Ages feel silly

[Sightless]

It seems dumb that the tech ("learning") leader sets the age, despite everything all the other players do. Especially for crisis ages like The Age of Blood, which takes a while to stack up the conditions. If anything, ages should happen after either a set number of turns or after a global condition is fulfilled, and then the age is picked automatically. I've played the demo 4 times through and despite trying for alternative ages, its always the Iron Age because some AI on the other side of the map.

[Flickmann]

They probably decided to make ages globe-wide to differentiate them from Civ VI's dark/normal/golden age mechanic. They make it apply to the whole world and say it's "choosing the course of history" but it really is just the same as picking an age, just for the whole world instead of yourself. It's very poor.

[Limz]

Originally posted by Flickmann:

They probably decided to make ages globe-wide to differentiate them from Civ VI's dark/normal/golden age mechanic. They make it apply to the whole world and say it's "choosing the course of history" but it really is just the same as picking an age, just for the whole world instead of yourself. It's very poor.

Explain why it is poor.

[DNLH]

Eh, it's not ideal, but if you have 'penalty' and 'reward' ages, and then completely alt-history or even fantastical ones (that's definitely the vibe given by quests in the Age of Heroes, for example), then the effects need to be global to a certain extent. Maybe they could be locked to a landmass, but that wouldn't work well with good chunk of map settings.

I honestly don't think it's that bad, but there definitely needs to be a system that massively debuffs ability to choose another age for someone who picked a previous one, so it's very hard (but not completely impossible) to stay at the steering wheel for a whole game.

Likewise, maybe there could be a system that the 'generic' age would need to be picked globally (i.e. having a massive Knowledge cost to advance, but all the nations choosing it would put it on a single pile), while the variation ages could be reasonably achieved by a single empire.

[akaSkipper]

Originally posted by Sightless:

It seems dumb that the tech ("learning") leader sets the age, despite everything all the other players do. Especially for crisis ages like The Age of Blood, which takes a while to stack up the conditions. If anything, ages should happen after either a set number of turns or after a global condition is fulfilled, and then the age is picked automatically. I've played the demo 4 times through and despite trying for alternative ages, its always the Iron Age because some AI on the other side of the map.

I can imagine how it will be great in the later agess and to really make the game dynamic. Imagine you are leading the world, like the europeans did with the colonization. If they had a different approach to foreign cultures history would have played out differently, so it kinda makes sense, that the leading nation decides in which direction humankind goes. Look no further than ww2, if the allies had lost the war the world would have been a much bloodier palce then it is today

[Vic]

I feel like if they are going to make Ages sound so important and impactful to the game they should have been an indepth system in itself. Not just tied to technology timer and a minor condition.
Fought another nation? Ok you are ready for the age of blood, wait x turns ok done.

[nigh_anxiety]

I don't think its a big problem unless someone gets really far ahead. In my one playthrough so far, one of the computer players advanced to the Bronze age first (I was close behind), and then as soon as I got three Bronze techs, using my Eureka boosts to speed that up, I pushed for the Age of Heroes. The ability to use culture to make up for being a little behind on knowledge helps. My main issue was not expanding to new cities effectively, and yet I was still able to keep up with research.

[alan_buchbach]

The age of heroes is cheaper in knowledge cost than the age of iron because it has additional requirements to satisfy, so you should be able to push it if you prefer heroes to iron. Assuming you can find the landmarks.

Remember you can use 'Eureka' cultural power to research faster.

Age of Blood is more expensive to research than Iron, to reduce the likelihood of being propelled into it.

Additionally, you can just send 6 individual units at the tech leader to force them into researching blood or delaying their research while you work on Iron or Heroes.

It is a *strategy* game ;)

[Prown]

It's not great that it's shared, but at the same time you need a way so everyone is in the same age, otherwise each age is going to be bland due to balancing concerns.

And at that point you just have replicated Civ's rather bland Dark/normal/Golden age.

One of this games selling points is it's ages which can drastically affect game play, there is no way to have them both drastic, and balanced, if you have them per player.

[Limz]

Originally posted by Prown:

It's not great that it's shared, but at the same time you need a way so everyone is in the same age, otherwise each age is going to be bland due to balancing concerns.

And at that point you just have replicated Civ's rather bland Dark/normal/Golden age.

One of this games selling points is it's ages which can drastically affect game play, there is no way to have them both drastic, and balanced, if you have them per player.

It's fine that it is shared mechanically as you have a lot of levers that you can pull for balancing and adding features.

[Rand]

I think it's a good system in theory but definitely needs some refinement, and a degree of customisation will go a long way. Just going by the 60 turn demo, it seems unlikely that the AI will reach the prerequisite to hit one of the special ages, and never mind the fact that they then also have to be the first to research the new age. From the demo alone I get the impression of the AI leading your game into something that isn't the iron age is less than 1%.

So that leaves it up to the human player to intentionally hit the prerequisites, and then use human strategy to hit the research first. I like the concept, and think it's the correct decision to have the age apply globally, but the system kind of fails if it's always up to the human player to get them. Assuming the format remains an era specific standard age, golden age, and dark age.

For an example on the importance of customizability if you could turn the prerequisites off an in a game to let the leading AI pick any era randomly.

[Fishy]

I don't have an easy solution, but it does feel weird that you're either leading the world in research or you're opting out of ever influencing the age. In most 4x games you could happily choose a strategy that would never be #1 in research, but playing in that style here means you're opting out of the main enjoyable mechanic. I like playing research heavy strategies, but this mechanic makes it feel almost mandatory.

[Comrade Point]

Ages definitely shouldn't be pure tech. Something like the person who earned the most points like culture, government, engineering etc put together, regardless of whether they spent them or not deciding could work. Or have a system where players spend culture/government to vote on the next age. Or age specific objectives, each time that thing happens, regardless of who did it or what they wanted it pushes towards that age. Like say, for every landmark discovered age of heroes gets 2-3 points, for every non-barbarian unit that dies age of blood gets 1 point, and for every some other third thing age of iron gets points. Then when the high tech person finishes the age, it locks in whatever result had the most points.

[aqvamare]

Originally posted by Sightless:

It seems dumb that the tech ("learning") leader sets the age, despite everything all the other players do. Especially for crisis ages like The Age of Blood, which takes a while to stack up the conditions. If anything, ages should happen after either a set number of turns or after a global condition is fulfilled, and then the age is picked automatically. I've played the demo 4 times through and despite trying for alternative ages, its always the Iron Age because some AI on the other side of the map.

My guess it, you need to build into age of heroes or blood in the first age and nation setup.

Pick scout at gamestart, rush first tech scout, and build first production scout (and perhaps a "oceane" tile start, to get explorer ships early).

Than get map vision on speed, to get the 3 natual landmarks by map rushing.

So "age of heroes" should be a option.

For "age of blood", similar thinking, pick "army" at start, rush a "doomstack", try to farm as fast as possible your neighbour nation, to get the "6 units killed" together, so that you can pick the age.

In my opion, this "extra" ages are multiplayer options, were one player aims a specific second age, and is willing to cripple is "start" for the age, so that other "builder player" run into trouble.

[pfm_nb]

Originally posted by Vic:

I feel like if they are going to make Ages sound so important and impactful to the game they should have been an indepth system in itself. Not just tied to technology timer and a minor condition.
Fought another nation? Ok you are ready for the age of blood, wait x turns ok done.

did you actually play anything beside Iron Age?It most certainly doesn't seem so. Age of Blood and the Hero age, are completly diffrent from the Iron Age. Most certainly the Quest system can be fleshed out and the war penalities can be nerfed... but yeah you'll definetly notice when you hunt down quest with your hero or see your towns flooded with separatism and babarians because you choose violence

[Twilight Sentinel]

I very much like the system, but hate that the lead tech player dictates which age you go into. Especially when the AI almost always goes into the default age, thus forcing the player to be the sole force for determining which age you get.