LESS IS MORE: scrap the middle ages!

[Maniac]

I have always disliked the middle ages.

They're so darn Eurocentric. Because Europe had a fallback between the Roman era and the Renaissance, doesn't the mean the rest of the world had one. To the contrary, Islam had their Golden Age during this era! And a little known fact, China was on the brink of an industrial revolution in the eleventh century, with eg large scale steel production. World history would have looked mightily different if they had been able to further develop.

So scrap that era. I don't want to be forced to go through a dark age. It's boring anyway: most middle age units are simply a copy of their ancient age nephews. For example, what's supposed to be the difference between a Spearmen/Phalanx/Hoplite, and Pikemen? The Phalanx was in fact better military organized than the medieval pikemen... Or what's the difference between Swordmen and Medieval Infantry (IIRC a unit added in C3C?)?

Much better would be a natural tech tree flow from the ancient age to the gunpowder era, with a few techs of Muslim and Chinese origin thrown in between to make the link. As it happened in the real world!!

[Nikolai]

I agree: We should get the Islamic Age, or Chinese Golden Age or someting along that road instead...

[Elok]

Pikemen had longer spears than hoplites/spearmen, and towards the end they too were organized into precise blocks IIRC.

The Middle Ages in Civ don't directly simulate a Dark Age as such, because there's no loss of science and culture or anything, just a step that lets you get a few different units. And the Middle Ages did in fact provide several things, especially universities and the beginnings of chemistry, worldwide.

Not that the phase necessarily hit all the world at the same time. Han-Dynasty China was roughly "medieval," and Japan's Samurai really hit their stride a little bit after Europe did.

[Modo44]

This IS getting out of hand, Maniac.

[hexagonian]

Yeah, I was thinking about a 'Scrap the Modern Age'

After all, its only about 300 years of the totality of human history.

Better yet, let's just scrap all ages...

[Elok]

Oh, for crying out...this is why I say parody posts are the tool of Satan! Bad polypeople! Keep it in the OT if you're gonna be daft.

[Nikolai]

Tool of Satan? That is a bit too harsh, is't it?

[Optimizer]

I believe we can have a serious discussion about the Middle ages.

I think that Feudalism shouldn't be an advance, since it's essentially a step back from well-organised states and empires to a tribal society.

Pikemen are problematic, too. Historically they were developed to counter knights, and they made cavalry obsolete on the battlefield until the development of small firearms in the 17th century. But in Civ 2 & 3 they appear before knights!

[Max Sinister]

Yeah, they should change that obvious mistake... (didn't they have that in Civ2 too?)