Should we try to influence the designers to extend the medieval period?

[Lancer]

Can we influence the game designers of Civ V, or better yet the final upgrade for Civ IV to extend the medieval part of the game as was briefly mentioned on #39? Should we?

[fani]

Extend...Era...sounds good....

[ZEE]

yes

[Addled Platypus]

yes

what kind of bribe should we start with ?

[Fleme]

I'm for extending every single era prior to the industrial and modern ones!

[Modo44]

In other words, play Marathon.

[Fleme]

Already there.

[Robert]

Once musketeers pop-in, things go too quickly for me.
Most units are absolete before you've build them by then.

[jkp1187]

No. I feel that I have plenty of time to use medieval units (maces, trebs, crossbows, etc.,) and I usually play on NORMAL speed. I'm not sure I completely understand the basis of the complaint here. Can someone explain in more specifics what they want? More game turns? More units? Higher technology costs?

It just seems to me that playing a slower game speed (epic or marathon) might be an easy way to solve this complaint, unless there's something I'm missing here. And I think the Charlemagne scenario is all medieval era too....

[couerdelion]

I'm not quite sure what the reason for this extension is. The game is long enough as it is and it would not really fit in well with the tech tree - since the period was never really known for its ground-breaking discoveries.

I suppose you might suggest a new "Dark Ages" period to coincide with the popular belief that the period after the Roman Empire was one of decline and scientific regression. This could meld into the Medieaval period which would be completed by "re-learning" all of the Classical techs again.

[Lancer]

For one thing the age of discovery and warfare among sailing ships goes by too quickly. I think we need a super marathon that stretches the 2500 years when triremes ruled the sea and super stretches the age of discovery/sailing. These are the truly grand times before the age of... the button.

[jkp1187]

And marathon isn't enough????

[couerdelion]

Most of the age of discovery coincides with the Gunpowder Age rather than the Mediaeval period. And certainly you could argue that there were many evolutions of firearms between Muskets and Riflemen and across the different types of cannon.

But I find it a bit odd that knights last so long. They weren’t even that good against Longbow but should be pretty useless against Muskets. In Civ, Knights are weak against a group of Frenchies lobbing gunpowder grenades. NB. The Mongol hordes who visited Europe arrived at a time when Knights were still around. And look who one that one – you won’t give the Keshik much chance against a Knight in Civ4 though.

The only problem with trying to put this sort of detail into a game like Civ is that you tend to freeze time too much in one era. For that sort of detail, you play games like EU which concentrates on the period and can slice improvements up into smaller chunks.

[TriMiro]

The problem should not be solved by extending an era, but re-balancing the length of the eras. The jump from musketman to rifleman is a bit too fast, infantry comes only two techs after rifleman too.

IMHO the problem comes from the fact that the printing press and constitution come right at this period so if you are using specialists or cottages you get a good boost of economy. Techs get discovered faster than in any other period. I don't know how to fix that without creating another problem.

[snoopy369]

If units are obsolete by the time you build them, you're not building them fast enough

Largely you fix it by introducing new techs (ie, Military Science). You could add a few new techs easily to the tech tree at that era if you wanted to; that would be the easiest way to lengthen the period, if that's what you want. Or, increase the costs significantly of the techs you are wanting delayed...