about the influences we got from this era)

Golden Age (2010-2012):
-After the lull at the end of the Foundation period, the subforum was subject to spam wars.
It drove some away and brought down heavy mod activity, but the resulting population after it had settled down boomed.
Peak activity during this time was much larger and consistent than before.
-The curve for stories was flatter. Big mainstays still existed, though now fewer in number,
but there was now more room for mid-range stories to succeed, a bourgeois if you will.
-The range of stories remained diverse like in the Foundation period.
This is one of the most important traits I take away from this period compared to the last.
Writers in this period were more artistically minded, one of the minor indicators of that being the style of titles, which drop all game settings.
The quality was more consistent across writers as opposed to a few good writers.
-The evolution of the community and culture occurred during this time,
and numerous organizations and tools like the Social Group, S&T Times, S&T Awards and the Database came out of this time.
While a Database had been attempted before by eduhum during the lull of 2010, (it was actually more of a recommended reading list) it failed to garner much attention or a sticky.
-The actual great migration occurred at the end of this period, different tribes heading off to different places like IoT, NES or DoC development.

Heat Death (2012-current):
-New stories once again, die as quickly as they are conceived
-No longform narratives have emerged
-The subforum is dead for long periods at a time.
-The current population was kicked off in part by events in DoC.
Royal Tenenbaum had been using the DoC subforum to post his stories.
Associates of his promptly followed in his example. However, stories did not belong in that subforum.
The mods came, and the story was, in accordance with the rules, moved here, bringing him and his associates with it (reluctantly at first).
-Sense and structure of community remains, but has a long way to go in order to reach previous levels.

EDIT: So the main problem with your first shot at the timeline was that:
1) Too many eras
2) Focus on things that were negligible like Civ5.
3) No research into the actual timestamps, views, and etc. hard numbers you have access to.
 
That's far too vague. We are certainly not in a downturn right now. This is the renaissance. I will take some of this into account.
 
That's far too vague. We are certainly not in a downturn right now. This is the renaissance. I will take some of this into account.

I think you are probably still underestimating how good stories were back then, but overall I agree with you. This is the period of Tryst With Destiny and (to a lesser extent) Write Your Own History (among others that were persisted with and completed or ongoing). Calling it "Heat Death" is wilfully ignorant and insulting.
 
And Rise of Brazil, ahem :P I never said that stories written then were bad, but this definitely isn't depression. Times in the 20s were good, the 30s were bad, the majority of the 40s may not have been as good as the 20s but it definitely wasn't bad.
 
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