[Mod] 12 Ages Mod

[alms66]

First, I've just started looking into what it's going to take to get this mod created, and it looks like alot , so it will probably take a few weeks (at best) to get the "alpha" version of the mod out (unless I get a slave work....err...umm... helper or two ).

This mod will come in two versions. The standard version will simply break the standard tech tree into 12 ages and ensure that the game spends equal amounts of time depicting each age - which it currently doesn't. Figure about 36 turns per age (36*12=432 or two turns longer than normal speed). The expanded version will also add new techs/units/buildings/wonders to further flesh out the ages, and probably a few other tweaks as well.

So, here is a list of the ages:
1. Stone Age
2. Copper Age
3. Bronze Age
4. Iron Age
5. Medieval Age
6. Renaissance
7. Age of Reason
8. Industrial Age
9. Age of Steam
10. Age of Electricity
11. Atomic Age
12. Information Age

More to come later...
Please feel free to comment.

[alms66]

reserved

[alms66]

reservedx2
Just in case...

[Agrona]

I like it, like it alot, man thats one heck of a good idea, blasting through different time periods without a buffer zone between them takes away from the current gameplay.

I really look forward to your mod,good luck.

[Martin Gühmann]

Were are those ages we know from CTP1 and CTP1: The Genetic and Diamond age.

However adding some turns to the game would be a good idea for the additional ages. At least a few.

-Martin

[alms66]

Martin,
I assume you mean CTP1 and CTP2?

I loved CTP2, but I was never a big fan of the futuristic eras of the series. Heretical, I know. I may tack one futuristic age on the end, but it wouldn't be very large, and it's not very likely in the first place. If I did add it though, it would just be the most likely scientific advaces to come in the near future. If someone wants to tack additional futuristic stuff to the end of the mod in their own spin-off mod, I'd be fine with that, of course.

I was considering adding extra turns, but some people wouldn't even give the mod a try then, so I might just incorporate the Dynastic (game speed) mod, or do something similar while leaving the default options alone. I don't play anything but epic as it is, and I find the speed to be fine, if just a tad bit slow (find myself hitting enter too many times in a row without actually doing anything in the turn).

[Fireb]

Sounds interesting.

I'd be glad to help you. If you can break down what you want to do, it should be much faster with 2-3 people working concurrently.

How do you suggest we proceed?

[alms66]

Fireb,

Thanks for the offer of help, I accept.

I'm going to be running tests for a few days, to try and find out exactly which files will need altering. In the meantime, you can take the standard tech tree and assign one of the 12 ages to each of the techs. Be sure to post your work here as often as you can, since you don't want to waste days working on stuff, only to find out noone likes what you've done. Always get feedback as quickly and as often as possible.

[Fireb]

Ok, here goes. Once I get some feedback and get things more or less in order i'll make a nice graphical version

I’ve been assuming a few things,
- Each period needs to offer something different in terms of activities/game-play.
- Each civ should advance from one age to the next at it’s own pace, rather than a fixed pace (to allow for ‘primitive’ native civs and to reward fast development)
- Some sort of compromise between historical accuracy and game-play. The game-play can be modded of course, but this will come later.

STONE
The activities of this period should concentrate mostly on survival and exploration. Very little research, no mining or agriculture yet, as these require development and sophisticated tools. There should be some possibility for early tribal raiding and squables over territory.

Mysticism, Fishing and Hunting are the only appropriate techs that I see for this age, which means that either each of them should take a long time to research, or else the tech tree redesigned to reflect this period in greater detail.

COPPER
An age of expansion, development, agriculture, mining and of course an escalation of tribal warfare into something more brutal, common and widespread. Full-scale invasions should now be viable (if still expensive and difficult), rather just raiding. Civ’s should be able to start to choose divergent tech. paths to explore, between early industrial development, religious pursuits and warmongering.

Mining, polytheism, meditation, sailing, pottery, archery. Maybe something to reflect copper weaponry and the edge it gave to those who had it?

BRONZE
A time also of (naval) colonisation. Large-scale warfare and pitched battles should be more common. Early warships start to appear.

Bronze working, masonry (most cities did not build walls until well into the Iron Age), priesthood (not monotheism), writing, animal husbandry.

IRON
An age of incessant warfare, regular invasions. A time when money became vital, could be used to bribe enemies, hire allies and mercenaries, decide politics at home. A time also of relative political enlightenment, republics, democracies, monarchies. Road building. A time when tribes coalesced into early nations, factions, alliances, treaties. Walls and siege warfare start to come of age. Warships get bigger and stronger, though still can’t cross-seas safely.

Horseback riding (and stirrups, etc), Ironworking, monotheism, monarchy, alphabet, literature, drama, mathematics, currency, calendar. Philosophy?

MEDIEVAL
Enduring siege warfare and castle building as set out by Vegetius. Sea crossing is now more practical, if still risky. Basic laws are created. Early cannon appear. Nation-states consolidate and expand. Full invasions are common, including by sea. The last religions appear at this time. Mostly nations are too engaged in warfare and witch-hunting to bother with science and culture.

Metal casting, compass, construction, code of laws, feudalism, divine right.

RENAISSANCE

For the first time, warfare starts to decrease (as it becomes more expensive, and more destructive). Mostly an age of cultural flowering, art and music.

Theology, Machinery, Music, Banking, Guilds, Paper, Gunpowder

AGE OF REASON

A time of logic and science and books, but also of revolution. Regular periods of short but extremely bloody warfare. Armies abandon their castles and take to the field once more, and now number in their hundreds of thousands.

Civil service, Engineering, Optics, Education, Printing press, Liberalism, Nationalism, astronomy, Military tradition, democracy

INDUSTRIAL AGE

Factories, urbanisation, the dawn of modern warfare.

Rifling, corporation, steam power, replaceable parts, artillery, railroad.

AGE OF STEAM

Isn’t this the same as the industrial age?

AGE OF ELECTRICITY

Chemistry, Communism, Assembly line, Fascism, Scientific method, steel, physics, electricity, combustion, industrialism.

ATOMIC AGE

Biology, Medicine, Refrigeration, Fission, flight, rocketry, radio, mass media.

INFORMATION AGE
Technology gone wild. Politics gone haywire, and warfare digitalised.

The last nine techs.



Some concerns: The way UU’s are currently implemented, there is the risk of affecting relative civ strengths by limiting research to each epoch. This is not necessarily negative, but should be looked at closely.

Archery was only effective for hunting, not warfare until well into the Iron Age. Romans only started using formations of archers a long time after Caesar. The Persians were famous for them, but that was in the early middle ages. Horse archers were terrifyingly effective, but only from about 500 AD (Huns, Heruli etc and later Mongols). The Numidians employed effective spear/javelin-throwing cavalry, but they hardly count as ‘archers’.

Disciplined infantry formations could be highly effective against loose ‘barbarian’ formations. Early heavy cavalry came a long time before horse archers (e.g. Alexander). Horse archers pretty much rendered elephants obsolete. Should something be done to reflect all this?

The ages are not, currently, balanced. Some have far more techs to research than others. Whilst they can be balanced out, I think it's better to have some ages when research goes faster, some when development is the main activity, and some when there isn't all that much to do except fight. Any thoughts on this?

Finally, the more feedback I have, the better this will become. So tell us what you think!

[alms66]

The only discrepancies I see with what you've done are:
Ancient Greeks had philosophy in the bronze age
Greeks also had currency
Code of Laws was developed by ancient Babylon
Ancient China had a large bureaucracy (civil service)

Now, this doesn't mean what you've done is wrong, in our model, these civs could have just been advanced. I'm just bringing it up. Other than that, it took you a day to finish – wow – and I like what you've done, excellent job.

Regarding Industrial Age/Age of Steam, the distinction is that the Industrial Age's primary focus was the widespread use of machines, while the Age of Steam's primary focus was the widespread use of machines powered by steam - a small distinction, but one worthy of making IMO. Thus I'd shift Steam Power and Railroad into the Age of Steam (from Industrial). If a large enough group think it's worth dropping, I'd be fine with leaving the techs as you have them, and dropping the Age of Steam.

Regarding your comments, I think we should just do what feels right, really, and not worry about putting the same number of techs into each age. The numbers I listed before were just example figures, and are not meant to be taken literally – for example, the extra two turns aren't worth adding IMO.

But anyhow, for now we just need to get the basic version up and running. The next step is putting the right age in all the techs in the “CIV4TechInfos.xml” file. If you want to start that, feel free. I've only had 3 hours of sleep in the past two days, so I was going to be doing that tonight, but now I'm going to bed instead. Basically, for each tech, you need to find the line that looks like so:

"Era"ERA_ANCIENT"Era"
replace " with < or >

and change the part after “ERA_” to the appropriate age. Use the following:
STONE
COPPER
BRONZE
IRON
MEDIEVAL
RENAISSANCE
REASON
INDUSTRIAL
STEAM
ELECTRICITY
ATOMIC
INFORMATION

Thanks for your help again, if you keep this pace up, and I keep mine up, this will be your mod, not mine.

[Quin007]

concerning civs., that discovered certain techs way before others (like Greek philosophy or Chinese bir.) I think that these should be treated in some special way, eg. philospohy would still belong in iron period (only in Europe it was rediscovoered in medieval times, while Chinese and Japanese also published some grest philo. works way earlier) adn code of laws shouldn't be a bronze age tech. but all civilizations would be able to discover some techs. from "future" eras, either by wonders or with using the great people. In that way we would represent tech. "rushing" that happened in some parts of the world.

To summarize, you would be able to research only period specific techs., but with certain wonders and most of GP you would be able to choose and discover any techonology that belongs in era above the current.

Just a side note, Fireb's list of eras and techs is a great one (respect), but I should warn you, that you are maybe a little to eurocentristic, eg. compass CAME to Europe in medieval age, although it was KNOWN before, the same goes for gunpowder?, paper, education, alphabet, drama, music, astronomy?,... That's also the point of Civ4... I don't want to accuse you of anything or smth like that, I just think you should be carefull here.

[Fireb]

Originally posted by Quin007
concerning civs., that discovered certain techs way before others (like Greek philosophy or Chinese bir.) I think that these should be treated in some special way...

but all civilizations would be able to discover some techs. from "future" eras, either by wonders or with using the great people. In that way we would represent tech. "rushing" that happened in some parts of the world.

Great idea - Indeed I was aware of what you're talking about and I was wondering just what to do about it...
In addition to that, we might like to look into making some of these 'early tech rushes' civ specific, so whilst the chinese might conceivably research 'fireworks' early on, they didn't (as far as I'm aware) use it for millitary purposes. Any thoughts on this?

but I should warn you, that you are maybe a little to eurocentristic... I just think you should be carefull here.

Haha, yes; you're absolutely right. As far as I can see there are several options here:
1 - compromise on eras, for things like philosophy, the compass, astronomy, gunpowder, etc to balance gameplay.
2 - civ specific tech trees, allowing some civs to research techs earlier, or more cheaply, than others. Later on this could be expanded by making different tech trees for each civ.
3 - Global view - making techs available to research in the eras where they were historically first researched (e.g. gunpowder), yet making that research extremely expensive (without supporting techs).

Which would be best?

[Fireb]

Originally posted by alms66
The only discrepancies I see with what you've done are:
Ancient Greeks had philosophy in the bronze age
Greeks also had currency

At what time did the greeks switch from iron to bronze?
Presumably by the time of the peloponesian wars (socrates & co.) they had iron? I think it's fine to switch philosophy and currency to the bronze age, particularly as they're more expensive to research than the other techs.

Regarding Industrial Age/Age of Steam, the distinction is that the Industrial Age's primary focus was the widespread use of machines, while the Age of Steam's primary focus was the widespread use of machines

Right, I'll change that then

But anyhow, for now we just need to get the basic version up and running. The next step is putting the right age in all the techs in the “CIV4TechInfos.xml” file.

I'm on it!

if you keep this pace up, and I keep mine up, this will be your mod, not mine.

Lol! Well, you're the driving force and inspiration behind the mod, and if lots of people help out, it will become a community effort. The more input we have, the better we can make.

[Quin007]

Originally posted by Fireb


Haha, yes; you're absolutely right. As far as I can see there are several options here:
1 - compromise on eras, for things like philosophy, the compass, astronomy, gunpowder, etc to balance gameplay.
2 - civ specific tech trees, allowing some civs to research techs earlier, or more cheaply, than others. Later on this could be expanded by making different tech trees for each civ.
3 - Global view - making techs available to research in the eras where they were historically first researched (e.g. gunpowder), yet making that research extremely expensive (without supporting techs).

Which would be best?

how about tying specific tech trees to civs characteristics? Aggressive civs would have an "agressive" tech tree with, let say, earlier iron working and mathematics possible, philosophical civs a tech tree with alphabet, writing, philospohy, etc available sooner, spiritual would have a religious tech tree, financila civs would be able to get financial techs sooner via financial tech tree and so on?

[Fireb]

Very interesting idea Quin007. I think that would be a great addition. Makes leader selection that much more important. Not sure yet how it would be implemented, but then it wouldn't be fun if it was easy