Neolithic culture

[molly_zero]

When does the Neolithic era start, and can we progress into it if we play long enough?

[UncasualGames]

The end of the Mesolithic era and the beginning of the Neolithic era overlap, you will enter the Neolithic era when migrants from that culture arrive in your tribe.

[Wicked Mouse]

There's no other way to boost the process with anything, other than to just wait for immigrants?

[UncasualGames]

Originally posted by Wicked Mouse:

There's no other way to boost the process with anything, other than to just wait for immigrants?

No way to change history from a small tribe. However, we can adjust some parameters to make the mesolithic period last less in terms of gameplay if that is the problem.

[molly_zero]

I'd like that, but maybe others wouldn't. Maybe possible to make it an option?

[UncasualGames]

Originally posted by molly_zero:

I'd like that, but maybe others wouldn't. Maybe possible to make it an option?

Maybe

[Wicked Mouse]

I understand you want to keep true to history by letting the player advance gradually through it and not be able to 'speedrun' like in Civilization, and I admire that! Don't get me wrong. There is a place for slow paced builders. But at some point you got your tribal camp going, got necessary food and housing, and in order to move on you just have to sit and wait with game running at full speed for things to come in order to advance and upgrade the village.

Now with the knowledge system and the addition of agriculture I've given the game an other and more thorough look and wanted to see how the game would progress from the start.
And the one thing that struck me the most playing was that there's so little information coming from the game to guide the player. And I'm not talking about wiki-like lore or historical facts, but information to make educated decisions on short term and long term goals. As a game.

I can see what knowledge allows me to build and what not yet, but the game doesn't tell me how to get new or more knowledge. What do I need to do to get better houses so that my tribes(wo)men don't leave, because they don't like the leather huts, and the straw ones are even worse and cost me precious ropes.

My tribe knows what gives plant fiber, what gives straw, reeds, etc., but as a player I don't get this information what my tribe has learned or knows. No overlays or icons that represent my tribe's knowledge of the surroundings. I've read on the forums that flax will be able to give me better access to plant fiber, so I want to make my way to neolithic. How do I get there, what do I need to do? Does building more houses or fences give me more "Architecture"? Game doesn't tell me. I've learned from a failed game that people that were leaving took knowledge with them.

Sorry for sort of hi-jacking this thread with my post, I thought of writing more things I have to say about the game and in a separate thread, but I considered this at least still relevant here.

[UncasualGames]

All related to knowledges and learning is explained in the tutorial. We will try to improve this explanation for the next update.

[Ole "Slim Jolo" the Hobo Hero]

I don't mind how knowledge is transmitted. A different game entirely, but I kind of like how Crusader Kings 3 handles era and associated knowledge and it's not disimialr to this games. Basically tech periods are medieval eras from certain dates (one in the 900s, 1100s, and 1200s) that unlock the option for your cultural head to research subjects from those periods as they unlock, but that knowledge overlaps too, in that after 1100, you can start researching 1100's things even having not unlocked all the 900s things.

Realistically, most of human history, there has not been a zoomed out perspective of guided technological spread and use, especially 10,000 years ago. Knowledge was cradled like a pretty delicate thing and passed on over several generations.

It's just a hard thing to actually gamify how knowledge would spread in those days, especially I would imagine because as the ice age itself ended people were moving around more and more and exploiting things in ways they hadn't. Or, a hard thing to maybe gamify and keep fun at the same time, hehe

Overall don't mind it though, I like how lots of the social things in the game are coming together too, though I haven't played many of the most recent updates yet.

One thing I think would help how knowledge and stuff like that spreads in game is maybe at the point when the game has more content (resources, but also maybe other neolithic groups settling or moving on the map too, dare I say... 'trade' if such a thing could be contextualized for the time period, like it wouldn't be trade with money like we know it today obviously). But, I think when the game is at stages closer to that, the way knowledge is transmitted right now in game will itself probably feel much more intuitive and smoother by all those interactions than solely reliant on migrants arriving right now

[UncasualGames]

Yeah, trading is in our roadmap : https://ancient-cities.com/roadmap.php

[ovehaithabu]

Originally posted by UncasualGames:

The end of the Mesolithic era and the beginning of the Neolithic era overlap, you will enter the Neolithic era when migrants from that culture arrive in your tribe.

Thanks for that. Question : I started as Neolithic with 13 people and my tribe is tagged as Neolithic. Now 2 migrants arrived and they are Mesolithic. Does accepting them push me back again ? I note after accepting them my tribe is tagged Mesolithic but I don't seem to have lost building options.

[S.N.A.F.U.]

You now have a mixed tribe. But you will not lose Neo knowledge.
However, Neo buildings need a certain percentage of Neo people in it. So if your meso newcomers will increase too heavily, then it may slow down a little bit the opening for new buildings.
I guess you startet early in Neo and so you wont have too many Meso people arriving. I just suggest you to keep an eye and having always a higher number of Neo than Meso people in your tribe.

[ovehaithabu]

Brilliant, thanks a lot, I'll keep an eye on the balance then. Do these migrants then mix with my culture or do they keep to themselves ? The Mesolithic migrants I got are all young female, wonder if they mix with my tribe and if so, would you happen to know if their children would then also be Mesolithic or will they then be born as Neolithic ?

[LadyLillyno]

All who are born from culturally mixed parents will have mixed culture. The mix is decided by the timeline, and since we only get a mix at the end of upper Meso 2 parents with 40+% Neo and 60-% Meso will with high likelihood get + 51+% Neo offspring.
The calculations are very intricate and I do not know them perfectly myself, so if anyone has better insight than me, please feel free to guide us :)

All migrants will pending geography and timeline have the appropriate amount of culture mix, for example in 5K BC you can get a migrant with 49/51% mix, and the highest value will be the counting one, anything below 50% will not be counted in the overall culture count.

In 10K-7K BC all migrants will be 100% Meso only, while in 3K-2K>BC all migrants will be 100% Neo only. So we have a time span of around 4000 years where we can get 51+% Neo as well as 51+% Meso.

A 100% Meso tribe getting a 51+% Neo migrant will have a division of cultures at 99% vs 1%

The sure way to know what culture all members are is by looking at their demographics. Meso has darker complexion while Neo is lighter.

[Pete]

Originally posted by LadyLillyno:

The sure way to know what culture all members are is by looking at their demographics. Meso has darker complexion while Neo is lighter.

My entire WHG-population got replaced by the newcomers within a few generations. ;-(

[LadyLillyno]

This can easily happen if you have a small tribe even with 100% Meso when entering Neo timeline. The larger Meso tribe you have when entering Neo timeline, the longer Meso will last.
I have had Meso up to 0 AD and beyond.
This can be controlled really well; by rejection of 90+% of all Neo migrants in large tribes 350-450+, while by 100% rejection in small tribes.