A fourth age

[Omnirizon]

what to call it? Post Age? PA? I dunno.

there is so much good stuff in the Early Modern Period to draw inspiration from. (for clarification, EMP is 1500 to 1800. note that LA human nations tend to be inspired from real history right up to the EMP.)

The Ottoman Empire, and all the stuff happening in that area of the world.

American colonies, and all their unique politics, myth, and folklore.

Antillean colonies, and all their unique politics, myth, and folklore; especially voodoo and slave-colonizer interaction creating cultures of subterfuge and subverted hatred from both master and slave, creating a strong practice of magical herbalism and voodoo, with poisoning and ritual dance and sacrifice, along with marronage and affrichesment. (very unlike the much more hypo-slavery of the later americas)

South american colonies, and the bastard combination of catholicism and native traditions.

hell, there's so much good stuff. some of the LA nations could even be stretched into it; same way many EA and MA nations are creatively stretched into LA.

not that I'm not happy with what there is, it was just a thought. I'm kind of a fan of EMP folklore. the clash, separation, and recreation of culture that was happening at that time made for the advent of more and deeper myth and folklore than the world had seen for hundreds of years.

[Gandalf Parker]

Definetly. Go with the idea.

There have been efforts at creating another age.
My chaos maps such as "Poke in the Eye"
http://www.dom3minions.com/downloads.htm
I refer to as being Age Zero or Pre-Early Age. When thousands of pretenders roamed the planet still trying to settle into specific nations. Total insanity.

There are various MODs which create Age 4 nations. Ulm gone techno, Nations of Knights, Samurai, Jewish, American Indian, etc. It might be fun to incorporate a bunch of them together, fix any conflicts in ID numbers, and create a 4th age mod that puts them all into the game along the line of the "11 Nations" mod.

[HoneyBadger]

How about 5 ages?

Here's what I wrote a while back about possible names for the various Ages, including 1 before and 1 after the three we have now.

The Dawning Age (before the current early age), Age of Miracles (early age), Age of Heroes (middle age), Age of Iron and Gold (late age), and Age of Wisdom (future age).

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm Wisdom (priests) replace Magic (mages)?

Dawning would work I guess. Do you feel that applies to my anarchy scripting of maps (like Poke in the Eye)?

[HoneyBadger]

Well, at the time, I was thinking the "Wisdom" gained by whomever managed to survive the rather apocalyptic Late Age. So, nations by that time would have been defined by having smarter, rather than more powerful tactics, hatred for demons, undead, illithids, etc. and generally being slightly less evil.

The Dawning Age was supposed to low on humans, with lots of prehistoric creatures and cultures, very strong Independents, and very powerful, but less subtle, magic.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well I had the strong independents.
Every independent province had the chance to have gods, and even multiple pretenders, running around.

Personally I always thought of 4th age as being
Battle of Pantheons based on the large games tending to be won by alliances. But thats probably a spinoff of my RPG thinking about the game.

[HoneyBadger]

Here's, cleaned up a bit, what I originally wrote about the Dawning Age:

Technology is Late stoneage through copper to early bronze age, low magic as peoples first start coming together into nations (IRL something approximating the conditions between 14,500-6000 years ago). Undead always have stone or at best copper weapons, and no metal armor. Research ability is always locked in to very slow in this age, with low-powered mages overall, except for magical beings with strong affinities for a single path. Few sorceresses/rainbow mages, if any.

Cavemen and lizardmen replace humans as the dominant race, and lizardmen shamans are some of the better multi-path mages around. Humans are almost nowhere to be found-no random human independents. Of the handful of humans around, a large percent of the population have the ability to Watershape into dolphins. Monkeys and apes are everywhere, just to tick off the Creationists . Icthytosians and a race of intelligent crab-people (1: I couldn't resist, 2: they could be done in a way that I think would be cool, and 3: they could represent a nation in this era with good Prot.) are dominant in the oceans-Mermen are present, but not a dominant race, and some of them have been pushed out of the water permanently by stronger species-a few humans dwell among them-suggesting them as our evolutionary ancestors. Many independent provinces are guarded by SC monsters and powerful prehistoric beasts.

While magic is still on the rise, units are in general even more powerful individually than they currently are in Early Age. Jotun nations have access to recruitable trolls and more Niefel giant heroes. the Nephilim are present. Treelords are alive and well and in the prime of their power, as are the Courts of Faerie. Kailasan Devas, Devatas, Rakshasas, etc. are also in the full of their power-including the more powerful 4 armed breeds as recruitables-and don't yet employ monkeys. A Pre-C'tus Lizardman nation has access to huge, powerful dinosaurs, Caelum units average larger in size and employ large, vicious, flightless birds called Axe-Beaks. Mammoths are now controlled by a blood-magic caveman nation led by ogre kings who can shapeshift into giant bears. Agarthans and Fomorians start in the oceans, while Atlantis starts on land. Hydras are amphibious, and are worshipped by a merman nation with some pure human recruitables and shambler recruitables (suggesting Shamblers as an offshoot of humans, which atleast gives Shamblers a certain pathos, helping them to be a step above the "big dumb amphibous spearfodder" they usually end up being) There is also a nation of Elder Things (ala H.P Lovecraft-"At the Mountains of Madness") who are the most magically advanced at this time (The other nations stole the finer secrets of magic from them after their nation collapsed.) and have bonuses when using Crossbreeding and Advanced Crossbreeding. Thematically, they are supposed to be the originators of many of the most bizarre races in Dom 3-they create, for instance, Shuggoths, which will feature in this age. Aboleths exist basically unchanged. Tien'Chi is an empire of the undead and spirits ruled by Pennanggalan (a breed of vampires who can remove their own heads at night-the heads then fly around and bite victims) and various celestial demons-a bit like Late Age Ermor in practice, but ofcourse considerably more Asian-flavored. There are no longbows, crossbows, recurve bows, etc. in the game, except as forged items. Shortbows and crude shortbows are present and fairly widespread, as are javelins and harpoons. The Atlatl is the dominant missle weapon technology, enabling javelins to be hurled 2xstrength. Slings are ubiquitous. Swords are rare and short, axes, maces, knives, and spears are much more widespread. Tridents, glaives, and other polearms are almost non-existent. Calvalry is also rare, especially horse-calvalry (where present, it consists of units riding ponies-no kick). Tower shields are non-existant except as forged items. Wardogs are prevalent, chariots are present but rare. Apes are not the only ones who hurl sticks and stones-this is a common practice and some units specialize in this.