Are they going to add a 4th Age after the Modern Age?

[KayO]

During today's livestream about Modern Age gameplay, it was mentioned that the Modern Age in Civ 7 actually only covers 1750 to about 1950. In other words, from the late enlightenment era to the end of the 2nd World War. However, past Civ games would usually go past WW2 and future present day units, with the game instead ending in 2050 or 2100.

However, they also mentioned that they plan to expand Civ 7 in the future. Could this mean that Firaxis plans to add a 4th age after the Modern Age, possibly the Information Age?

I certainly hope so! It would be cool to see present day units and tactics. This would also be a great opportunity to add another 10 Civs to the pool. What could these Information Age Civilizations be? Maybe...

Quin China -> People's Republic of China
England -> United Kingdom
France -> European Union
Russia -> Soviet Union
Mughal India -> Republic of India
Buganda -> Nigeria
America -> United States

[flyingleaf]

I was thinking about that possibility myself as well already since a while. Since the whole game is designed now that way that you could easily alter it and lengthen it with a 4th age and define final win conditions there and rewrite the 3rd age to behave like age 1 and 2 did... In the modern age stream the lead game designer mentioned that they had the feeling that this 3rd age would be a perfect time to end the game at the moment. Then afterwards he elaborated about some additional aspects "as far I was able to understand" which will be possible to do in future but they would be not presented right now. So my conclusion is, yes they see as well the ability to enlarge the game somehow easily. For now they want the "core game" to get balanced and then for sure they will come with some add on stuff and present it to us.

One thing is for sure only adding new cultures and leaders will be for sure not the only content of add on`s they will produce.

And a 4th age would be a very sure cash cow once announced when the core game will have its fans and works fine, so seen only from a commercial perspective I bet they have some sort of similar idea already in planning.

[KayO]

Originally posted by flyingleaf:

And a 4th age would be a very sure cash cow once announced when the core game will have its fans and works fine, so seen only from a commercial perspective I bet they have some sort of similar idea already in planning.

I personally hope that Firaxis does not lock the Information Age behind a paywall. DLC and expansions should focus on adding specific Civilizations and gameplay elements that are entirely new to the Civilization series.

As for the victory conditions, I think a good idea would be to extend them not only to the Information Age, but also to the 2 earlier ages as well. That way, players could play shorter games that offer the same end game goals as the default game. These victory conditions change to reflect whatever the final age of your chosen game happens to be. Like what was mentioned in the Modern Age gameplay live stream, by filling out a Legacy bonus path, you unlock the relevant victory project for that age if you set it to be the game's final age. These projects could include...

Antiquity Age...
Domination Victory: Write the Art of War
Cultural Victory: Write the Odyssey
Economic Victory: Build the El Dorado Victory Wonder
Science Victory: Construct a Great Library Victory Wonder

Exploration Age...
Domination Victory: Build the Mecca Victory Wonder
Cultural Victory: Translate, print, and distribute copies of your religion's holy book.
Economic Victory: Build a Great Royal Treasury
Science Victory: Create the first accurate World Map.

Modern Age...
Domination Victory: Build and test a Nuclear Weapon
Cultural Victory: Build the World's Fair
Economic Victory: Build the World Stock Exchange
Science Victory: Land a person on the moon

Information Age...
Domination Victory: Build an ICBM defense Satellite
Cultural Victory: Establish 5 Social Media Companies
Economic Victory: Build 5 Cryptocurrency Farms
Science Victory: Build a settlement on Mars

[Henryk]

Why not integrating the Information Age stuff into Modern Age? They only need to extend the tech tree. I'm also very interested in this period. But in my view putting new content into new ages doesn't fit to the idea of the developers behind ages.

[Lëgënd]

I would be very interested in seeing a fourth age personally, and can very much see it being a dlc or expansion IE Brave New World etc.

[katzenkrimis]

Additional Age = Expansion.

No doubt.

Building Operation Ivy as a final victory project at launch is clearly not the end of the game.

We're long past nukes. We don't even use them because they are insane.

Oppenheimer died in 1967.

[flyingleaf]

So I think we all agree that there is no doubt some DLC, Expansions, Add Ons will happen since there is plenty of possibility left...

PS: I would also love to have some "future tech" achievable in the end game with mechs or something equivalent, since my inner child loves this stuff ;)

Or alternative if they want to try some experiment they could add even later a Optional 5th age with many future techs plus some crisis system like attack from outer space and the earth has to defend themselves in a final battle ;) Ok that would be no Civ anymore, more Alpha Centauri but why not mix up for fun theses settings a little bit lol...

[Oaks]

I am sure at some point it will be more content, but it's unlikely there will be a changing of Civs again like in previous ages. That would be a lot of new Civs to add, so it's more likely you would just remain with whoever you chose for the modern age.

[flyingleaf]

Originally posted by Oaks:

I am sure at some point it will be more content, but it's unlikely there will be a changing of Civs again like in previous ages. That would be a lot of new Civs to add, so it's more likely you would just remain with whoever you chose for the modern age.

Would make sense, correct but would violate also their main gameplay logic.. how they defined this game with history is build in layers and so on... so I doubt that they would skip the Civ change from my point of view "if" for example a 4th age would be added.

[johnarhoades]

It occurred to me when I first heard the devs describe the "disconnect" between ages, that it would readily allow a true space age. It could be a launch to an new planetary landing, even. Sort of that setup portion of Civ Beyond Earth.

[flyingleaf]

Today the biggest gamer magazine in Germany, Gamestar confirmed that the developer will add more content e.g. the 4th age later. If this will be done cost free or via DLC with costs they do not know either. So this riddle is already solved. But as I said the system would allow to add later on even a 5th age if they would want to. If this would make sense from a perspective of gameplay and if it will be not too long then is a other kind of discussion.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by flyingleaf:

Today the biggest gamer magazine in Germany, Gamestar confirmed that the developer will add more content e.g. the 4th age later. If this will be done cost free or via DLC with costs they do not know either. So this riddle is already solved. But as I said the system would allow to add later on even a 5th age if they would want to. If this would make sense from a perspective of gameplay and if it will be not too long then is a other kind of discussion.

Great info, thanks.

[Javaris Jamar Javarison-Lamar]

I thought what the guy says early in the livestream about this was absolutely crazy.

"We love to have our ages with a big climatic conflict between the players, where they're really fighting it out. The Modern Age with the World Wars really fits that bill very nicely. So that's what we decided; we decided we have so much content-- this is the fullest age we have, it's already set up perfectly in terms of where the history lays out, and we're just gonna say "that's our third age; that's perfect for the end of a Civilization game". Now there's some content after that that our players are familiar with: the Cold War kicks in and obviously history has marched on to the present. That's not something you're going to see in Civ 7 at launch, but we'll be talking about the plans for how that gets into the game... when it's time."

So which is it? Is the Modern Age ending around 1960 "perfect for the end of a Civilization game" or does the game benefit from having the current age (Information Age) that they intend to sell us as an expansion? Are they really pitching the Information Age expansion as an opportunity for us to pay to unperfect the game we bought?

[Lëgënd]

Well they haven't said for sure if it's paid or if it's free. They could just be delaying it to see numbers (as in yields from cities etc, and background data from the game) for balancing reasons.

[Seekrt]

No Science victories then?

[Lëgënd]

Watch the live stream, there are definitely science victories. Science is one of the four victory options.