Announcing “Spirit of the Age” for Civ6

Have you ever wished Civilization felt more like playing a game of Crusader Kings, then Europa Universalis, then Hearts of Iron? Where each age had a distinct style and unique challenges? Spirit of the Age is a total conversion mod for Civilization 6 that aims to capture that feeling. It is centered around a new age mechanic that decouples era progression from the tech tree and creates a natural rise and fall of Civilizations.

Zeitgeist

Spirit of the Age divides the tech and civics tree into 4 Ages, with each Age containing 2 eras. Ancient and Classical for the first Age. Medieval and Renaissance for the second. Modern and Industrial for the third. Atomic and Informational for the forth.

Each Age lasts 100 turns (on standard speed). When a new Age dawns every players’ technology and civics advance to the start of that new Age. A player who falls behind on Science in the Medieval Era will find their Knights struggling against Renaissance gunpowder. But when the third age dawns they will be on equal footing again and able to take another shot at rising to the top.

Fixing the length of Ages helps improve the pacing of late game eras. Each era will be given its own time to breath instead of being compressed by accelerating scientific progress.

Bringing everyone to the same point of progress when a new Age dawns allows the late game to feel like a dangerous world war instead of your Tanks riding over helpless obsolete Knights.

Building a new Age

Every Age has its own set of buildings. When a new Age dawns all building of the previous Age are converted into Tourist attractions. Instead of providing Production or Gold the obsolete buildings provide Tourism.

Each Age will require a unique approach to city development. Young cities will have a chance to overtake old cities as pillars of your empire as the obsolete buildings no longer provide cumulative advantage to your old cities.

It also naturally provides a cumulative source of Tourism. As ancient cities, with their layers of history, entice visitors.

Looking Forward

Spirit of the Age has a long development road ahead of it. In the next month I plan to start an internal play test with the core features established. In the months following that start I intend to fill in more features and polish the experience with the aid of folks participating in the play test. Once sufficient elements of the mod are in a playable state I plan to release the mod publicly.

The scope of the mod is significant. It is comparable to Echoes of Earth. If you are interested in participating in the internal play test please comment below. I will need help to shepherd the mod from prototype to polished product.