Old World (pka Ten Crowns) from Soren Johnson

I haven’t figured that out yet either. I’ve had plenty of blind and crippled general, I don’t think they do but I’m not certain.

Yeah, I lost a unit with a general today and the general returned to my court blinded.

I’m pretty sure in my last campaign I lost a family member embedded as a general. I’d like to know if that is what happened because I’m not certain, but the pop up said they died I’m just not positive it was from the battle and not maybe old age or something. But I am paying a bit more attention to how I use them in battle as a result. Either I’ve put them on ranged where they are off front line or more mobile units. The way turns work though if you’re in the midst of a battle and your unit with the general in it gets damaged don’t be surprised if units from out of your line of sight (LOS) blitz them.

The last campaign I lost the Babylonians had like nearly a dozen chariots and so from nowhere in your LOS they could come at you and destroy any one unit at any time. And if you didn’t destroy the damaged chariots your turn, they disappeared out of LOS to heal and come back at you in a couple years.

This has made me seriously consider always having one unit at least with that extended LOS capability so I’ve got a better view of what’s coming at me.

Thanks for the answers on generals. Discord agrees with you guys: by default the general survives even if the unit they’re commanding kicks the bucket.

I agree, @easytarget, I think the extended-LOS capability is an important one. Even with it, it can be hard to see the AI coming.

I’ve enjoyed my latest war because it was the opposite of most of my Civ battles. In Civ, the AI will attack me, I’ll fend them off, then I counterattack and take cities. In this game, by contrast, I attacked the AI, I got to the gates of an enemy city, I attacked its defending unit a few times – and then the AI counterattacked in force, focus-firing my units, and I ended up retreating all the way home.

The two main things I find wearing me down in the later game:

  1. an inability to see clearly where roads already exist, especially through woods and improvements
  2. not knowing what buildings are already built in each city

By necessity, you get longer turns by year 80 or 100, with many more orders. But if each worker order turns into its own mini-research project, it becomes a problem.

haha, pretty sure I’ve built barracks twice in some cities for this very reason. I don’t know what’s built and a little picture pops up suggesting I build them. It would help if you could better tell what’s built and for it not to suggest you build again something that’s already built (wonder if they stack?).

Yep, it is hard to tell except where they’re built in open undeveloped tiles. Maybe make them darker?

you can build two barracks and two ranges/city and they do stack, providing an 80% bonus to your training. Put in a couple of officers and you can really crank out the military.
I think having a list of what you’ve built would be a good thing to add to the city screen.

I wonder if it would work to have a tooltip for a city to display a list of improvements built for the city with how many of each. Then if you lock the tooltip open, when you hover over an item in the list it highlights them on the map. Or maybe some type of city panel or somethig.

You guys probably know this, but if you press and hold V, you’ll see your road network (the brightest green hexes). Whenever I’m thinking about roads, I do this as a matter of course. Darker roads might help, I dunno. I’ll probably still push V even with darker roads.

I agree that a list of stuff already built would be helpful. Maybe a tooltip over the capital hex, or better yet a dedicated hotkey?

It’s not necessarily bad to build multiple barracks! I do it all the time, so that I always have someone training behind the lines, and for the bonus training output and specialists. But then I tend to have relatively small empires. Two barracks in each of a dozen cities might be overkill, heh.

Yep, know that shows the connection, but water ways count too so it’s not strictly just the roads. But it is a good call out nonetheless.

Yep, something along these lines would be helpful.

I’m trying this in current campaign, and of course getting military specialists.

Question: did we ever find out of certain nations are predisposed to a certain kind of behavior? This is my 2nd campaign in a row where Greece offered me an alliance (said no this time) and Rome is getting aggressive. So, does this just play off the way the campaign is playing out or are is there any hard wiring on behavior?

I think Rome is naturally aggressive, I thought Assyria was also, but the last few games, they’ve got of to a slow start and haven’t been much of a factor.

I’m getting better at the game. Played as Egypt, strong. Finishing up ambition 7 it is only turn 78, and I have 17 points nearest competitor only has 8. Carthage declare war why I was fighting the Synchtian (sp) put up a decent fight.

I’m going to move up a level or two, then probably take a break and give them time to roll out an update or two.

I’m a bit surprised more Civ players aren’t playing this game.

Edit: After reading @spock AAR I’ll definitely be playing the GOTW. Put first I’m going to play Rome.

No definitive answer on whether particular nations are programmed to be more aggressive, though I’m still guessing the answer is yes. There’s been some inconclusive discussion on the Discord. Some say Persia and Assyria tend to be more aggressive, and I’ve seen some of that. Some say Rome is. In my own games, Babylonia has been very aggressive. Rome, on the other hand, has been a pussycat in my last couple games.

I just finished the Game of the Week (as Greece, on Magnificent level), with a Loss on Turn 191. I finished with 6 Ambitions, and I had two more in my sights, but I just ran out of time. I spent much of the game with 3 cities, but I did conquer a couple more in the last few decades. Even with 3 cities, I had a strong economy, and I could easily have finished my current Ambition (elders) and a legacy had I had more time. I’ve hidden my AAR in the details below, as I don’t want to spoil the Game of the Week until we have a new GOTW on, er, Monday is it?

AAR: Game of the Week

I grabbed Sparta (to the east) quickly, but then I had to defend against a Babylonian declaration of war (from the east) and a barbarian invasion (from the west). Around turn 30-40 I thought I was done for, as Babylonians besieged Sparta. But I managed to drive them back, while holding on against the barbs, and eventually made an expensive truce with Babylon. Rome, to my south, remained peaceful. Persia was a brooding menace to the northwest; I had to pay them off several times, with luxuries and the like. Eventually I grabbed a third city from the Thracians, I think, to the southwest. I lived with these three cities for most of the game, and I built up my economy and military. I even managed to build three Wonders: the Parthenon, the Acropolis, and Hagia Sophia.

By turn 130 or so I was strong enough that I started plotting to invade Rome. But then Assyria declared war on Babylonia, and Rome joined in with Assyria, so I decided to pile on against Babylonia. I drove to the gates of Babylon, but resistance stiffened as I encountered higher-tech units. As I mentioned earlier, this was the first time I really felt the force of tech disparity in Old World. It would take 6 or 7 of my Axemen and Archers to take down one enemy Polyboros. Babylonia repulsed me and drove me all the way back to the gates of Sparta, and once again I thought I was done for. But I held out, and we had a fun back-and-forth war for the next 70 years.

Finally Babylonia started to crumble, and I seized a couple of their cities, but in the meantime Persia, unmolested, had expanded and built most Wonders. Assyria, too, was piling up points by gobbling eastern Bablyonia. I had six Ambitions and an ailing leader, so I was hoping I’d get a couple easy quick new Ambitions once my Queen died. But it was not to be: Persia won, followed closely by Assyria with 28 points. I ended in third place on points (with 10 or 11, I forget) and 6 Ambitions.

I had a blast. The military campaign was the best 4X war I’ve fought since…Civ 4? I think the forced spacing of cities makes the military side of the game much more fun than Civ 5/6. Plus the AI is much much better here. Not perfect, but a lot better. (It maybe builds too many Ballistas?) It built and upgraded its units, and I was almost always facing superior troops. Really fun. I think I’ll play the next GOTW Monday.

I’ve been putting the beat down on the Danes in my current campaign because they were the closet to my other cities and so they made a natural target for getting more city sites. Interestingly last turn I took one of their cities and got a message by the Scythians that they were in an alliance with all Barbarians and I should stand down from attacking them. The reason I mention this is because one of the three options played out such that I got an alliance with Scythians so I can now use their units next turn.

The reason this so amuses me is because they are at war with Rome so I can attack Rome w/o dragging myself into a war with them directly.

This makes the barbarians more than just a group you knock out for sites or buffing units, they’re also potential allies who sort of are more useful than a major nation alliance because you get to use their units to attack others you’re not at war with. I wonder if they drag you into wars like Greece did my last campaign that went up in flames?!

Edit: killed a couple of Romans and then the Scythians decided to end our alliance, haha

I’m still lousy at this. I guess my play style is just war oriented. I mean I work on completing these but there’s no way I’d ever have 7 of them done by year 78. I’m at year 74 and have a whopping 3 done, haha. I really get fixated on relative military strength and build military probably a bit too much. Yet even with 20 units all of which have been promoted a couple times Rome still shows as stronger (everyone else is weaker).

Thanks for the AAR, that sounds like a glorious defeat. ;)

I had no clue until Soren posted about it, and it’s great to see that you actually made use of this ability. Fun! Sort of like having privateers. :)

It’s interesting how different people treat the Ambitions. Me, if I see a quest staring me in the face, I … must … do … it. Maybe you should adopt Ambitions that are more suited to warmongering peace through strength.

Sounds good! I’ve been comparing notes with other players on the Discord, and it’s fun to see what other people do. Some people are much better at this game than I am. :)

Hey how do I access the discord? Is it the same thing as the OldWorld forum you posted a link to a while ago or something different?

There is also a link to Discord down in the bottom-right corner of the main menu screen

I’ve been playing around with the settings, including randomizing the families for each nation. Which has led to my thinking about which families I think the best and the worst. So as a conversation starter, I thought I’d write down my list.

  1. Champions - Clearly better than the other military families. If you can roll though the barbarians at the start and easily fend off tribes thoughout the game, the game is a ton easier. And that is what “Steadfast” does for you. And you get this in ALL of the family’s cities.

  2. Sages - It’s not that tech dominates this game as it does so many 4X games, but it is one of the balls that requires juggling. And simply having inquiry in the family’s founding city pretty much takes care of your tech needs for the entire game. Especially if you make sure that city has strong civics. I just give them a good governor, and set inquiry to repeat endlessly.

  3. Landowners - A bit situational, in that you have to have the right bonus tiles in the city, but it sure makes cranking out settlers and workers easy. A necessity for a quick start.

  4. Clerics - Not having to worry about founding a religion is very, very nice, given how advantageous holy cities are for building wonders. Cheap disciples are nice, too, given how you can use them to add to your orders. But the clerics are nowhere near as good as the top 3 because they are a PITA, and for whatever reason, the other nations do not seem to grab a religion very quickly in this game.

  5. Hunters - Offers almost as good a bonus to all ranged troops as Champions get against barbs. And ranged troops are decent in this game, not being horribly squishy. But there is no variety of ranged troop that can act as a big eraser against cavalry or infantry. Still, not a terrible military solution, and has some growth potential in cities with camps and nets.

  6. Artisans - A distant sixth, but they offer several small benefits, the best of which is probably the +2 culture per city, which gets culture moving passively from the get-go. An initial worker is also helpful. The bonus to mines and lumbermills is marginal – if you have enough natural resources, it will hardly matter, and if you don’t have enough natural resources, 20% won’t solve the problem. It would be nice if the shortend time to build urban improvements applied beyond the founding city…

  7. Traders - In my experience so far, money does not make this world go around.

  8. Statemen - Bonuses doled out in such a manner that they never matter. You get +1 order per stateman city – but initally the one makes little difference, and by the time you get a second or a fourth, you find that once again you are at a point in the game that it does not matter much. Ditto with the civics, which I find the rarest thing to run short of. Actually, the initial treasury might be their most significant feature, but meh.

  9. Riders - Outside of giving you an extra scout for the early game, a total disaster. The other nations build tons of Spears, turning your horses into dog food. And steadfast is so much better for dealing with barbs. A small amount of cavalry for mopping up rows of damaged units is great, but a cavalry based military is a disaster.

Crossing my fingers that someone is going to point out some big advantage to my lower ranks families, that I have missed up until now. :)

Militia. Why?

Not much military might, but it does reduce discontent by 1 by being a unit from that family in that city. While being cheap.