Spinning off from my recent post on Age of Empires 2, here are my musings on what way I think the ‘ages’ should have worked in that game.

The earliest ‘ages’ would be nomadic and clan societies.

Nomadic

AoE2 could use a nomadic ‘age’ – in which, for example, the Mongols could exist on the move across the game map with their herds of sheep. Transitioning to a settled feudal existence would bring both benefits (such as the ability to build better fortifications and more diverse units) and costs (such as the decline in skill of horse archer units as the generation of former nomads is succeeded by their children, who are more familiar with stately pleasure domes). This ‘age’ would be available to any faction willing to pick up sticks. But it would be the default for the Mongols, the Seljuk Turks and others. The loading bar from Nomadic to sedentary could be triggered once you have built a couple of permanent structures, could be accelerated by building more, could be reversed by their destruction.

Clan

This is a relatively egalitarian clan society whose economy is based around common ownership, whose mode of warfare revolves around raiding. The ‘villagers’ could double as decent skirmisher units to represent the clan levy, alongside normal but basic military units. (Instead we have ‘The Dark Age,’ something which is neither here nor there: people who have farms but nonetheless live in tents, whose armed forces are guys with clubs.) The loading bar which brings this ‘age’ to an end could be triggered by the building of a certain number of military buildings and units – which brings about the development of a special military class.

Feudal

The consolidation of power by the feudal nobility could be the basis for a proper ‘Feudal Age’ – now we have mounted and armoured knights, motte and bailey castles, manors as the basic agricultural building. There would be no need for a ‘Castle Age;’ Feudalism would have enough mileage to encompass that. For example, upgrading the motte and bailey to a stone castle. The benefits include a free military unit for every manor you build; but the cost is, you lose the clan levy and reduce the ‘villagers’ to the feeble non-military units we are familiar with.

Renaissance

The next shift in ages could be triggered by buildings such as the Market – heavy use of markets and trade usher in the Renaissance. The traders could increase resource production at the cost of taking some of it out of the player’s control, making it subject to hoarding and market crashes.

Centralised Empire

We could also have an ‘age’ characterised by a strong emperor, centralised authority and an efficient civil service, as we see in medieval China. This social order could be difficult to achieve but versatile and robust.

I like this general idea because rather than ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ ages we have social orders each of which come with their own costs and benefits. Yes, some social orders allow for more efficient resource-gathering and production. But each, played right, can work on its own terms. And each has considerable mileage within its own limits, reducing further the incentive to change. We also move beyond both national stereotypes (Rise of Nations) and the reductive ‘balanced’ approach of making all factions identical. We have minor or cosmetic differences between factions, but the real difference is between social orders.

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