Thoughts on the Dark Ages?

[tchristensen]

I was wondering if anyone looked at taking the Middle Ages (Medieval Era) and either changing it to the Dark Ages or splitting it into two, with the later being a Dark Age era.

There is of course a Renaissance era, but if you think about it, how can there be one without a proceeding era of decline and uncertainty.

I found this switch in CIV4EraInfos:

<iCreatePercent>100</iCreatePercent>
<iResearchPercent>100</iResearchPercent>
<iBuildPercent>110</iBuildPercent>
<iImprovementPercent>100</iImprovementPercent>
<iGreatPeoplePercent>100</iGreatPeoplePercent>

By adjusting all of these down to 25 percent, you would in theory create a time where technology and growth slowed to a minimum -- then when the Renaissance did begin, the player would see a night and day explosion of growth?

Has anyone tried this?

 

[The_J]

No one has ever tried splitting up eras, because eras have tons of different references to art and other things, and adding a new one in the middle is just an incredible amount of work, and probably not worth it.

 

[GoodGame]

Why not just create an event that does the same essentially?

That is instead of altering turn lengths one could impose a penalty on research for say 20 turns.

 

[tchristensen]

That is a great idea.

I would need to just have it go off before any one of the starting Renaissance technologies!

 

[Baldyr]

My own take would be to complement the Golden Ages with Dark Ages. So instead of bonuses you get penalties - and could actually lose Techs!

 

[Afforess]

Don't bother; There is a reason there is Golden Ages, but not Dark Ages. It sounds cool, but gameplay-wise, is very unfun. I had Dark Ages in my mod, that reduces GPP, Tile Yields, and was basically the opposite of a Golden Age. Here is a bit of the reaction from players:

Dark Ages: I like the concept. Not sure about the implementation. It is too much in your face all the time almost taking over the game. It feels like a random event more than something you can exert some control over...

Also, I'm with Alorente on the Dark Ages. They are a bit too much, it is almost impossible to avoid them, they loop often and the AI can't handle them

I would not include Dark Ages in the official 1.6 release. Many people who don't care about beta testing will install 1.6 and will get frustrated with Dark Ages and walk away from the mod altogether when the other 99% is excellent.

you will go nuts with dark ages... believe me.

Dark ages should be only possible 2-3 times max for a civ during the whole game. And they need to be triggered by some events, maybe a lost war or starvation or everybody hates you... also revolutions and oversized empires could do this job but
dark ages right now are totally unfair and stay forever if you once had a golden age or researched fundamentalism.

Btw. Dark Ages sounds like a option I probably not even try.

Afforess, I think holding on the Dark Ages is a good idea.

Anyway, my implementation probably was sub-optimal. But even if I had spent the time to get it right, it would be highly unpopular. Why? It's a purely negative feature. It only takes away from the game, with no possible reward. My 2 anyway.

 

[tchristensen]

I agree with you. It sounds like an interesting idea, but the more I talked with some of my friends (who test the game) they were just shrugged and said, "so I am hitting the 'End of Turn' another 100 times. Doesn't sound fun!?!"

Perhaps a short term event might be doable? Triggered by some other event -- maybe like a barbarian invasion.

Thanks for talking me through this!

-Troy-

 

[Baldyr]

Yeah, I'm sure you're right if you want others to use your mod. And you probably would.

But my own remake of CivIV would also rethink the whole concept of linear growth and development. Like there wouldn't be such a focus on Techs since you'll lose that edge any way eventually. So there would be other things to consider - also.

As an example the Ancient World would have many Techs that are "Medieval" in CivIV - but come the Dark Age those would be lost and have to be researched anew. So it wouldn't be that cost-effective to funnel all your funds (100% science rate, anybody? ) into research, because that wouldn't help you overcome the new challenges of the game.

But I would of course create something like this for my own personal amusement and not bother with what others think. If people don't like it they certainly don't have to use it. They would probably be happy just playing Civ5 anyways...

 

[GoodGame]

In terms of historical analysis, "dark ages" is a poor idea, and was probably just negative hype cast by a renaissance writer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages The real Dark Ages is mostly like a Civ4 civ on course for a Domination victory only to suddenly be invaded on several fronts by small un-united forces, collapsing spontaneously into small kingdoms, without the inheritance of technology.


I'd recommend analyzing Rhye's mod (RFC mod) for how he represents decline in civilization. And also the Revolutions family of mods. In terms of Civ4, civs break up into small barbarian states due to instability, which could be caused by barbarian invasions, but also due to overexpansion, unhappiness, etc..


One thing to look at might also be the idea that there is maintenance cost for technology. Like was said, you might backtrack on the tech tree by some mechanism. Perhaps lightbulbs/coins/buildings most be maintained per technology past Classical era that is maintained?