I’m getting back into the game after playing way back when, when it released on Epic. I have one more tutorial in the learning to play section. Would you recommend going to a random map game or the Rise of Carthage campaign? I’m thinking random map may be better to learn the game so I don’t get thrown off by scripted events, but if the campaign is really good or meant to teach the game better I could do that. I just cracked open the manual too.
Some people have started with the campaign but I think it’s more enjoyable if you first have a grasp on the basic mechanics and play a couple of regular games. The campaign’s definitely not intended as a tutorial.
I just finished my first game back from a long hiatus. Played on The Good difficulty. My usual Civ strategy of building ‘just enough’ military units got me into some trouble. After my initial expansion - I jot up to 7 cities after taking out some tribe cities, I ran into the Greeks. It didn’t take too long for them to get aggressive, but I was able to defend. I couldn’t mount an offensive though. A while later, Carthage came from the other side with a much bigger force and grabbed one of my cities.
I was able to make peace with them and concentrated on beefing up my relations using trade. I decided I wasn’t going to be able to expand in either direction and focused on keeping the neighbors happy and going for an ambition with - which I got in turn 149. Carthage was around 12 points away from a VP win.
I don’t know how much has changed since I last played. It felt the same, but I know there were many changes. My overall opinion has stayed consistent too. There is a lot to like in Old World and I really enjoy the 4Xiness of it - the maps, resource system, developing my cities, military, orders. But, the character system demands wayyyyy to much attention (at least on default settings). I feel like I’m constantly getting messages to upgrade this person, another person is born, another died, replace a governor, etc… I’m trying to get back to the cool 4X I’m playing. Sometimes it feels like I need to click through a dozen pop ups before I can get back to the 4X portion.
Also, looking through the characters, trying to determine who I need to like me more gets tedious. It would be nice if there was some type of notification or easy way to get suggestions for who to influence, change religion, etc… I’m not a fan of Crusader Kings, so I hope CK doesn’t keep influencing other strategy games.
Clearly, I think I’m in the minority as a ton of people like CK and the character interaction in Old World. There is so much good in the game that I’m inclined to try and find my happy balance with the settings to see if I can make the characters and events more of small diversion instead of an equal partner of the 4X portion.
What settings should I tinker with? I tend to like to play games the closest to the designer’s intended vision, but I think I need to adjust something.
Mortality to lengthy so I don’t need to deal with so much turnover?
Turn Scale?
Maybe turning the Event Level to low would be enough?
I don’t know if I want to go as far as turning on the No Characters option - maybe at some point to check it out.
Thanks! I don’t mean to sound overly negative but I don’t want to give up on Old World since there is so much to like!
These are all worth exploring if you don’t want to give up on Old World yet! Why not just try a No Characters game for a while to see if it addresses your concerns about the workload? I tried a No Events game once and it was fascinating to watch the design unfold stripped of one of its core features. It felt kind of naked, but definitely easier to manage. I would be curious how the game feels to you if it’s stripped of the feature you’re finding problematic.
However, if I were to pinpoint the one thing Old World does that no other game does, it’s the characters. Or, more specifically, the way it builds narratives from the connections among three dramatically different scales: geopolitical, social, and personal. No other game does this is as well and I can think of very few that even attempt it. And certainly no other game does it within the context of an elegant Civ-style strategy game. So if you’re finding that personal layer adds too much busywork for you, rather than cutting out that layer and compromising one of the game’s core principles, it’s possible that this design just doesn’t work for you.
Still, I would be curious how you feel about a No Character game. And you seem to have the right instincts for how to play with the settings (extended mortality and low events should shift the focus to more basic strategy gameplay).
-Tom
I suggest making a single change: just dial events down to Low. This will preserve the events and characters as a feature, and also preserve the lifespan based timing, but will dial down your level of event-management by like 50%. I routinely play with events set to Low and you still get the feature, but with less frequency. It’s very manageable on low, IMO.
That is going to be my first change because I want to make as minimal changes as possible, but also get rid of the annoyances. If that isn’t enough I will try more options. Like @tomchick mentions, at some point I think I will try a No Character game just to see what it is like.
I wonder if by decreasing events the my character’s stats would be as good because I won’t have as many chances to improve them. Hopefully it makes each improvement more substantial.
I am wondering if it will feel a little stripped down without such a big part of the game if I try No Characters, but I think I will at some point. Just trying to dial in a good setting with minimal changes at first.
This is exactly what will happen. Events are almost always good in Old World. There are some bad ones, but the effect of events overall is a big net boost to the player.
That the AI doesn’t get, by the way! I suspect most players don’t really appreciate that, which is one of the many challenges the AI folks at Mohawk have had to rise to meet. It’s pretty amazing to me how well this game’s AI performs these days, especially considering how transparent it is. The poor AI couldn’t cheat if it wanted to! :)
-Tom
I don’t recall if the issue of the command to build roads to a destination (CTRL + R) came up in this thread but I find out something today. You can chain commands in Old World using Shift and that does apply to road building. Shift + CTRL + R will let you set up a series of road building commands - “build to point A, then point B, then point C etc.”
Just FYI. Very handy for big road networks.
I want to get into Old World. Can anyone recommend any tutorial videos? Alternatively, is there an up to date manual? Please and thank you.
Perhaps the AI should get stat boots based on rates humans get it, and difficulty level?
thanks everyone!
Well, Mohawk definitely made good on all this! I’ve been slowly working through the tutorials and they’ve been fantastic. Not much more to add just yet but I’m grateful they’re there now and I feel like I have a much better handle on a lot of things already.
An aside: I was just choosing my next research path and saw ‘Border Boost’ (+6 border tiles to all cities). Huh, that sounds useful but… how do I know which 6 tiles for each city? Well I noticed this:
The extra blue border to my north with the little green arrows pushing out? Boom, there’s the boost (and one more tile over to the west out of sight). And that was on each city so I knew exactly how the boost would benefit me. I love stuff like that.
It was also a nice surprise seeing ‘learnt’ in the tutorial instead of ‘learned’ :)
That’s awesome!
So many nice touches like this! The one I recently noticed is the tiny builder icon on improvements in progress when a) you have a worker selected and b) your leader is a builder:
That bug head icon on the upper left means your leader is a builder, which gives your workers the unique ability to stack up and simultaneously construct buildings. The icon is just reminding you, “Hey, you have a Builder in charge, so don’t forget you can stack up your workers on this improvement currently being built!” That wasn’t there when the game came out, but at some point, Mohawk put in the perfect discrete reminder to help people play Builders better. It’s so very, well…chef’s kiss.
-Tom
Thanks to that icon I’ve been getting a lot more used from builders than I did when I played before
I found the micro really heavy towards mid/end game - any tips on controlling it? Should I just let go of my OCD and automate workers?
I really wish the automate commands came earlier or were well, automatic, for that reason.
I’ve never used the automation, but if you use it, please report back how well it works for you. Once you get several cities with several workers, there is a ton to keep track of,
I wonder if maybe slowing the rate of research would slow the amount of available improvements and projects, making it feel less overwhelming?
-Tom
heh, i usually feel research is too slow! i rarely make it to the end of the tree and unless I play babylon and really focus on science I dont get much use from the late stage techs I do unlick.