The Dark Ages

[Gord McLeod]

This is just a thought that struck me as I browsed the forums for the first time in a while. There are many great ideas being pushed around, some of them from the utlimate Civ III list. How would people feel about the possibility of a Dark Age, or dark ages?

I'm a little unsure about how this proposal would be implemented myself... I'm basically just thinking out loud as it were. It might make the game interesting in terms of potential threats and for prolonging shorter games that might otherwise end too soon for a player's taste if there was the potential for catastrophic loss of technology and scientific research.

Does anyone know offhand how the Dark Age began in reality? How would something like that be implemented in a Civilization game? The way I imagine it, all civilizations would lose technology as a result, not just a few, so this should be a pretty rare or hard to "achieve" situation. Maybe the techs are taken from one major grouping (economics, science, military, etc) or back to a certain epoch (if you're in the modern age, the world is thrust back into the renaissance period.)

There should be safeguards of course. Maybe your civ loses less technology for every library you have, and less still for universities and other institutions of science and knowledge. Maybe possessing The Great Library renders you immune entirely. Maybe a high literacy rate in your civilization contributes, though as that's dependent on science improvements, this shouldn't be combined with the universities and libraries bonuses, of course.

Just a few thoughts...

[raingoon]

Interesting post...

Just off the top of MY head, but... it seems first we have to define what "Dark Ages" means in terms of the game. Well, in history, the Dark Ages refers chiefly to the western hemisphere between about 400 AD and approximately 1400 AD. It followed, mainly, the disintegration of the Roman Empire, which had at its zenith covered most of the known world. Lack of a strong cental government had led to the breakup of provinces, which each in turn became more susceptible to being over-run by superior numbers of less technologically advanced civilizations.

Another important point is the population growth at this time, which was considerable in places like London, etc., leading to the advent of plagues. You can't underestimate the power of germs in creating the Dark Ages. As yet, I don't know of any models for Germs in Civilization that have been put forth, though a good one ought to be in the game.

Germs aside (and you really can't leave them aside and still have a Dark Age, BUT...) I suppose it's easy enough to see how a Dark Age could occur in the game, but rather than it being a "trigger," such as Civ 2's trigger after the discovery of philosophy, a Dark Ages would necessarily follow the downfall of a MAJOR civ that had grown too large, and whatever the world technology the world had previously benefited from its existence would, for the most part, be gone.

To some extent such conditions already could exist in Civ 2, but we never really stopped to realize we were actually in a "Dark Age" until we lost the game. Perhaps what you're suggesting could be similar to the "Civil War" possibility that was more current in Civ I -- there, when you took over a larger civ's capitol, civil war was declared in that civ and it split in two. Maybe in this case, when a civ has 1) the most advancements and 2) the largest mass and 3) the highest population and 4) the most trade with the greatest number of other civs, and THEN it begins to drop all areas, this naturally would lead to a decrease in productivity of all the other civs it was trading with, and the game would be in a period that could justifiably be declared a "Dark Age." This would last until one or more civs reached the level of knowledge and trade the previous leader had been at before the fall toward the Dark Age began.

Again, just an idea. And I'd still like to see germs worked in there somehow. For a good book on this general subject, check out "Guns, Germs and Steel."

[Psion]

Great thoughts, raingoon. If diplomacy is truly improved (I'm sure it will be, but my expectations may just be too high), civilizations will have to rely on others for trade & resources. When a great one that was supplying a lot of trade and resources falls, it will invariably effect all other civilizations. But the question is, how will a great civilization fall? In Civ2, when a civilization rose to power, it was nearly impossible for it to 'fall'. If The Rise and Fall of Civilizations is implemented, then I think Dark Ages will occur, making the game more historical, challenging, and most of all, more fun.

[Gord McLeod]

It occurs to me that Dark Ages would also lessen the threat of ICS. Such a strategy would greatly increase your vulnerability to succumbing to a Dark Age, and perhaps the consequences of a Dark Age could include increased vulnerability to other problems, like civil war.

[tniem]

I saw something recently about the Dark Ages on TLC or The History Channel that said the time period really wasn't dark. The professor said really it was just a period between world powers (Rome and then Spain/England/France new world) when smaller civs competed for power. The time actually brought abought a lot of technological advances, especially in math (for catapults, cannons, etc.), in chemistry (gun powder), and in biology (first ideas of germs).

The professor said that he considers the period the Middle Ages because it was time between the Classical Period and the Enlightenment that brought about great military advances (sieges, castles, first guns, etc.)

What if time periods such as the dark ages did not take away technology but instead simply refocused it. Obviously if there are a lot of smaller civs, they will want military to compete. However if there are two large civs (i.e. USSR and US) the rest of the civs will want diplomatic and trade techs to work with the large civilizations.

This would solve one of the problems in the Civ-series of gaining techs simply by researching enough. Technology is discovered sometimes by accident while at others times takes years to research and then doesn't even pan out. In this way this idea would impose cultural technology research.

[Charles the Third]

tniem has a point. Historians widely differ on how "dark" the Dark Ages really were. Central authority collapsed and has yet to reappear in Europe, that much is true. Learning certainly slowed down and some minor technologies, such as Greek Fire, were lost for good. Still, learning did continue. It would be more analogous to those points in CivII where all civilizations are putting their resources into taxes and army-building and none into research.

I'm not certain whether an idea such as the Dark Ages should be added to CivIII. The less you tinker with a winning formula, the better. Still, gotta admit it's a nice idea. If it is implemented, I would like to see it along the lines of raingoon's excellent idea. It would certainly make a civilization's collapse into civil war more interesting

[MidKnight Lament]

If the game's set up so that big civs can crumble, the Dark Ages will make themselves. No need for us to simulate it via other means.

- MKL

[The Joker]

The Dark Ages from 500-1400 was actually no the only Dark Ages. The Greek civilization actually faced something that could easily be compared to the Dark Ages some time around 1000BC (known as the dark centuries). In this period the Minoan culture collapsed, and left only scarce settlements. This age of darkness lasted untill the colonization period of Greece centuries later.

Dark Ages, it seems, is not just one episode in the history of mankind, but something that returns after centuries of prosperity.

[Gord McLeod]

quote: Originally posted by MidKnight Lament on 04-10-2000 01:30 AM If the game's set up so that big civs can crumble, the Dark Ages will make themselves. No need for us to simulate it via other means.

I was thinking more of the loss of technology than simply having Civs crumble. Historically, there were some technologies that were lost such as plumbing, steam engines and other things that the ancient Greeks/Romans used and were not subsequently reinvented for hundreds of years. If there's a way to represent this type of phenomena, I think it could add some spice to the game, but it really depends on how you handle the crumbling of a large empire.

[MidKnight Lament]

I see your point. My mistake.

As I understand it at the moment, civs that are crumbling will split into a number of different factions that will splinter off with discontent cities. Do you have any ideas on how techs could be taken away from civs in this situation? Personally, I'm still not sure that it's the best idea.

- MKL

[Gord McLeod]

Well, I'm scouting out ideas, and I do have a few thoughts, though I'm not sure how workable/appealing they are.

Techs that have not seen any application might well be lost. For instance, you've just aquired Masonry but have not yet built anything that it allows - no units, no city improvements, no Wonders. You haven't even begun construction of anything the technology allows. Something occurs, maybe your citizens are horribly discontent or someone captures your capital city, and your civilization is thrown into the midst of a civil war, dividing into two pieces. Since that tech is "unused", it is forgotten in the chaos. Techs that have been used a little bit might potentially be lost, but there's less of a chance, since it is of practial use in the civilization already, and thus more likely to be commonly known. Technology that's widespread would be all but impossible to lose.
[This message has been edited by Gord McLeod (edited April 10, 2000).]

[Diodorus Sicilus]

In CivII game terms, the traditional "Dark Ages" (400AD+) took place when the Roman player changed governments from Monarchy to Tyranny, then to Anarchy, had most of his cities go into Riot because of distance from the capital or lack of garrisons, and didn't do anything to stop the Ritos. The cities were then occupied by Barbarians, and eventually a couple of Barbarian units took the capital, Rome.
Unlike the CivII example, the Barbarian cities then formed new civilizations and went on to play as Germany, France, and England, while the Greek player that the Roman player had eliminated stayed eliminated as a major player for the rest of the game...
I don't know of any technology that was completely lost or forgotten because of any dark ages. What was lost was the ability or necessity to apply the technology. For instance, Roman roads and acqueducts required not only concrete and masonry, but the political organization to build and maintain them: lacking the (political & economic) "software", so to speak, the technological hardware was useless. Trade declined partly because there was no standard coinage after central government collapsed (multiple Riots?), so everyone became by necessity self-reliant, markets dried up, and the prosperity and wealth generated by Trade disappeared as well - along with the interaction of ideas brought by trade which influenced and encouraged innovation and technological improvements.
Note also that military technology got continuously better throughout the "Dark Ages": during 400-1000 AD the stirrup, armored knight, stone keep/castle, and warship with combat towers were all introduced in Europe, yet the size and effectiveness of armies declined because the economic and political structure to support and maintain a trained and disciplined standing army (like the Legions) had disappeared.
No Civ game has adequately modeled political structures or the structure and maintenance of armies, so we get Knights (a social class) along with Legions (a professional standing military) along with Archers (everything from ancient Persian peasants to English longbow sergeants) with no difference in the way they are raised, maintained, and combined into armies.

[MidKnight Lament]

Good call. That could work well actually. We could ensure it only comes into play at relevant moments that way. And it wouldn't cripple a civ too much. Sounds reasonable.

- MKL

[The Joker]

I must disagree with Diodorus' comment. On the old SE thread (at the Firaxis Forum) we discussed the Roman Empire some, as it was a very interesting examble of a civ with numerous SE settings over time. My personal conviction is, that the Romans changed economics from City State (where the center of trade, production and people's lifes is the cities) to manorialism (rural based) because of the great unstability at the time (Manorialism should have higher police and military ratings than City State). SO the Romans thought that Manorialism would be more suitable in handling the new situation with loads of internal and external enemies. This, however, resulted in riots in most cities (like Diodorus mentioned), as manorialism would be less good at handling very large empires as the Roman, and better in smaller empires, and combined with the countless attacks from minor, uncivilized civs the empire broke down.

I am unsure how to handle the loss of advances (although it was not really many advances that were lost. More like a stop to new advances), but S. Kroeze once described a pretty undeveloped idea of having a part of your research to be spent on education. If this amount is inadequate you will loose advances. If the Romans due to the larger need of military and (perhabs) luxuries to stop the riots and invasions decreased the amount of money used on education they could loose advances.

If some sort of dark ages is to be included in Civ3 it must be done "organically". It must not be so that suddently because of a few things happend you are told that "you have now entered a dark age", and suddently lots of advances disappear and your empire start collapsing without any particular reason. There should be small and large dark ages, and the difference should be gliding.

[tniem]

I still believe that the 'Dark Ages' was a time of great increases in military technology and technique. Yes the arts, other classical knowledge, and government declined or just stopped being advanced. Therefor if this is implemented I think it should only be that situations force a part of the world to research only one are for a time. These forces could include religion, brakedown of a civ, many smaller civs competing, disaster, or a new philosophy/thought.

Although, tech lost is implemented I do believe with Joker it should be by the education model and you have not educated enough of the population.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

Just another addition to the Dark Age discussion:
Remember that there has never been a world-wide 'Dark Age': Dark Ages so far in history have only affected single civilizations, such as Bronze Age Greece or the Roman-Mediterranean Basin civ of 450-1000AD. At the same time that central and southern Europe was in a 'Dark Age', northern Europe was discovering open ocean navigation and the Arab world was advancing dramatically in practically all areas of civilization: technology, medicine, art, etc - and the Far Eastern civilizations were completely untouched by and largely ignorant of Europe's problems.
This may illustrate the biggest problem of having a Dark Age Event in the game: does it unbalance the game too much? Currently, in any Civ game I've ever played, there are durn few ups and downs: you go steadily up or you go out of the game. A civilization plunged into a Dark Age would be pretty quickly dismembered by the other players unless you play strictly with computer-factions only set at the lowest levels.
If, on the other hand, the game is set up to make it more difficult for other factions to take advantage of a Dark Age misfortune, that removes a great deal of the Conquest option for those players who prefer that strategy.
-And anything that removes player strategic options is Not Good for continued game play or sales.

[MidKnight Lament]

Perhaps we should just let "rise and fall of civs" look after it then.

- MK:

[Earthling7]

The fact that military discoveries accelerated during the dark ages is an interesting fact. In SMAC, you have four different research paths, one of them being Conquer. If Civ3 was to use a similar system, I guess something might trigger the other three to be unavailable for a period of time given a certain circumstances. There would have to be a valid reason for that to happen though...

------------------
Greetings,
Earthling7
ICQ: 929768

[Gord McLeod]

I think it's a safe bet that necessity took up its traditional role as the mother of invention during those periods were military technology advanced during dark ages. If the points I've been reading in this discussion were accurate, those periods were rather strife-ridden and violent, so naturally there would be an emphasis on military technology. I don't think other technologies were unallowed or unavailable, they just weren't emphasized. In SMAC terms, the player reset the technology selector to emphasize selection of Conquest techs. Other techs would sometimes be uncovered, but where a choice existed between say Conquest and Economics, the Conquest would be taken first.

[S. Kroeze]

quote: Originally posted by Diodorus Sicilus on 04-11-2000 11:25 PM Just another addition to the Dark Age discussion: Remember that there has never been a world-wide 'Dark Age': Dark Ages so far in history have only affected single civilizations, such as Bronze Age Greece or the Roman-Mediterranean Basin civ of 450-1000AD. At the same time that central and southern Europe was in a 'Dark Age', northern Europe was discovering open ocean navigation and the Arab world was advancing dramatically in practically all areas of civilization: technology, medicine, art, etc - and the Far Eastern civilizations were completely untouched by and largely ignorant of Europe's problems. This may illustrate the biggest problem of having a Dark Age Event in the game: does it unbalance the game too much? Currently, in any Civ game I've ever played, there are durn few ups and downs: you go steadily up or you go out of the game. A civilization plunged into a Dark Age would be pretty quickly dismembered by the other players unless you play strictly with computer-factions only set at the lowest levels. If, on the other hand, the game is set up to make it more difficult for other factions to take advantage of a Dark Age misfortune, that removes a great deal of the Conquest option for those players who prefer that strategy. -And anything that removes player strategic options is Not Good for continued game play or sales.

Since I think the idea of a 'Dark Age' is a good one I'll give some historical comments in support of it. It may be true there never was a really world-wide 'Dark Age', but there was certainly a period that comes close. I'm not refering to the Middle Ages -though I think it is absolutely defensible to describe the period from ~200AD-~800AD as at least a time of general decline.

The period I mean has already been mentioned by the Joker: the second part of the second millennium BC, i.e.~1600BC-~900BC. The only civilization not really negatively affected was China, mostly because its civilization wasn't still so advanced to show the results of conquest by barbarian charioteers. In Egypt this period partly concurs with the glories of the 'New Kingdom', a time of expansion and glory; yet I believe the general picture is quite grisly.

It all started with the development of the war chariot and its dominance in warfare.
'Mobility and firepower were raised to a new level with the invention, soon after 1800BC, of light but sturdy two-wheeled vehicles that could dash about the field of battle behind a team of galloping horses without upsetting or breaking down. The critical improvement that made chariots supreme instruments of war was the invention of the spoked wheel with a friction-reducing hub-and-axle design. The compound bow was a scarcely less important part of the charioteers' equipment, and its construction also required a high level of craftmanship.

The population best able to take advantage of the possibilities of chariot warfare were steppe dwellers, whose way of life assured an easy access to horses. Accordingly, waves of barbarian conquerors equipped with chariots overran all the civilized lands of the Middle East between 1800 and 1500BC. The newcomers established a series of "feudal" states, in which a small elite of chariot warriors exercised decisive military force and shared the practical exercise of sovereignty with overlords whose commands were effective only when a majority of the chariot-owning class concurred. The effect was to weaken central authority, although in the Middle Eastern lands, where bureaucratic traditions of imperial government had already begun to develop, it did not take long for revived central authorities to make the new military technology their own.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

'Why should charioteers, or the pastoralists from whom they directly or indirectly descended, have been more warlike than their hunting ancestors or agricultural neighbours?
Pastoralists learn to kill, and to select for killing as a matter of course. It was flock management, as much as slaughter and butchery, which made the pastoralists so cold-bloodedly adept at confronting the sedentary agriculturalists of the civilised lands in battle.

About 1700BC a Semitic people, known to us as the Hyksos, began to infiltrate Egypt through the Nile delta and soon set up a capital of their own at Memphis. A little later, Mesopotamia, then united under the Amorite dynasty founded by Hammurabi, was overrun by people from the northern mountains between modern Iray and Iran, the Kassites; they appear to have made themselves overlords of the ancient inter-riverine kingdom after 1600BC.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'In China and India the arrival of chariotry signalled more drastic change. In India, charioteers disrupted the older Indus civilization about 1500BC, and a "dark age" lasting several centuries intervened before a new pattern of civilized life began to emerge. In China, an opposite transformation occurred, for a new chariot-using dynasty, the Shang, presided over the development of a more sharply differentiated society than had previously existed in the valley of the Yellow River. The enhanced levels of luxury and income commanded by the noble class of Shang charioteers allowed characteristic skills of subsequent Chinese civilizations to define theselves more clearly than before.'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

Slavery, an other concept I would love to see used in CivIII, also spread as a result of the barbarian invasions:
'That the chariot rulers were also slave-masters appears indisputable. Of course, slavery was known in pre-chariot Mesopotamia and Egypt, but its practice, particularly on a trade basis, may have been intensified there by the arrival of the chariot conquerors, while its transmission into Europe may have derived from the migration of the Mycenaeans from Asia Minor, who did not bring the chariot with them but acquired it about the the middle of the second millennium BC, at the time when it suddenly came to dominate warmaking in the Middle East. Slavery in China dated to the arrival of the Shang dynasty, while, according to the Rig-Veda, the chariot conquerors of the Indus valley made slavery the basis of what would later become castes.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

And the Indus civilization, the peer of Mesopotamia and Egypt, wasn't the only one destroyed in this period: about 1400BC the Minoan civilization, which for centuries had ruled the Mediterranean, also came to an end. There will always remain a debate upon the causes of the end of these civilizations. Most often are cited barbarian invaders, natural disasters or internal decline. In my opinion all three contributed in their way, but the barbarian conquerors, the Mycenaeans/Aryans, would be my first choice. For the 'Dark Age' debate it doesn't matter; yet the disappearance of two once flourishing cultures remains puzzling. It took centuries before in India sedentary life, agriculture, cities and writing emerged again! Those are the most essential prerequisites of civilization.
It is rather difficult to judge the rule of the Kassites in Mesopotamia, because the sources are relatively scanty for this period, which could be an indication. They quickly adapted themselves to the ancient traditions. Yet compared with the glories of UrIII(2112-2004) the picture is rather a gloomy one. And worse was still to come: the raids of the 'Sea Peoples'!

'This cascade of migrations, involving as they did the Mediterranean and the central parts of Anatolia and Iran, left Iraq unaffected. But it coincided with a period of increased activity among the nomadic Semites, who roamed the Syrian desert: Sutû, Ahlamû and, above all, the vast confederation of Aramaean tribes. The vacuum created in Syria by the collapse of the Hittite empire and the relative weakness of Assyria and Babylonia encouraged the Aramaeans to invade the Syrian hinterland, to cross the Euphrates and to penetrate deeper and deeper into Mesopotamia, settling as they advanced and forming, throughout the Fertile Crescent, a network of kingdoms, large or small, which enclosed Assur and Babylon in an ever-narrowing circle and nearly submerged them. Simultaneously, other Semites, the Israelites, coming from the Sinai desert and taking advantage of the confusion which reigned in Canaan after Egypt had withdrawn from Asia, conquered a large band of territory on either side of the Jordan and made it their homeland. Up to a point the progress of the Aramaeans in Iraq can be followed through the Assyrian royal inscriptions, and the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, through the biblical narrative; but the rest of the Near East is plunged in profound darkness between 1200 and 1000BC. The Hittite archives from Boghazköy come abruptly to an end in about 1190BC, and there is just enough information from Egypt for us to perceive the decadence of that great country under the last Ramessides and its separation into two rival kingdoms at the dawn of the eleventh century. When the light again comes in about 900BC, the political geography of Western Asia has profoundly changed: Aramaean principalities flourish from the Lebanon to the Zagros; the remnants of the 'Peoples of the Sea', Philistines and Zakkalas, share Canaan with the Israelites; along the Lebanese coast the 'Phoenicians' enter a period of great prosperity, while the extreme north of Syria and the Taurus massif are the seats of several 'Neo-Hittite' kingdoms; Egypt is divided and weak; the kings who ascend the throne of Babylon in quick succession have little real power but in Assyria a line of energetic princes is busy loosening the Aramaean grip and rebuilding an Empire; and behind the Zagros the Medes and Persians are firmly established though not yet ready to play their historical role.'
(source: G.Roux:'Ancient Iraq',1992)

'The immediate beneficiaries of Minoan collapse in the fifteenth century BC were the Mycenaean states of the mainland. But their ascendancy was short-lived in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Trojan War their own epitaph to the Bronze Age, celebrated by Homer early in the Iron Age in the new alphabetic writing derived from the Levant. Temporary records of clay preserved by the fire which destroyed the palace at Pylos in the Peloponnese show that state to be preparing for a sea-borne invasion which duly came. As Chadwick relates, 'every major Mycenaean site so far excavated shows traces of fire and destruction', and the destructions cluster around a date at the end of the thirteenth century BC. At this time and the beginning of the twelfth century BC the East Mediterranean and Levant were in turmoil. The Hittite empire in Anatolia collapsed about 1190BC and what Hutchinson calls 'a motley horde of northerners' overran Syria and Palestine and attacked Egypt. Only by Egypt, the most durabe and self-contained of Mediterranean states, were those Aegeo-Anatolians, known to Egyptians as 'Sea Peoples', repulsed. But in thus remaining closed off, Aldred observes of Egypt that 'thereafter she lived on, a Bronze Age anachronism in a world that steadily moved away from her'.'
(source: C.K.Maisels:'The Emergence of Civilization',1990)

Thus opened the destruction of the Minoans, who for centuries had policed the sea, the door to sea raiders. In the end every Eurasian civilization was in some way affected and only for China the result was rather positive. Most dramatic in my opinion is the disappearance of writing, both in Greece and in India for centuries. I think more detailed research would give more examples of a decline of knowledge. I hope the essential role of barbarian invaders becomes clear.

So I fully agree with the Joker:

quote: If some sort of dark ages is to be included in Civ3 it must be done "organically". It must not be so that suddently because of a few things happend you are told that "you have now entered a dark age", and suddently lots of advances disappear and your empire start collapsing without any particular reason. There should be small and large dark ages, and the difference should be gliding.

I would love to make some remarks about the decline of Rome and the Middle Ages, but that has to wait. Dark Age could help to make the game a REAL CHALLENGE!!

[Kumiorava]

I don't have time to read that!