Industrial Revolution is an advance in Call to Power II.
Gameplay[]
The Industrial Revolution ushers in the modern era of factory-driven Production. It gives Cities Factories, which improve Production at the expense of the environment. The Machine Gunner uses the latest weapons technology to dominate the battlefield.
Great Library entry[]
The English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852-83) was the first to popularize the term Industrial Revolution, using it to describe England's economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since his time, other historians have more broadly applied the term to any society that changed from an agrarian, artisan economy to one in which industry and machine manufacturing prevailed. The primary changes of the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic and cultural.
Technological changes included use of new materials, such as iron and steel, and the use of new energy sources, including coal, the steam engine, electricity and the petroleum-based internal combustion engine. In addition, new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom vastly increased the production of materials with a minimum of human energy. The factory system further divided labor and increased specialization of function. The application of science to industry also marked one major change, making possible a vastly increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods. The technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution made important developments in transportation and communication, including steam-powered ships and locomotives, automobiles, airplanes, telegraphs and radio, possible.
Socioeconomic and cultural changes manifest in larger, more populous cities, an explosion in the size of the working class, and a wider redistribution of wealth. Land as a source of wealth diminished in relevance as rising industrial production and international trade placed greater value in having control over the means of production and distribution of goods. Although workers were overwhelmingly poor and disenfranchised, a new commerce-fueled middle class emerged as a political and social force. New state policies reflected the needs of the shifting industrial society. Perhaps the most important shift in culture came from the redefinition of the role of the worker. No longer craftsmen working with tools, workers were now machine operators, subject to factory discipline. Working class political movements began to call into question the devaluation of an individual's worth and skill at the hands of a new production paradigm that sought to minimize human involvement. Despite sizeable leaps in the efficiency and productive capacity of industry and commerce, the new industrial culture valued prosperity and progress over the needs of common people, a cultural conflict that continued to play out for centuries.