Golden Ages & Dark Age

[XarXo]

If we have GOLDEN AGES, why not DARK AGES? If you plays patheticaly bad or just lost a great war, or a long period with no new knowledges, no increased population, or simply no new cities in long time could origine a DARK AGE.

In DARK AGE it also could:

- Loose knowledges.
- Loose population (pestilence, can RAZE cities!).
- Revolts, corruption and unrest raises.
- Probably, civil war (the empire divides!).
- Loose wonders (big or small).
(more...)

For solve it, you need something enthusiastic like:

- A leader appears.
- A new wonder (no small one).
- A new knowledge.
- 3 new cities.
- Win 1 opponent city in a war (without leader).
(more...)

I believe that this could be great!

[SomeOneElse]

sounds like a good idea. needs some development, though, to make sure its balaning. what if your neighbor's in a golden age when youre in a dark age? it would be easy for them to exploit you then. even easier the other way around, i would think, for a human in a golden age to exploit an AI civ in a dark age.

[Panag]

hi ,

in a dark age the science should be going back , at a slow rate , ....corrution should be high , ...

and with the new editor , who knows , split a antion , that would be nice , ...

maybe it can be done true a mod , .....
but why should they not put it in , ....

have a nice day

[jsw363]

It's an interesting idea, but I think it would be difficult to come up with the triggering mechanism. It would have to be a complex system of events (or non-events) that would collectively show that your civilization had stagnated.

During the European Dark Ages, wars were fought, culture was produced, but technology stagnated. Many technological improvements were lost during the Dark Ages (like the advanced Roman systems of irrigation). It seems like a Dark Age is insipired by a slowdown in knowledge advancement.

[Lucilla]

Although the concept of a dark age is interesting and certainly realistic, I would be afraid that it unbalances the game.

If you play on higher levels and you are already lagging behind, imagine you get a dark age because of your bad performance. That would slow you down even more and it would be very hard to achieve one of the items you mentioned to get into normal state again.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Lucilla
Although the concept of a dark age is interesting and certainly realistic, I would be afraid that it unbalances the game.

If you play on higher levels and you are already lagging behind, imagine you get a dark age because of your bad performance. That would slow you down even more and it would be very hard to achieve one of the items you mentioned to get into normal state again.

hi ,

, a golden age does not unbalance the game neither , ....

, they could include the option of a certain year(s) , in where it happens to all civ's , except the ones that are in a golden age , they would get it after that , ...

have a nice day

[alva]

eeugh, sorry if i'm wrong but what about

" ANARCHY " , doesn't this allready simulate the Dark ages

[Panag]

Originally posted by alva848
eeugh, sorry if i'm wrong but what about

" ANARCHY " , doesn't this allready simulate the Dark ages

hi ,

, nope you could keep you government that you have , but you should get the effect of anarchy , and there should be less shield's , more corrution , and so , the reverse of a golden age , ....

have a nice night

[Purple]

If a Dark Age would be unbalancing, especially at higher levels, then the game could be rebalanced, by removing or reducing some of the AI advantage at those levels!

[Panag]

Originally posted by Purple
If a Dark Age would be unbalancing, especially at higher levels, then the game could be rebalanced, by removing or reducing some of the AI advantage at those levels!

hi ,

when used wisely , it cant be unbalancing , ....

one idea would be to put everyone true it , at a certain time , ....

have a nice day

[jsw363]

A randomly timed dark age seems like the random events that people have talked about on other threads. (i.e. a random flood, plague, fire etc. a la CivI) They were great for the newspapers (which I miss) and also added to the uniqueness of each game. I think that a dark age would be a great random event.

[Pythagoras]

Maybe it could be triggered by immense corruption. During a dark age cultural assimilation and expansion stops and civil war becomes a possibility.

[dnassman]

Don't like the idea of a dark age. Think corruption, unhappy citizens, slow science, losing a war are enough of a problem to handle. Much prefer multiple golden ages though. Imagine having two or three GAs especially if you trigger an early GA you won't miss out on the benefits of a late middle or late GA. Obviously make the multiple GA's harder to achieve. Now that would be interesting to come up with ideas.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I actually agree with the concept of a dark age and have previously suggested a possible major trigger: the loss of your Capital!!
Basically this would cause potential Civil War (a la Civ2), but also lead to massive amounts of corruption and a halving (or worse) of both culture and tech rates! The tech and culture difficulties should last a set period of time (which would be adjustable within the editor) but the corruption issue would be solved by building a new capital!
Other potential trigger, as mentioned here, could be a civil war (or revolution) sparked by large-scale unhappiness and/or corruption or if your culture rate drops below a certain threshold from the destruction of improvements and wonders or the loss of too many cities! It could also be sparked by a random event, but such a Dark Age, due to it's random nature, would have to hit ALL civs!
Anyway, just my AU$0.02c worth (or US$0.01c worth)!! Thankyou to XarXo for at least getting a debate on this issue going!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Pythagoras
Maybe it could be triggered by immense corruption. During a dark age cultural assimilation and expansion stops and civil war becomes a possibility.

hi ,

, , and the country could split in two , and if its a big one , why not in three , ......
afterall there shall be 31 civ's to chose from , ...

have a nice day