deaths in game can be dealt with ?
Sorry, what do you mean with that?
one of your tribe dies from natural causes, killed by animal attack and the like
rest of your tribe can do -
- bury
*burn
etc
Something like that is planned, but still not in the game. When included it will be linked to âreligionâ
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We still have to decide about this. Change timing without breaking the game balance is not an easy thing to do. Keep in mind that Ancient Cities will cover a lot of time so it is not a good idea represent that without time compression or you would need realtime years to play the game.
Well, what I meant is something similar to Banished mod âOne year is one yearâ. It means that for each year in the village, citizens get old one year. Is this something can be done? I agree that it can make gameplay slower (to be honest, this is something I never minded), but it would be more realistic.
Iâm not a fan of the current (placeholder) clock style, which feels too precise for early history. I think something akin to how The Long Dark represents time would present the concept in an attractive manner.
The upper half could depict the day/night cycle, while the lower half could represent the passing season. An illustrated thermometer could also approximate the temperature.
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I have to agree. A pictographic look might be better and capture that prehistoric feel.
If you are talking about design, we agree, it is a placeholder.
If we talk about provided information I have to disagree. The gauge provides information about seasons, and how far the next season is plus day time ( morning, afternoon, dusk⌠), this is, how much light time remains. If you think the handle is too precise, think that handle is just the position of the sun in the sky, as precise as that.
I have to believe that Neolithic people, -farmers and hunters living close to the nature- knew all that and even more, as they probably manage âmonthsâ as well in the form of moons.
What information exactly do you think is too much or too precise for them to know?
The only one I see is the number of years from the game start -its not a date-, as someone can argue that they canât count, and they probably donât beyond basic numbers. But that number is there for debug purposes, and, if it stay, as information just for the player to know as a curiosity.
Keep in mind that -if all goes in best possible way- the UI has to work as well for later periods. Thatâs the reason why we are not designing with a clear Neolithic/stone age stile or feel. Just a generic âancientâ feel that can be used for stone, bronze or iron ages.
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I agree that having to choose between gameplay and â(pre)historicâ touch may be quite an endless debate.
For precision regarding time back then, there were also lot more information than could not possibly be implemented in game. Aside of the thickness of some plants skin, there may be some indications, such as a red sunset being an indication the following day will be windy, or seeing the stars during a winter night indicates there will be freeze.
Possibly the graphical features will be moddable though, either graphically or even in displaying the information (seasons or moons instead of years, etc.). But this may need some work that probably is not for now.
One idea though that I had when reading @nuLoon comment was: wouldnât it be nice to have a mark for important events in the year, something like a fine black line for harvests, solstices or equinoxes? Whenever you define an important yearly ritual in game (if thatâs possible, obviously) you could have such a mark appear on the year clock.
Iâm utterly conscious this may require unexpected work, so thatâs only an idea, nothing more 
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It almost feels like youâre hinting at Mesolithic or even Paleolithic. I can tell you one thing, I would adore the Mesolithic =)
Sorry, later periods was what I intended to write, I just fixed it.
There will be earlier though: Ice Age expansion.
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No worries. That would be the upper Paleolithic, so before Mesolithic. Itâs still a really interesting time, and definitely different sorts of animals. I think they still had giant cave sloth at that time LOL and theyâre certainly wonât be a linen clothing debate LOL
The point I was trying to make is that the gauge has an anachronistic, modern timekeeping feel, while a rotating animated pictographic would have an intuitive, more immersive feel. I think this would still be effective at showing the progression through day/night and seasons.
It also seems superfluous to show your position in relation to the start of every other season. Seasons arenât confined to precise quadrants either, especially if you add gameplay mechanics like an early spring/late frost or early frost/early winter.
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We have switched to a 15 days per game day, so each game season is now 6 game days instead of 3. A game year has now 24 game days, so years now feel less generic and seasons more significant.
Keep in mind that this scale may still change in the future.
Also, if we found a solution we like to decouple game balancing from time scaling we may offer configuration parameters for this. But at this point this is still unclear.
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So, given that adulthood would likely be 14-16 years of age, a child born to a sim would take to 336-384 days to become and adult?
Deaths from raids, accidents, illness will be very costly, for sure.
Would it be programmatically difficult to increase or decrease the speed time passes at the players option? something simple like a public int _TIME_MULTIPLIER = 24, And the player updates this via the settings configuration for the game, or is it programmatically difficult to change?
I would think some people would like to increase this so that they could raid and do sorts of activities more frequently, while some people would want to decrease it, perhaps even approaching a one-to-one ratio. I think the ability to change that speed would be really amazing, depending on how easy it is.
When I play seven games, I like to play match maker and hook up my characters and let them make little babies, who then grow up. Itâs fun to watch them generation after generation.
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hence stonehenge and the like
From the experience of building-playing out, I would guess that a leisurely beginning will certainly be exciting. The real question about the length of a year arises later in the game: What happens after the founding of our one village? How long (playful) does the multiplication last? Ultimately, itâs about shelter and food, does not act as a Tamagochi too long a period?
If we compare it with AoE1, the competition determines the suspense there. This is known from the beginning and defines a game goal: victory over XYZ, this is necessary A, B, C.
One could have to accomplish tasks: âreach a population of 2000 tribal members âŚâ o.k. How long would that take - and - why? Suppose that lasts for 400 years, what happened in 400 years in the Neolithic? Do you need the Neolithic at all? Or would a nomadic tribe no longer offer tension there?
The density of events in relation to the time course is very low before the Bronze Age. And after 50 hours of playing the first clay pot to burn ⌠mmh âŚ
You know what I want to get out of?
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spot on with this scale imho
To be honest, I really donât think thereâs any reason to worry about a boring game. Youâll need to survive in the first step, facing the wilderness. There will be plagues, etc. In later stages, there will be enemy raids to face off, maybe diplomacy and politics issues to look at, etc.
And if this ending event around the Indo-Europeans coming to crush (or reinforce?) your settlement is implemented, weâll have a grand finale that will be a total surprise for the noobs, but also a real accomplishment to face when being an experienced player, orienting a part of their replay games, etc.
Really, I see lot of potential in A.C. that make me believe we wonât have time to bother, just lacking time to play and test every possible strategy 
EDIT : I said exactly the opposite of what I intended in my first sentence 
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When we get to those later stages, I should have some pretty effective information to post. Iâve been collecting important scientific works discussing burials and grave goods found at bronze and Iron Age sites. Some of these books can be quite difficult to obtain lol
This book can sometimes be found cheap used, but itâs often $2000 or more to buy. By the way, I think thatâs a travesty that any science book should be so expensive. It is extremely useful when learning about certain Iron Age cultures, and provide a lot of information about later ones. Obviously this is an much use for the Neolithic stage, but it will quickly become useful. ( I got my copy on the cheap LOL)
Iron Age Archaeology and Trauma from Aymyrlyg, South Siberia by Eileen M. Murphy Iron Age Archaeology and Trauma from Aymyrlyg South Siberia by Eileen M. Murphy | Goodreads