Why does Firaxis still use BC and AD?

[TheMeInTeam]

It's a different discussion, but that's why I like the idea of scaling the year that is shown with the game progress of the players. It would not only remove the awkwardness of the year that never matches up at all, but also turn the number into somewhat useful information that tells us something about the overall progress of the world.

Even that doesn't work very well though, because progress accelerates as technology does and you'll get some crazy scaling/movement ratios or players seeing different years on the same in-game turn.

I guess my point is that in-game years don't actually hold any gameplay meaning or relevance whatsoever. If anything, putting expectations based on those years is actually misleading in strict game terms. Even a relative newbie seeing extremely variable years on the same turn will quickly realize that it's the turn # that matters.

I'm not against cosmetic flavor but in this case I don't see how it even aligns in a way that has a historical relevance/tie, irrespective of which IRL system one might select.

 

[Ryika]

Well, you would of course let the year timer accelerate over time, just as it does now.

An easy method to do that would be to assign a year to each technology, look at the technologies of the X Civilizations with the most technological progress, and then calculate the "theoretical year" every turn. You could then have some formula with which you accelerate/slow down the year progression dynamically based on how far the "currently shown year" is away from the "current technological year" to constantly move the year that is shown towards the year that matches the progress - this is to make the year transitions feel smooth, you could of course also just directly show the technological year, but then you'd have huge jumps.

There are some problems with this, such as outdated technologies that are hardly ever researched early on because of the strength of beelining (aka game progress does not actually follow real life progress very well), but overall it should work reasonably well.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It does create the interesting outcome of having some games make 1800 T120 or less while others it's > T150. I think in forum discussions you'd still get overwhelmingly turn-dominated discussion for strategy purposes. There's just a scaling to reality problem in the game at the fundamental level and I don't think it's really a problem.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

BeCause they're mAD.

 

[Hanaboshi]

Why do we need calendars and debating on AD/BC anyways ? Time is relative.

 

[Staal]

@Kyro European civilization has thrived in spite of Christianity, not because of it. Christians who think the opposite have a vision of Christianity that is Enlightenment era revisionist Christianity that barely resembles the Christianity of the earlier eras of it's history. Even before the Reformation as most people are aware of it Christianity underwent two other major revisions and another two reformations since the so named reformation. Not to mention the four major rewrites of the Torah from a polytheistic in the beginning, then henotheistic and finally monotheistic faith. But that's what you get when you study it objectively and we're not someone brought up indoctrinated into it.

You should read Francis Fukuyama, Origins of Political Order and see that Christianity in Europe played an integral part in shaping its democratic way of life by inhibiting the centralization of power.

I am an atheist myself but proudly of Christian culture heritage. Mindlessly knocking religion is not cool. It had/has its value as a social institution.

 

[Staal]

because Germany is lagging behind quite a bit when it comes to the whole social justice nonsense

You have to be kidding?

 

[Japper007]

23 years old (so no "traditional" education, whatever the heck that even means), History Major here. It is not universally agreed even in Anglosaxon academia to use BCE/CE, whoever says that is just plain wrong. I have several recent textbooks that still use BC/AD dating. There is a lot of discussion on the whole BCE/CE vs BC/AD "thing" in the field, but no consensus is even close to being reached. Most of my professors still use BC/AD, and we're never corrected for using the "old" system in our work either (even when writing English). In fact the only place I've encountered consistent BCE/CE use is in history books from outside historical academia itself, like Jared Diamond's books (who is a Biologist).

Over here we still use BC/AD, though it's in Dutch, of course, so: "voor Christus" (vChr.) and "na Christus" nChr. (or also Anno Domini/AD)

I don't personally see the point either, both are the same exact same dating system, with all the horrible Western-centric, Judeo-Christian mythology inspired bagage intact. It changes nothing at all about the message sent.

 

[omniplex]

Well, I'm a Christian, and I've don't mind either dating notation, I think people will understand either way, though it might be more interesting to have a different dating system, or just stick with turns, since the dates have no real correlation to the progression of things in game. (I founded Catholicism in the year 500 BC, but it's still ticks to AD at the same time.) I think I remember they used a different calendar in civ V if you were playing the Maya, but I could be misremembering.

 

[Acken]

Well, I'm a Christian, and I've don't mind either dating notation, I think people will understand either way, though it might be more interesting to have a different dating system, or just stick with turns, since the dates have no real correlation to the progression of things in game. (I founded Catholicism in the year 500 BC, but it's still ticks to AD at the same time.) I think I remember they used a different calendar in civ V if you were playing the Maya, but I could be misremembering.

Yes as Mayans you had a different calendar and it was linked to their UA.

 

[Hanaboshi]

Well, I'm a Christian, and I've don't mind either dating notation, I think people will understand either way, though it might be more interesting to have a different dating system, or just stick with turns, since the dates have no real correlation to the progression of things in game. (I founded Catholicism in the year 500 BC, but it's still ticks to AD at the same time.) I think I remember they used a different calendar in civ V if you were playing the Maya, but I could be misremembering.

The utilization of Maya Calendar on Civ V was to market the game because the trend at that time. Yes, I think it would be more "fun" to see other calendar system, however I still believe the game should still use AD/BC calendar as the pseudo historical guide. I would really love to know why is this so important for y'all who wants the change? Is this for halal / kosher purpose or for what ? The amount of debating on changing ad/bc is just bordering ridiculousness. If it is that important for you, why don't y'all create a mod that may provide both dating system? It's just unreasonable to change the base game system now.

 

[pgm123]

Personally I employ the Positivist Calendar: today is 25th Bichat, 229. However, I suppose I could settle for the Republican Calendar, which would make it 7 Nivose, CCXXVI.

7 Nivose is also known as Terre végétale. Today is a smellier Fumier.

Happy Manure Day, everyone.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Why do we need calendars and debating on AD/BC anyways ? Time is relative.

My relatives don't understand the concept of time.

 

[Ryika]

You have to be kidding?

No.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Commentary about the current state of "social justice" in various countries is off-topic for this thread.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Sorry if someone's already mentioned this but has anyone else noticed that they do in fact use CE and BCE in their blog posts, even if not in the actual game?

https://www.civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-rise-and-fall-chandragupta-leads-india

 

[Disgustipated]

Even a relative newbie seeing extremely variable years on the same turn will quickly realize that it's the turn # that matters.

Perhaps that makes me a noob, but I still go by the year timer when gauging my progress, not the turn. I try to achieve various benchmarks by various years.

I see you guys say you get so and so victory by turn 150 and that number means nothing to me because you guys are playing at standard or faster speed. I play epic speed, so that number is meaningless. I'd rather go by year instead.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Perhaps that makes me a noob, but I still go by the year timer when gauging my progress, not the turn. I try to achieve various benchmarks by various years.

I see you guys say you get so and so victory by turn 150 and that number means nothing to me because you guys are playing at standard or faster speed. I play epic speed, so that number is meaningless. I'd rather go by year instead.

Yeah, people want to talk about "immersion" but then at the same time ditch years in favor of "the turn 125 point" or whatever. If you get rid of years, you might as well also do away with civilization names or year names because those also don't matter.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, people want to talk about "immersion" but then at the same time ditch years in favor of "the turn 125 point" or whatever. If you get rid of years, you might as well also do away with civilization names or year names because those also don't matter.

If Rome was fielding dog soldiers for UU and had a bonus for turtle ships, your analogy would be comparable.

In contrast to the dates the game presents, the civs do (abstractly) represent some of the things that made them unique in history. Some do it better than others.

The game mechanics themselves directly interfere with an accurate date - tech - troop move - construction time alignment.

 

[clapyourhands]

In my own experience I see BCE/CE far more commonly in paleological and anthropological writing than historical ones. The exception to this is my high school and college history classes, which did loosely enforce a BC/BCE convention. With that said many of the non-textbook sources used in those classes were BC/AD, and my philosophy and writing classes in college were also pretty much all BC/AD. I saw BCE/CE far more in my biology courses than my other ones. Whether that has to do with biological research tending to be more modern by necessity (so there are more papers written in the last few years, where BCE/CE is more prominent), or due to it being more secular, who knows.

I will say that the BCE/CE thing seems to be more widespread than it was a few years ago. Even though the course material used AD/BC, my high school teachers and college professors were fairly unanimous in using BC/BCE and expecting the same in coursework (there weren't any penalties for using AD/BC, but I've had AD crossed out and replaced by BCE once or twice). I'm know I'm not alone in this experience, but I'm also sure the convention isn't nearly as prevalent in other areas. At best I forsee it as being similar to symbol conventions in physics or logical operating, where everyone ends up having their own personal preference but there aren't any significant efforts to reach a consensus.