To begin sorting out my thoughts on the bigger picture, there are many elements of Old World’s design that are brilliant, with the resource systems, character systems, and event systems all being excellent, and probably the best idea being that some choices provide “qualitative” options as opposed to simple “quantitative” bonuses (for example, certain things unlocking hurry options, or buy tiles options or various other functionalities). So those are all big advances.
The weaknesses IMO, fall into 3 big categories and are all IMO somewhat subjective: all 3 of the things I mention are going to be impact different players differently depending on their preferences, and also for some players, how their brain works.
The 3 categories are:
The Chick Parabola, already discussed at length. For those players who care a lot about an interactive competition with the AI as opposed to treating the AI like a Black Box as @Strollen mentioned, this is a big problem. Even if you don’t care about that as much, this issue does make balancing the game and finding the right level of AI challenge hard: the AI needs so much help to get going that it’s hard to find a sweet spot. For me this is only a moderate level problem but a severe problem for folks like Tom.
The Black Hole of Min/Maxery also known as Attractive Nuisance for OCD or ADHD folks. This game has a shitload of small to medium to large bonuses, which require a really stupendous amount of effort to maximize. A game breaking, headache-inducing, groans of frustration and disgust level of effort for some of us. Many folks say “oh just don’t worry about MAXIMIZING stuff.” But that’s just not how my brain works. Just as Tom will say in regard to AI “Why have a system in the game that the AI cannot use well?” I will say “Why have a system in the game that’s not enjoyable or interesting for the player to min/max?” If you don’t want the players to min/max don’t create the systems that offer that. Full stop. If you want to introduce the systems, don’t make them a hellscape of micromanagment and unforseeable “Oh Shit I put that thing in the wrong place now my city is RUINED!!!”. Some of us have brains wired that way. This game kept kicking me in the cerebral equivalent of the sensitive spot in that regard. Fewer bonuses that did more (for example, big bonuses for mines on hills good, little bonuses for adjacency bad) would be vastly better. For others this may not be a big deal, but for me, it just fucking kills me in almost every game of Old World I play. At some point, I end up looking at my civ and saying “what a piece of non-optimal crap” and just quitting without finishing. That may be on me, but it’s pretty deeply rooted.
And third, If You Require Too Many Steps to Effectuate a Decision, the Decision is No Longer Interesting. Soren has talked about how his keystone philosophy is the Sid Meier concept of giving the player interesting decisions to make, with which I wholeheartedly agree. And much of Old World does in fact accomplish that, in spades, and in new ways that redefine the genre. Those decisions that give the player new functionality or qualitative changes to gameplay, for example, are GREAT. But IMO Soren went too far and broke things down too much and added too much and just generally went over the line Bruce articulated 20 years ago in his “Detail vs. Realism” article on the old Game Domain website. Except in this case it’s not the detail of refueling the WWII fighter planes that gums up the works but the detail of just having to make too fucking many decisions, needing to click too many boxes, being forced to do way too many steps, to effectuate a big decision in this game. If you force the player to make too many little decisions to implement a Big Decision, that’s not longer interesting. I’m a strong believer in “deep but elegant” gameplay, of which Civ IV was a masterpiece (albeit dated and flawed by modern standards). Old World delivers the depth. Oh boy, does it deliver the depth. It makes other heavy duty strat games look like shallow losers by comparison. But Old World is not elegant. Whatever the opposite of “elegant” in this context (the mathematical concept of “elegance”) is, Old World is that.
That may sound overall negative but honestly my views are more mixed than that. There’s truly great stuff in there, genre-redefining stuff, addictive stuff, awesome stuff. But man, there’s some pain in the design as well, especially for my preferences and for my brain.
