Ok, so to keep it short
- Industrial Era: 1760 – 1945
- Atomic Era: 1945 – 1990
- Information Era: 1947 – 2022 (?)
ChatGPT was launched to the public around 2022… so
Are we now officially in the AI Era?
We’re in the Misinformation Age
The notion of a set “age” is so arbitrary. I think you could argue with equal merit that we’re in the end of the “petroleum age” just as much as we’re early on in the “silicon age.” Maybe our descendants will look back at this as the “terrestrial age,” or the “imperialist age”
We are still technically on the iron age lol
Yes, exactly. Periodization is something we as humans do as a tool to accomplish certain things.
The Renaissance, for example, is a concept that isn’t really taken seriously by modern historians, it was invented by 15th century Italians to explain why their culture was so great and different and leaned heavily on (ahistorical) tropes about the fall of the Roman Empire, and reinforced by later western historians to help with myth-making about Western Civilization™. Another example is how the concept of the Iron Age kinda falls apart when you remember that China and Egypt were using iron waaaay before Europeans were which makes that periodization Eurocentric in nature (as a lot of them are).
So although it can be fun and interesting as a thought exercise, we shouldn’t impulsively try to neatly chop up periods of human history as if our species’ story is a civ game, we should do it in a scientific way to help us accomplish our goals (whatever those may be) and grant us explanatory power.
If you’re asking specifically for the videogame, maybe check what they call it in civ 7, I’ll admit I myself haven’t played it yet due to the bad reputation.
It’s staggeringly bad, do not pay for it
EDIT: I only just re-read the comment and should point out here that in Civ 7 there are no new eras post-WW2 lol, not even a Future Era like in 6. Bafflingly shitty game
Amazing, firaxis likely realised thanks to Paradox that they can also make garbage sequels and people might get over it after a ton of DLCs
There isn’t enough DLC in the WORLD to save this turd. Just like, soooooo many horrid design choices. Look up the wonder building animations, they’re incredibly shitty compared to 6 and 5 (which literally wasn’t even animated). There’s like 6 whole frames.
Yeah I’m aware, it’s just that most videogame customers are often dumb enough to fall for it again™ anytime a shit product releases and they release further shit content and charge you for it.
They are definitely leaning on DLC and post-launch bugfixes, yeah, it sucks how that’s just the norm for modern studio games now. I’m guessing it’s not really working out for them cuz it was half off during the steam summer sale which is far more than 6 was 17 months after launching. They fr need to just go back to the drawing board and start working on 8, dead serious.
No, were in the AAAAAAAAA era
Juat like there’s a fire era, a wheel era and a clay cup era. Not all inventions get an era. Not even writing got one.
Yeah, writing got the entire concept of “history”
AI might have changed how we interact with the internet but it hasn’t had the same impact as the transistor.
Maybe when AI gets used to generate stuff in the manufacturing sector we would call our era the “AI age”.
If anything we are in the “automation age” or Plastocene since the 60s.
what are the criteria for declaring and naming an age?
No
Thought the image was AI slop but apparently it is civ 6 cover art. Still might be AI slop which is extremely fitting.
Civ VI came out in 2016, I don’t think AI was quite yet a thing
Or was it?
It literally isn’t… Brian Busatti did it who was the art director for Civ 6.
Are any of the Civs or Paradox games worth playing? I have played a lot of CK3 and a small bit of Victoria 3,
Civ 5 and 6 can be fun, just keep in mind they have an imperialist, winner/loser bias. I remember some years back, naive me playing Civ 5 for the first time (my introduction to the series) and having this cooperative mindset like I was going to get along with other civs and such as that. Which you can technically try to do on paper, but in reality, the game mechanics push you toward single winner, multiple losers in the end. So like, sometimes a civ will act friendly, only to backstab you not long after because they want more territory. Which is a thing in RL, but it’s not as though every civilization in RL history is cynically imperialist and nationalist. So although the gameplay can be fun, the implicit messaging is very cynical about human history and governance, and normalizes expansionist, selfish behavior as simply the default state of a “civilization.”
Edit: Also, I think it’s in Civ 5 where later in the game, one of the ideological priorities you can choose out of mutually exclusive options is “Democracy” and another is “Communism”, as if these are incompatible concepts.
Civ VI is peak and it’s a great game to introduce you to the franchise
Europa Universalis IV has grown to become my favourite grand strategy title, and it’s the perfect in between of board game, political strategy, and simple numbers economy that paradox has ever done. It also has a very dedicated modding community that makes a lot of nice content very regularly. Just don’t buy all the dlcs at full price, either get the full set on a deep discount, get one of the humble bundle packs, or just pirate it.
I’ve had an on and off thing with hoi4 but outside of mods there’s not as much replay value generally, and I can get into maybe one campaign a year nowadays, but it’s fun for what it’s worth, if you really like more tactile strategy stuff.
I don’t pay for games, I just pirate them.
I do too mostly, you couldn’t even pay me to play most of Paradox’s new stuff tbh. However I did purchase EUIV and hoi4 on steam specifically (and pretty much exclusively) to have easy access to steam workshop mods, which are practically the biggest draw for those games anyway.
