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Release Date! | Ages Part Two

Hello there! Your friendly neighborhood Community Manager Katten here, this time to introduce you to our CONFIRMED release date for Millennia! So, it's time to stock up on refreshments, order the pizza, and mark your calendars for March 26, 2024!

Now, I am sure you are all super excited to see what has changed about the game, or for you newcomers, what the game is all about. Check out this amazing trailer below;

With this, Pre-Purchase is now live, with the Base game available for $39.99 and the Premium Edition for $59.99. The Premium Edition includes two skins for early game units as an instant unlock and our two planned upcoming expansions: Ancient Worlds & Atomic Ambitions! Now, don't those two sound like an "Explosive new start"? I now pass the microphone to the Co-Founder of C Prompt Games & Lead Designer of Millennia, Ian Fischer!


Developer Diary | Ages Part Two

Hello, everyone.

This is Ian Fischer from C Prompt Games and today I am taking a break from the post-demo push at C Prompt to present a new Developer Diary for Millennia.

A quick aside on that – the demo went really well for us and we received a lot of feedback and bug reports. We have watched tons of players streaming the game and read comments in forums from all over. What we have not done is post a lot of responses. I apologize for that; we do wish we could engage more and we have been able to be more active in the past. But – right now – we are deep in development and focused on using all the time we have to make the game. We appreciate all of the feed and bugs. Thank you, and please know that we are reading / watching.

Ok, this Developer Diary is part two on Ages. In the first one, we presented an overview of the basic structure of the Ages system and talked about the mainline, historical Ages. Here, we will build on that and cover Variant, Crisis, and Victory Ages.

A Note on Age Gameplay

We have already covered mechanics and vision for the Ages in a few places so I won’t go into great detail here, but I did want to point out a few things about these Ages.

To begin with, Variant and Crisis Ages are not “good” and “bad.” I know that, at first glance, the general structure of one Historical, one Crisis, and one Variant might make it seem that way (especially with one titled “Crisis”), but that isn’t the case. There is no requirement that there be three Ages, one of each type, at every Age advancement possibility, that’s just how the initial set of Ages happened to unfold.

Variant and Crisis Ages also aren’t designed to be “rewards for doing good” and “penalties for doing bad.” Rather, Variant and Crisis Ages are based on the idea of being different. They can be better or worse for individual Nations depending on their position in the game, but you do not get a Variant Age if you’re doing really well and a Crisis Age if you’re getting stomped.

Instead of player performance, what triggers a Variant or Crisis Age is focus – actions (or inactions) in the world. Doing more or less than the “typical” amount of something. For example, when going from Age two to three, if you do more than the typical amount of exploring early you can bring about the Age of Heroes and if you do more than the typical amount of fighting you can bring about the Age of Blood (and if you’re more down the middle, you’ll move to Iron).

This is history changing in response to decisions, not the game trying to reward or punish.

Similarly, Victory Ages are also not arranged with any kind of performance-based “if you do well, you can get this one” structure (they do tend to have entry requirements but these are more a question of where you have focused than how well you have done)and also surface in response to how history develops in the game.

The Age structure overall gives Millennia a way to provide deeper, more focused experiences but this is especially true with the Victory Ages. Since the Victory Age contains the rules that will be used to win, everyone can know and be focused on what is important. There is a shared win condition, which cuts down on “surprise, you lost” endgames.


Variant, Crisis, and Victory Ages

As with the earlier Developer Diary, the following is a tour of the Variant, Crisis, and Victory Ages in Millennia, with some brief notes on each.

Age of Heroes (Variant)
Currently the first possible Variant Age, the Age of Heroes takes inspiration from ancient Greek epics like the Odyssey. You get to develop powerful Hero-Leaders in this Age and send them out to complete Quests, which provide valuable rewards unique to the Age. In addition to allowing for some interesting Quest-focused strategies and Hero-Leader strategies, this Variant is also just fun for players who enjoy early exploration gameplay, as the Quests system refreshes that set of things out there for you to discover.

Age of Blood (Crisis)
Thematically, this Crisis Age imagines a history where warfare was even more widespread than it actually was. From a gameplay perspective, it supports the playstyle of someone who wants less “build up” in their “build up and fight.” Warfare in the early portion of a strategy game can be difficult to justify given the value of keeping your focus on your early expansion, but Blood seeks to make it easier to consider by removing some of the costs. For example, this Age turns off war Unrest, so you don’t have to worry about Unrest growing and hurting your advance. Also, since everyone is and can only be at war during this Age, you don’t have to deal with any diplomatic declarations or concerns about who the enemy might be.

Age of Monuments (Variant)
The Monuments Variant Age explores an alternate history where building ancient megastructures, like the pyramids, became a greater focus for all Nations. This Age presents a number of unique construction options (the monuments) as well as a number of construction-related bonuses that can be valuable long after having moved beyond this Age. This Variant also makes possible the construction of Super Monuments, large undertakings that can provide great boosts to a Region when completed.

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Age of Plague (Crisis)
Going back to the notes on Age gameplay, above, the Age of Plague can come about if you “overheat” your expansion. A heavy focus on growing population can produce more workers and rapidly expand an economy, but higher populations also bring about additional Needs. In this case, the Sanitation Need. So, if you focus heavily on population growth but do not also focus on also meeting the Sanitation Need that comes with that, you might drift into the Age of Plague. This presents some new challenges for your booming population, primarily in addressing the outbreaks.

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Age of Discovery (Variant)
Discovery explores an alternate history where the drive to cross the oceans and explore is supercharged. The ability to cross deep water and to conduct Expeditions are part of the standard Age progression but Discovery introduces superior naval and scout options and also presents more valuable Expeditions via the Cities of Gold. On any maps with multiple land masses surrounded by deep water, moving into the Age of Discovery can be an “open the floodgates” event.

Age of Intolerance (Crisis)
Once the ability to create or adopt a State Religion is introduced, Intolerance can come about if a Nation fails to meet the Faith Need of its population. This Crisis is something of an amplification of Millennia’s baseline Religion model. Nations with the same Religion normally have a diplomatic bonus and those of differing Religions normally start with a penalty, but during Intolerance, these modifiers are far stronger. Similarly, bonuses and penalties for having your population following your religion are also multiplied. The end result tends to be more pronounced expansion of Religion and conflict during the Age but both this and the content unique to the Age can have a lot of impact in the future, particularly for the importance of Religion (and the tools you have to influence it) in later Ages.

Age of Conquest (Victory)
Conquest presents an alternate history involving early global domination that doesn’t come to an end – an Empire of Cyrus, Alexander, or Genghis that keeps going. This is the first possible Victory Age and, as it comes before the final Age of the game, it is what we call an “offramp Victory Age”. The general intent here is that, if you’re running away with the game, you have a way to win without having to continue hitting “Next Turn” long after you know you’ve won. At the same time, it’s also somewhat of a gamble – you need to be pretty dominant to be able to trigger Conquest and once you do, you’ll be at war with everyone. If you don’t win your fight against the world here, your losses might land you in a less-than-dominant position when the next Age begins.

Age of Heresy (Crisis)
Culture is a valuable resource in the game, both to gain access to Culture Powers and also to support expansion. Your population has a general need for Culture too, and if you don’t provide it, or don’t provide enough of it, they might go looking for it on their own. The Heresy Crisis explores this alternate history, one where cultists are growing in numbers and power, pursuing unknown objectives.

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Age of Alchemy (Variant)
This Variant Age lets you explore an alternate history where elements of alchemy are more than pseudoscience. Arcana is introduced in this Age as a Good as are Alchemists, Improvements to make use of the new resources and Goods lines. Signature to the idea of alchemy, this Age treats Gold as a prominent Good and allows a number of ways to obtain it and also to convert it into a wide variety of resources. Many of the Ages involve additions or changes to the economic model but this more extensive in Alchemy.

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Age of Aether (Variant)
The Aether Variant Age is inspired by predictions about the future made in the late 1800s. This supposes things like a continuation of steam power and skies above cities filled with flying vehicles. Aether unlocks a number of unique additions that come from this space, including Steam Fighter aircraft, Land Ships, and Improvements operated by automata workers. At the center of all of this is a new resource, Aether, which is (among other things) a different early source of Power.

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Age of Ignorance (Crisis)
The Ignorance Crisis is themed after a backlash to industrial and technological advancement. If you focus heavily on Knowledge (which comes to require Education) without providing Education, you can trigger the Age of Ignorance. This Crisis has somewhat different structure than other Ages, with a small number of very expensive Technologies.

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Age of Harmony (Victory)
The Harmony Victory Age provides an opportunity for a Religion-focused offramp. If a Nation has managed to get a high percentage of the world population to follow their Religion, the Harmony Victory can trigger and present an opportunity to achieve victory by converting a large majority of the population to one State Religion. Content unlocked in this Age can be valuable even if the a player does not manage to achieve victory – along with additional tools for spreading Religion, Secularism is weakened and delayed by Harmony and can thus help a Nation with a Religion strategy later in the game.

Age of Utopia (Variant)
Utopia is inspired by, as the name says, visions of a Utopian future. Mechanically, Utopia has ties to the Innovation system and a number of rewards surface through Innovation events during this Age. There are a number of unique unlocks that support the Utopia concept but the ability to build underwater cities is probably the most symbolic content of this Age (and the most meaningful change that comes from it, from a strategic perspective).

Age of Dystopia (Crisis)
Something of the mirror of Utopia, Dystopia is inspired by common fears for the future (acid rain, global warming, overpopulation) and is associated with the Chaos system. Mechanically, this Crisis comes about primarily by allowing Chaos levels to grow and stay high and also makes itself felt through unique Chaos events. Riots from an unhappy populace are common during Dystopia and finding ways to deal with them (especially ways that do not add more Chaos to your pile) is an important part of navigating this Age.

Age of Generals (Victory)
In a rough sense, the Age of Generals is a Millennia’s equivalent of a World War 2. Like Conquest, it is triggered on having substantially more power than other Nations, but Generals also has a Factional component, so it need not be only one Nation trying to defeat the others. Positioned where it is in the timeline, Generals also features a number of unique unlocks that represent industrialization and military development as a result of the war (which, like many of the other Ages, can have utility later, even if you do not win in a Generals attempt).

Age of Ecology (Variant)
This variant explores an alternate history where human development is more focused on a “mastery over the environment”. As that suggests, there are a number of unique unlocks here that can be provide alternate ways to get Power or to meet population Needs later in the game. Terraforming is also unlocked by Ecology, so if a power called “Flatten Mountain” seems like it could be useful, try a detour through this Age. Investment in Social Fabric is necessary to get into this Age and Ecology offers good opportunities to increase Social Fabric further, making Ecology a good option if you’re planning for a Transcendence Victory.

Age of Visitors (Crisis)
You don’t want me to ruin this one for you, do you? Look, if you send messages into space, be careful, because you don’t always know who is on the other end of that telephone. This Crisis Age lets you find out, as they show up and start doing unkind things to you and your fellow humans.

Age of Archangel (Victory)
One of the final Victory Ages, Archangel is a future where space has been weaponized and orbital lasers, the Archangels, can make an appearance on the battlefield. Technically, the victory condition for this Age is simply having far more population than the other Nations, so you could win without ever firing an Archangel, simply by managing your Regional growth really well. However, you can also increase your relative population by erasing another Nation’s population, so we both know that the lasers are coming out. Archangel is a strong Victory Age option for Nations that have a large population spread out across a high number of Regions.

Age of Transcendence (Victory)
A generally more peaceful way to achieve victory, Transcendence is based on your Social Fabric scales, which you must maximize to win. Much of the content in this Age scales in value based on how well you have built your Nation – the number of Allies you have, the number of Landmarks you’ve discovered, the number of Regions you have with no Unrest – making this a good option for Nations that have invested more in diplomacy and quality of life.

Age of Departure (Victory)
Victory in Departure is achieved by building a Colony Ship and getting off this rock. As the Colony Ship is a very expensive to complete project, Nations with high overall production will likely seek out this Age, which itself offers an array of options for building up substantial Production lines. However, you need to be able to defend your industry too – Nations with less production likely aren’t going to sit around patiently waiting for all of your unprotected factories to finish winning….

Age of Singularity (Victory)
In the end stages of Millennia, there are some technologies that allow Nations to really build up their Knowledge economy. Everyone likes Knowledge, it’s fun to unlock new Technologies. But, there are risks with this. If you go too much, too fast in a rush to get as much Knowledge as possible, the obvious will happen. The “obvious” being that the computers wake up and decide to eradicate humanity. So, as far as “victory” Ages are concerned, this one might seem a little un-victorious in that it produces a powerful, angry, enemy-to-all AI that starts rampaging across the planet. However, the victory condition here is “survive that” and if you have better defenses than the other Nations, it might be the way to go.


Thanks!
We hope you have enjoyed this second Developer Diary on Millennia’s Ages. If you like what you have seen (or what you have played in the demo), please consider wishlisting Millennia.

Better yet, Millennia is now available for Pre-Purchase!
 
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The email I got says that pre-ordering includes "the full game soundtrack as an exclusive preorder bonus... 55 mp3 tracks". MP3? We're not in the 20th century anymore. Why aren't you defaulting to FLAC?
 
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Isn't it a little strange that the Age of Intolerance is triggered by not meeting the faith need of your population? It might make some sense logically, but it seems odd from a gameplay standpoint that triggering the age you probably want when going for a religious strategy requires you to neglect religion to get it.
 
Hm. After what I saw from the demo I was expecting the release date to be more around like June or July. The release date being so soon is pretty concerning.

Also, seeing more of the ages the implementation seems pretty underwhelming. I really want to like the ages as it's an interesting and new concept for a 4X game, but what we've seen isn't really that good. For all the attempts to reassure people that the ages aren't split into "good/neutral/bad", the developers have been doing a whole lot of telling and not a lot of showing. The treatment of the historical age path as the default and "typical" play, and the language used to describe of the variant and crisis ages certainly isn't helping that. Using pretty positive terms for variant ages like saying that you "get to develop powerful Hero-Leaders" or unlock new unique resources in the variant ages while emphasizing that crisis ages come about from "failing to meet" the need of a population and mainly throw up obstacles to a player's path really doesn't do much to dispel the idea that alternate ages are just split into good and bad. The note about age gameplay combined with the description of the ages just kind of gives the impression that the developers maybe didn't start out trying to make a good/neutral/bad age system, but ended up there anyway which isn't really better.

It's even more disappointing when there's a few basic things that could have been done to avoid falling into this. First, the simple addition of not treating the historical path through the ages like the default. The devs say that the alternate ages are intended to be triggered by players going into specific focuses in how they play, but this kind of ignores that history itself had this kind of focus as well. Putting similar requirements to reach an age like, and I'm just brainstorming here, a certain number of clay pits or mines to reach the Age of Iron, walls or towers to reach the Age of Kings, something with the Arts domain power to reach the age of Renaissance, or certain production or social fabric thresholds to reach the Age of Revolutions, it would go a long way to make it so the alternate ages feel actually like they're just different rather than being better or worse.

Another thing that would help is just to make at least some of the crisis ages less overtly crummy-feeling for lack of a better word. The biggest one that comes to mind to me with missed potential for this is the Age of Ignorance. It's supposed to be a backlash to industrial advancement, but it ignores a lot of the more interesting directions that that could go and a lot of the 19th century movements associated with the backlash to industrialization in favor of just the stereotypical "lol Luddites" feel. Just to give two examples, you could have had an age defined by the backlash to industrialization embrace say the garden city and conservationist movements with a lack of production but an earlier ecology mechanics and more Arts domain focused (for the literary and artistic movements of the 19th century that focused on nature), or looking at early labor movements and the many utopian socialist ideas of the 19th century with less production and wealth generated but making it easier to meet a region's basic needs. Treating ages like that and using them to place more emphasis on certain different movements of a time period would have made the entire age system a lot more fundamentally interesting without falling into the good/bad split of the alternate ages, and would make them a lot more strategy-dependent than from how we've seen they are currently.

Another strange thing that's kind of putting me off of the game is that a lot of the stuff in the game, from the images to what aspects of each period history are being emphasized, just seems very Eurocentric or at least western-centric. Which for a game all about exploring alternate history and where humanity could have spun off into different ages just seems odd.

I'm really trying not to be harsh on the game because I do like the ages concept, it's just the implementation feels rather phoned in and first draft when it could've been so much more.
 
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Hm. After what I saw from the demo I was expecting the release date to be more around like June or July. The release date being so soon is pretty concerning.
I have to agree with this. I was hoping for a bit longer before release to address concerns/feedback from the demo. While I enjoyed playing the demo, there were a lot of issues expressed that should be addressed. Personally, I'll have to wait and see what state it is in when it releases. It would be nice if we could get a dev post (whether in a dev diary, or whatever), that discusses the concerns and feedback brought up from the demo, and what if anything is being done to address them.
 
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Putting similar requirements to reach an age like, and I'm just brainstorming here, a certain number of clay pits or mines to reach the Age of Iron, walls or towers to reach the Age of Kings, something with the Arts domain power to reach the age of Renaissance, or certain production or social fabric thresholds to reach the Age of Revolutions, it would go a long way to make it so the alternate ages feel actually like they're just different rather than being better or worse.
There's a mechanical problem here, where a player could somehow not meet any of the requirements for any of the next ages, and the game doesn't like it if you have researched every other tech and have no more valid tech choices. We decided that the historical ages would serve as the pressure release, if you can't get into any of the ahistorical ages, you can always at least research the historical one and follow the path of history.

We also internally talk about Age of Generals (which is not something we've gone super into depth yet) as a part of our real world history. WW2 was a failed attempt at the Age of Generals Victory (no to say that Age of Rocketry is ahistorical, but that both Generals and Rocketry are rooted in history and have different focuses on what techs we allow you to research).


The biggest one that comes to mind to me with missed potential for this is the Age of Ignorance. It's supposed to be a backlash to industrial advancement, but it ignores a lot of the more interesting directions that that could go and a lot of the 19th century movements associated with the backlash to industrialization in favor of just the stereotypical "lol Luddites" feel.
This is true, but also a product of us having to develop the game and publish it. We'd love to have more variants for every age where we explore all of the different offshoots history could have taken. It'll just be a matter of time and patience as we develop more Ages going forwards.

As mentioned in Ages Pt 1 dev diary, we have lots of ideas for each age, there's basically an infinite well of ideas when researching all of the historical and fantasy takes on alt-history, so the set of Ages you're going to get when we release the game is just the ones we've developed to set the stage for launch. We hope that we'll be able to continue to work on the game and develop new ages post-launch. As you see on our Steam store page, we have 2 DLC lined up that we're excited to work on!
 
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I am really thinking on pre-ordering, but I would like to hear about the dlc plans.

I can see that you have two dlc planned, but like. What kind of content are you aiming to bring in dlc's?
 
I think there's some interesting design space for the ages but I'm not sure it's properly utilized, but we'll have to see. "Age of Revolutions" would I feel be an excellent crisis age that would let you do something funky with your internal politics, f.ex.

That said, if crisis ages aren't supposd to be punishments, a lot of the "Trigger if X need isn't met" feels like an odd decision, unless the need is also caused by the thing in question?

Also, Age of Ignorance just looks... Unfun? It's an age with less stuff in it? Feels like it could really use a redesign there.
 
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So more national spirits and ages for upcoming dlc’s.

That sounds good. Will you also add more governments?

I think the best part is the idea to add in a pre-settlement age.

Humankind in many ways became to much like a biard game for me, but their hunter gather periode was a really great addition and one I was kind of disappointed was not in the demo. So seeing that we might get that latter is great.
 
I think there's some interesting design space for the ages but I'm not sure it's properly utilized, but we'll have to see. "Age of Revolutions" would I feel be an excellent crisis age that would let you do something funky with your internal politics, f.ex.

That said, if crisis ages aren't supposd to be punishments, a lot of the "Trigger if X need isn't met" feels like an odd decision, unless the need is also caused by the thing in question?

Also, Age of Ignorance just looks... Unfun? It's an age with less stuff in it? Feels like it could really use a redesign there.
Actually, it is not that odd decision... For example, let's say there is a lot of rebellion in the Age when X needs are not met. You are capable of dealing with these rebellions with minimal damage. But your enemies are not. What happens in this situation? As your opponents weaken one by one, you can attack them at the right moments and capture their wealth.
 
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Hm. After what I saw from the demo I was expecting the release date to be more around like June or July. The release date being so soon is pretty concerning.
...

I also see this as concerning, as this is either bad communication with the publisher, Paradox, from the developer that this needs another 6 months in the oven instead of 8 4 (!) weeks. Or Paradox doing a "Cities 2-move" again to "fix" their numbers for the quarter again, sacrificing a new IP in the process. (Really disappointed that it had come to this, by the way!)

Anyways, I agree on the critique on of the age mechanics as they are not thought through from my perspective and contradict some aspects of good 4X games.
As I read the reassurance from this Devlog, I can level with them that the Ages are just flavor or mechanically different and reached by different means without attaching any value to them. BUT, for example, when I play a builder nation or want to play a builder nation, I would like to flavor and build my nation by focusing on building. This is my identification now, and I want to experience my game going forward as I identify with a builder nation.
In come the ages. The Third age is the age of blood because some other nation on the other side of the world I never met has met the conditions for it, and I was too slow to research the ages as I was focusing on building pyramids. Well, now my builder nation has to completely lose their identity and go into war because the neighbor will take up heavy military investments because the age dictates "NOW IS WAR, DEAL WITH IT". I know this can be fun and provide diverse gameplay, but more often or not, I want to play my 4X games with a build and focus in mind; the game actively sabotaging me doing so is just sounds really frustrating.

I already provided ample feedback on the matter and i would like to see the global ages gone and change them to either nation ages or localised ages.
So based on the spread of information and technology in a region an different age is reached.
This would be more authentic, for example, when the Pyramids were presumably built, we were way off in Europe from doing such things.
Or when the Empire of the Bronze Age collapsed a whole other host of things where going off in Asia.
Changing the age mechanic to something more localised would prevent railroading and frustrating outcomes and open up a host of replaybilite as ages would be a controllable part of playing/building a nation.

And there is still the issue with the much too powerful and game system circumventing EXP powers.

I do not agree on the Eurocentric argument, though. The game has not enough character or focus on identity in it, and I think it's by design. The only thing Roman from my Roman playthrough was the name of some cities.
 
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There's a mechanical problem here, where a player could somehow not meet any of the requirements for any of the next ages, and the game doesn't like it if you have researched every other tech and have no more valid tech choices. We decided that the historical ages would serve as the pressure release, if you can't get into any of the ahistorical ages, you can always at least research the historical one and follow the path of history.

I also noticed this and Civ is just solving this by allowing players to end their turn without completing all remaining "Open Actions".
You could just decouple the "End Turn" function form the "Next Action" and this problem would be solved. (Shift+Enter or a smaller End turn button next to the larger one)
Access Knowledge get converted to Money.

This way you open up your designers to modify age requirements, the "default" ages can drop out and the ages can overall be more interesting and diverse.
 
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Does the singularity pose a "bad end" where you win by being the last one to be wiped out, the end being a "you won?" kinda screen. Or does it just take X turns or research or something and then the singularity dies and hopefully you were hurt the least by it?