Old World: How does X work? Post your gameplay questions here!

should be “Must not be”

The 25% defense is nice, but I’m not sure I’d characterize it as a tank. The more trenchant stat is the +50% attack into city centers and non-nation settlements, and +25% attack into urban tiles. Other siege engines don’t have that. Also, you don’t have to unlimber them the way you do ranged siege units. They’re definitely city-busters, and if you’re playing Assyria as the bullies they’re supposed to be, your other dudes are running around raiding while the battering rams and siege towers grab the city centers.

At least that seems to be the intent. For my Assyria game, I was still learning and I definitely wasn’t being aggressive as I could have been. So my battering ram was just a fixture of homeland defense. Also a fun jungle gym for Assyrian kids.

-Tom

Ah, right! Sorry if that was answered previously.

I guess for tooltips and writers, a typo is a bug. :)

-Tom

Imo if you have access to the city center you’ve already won. The journey to the city is where the bulk of the fighting happens. Maybe you’ll move some cav and archers to take out a spearman. Then you’ll see 5 units counterattack and kill your units. Use a scout.

I don’t understand why sometimes I can fortify and other times not.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Old World (pka Ten Crowns) from Soren Johnson

I did not know that and have been parked on a 3 cities for many years. I haven’t been able to just sit down and play for an extended period of time, so that isn’t helping me keep the details straight.

You can’t fortify in city centers. You also can’t fortify if you’re already dug in. For example, if you are fortified and get a promotion, your unit will be selected but since you’re already fortified it won’t show up as an option. I think it denotes it with little blue dashes above your unit.

I’ve been playing OW on and off since the start of EA and I’m still learning (love it!). Today I just learned something new about workers. I knew they took longer to build something if damaged (so heal them quick) and I now find that they take an extra turn if they’re building in a city belonging to a different family. Won’t stop me moving them if something needs building urgently, but good to know.

thanks! i hadnt known that workers are homebodies.

Wow! Thanks for that tip, I had no idea.

Wow yeah I’d been tearing my hair out trying to work out the pattern of different build times based on terrain, maybe now it will make sense.

Also, hills add one to worker build times. I should put together some help for that somewhere. (It’s in the hints but not one specific location.)

Yeah that would be handy. So, builder damage, wrong family and hills can add time, builder governors and artisan family on urban can reduce time, is that the full list?

Why haven’t I won this game. I have double victory enable, but also AI plays to win.

The score was 32 to 15 Babylon last turn.

Playing on the released not test version.

Because you have to get to more than (or equal to?) 50% of the VP to double. Even if you’ve doubled your nearest competitor already. So in this case you need at least 36 VP to win. I think this is tool-tipped somewhere. The game can get a little slow when you’re reaching this point, I find.

Thanks I didn’t know that. The AI plays to win works pretty much as you expect. I kept Carthage and Rome placated with gifts, trade missions etc. But with play to win on you have -160 relationship hit so right now everybody but Rome is at war with me.

Q: How do people die?

Is it just a random chance every turn? That goes up with age? Because aside from characters who are Ill or Severely Ill, I’m a little confused when someone dies whether I should know anything about the circumstances. For instance, should I ever be suspicious of assassinations from other countries? Are there lurking weaknesses I can reveal that boost the chance of death? Is infectious disease a thing?

I ask because I had a 19-year-old king just drop dead. Obviously, that’s going to be rare, but I presume I just had an unlucky roll.

-Tom

EDIT: It turns out the 19-year-old had been assassinated; I just hadn’t gotten to the event notification yet. But I’m still curious how death works in the game.

Q: Are war declarations just math based on opinion?

For instance, if I’m pumping positive modifiers into someone’s opinion, can I keep them from declaring war indefinitely? Or are there ever circumstances where the AI trips a war declaration regardless of opinion? In other words, is everything I need to know about the likelihood of war visible in the opinion breakdown, or are there other unseen factors at work?

-Tom

There are definitely “event driven” DOWs separate from the normal AI DOW math.

For example, I had a couple pop ups events that triggered a war between myself and the founder of a different faith. In the first, I was given the choice to convert or die, but my ruler had some trump card stat that let me pick a middle ground choice. A few years later though, a similar one popped up with no out. This was with a country that was militarily weaker and with which I had “pleased relations”

How do the urban improvements work? For example the barracks and stronghold, what gets their XP and defense bonuses? Is it the units trained in the city and the city itself?