How far will the timeline go

AC Feedback and Suggestions
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My question and equally an idea is how far will the timeline be able to goto I’ve always had a love for civilization builders but many don’t have what this game is offering nor the scope for potential thus why I backed

My dream would be to start my fledgling culture and help and guide them from roaming tribal through all eras stone age bronze… Etc to modern and beyond changing needs and requirements going from dismantleable huts to vast city’s, with trade economys wars so on.

Another good addition would be to take part of another great series which is europa univallis if I’ve spelt that correctly and allow players to take control over a family group within the community and adapt there future through learning and developing a trade for them ie they could become a family of farmers or fishermen and through this there importance in the tribe improves with the possibility of becoming chief of that tribe

In europa a player would control a single townsfolk and dictate his or her future, decide on a job for them choose there spouse raise kids and educate them the goal was to gain rank within town and with it influence and power building up properly and business ok all this may not work in this game but rank within the overall community would, imagine you’ve chose your little tribes person and your helping guide them to become more within the whole to stand out and lead you people to better things, as your tribesperson gains respect he gets to build a chiefs hut and take a wife and now you’ve the beginning of a dynasty passing on your leadership of your people to your children and so on for as long as you can keep your people’s faith.

Well that’s my thoughts a touch rushed my phones no the best to type this out on and the idea needs lots of community help to tidy the rough edges but I think you all will get where I’m coming from

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Nice topic :smile:!

I am also a civilization builders lover so I would like a wide timeline (not a fan of modern/space time but it is just my personal taste).

Something I would really love is a wide choice of civilization in the same age :

  • For neolithic you could be base on geographic area : european, middle east, china and central america (rought estimate of the main places where agriculture appear, except europe)
  • For Bronze age it could be focus on civ : Egypt, Babylion, Indus valley, Mayas, Early chineses dynasties, etc
  • For iron age : Greek, persian, roman, india, china, south asia, celts etc
    …etc
    Realistically, we could have 2, 3 civs for each main geographics areas and the possibility for moders to add more.

I prefer few good quality periods than numereous shallow periods. I also hope that each period will last long enough, on most multi-periods games (like the civ series) I always think that the periods are too short and not fullly explore.

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First release will cover only European Neolithic. Later expansions will cover other ages or places, but as the game name hints we intent to remain Ancient.

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Thanks to the indiegogo goal we know that Neolithic middle east, Bronze age atlantic europe and Bronze age Mesopotamia are the next expansions but what are the ones beyong that ? Maybe you want to keep the surprise but can we have a direction (more neolithic places, more Bronze age places or new age) ?

I konw it is a far goal so if your answer is different from what will happen I won’t complain promise!:smile:

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Bronze age and Mesopotamia are going to be several years of work, so we have not planned beyond that really but probably Mediterranean bronze age - Crete and Mycenae- and classical after that would be a good guess.
But we don’t like to think so far away. First we have to finish what we are doing now.

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I really enjoyed de game Children of the Nile back in the day, so eventually I hope Ancient Cities will venture into those territories :slight_smile:

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I’m so happy to be writing on this forum for the first time, looking forward to the game, and also the way there^^

Everything we’ve seen so far seems to suggest that the game deals with antiquity, just as the title of the game suggests. It is also clear that this games act, at least in spirit, as a descendant, a progeny of sorts, of games such as Caesar (III), Pharaoh, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, but also, as @WickedMouse implied, Children of the Nile. All of these kept completely to pre-modernity, to a iron age society or earlier, an agricultural sedentary society, in which the knowledge of writing was established, but still a rarity, and humans knew little of their surroundings. Cities, more importantly, were far between, and mostly small. In fact, they were centres of civilisation much more than today, dominating whole regions in some cases, like islands in an empty ocean. There were cities, controlling territory, not countries controlling cities. Trying to build London in Shakespeare’s time, or Paris during the revolution, would naturally be a utterly different game than anything that has even been suggested so far. But Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Knossos, Mycenae, Mohenjo-daro, Erlitou or the likes? Far more fitting for a historical city building game. Even Rome or Athens…

Though in games like the one mentioned above, especially other than Children of the Nile, a city of ten thousand would be considered huge. Technology, of course, wasn’t very well developed when those games were made. Since it is clear that Mr. Soler and his team aim more for a immersive RPG setting, like Children of the Nile, Tropico or Banished, it would probably be infeasible to simulate the lives of even ten thousand people, keeping track of each and every one of them, their family, their home, their jobs, their tasks at hand, their wants, their dreams and fears and relations… Better to work towards a goal that is achievable in a practical way, fairly soon, and without a super computer to boot. I’m hoping for a game that can take us from hunter gatherers, to… the conquerors of Troy, the builders of the Pyramids, the unification of Japan, and maybe even… the the birth of the Empire of China, in time? The Roman Republic?

I’m guessing that with a broad and well-built engine at the onset, it will be easy to add new civilisations and environments. The buildings will look differently, but… the materials should generally be the same. Mudbricks were available in Bretagne as in the jungles of the Yucatan or the shores of the Yellow river… but they were impractical to maintain other than in Egypt, Mesopotamia and similar dry and hot climates. So… there could be a mechanic to decide building materials? Like sliders? More wood, or thatch, or mud, or stone? That’s far in the future though, but it would be interesting to know what eras and locations of the ancient world would be popular on the forum.

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It would be a nice feature to add family groups to the simulation. Track growth through time. I definetly want the ancient up to bronze. From hunter gatherer groups to cities.

Another direction would be to allow cities to develop traits based on how they are being played. give the game breadth to tailor traits to people that settle down sooner, or deal with harsher climates.

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Well said to you all I especially like the links to some of my most favourite games in this field but I don’t think and one of these previous games can come close to the potential this game has, so our hosts have responded and atm the game will stay in the ancient era this ultimate question is what sort of age range will that cover like 1000 bc to 1000 ad? Or further back how fast will the timeline pass real time, accelerated time line, another question there was mention of other races will this be historically accurate to the regions mentioned.

There was also a mention of conflicts between cultures so that brings me to map/region size…

Will there be other cultures on the same map, will the map be region size or broken up into states and expand over development and research. Will there be region control opening fighting or diplomacy over regions/resources?

Will there be choices of starting culture and location to start?

And Lastly for those who don’t like too much warfare will there be options to avoid it through trade or merging communities or diplomacy I know it’s early days for all these questions but many of these can be real game changers.

My last question if you like a idea submission from a backer would it get implemented and the backer gain from it like recognition?

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Have you considered about a East Asia Neolithic? you know civilization started up very early here, lol.

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I would interpret the developers’ words as stretching only as far as, let’s say, 500 AD, at the very latest. I would actually be more conservative, and put it at squarely 0 AD, or even 200 BC. It doesn’t really matter, other than that the world was so very unified when the Roman Republic, the Mauryan Empire, the Qin dynasty and the Parthians ruled most of humanity. Technology didn’t change much to be honest, but still. And no Christianity too complicate things politically :wink: But again, that is only far, far in the future. Maybe in 2021 we’ll see “Ancient Cities II: Glory of Rome” :wink: What we can expect though early 2019 is turning nomadic hunter-gatherers using stone tools, to sedentary agriculturalists using very primitive copper tools. Which would mean starting in maybe 7000 BC and ending closer to 4000 BC, in the Mesopotamian case, or maybe 5000 to 2500 BC in Western Europe. The point is that bronze and writing should be either on the horizon or something very new and exciting nearing end-game, as things stand right now.

In games like Pharaoh, Caesar III, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, Tropico, Children of the Nile and Banished, time moves constantly, slowly enough to make the seasons noticeable and manageable (autumn harvests for example), but quickly enough that most games, most missions in the campaigns, would take several years, often a couple of decades. In Banished, my first great town is about 120 years old, and in Tropico, a “long” game takes sixty years if I remember correctly? The question is how to implement a speed that can reconcile the RPG elements we all seem to treasure, like following a single individual, born in that hut, over there, to those parents, over here, who grew up to be a true marksman with the bow, found himself a good wife, argued with her about the gods, had eight children, five of which died young, and now is buried under that mound over there… with the more epic scale of leading a tribe, founding a village, discover the secrets of the unknown, domesticate animals, farm crops, build great monuments, discover metallurgy, create copper tools, turn the village into a city, engage in trade, dominate the region, make war and fight battles… but if every year takes ten minutes, which is common in similar games… how can one do all that we described over, let’s say, tens of hours? That will probably be the trickiest question… if we “fast forward” we loose the RPG connection that we would have with our tribe, our village… but how else could we simulate what would be realistic: that the leaps of technology of the era took centuries, millennia…?

Edit: there is already a discussion on this topic: In-game Time in AC - #4 by Baikal

As for your thoughts on other cultures, conflicts and maps… I’m assuming that the world will consist of the city map, which would be our village and its vicinity, a few kilometres in length and width, full scale; and then a world, or region map, which would contain all other villages or cities that we know of, and with which we could trade, or fight and so on… but that seems to be going off-topic… :wink:

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We should probs make a new topic on this if there isn’t any.

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Like this? More of the political and macro dimension of the game:

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Lol I don’t mind a little off topic I don’t think any of us can hold back given excitement and floods of thoughts and concepts

I’d like to add I really appreciate the informative and descriptive response you all have made to this post it’s given me much enjoyment coming up with ideas and reading the wonderful ideas in response.

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In this topic : Bronze Age Expansion - #24 by louis.mervoyer
@Sargon and I discuss about regional map so evenif it is not a proper world map topic it could be use as a start for debate.
I am eager to see your opinion on the subjet :wink: