Can you play in only one age if you want?

[Ryse]

When setting up the map, does anyone know if you can choose which ages you want to play and limit them to just one or two? For example, If I just wanted to play in discovery age can I do that? I know that in past Civ games we'd have to download mods to do this. I'm hoping they allow people that perhaps don't want to play in the modern age, to do so.

[Oaks]

As far as I have understood, yes, you can.

The game is broken up into three ages - ancient, exploration, and modern. A regular game is comprised of playing through the three ages. However, there will be the option to start in a later age and just play that age. So if you want to start in the Exploration age instead of the ancient age, it's possible.

[Daganev]

You can definitely start in any age, but I don't know if you'll be able to win in any age. Might want to wait for the first reviews on Jan 16th.

[Konzi]

They said in the dev live streams you can play strictly on one age, and do 1 age games, with their own victory conditions

[plaguepenguin]

They had advanced starts in 6, but I thought they were clunky. Advanced starts in 7 were gone over in the Shawnee livestream, and seem to be much improved compared to 6, giving you much more control over exactly what assets you start with.

In the Modern livestream, during their discussion of victory conditions, they mentioned that you will be able to get a victory at the end of any of the three ages. The way I understand it, and I could be wrong, victory at the end of Antiquity and Exploration will be based on how many total points you get on the four legacy pathways for that age, while full game victory is achieved by getting to the end of one of the pathways in the Modern, and then finishing a project unique to that pathway. As I remember it, you get a bonus towards finishing the victory project that is larger the more legacy points you earned in all three ages.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

They had advanced starts in 6, but I thought they were clunky.

Same. I remember you pretty much start from scratch, just in a later age. It meant without the industrial and scientific base from playing from a while, it took forever to get anything built or researched.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Oaks:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

They had advanced starts in 6, but I thought they were clunky.

Same. I remember you pretty much start from scratch, just in a later age. It meant without the industrial and scientific base from playing from a while, it took forever to get anything built or researched.

That was the problem, sort of starting from scratch, but not smoothly, not in any way that seemed thought out or planned by the devs. You would get extra settlers and military units, and some city center buildings for free, but otherwise needing to produce the more expensive districts and units of a later age, but starting from scratch, from the same nothing you started with in 4000 BCE.

I played some advanced starts a few times many years ago, just to get the achievements, but then this Terra Incognito challenge last year seemed interesting, and it involved an advanced start. Matthias had a huge advantage from being able to produce districts across the river at half price. I was able to win with him on Emperor even more easily than with Joao on Prince, despite the latter having naval and trade uniques, because in advanced start,half-price districts are like diamonds and rubies. They're just what you need, exactly when you need it.

This situation of starting from scratch but with some perks, is going to have an analogy in 7. Every civ gets pared back, a fair amount, by the age transition, so that it carries lower yields than the last age, into a new age in which everything costs more. At least some of your cities are degraded to towns, but even worse, your buildings and specialists lose their adjacencies, which seem to be a big contributor to their yields. We saw an age transition in the Exploration livestream, and there Greece lost almost 50% of its culture, science, and gold output per turn when it transitioned to Spain. Well, that general impoverishment means that the carryover perks that you managed to snag in the last age are that much more powerful, like Matthias getting districts half-price in an advanced start is even more powerful relative to your competitors than it is in a standard start

[Ryse]

Now that the game has been out for those that bought the early access, can anyone confirm whether or not you can choose to play in an early age and stay in it for the duration of the game?

[Martin]

As far as I know you cannot "only" play one age, but, there's nothing to stop you exiting after switch to exploration age and restarting a new game in ancient again.. and if you start in modern, well, there's nothing after that.. Each age has a duration, when that finishes it will take you the next, but there's nothing stopping you restarting, reloading a save etc.

[Tech Enthusiast]

You can start later I think, but I don't see a way to stay in an era for longer than it normally lasts.

You kinda get a finishing line for each era, if that is enough for you? Would have to end the game yourself then and consider the winner... well, the winner.

Not much customization of gameplay right now. Very barebone.

[Xenpo]

No you cannot as of now.

[H3ntaiWarrior.]

Originally posted by Martin:

As far as I know you cannot "only" play one age, but, there's nothing to stop you exiting after switch to exploration age and restarting a new game in ancient again.. and if you start in modern, well, there's nothing after that.. Each age has a duration, when that finishes it will take you the next, but there's nothing stopping you restarting, reloading a save etc.

You get booted to the main menu between ages, so you can. But you wont be able to get a victory in just one age. Give the game a year and it will be added probably :)

[Tech Enthusiast]

Originally posted by H3ntaiWarrior.:

You get booted to the main menu between ages, so you can. But you wont be able to get a victory in just one age. Give the game a year and it will be added probably :)

Gonna be the "Shortened ages DLC", included in the founder pack, or for the cheap price of 29.99

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Can you change the lengths of ages? I've been seeing that modern is super short... so if a 'regular' game is like 20 turns per age, could you do one age at 60 turns length?

[Tech Enthusiast]

No.

edit: Let me elaborate, incase the point did not come across yet:
If you expect to have settings to tailor the experience to your liking, you WILL be disapointed. There hardly are ANY settings you can chose at all.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

aww