Civilization IV

[screwtype]

It would be refreshing if we could see factions flourish and flounder.

Well, maybe. But I wonder how you are actually going to make a challenging game if you have your most powerful rivals fading away just as a function of time?

The object of a game like Civ is to conquer the world, it isn't to have an historic simulation of history. If you wanted that, you would in my opinion have trouble grafting it onto the Civ paradigm. IMO you are talking about a totally new game - a totally new genre even - and one that I'm not sure a lot of people would be interested in playing.

I think that each era should be given great importance.

I don't know about "great". Great-er, in some cases, certainly.

if you played each year a turn that would be 5000 turns for a game at least if it starts at the building of the Pyramids, which could take an awful long time to say the least

That's exactly my point. In a game that tries to cover the whole of history, it's a pretty tall order to expect it to cover every period at length and still remain playable. Certainly some extension of time in some eras might be workable. But I mean, if you are really going to have 1000 turns in the stone age, who is ever going to advance past that era before they have either conquered the other civs or been beaten themselves?

The ancient and middle age eras should definately be longer though.

Dunno about the ancient. But I definitely used to feel that the gunpowder era didn't get its fair share.