Bronze Era

WIP — Late Bronze Age | Starting around 1205 BC

Discord: https://discord.gg/8kA6FDuPyD

Bronze Age is a historical total conversion beginning during the final years of the Late Bronze Age, on the eve of one of the greatest collapses in ancient history.

Palatial kingdoms dominate the eastern Mediterranean, long-distance trade connects distant civilizations, and bronze remains essential to warfare and economic power.

But the old world is beginning to collapse.

Famine, migrations, political instability, warfare, economic disruption and the arrival of the Sea Peoples threaten civilizations that have dominated the ancient world for centuries.

Your goal may not simply be to expand.

Sometimes, it will be to survive.

Important cities can accumulate City Prestige, representing their historical, economic, religious and political importance.

Population, monuments, prosperity and other achievements can transform a settlement into one of the greatest cities of the ancient world.

War can permanently reshape the map.

Cities may be occupied, pillaged or razed. Invaders can seize wealth, devastate populations and destroy centuries of development.

In extreme cases, once-great cities may disappear entirely and leave only ruins behind.

Destroyed cities can remain as historical ruins.

Decades or even centuries later, expeditions can return to these forgotten places and uncover:

• Ancient treasures
• Royal tombs
• Lost artifacts
• Forgotten archives
• Abandoned temples
• Sealed chambers

Ruins have different levels of danger, complexity, depth and potential wealth.

A city destroyed during the Bronze Age Collapse may become an archaeological expedition centuries later.

The opening decades focus heavily on the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

Trade networks weaken, famine and instability spread, migrations reshape entire regions, coastal cities are attacked and once-powerful political systems begin to fragment.

Major civilizations such as the Hittite world, Mycenaean kingdoms and states of the Levant face historical pressures that can lead to collapse.

History, however, is not predetermined.

You may preserve a threatened civilization, rebuild a fallen kingdom or create an entirely different future.

The campaign progresses through several historical eras:

Bronze Age → Iron Age → Archaic Age → Classical Age → Hellenistic Age → Roman Age

Civilizations can collapse, new cultures can emerge, tribes can urbanize and small settlements can grow into major centers of power.

Some historical civilizations can also appear dynamically.

One example is the Foundation of Rome, which can occur around the traditional date of 21 April 753 BC.

This system is intended to support more historical emergence events in the future.

The mod has expanded far beyond its original Mediterranean focus.

Regions represented or currently being developed include:

• Mediterranean
• Greece and the Balkans
• Anatolia
• Levant and Mesopotamia
• Egypt and North Africa
• Italy and Western Europe
• Northern and Baltic Europe
• Iranian world
• India
• Central and Eastern Asia
• China
• Korea
• Mexico — present on the map, but major content is not currently planned

Different regions are represented according to their historical development.

Palatial kingdoms, monarchies, city-based civilizations and tribal societies do not all begin with the same political or technological structure.

Tribal civilizations have their own technologies and buildings, allowing them to gradually develop cities and stronger political structures.

Long-distance trade is also an important part of the mod.

Regional markets, institutions and trade networks represent major economic spheres, including the Mediterranean and Near East, Nordic and Baltic trade networks, and the economic world surrounding Shang China.

The collapse or disruption of these networks can have major consequences for civilizations that depend on them.

Much of the Bronze Age remains uncertain.

The mod uses:

• Historical records
• Archaeological evidence
• Reconstructed cultural distributions
• Ancient geographical sources
• Early historical maps
• Selected historical interpretations

Where exact political entities are unknown, plausible representations are created using the best available evidence.

Myths and ancient traditions may also inspire historical events when they appear to preserve possible memories of real events, while keeping the mod grounded in history rather than fantasy.

A larger exploration and maritime colonization system is planned but is not yet implemented.

The goal is to make ancient colonization progressive rather than allowing civilizations to immediately settle anywhere.

Colonies and trading outposts would act as stepping stones for further expansion and could eventually develop into independent powers.

This system is planned to support the historical emergence of:

• Phoenician colonial networks
• Carthage
• Greek colonies
• Massalia
• Magna Graecia
• Black Sea colonies
• Iberian coastal settlements

Bronze Age is about more than conquest.

Civilizations collapse.

Cities burn.

Populations migrate.

Kingdoms fragment.

Trade networks disappear and new ones emerge.

Ruins remain where great cities once stood, waiting to be rediscovered centuries later.

Tribes become kingdoms. Villages become cities. New powers rise where ancient empires once ruled.

Begin in the final years of the Bronze Age and shape the ancient world through the Iron, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman eras.

Survive the collapse. Rebuild the ancient world. Change history.