History VideoGame / Caveman2Cosmos

* RockBeatsLaser: PlayedWith. The earliest gunpowder unit (the Arquebusier) is available once you research [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock matchlock]] muskets, an early-ish Renaissance technology. They don't immediately obsolete high-tier, late medieval-era units like Longbowmen, Heavy Swordsmen, Heavy Pikemen and Heavy Crossbowmen, [[TruthInTelevision which is exactly how historical battlefields looked like when the first primitive guns appeared]]. However when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock flintlock]] muskets become available not too long after those medieval units are obsolete. There is an important, under-the-hood modifier for units, related with their era of origin. In practical terms it means an unit from lower technological era will face a debuff when facing something more advanced, and the bigger the disparity, the stronger the debuff, regardless of actual Power rating. This is especially pronounced once sedimentary lifestyle is adopted and early Bronze age units are on par or even ''weaker'' in raw Power with stone-age warriors, but will consistently beat them due to actually having a bonus.

* ObviousBeta: The mod is in perpetual development for over a decade. Early builds had ''serious'' stability issues and then there is the amount of elements the mod has and does vs. being written for 32 bit systems.

%%* HeroUnit: And how! Far too many to list here, with almost all of them being...
%%* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Not just the heroes, but the leaders and many of the Great People too.

* HeroUnit: And how! Far too many to list here, with almost all of them being...
** HistoricalDomainCharacter: Not just the heroes, but the leaders and many of the Great People too.
* HollywoodHistory: Averted for the most part.
** AllCavemenWereNeanderthals: Currently played with, in as much as the player controls a band of ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' with Neanderthals as hostile [=NPCs=] (friendly versions of which can potentially be recruited should the player build the right culture). There is a Neanderthal civilization, but it is identical to the human factions in most respects, including HardCodedHostility to the NPC Neanderthal faction and unit graphics. And to add another twist, much of the supplementary artwork around the game is evocative of this trope.
** OneMillionBC: More so in supplementary artwork than the game proper, the most notable departure from the actual Paleolithic being man living a non-nomadic lifestyle. This is planned to change in future versions, however.

* VirualPet: Captured animals can be brought to a city to act as the governor's pets. Any animal ranging from a mundane pigeon or tarantula to a [[PantheraAwesome black panther]] or [[BearyFriendly bear]] can do the job. The presence of the menagerie increases happiness, culture and even stability.

* CoolPet: Captured animals can be brought to a city to act as the governor's pets. Any animal ranging from a mundane pigeon or tarantula to a [[PantheraAwesome black panther]] or [[BearyFriendly bear]] can do the job. The presence of the menagerie increases happiness, culture and even stability.

* SmallTaxonomyPools: Averted; the game has hundreds of animal units, some of them quite obscure or regionally specific.

* PerpetualBeta: An unfortunate side effect of fans making such a massive mod on their spare time is that the sheer amount of content is virtually impossible to fully flesh out, polish and balance. Many civilopedia entries have placeholder text copied from sources like Wiki/ThisVeryWiki or Wiki/TheOtherWiki or are otherwise full of typos.

* AlternateTechline: Besides the PunkPunk options, there are options to domesticate animals humans historically never did for use as beasts of burden or [[BeastOfBattle war]], such as giraffes, deer, llamas (for riding), [[PantheraAwesome big cats]], and [[BearsAreBadNews bears]].

You can join the official [=Caveman2Cosmos=] Discord group [[https://discord.gg/ev2JBNwf here]] to keep up with updates, interact with the community, discuss the mod, all that good stuff.

* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: For once, justified. Eventually, with extremely advanced technology, specific set of civis and well-trained labour, it is possible to finish tile improvements in single turn. But it's pretty much impossible or extremely hard to pull before early 20th century tech level is reached.

* TimeAbyss: Very likely to happen: even if you ignore the Prehistoric era settlements your cities can easily surpass the 5 millenia mark in age, much like real life Neolithic settlements.
* TimeTravel: A tech near the beginning of the Cosmic Era, though much like a lot of the future era stuff, it has not been fully fleshed out yet.

* RockBeatsLaser: PlayedWith. The earliest gunpowder unit (the Arquebusier) is available once you research [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchlock matchlock]] muskets, an early-ish Renaissance technology. They don't immediately obsolete high-tier, late medieval-era units like Longbowmen, Heavy Swordsmen, Heavy Pikemen and Heavy Crossbowmen, [[TruthInTelevision which is exactly how historical battlefields looked like when the first primitive guns appeared]]. However when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock flintlock]] muskets become available not too long after those medieval units are obsolete.

* GoodPaysBetter: Civics that emphasis helping the needy tend to provide extra bonuses that outright evil or simply neutral ones lack. Those providing political libery usually come with either higher income, productivity or both (but it's not a rule).

* HadToBeSharp: The basic "Welfare" civic is just "survival", which gives some free XP to newly built units.

* LowCultureHighTech: Since civis never become obsolete or unaccessible, it is entirely possible to stick to stone-age ones, while having space-faring civilisation. Hell, Matriarchy, one of the earliest civis unlocked, is one that most players stick with indefinitely, as it provides a huge population growth bonus. A popular self-imposed challenge is to never adopt language, so you have civilisation communicating in grunts and simple gestures.

* OneStatToRuleThemAll: For the most of the game, whatever decreases the amount of food you need for population growth is worth picking it. Which often leads to situations like being modern matriarchy with nationalised agriculture dumping all the waste to the ocean or similar, just as crazy combinations. Coming in at a close-second is science output.

* RockBeatsLaser: Averted with vengeance, this being a Civ 4 and unit disparity over eras being highly defined. At ''best'', Asatru worshipper veteran melee unit will tie with early musketeer, but that's it.
* SchizoTech: Especially pronouced with the Punk civs to be unlocked, with improbable machines, like clock-work robots or mammuths with cannons mounted on their backs. But even if those are ignored, it's possible to focus research in such fashion to never develop modern metallurgy, but in the same time construct battleships.

* SmallTaxonomyPools: Averted somewhat; the game has hundreds of animal units, some of them quite obscure or regionally specific.

* StupidFuturePeople: While unlikely, it is possible to reach astonishing advances in technology, easily going into futuristic stuff like cloning, fusion, gene-modding and so on, while having majority of population consisting of morons. All it takes is deliberately and intentionally ignoring education. This does make research extremely hard, but doesn't make it impossible.

* TortureAlwaysWorks: {{Downplayed}}, the Torture tech is discovered in the [[TheDungAges Middle]] [[MedievalMorons Age]] and building torture chambers and implements drastically lower crime and [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique increase espionage output]], but also brings in heavy health and happiness penalties, diseases and lowers science output, making the use of torture questionable overall. Torture implements will later go obsolete with Renaissance/Enlightenment technologies.

* WriterOnBoard: Averted. Despite various things looking like it might be some sort of agenda-pushing, anything that's not related to the GreenAesop was repetitively reported as unrelated with anyone's politics. And since the game offers few dozens of different civics (all neutral in their description, unlike those from Civ 4), it's entirely possible to mix and match them for any desired combination and still succceed.