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

How do I see if a city is connected to my capital?

Hold the hotkey for connections and look at the background colour? Itā€™s something like L but I havenā€™t played in months so I canā€™t remember.

Click on the cities screen (F7, iirc). All connected cities will have an icon next to them. The discontent growth breakdown also shows whether the city is connected to the capital or not.

P.S. Also, what @rho21 said. Connected tiles will have a green background color.

Itā€™s N, but it shows connections. I thought there was a more conclusive indication on the city screen but canā€™t find it.

cities screen

Hereā€™s the City Screen icon on the toolbar and the connected city icon next to the city name.

growth breakdown

Hereā€™s the tooltip that pops up when you mouse over the city growth bar.

discontent breakdown

Same for the discontent growth bar.

trade network

Hereā€™s the trade network overlay, the green color shows what tiles are connected to the capital.

For most pieces of data, there are multiple ways in the game to get to it, though they are not always obvious.

Well thatā€™s three times the answer I wanted, thanks :)

Is this Old World goes under water?

Noodling around with this tonight and noticed that a Citadel now requires 7 active laws instead of 6. Was that a recent patch change? Iā€™m not opposed to the change but am curious. I donā€™t see it in this weekā€™s patch notes but I havenā€™t been playing regularly.

I believe itā€™s been that way for the last few updates. But, yeah, that 7th law can be a doozy! I actually like that it pushes the unique units ā€“ as you know, the stronghold is a prerequisite for each nationā€™s uber-unique unit ā€“ a little deeper into the game. It makes them feel more meaningful when theyā€™re rarer.

Iā€™m a little puzzled at some of the patch notes. Like, literally, I donā€™t understand them, or theyā€™re weirdly vague. This last patch, for instance:

I donā€™t know what ā€œgetting more [insert archetype]ā€ is supposed to mean, but it looks like they just swapped scholar from trader to patron, and schemer from patron to trader. Basically swapping the placement of two archetypes between two families? Is that what happened? In which case, whatā€™s up with the language of ā€œ[gets] moreā€? I feel like this could have been phrased to make better sense. For instance, do most players even know about the relationship between archetypes and families? Because the patch notes could have helped teach them instead of confuse them with language about ā€œgetting more scholarsā€.

This one makes no sense to me. Prosperous does not double money and, as far as Iā€™m aware, it never has. Are they saying they doubled the effect on money? In which case how does that square with the +5 and +10? Was it previously +2.5 and +5?

As opposed to? It would be nice to know what they were doing before. According to my notes, and assuming Iā€™m understanding the patch notes, poets used to reduce unhappiness and philosophers used to add civics, in addition to increasing the yields of their improvements (odeons and libraries, respectively). But now poets add civics? And philosophers add culture?

I donā€™t understand how that makes any thematic sense, so it sounds like some sort of balancing thing going on. I wish there were more information provided about the rationale behind a change that looks, on its face, kind of nonsensical. I mean, I trust Mohawk, but I want to understand what theyā€™re doing.

This one seems pretty huge, assuming Iā€™m understanding it correctly. Which Iā€™m not sure I am. But if it does what I think it does, holy cats RE: the effect it has on larger maps!

Still loving the game, but it feels like whoever wrote the patch notes just dashed something off real quick before heading out for the weekend. I donā€™t recall them being this vague in the past, but then again, I havenā€™t been playing as intensively as I am now. But whatever the case, Mohawkā€™s post-release support deserves better patch notes.

-Tom

Not entirely game-related, but I was so, so happy to hear you on Designer Notes, Tom!

ā€¦and it also got me interested in the game, which, you know. That seems like a dangerous rabbit hole

Yeah, that was a good listen.

Thank you so much! I hope to provide more listening fodder shortly! In the meantime, hereā€™s a link to me and @Brooski chatting with Soren and Leyla about Old World:

Watch your step. I would say Old World is the most dangerous rabbit hole this side of 2005!

-Tom

Best introductory question ever.

I intended to sleep but it proved to be impossible with two highly intelligent people (i know the two temporary hosts would take umbrage if I included them) discussing such a wide variety of themes, and it was great to hear familiar topics being discussed - Iā€™m always longing for discussions about the game designers responsibility, ever since Soren introduced mto it in a podcast where they were discussing board games, and I wish a whole podcast be dedicated to it someday.

I donā€™t understand the nuances of English accents much, but Leyla got the sweetest rs.

Does that mean your throat is doing better? I hope so! Your game podcast and participation on things like 3MA are greatly missed. Well, that makes it sound like I only wish you well if you do podcasts - I hope youā€™re doing well regardless :-)

Iā€™ve been playing this game a lot. Iā€™ve almost finished my Egypt game - despite a failed ambition, Iā€™m on the verge of winning this one.

My proudest moment was realising that if I got lucky and one of my heirs became a Builder, I could use multiple workers to finish a wonder in time to fulfill a legacy ambition. I set it up, and it paid off!

Egypt has felt very disappointing. Their huge bonus is food on rivers. But food seems pretty worthless. Once I have improved the food resources, I donā€™t ever need to build a farm. The price quickly crashes to 1 gold. Why is food so worthless?

(Iā€™m going to put a glowing review on the steam page, much as I did for Offworld - this game is really clever, and very innovative in the genre.)

Food will tend to be cheap on maps with lots of fertile terrain and food resources.

+infinity