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

As far as I know it’s just so you don’t have to manually scout with them. I usually don’t have the orders to spare so not something I’ve used.

Why wouldn’t that be unlocked from the get-go then? Why wouldn’t I be able to set my scouts to automate from the very beignning?

Seems like a pretty odd design choice to lock an interface convenience behind a tech, which is why I’m asking. I’m surprised if that’s the case. When I unlocked it, I assumed it was to spare me spending the orders. I was disappointed many turns later to discover that my scouts have been using up orders the entire time. :(

-Tom

That’s a Q I don’t have the A for, unfortunately. :( Automating scouts in general seems… I don’t know, not odd, exactly. Just not something I’ve ever wanted to use, not with the Orders system. I think it would be cool if it gave some sort of discount given it is locked behind a tech, as you pointed out. Would make it something I might consider using more often.

Those are council positions and not courtiers.

I don’t think courtiers come from techs. In my experience they come mostly from family seats and whatnot. I’d have to dig around to figure out the specifics, but their presence will vary from game to game, and I’m pretty sure they’re a facet of your family choices.

I don’t think “personality traits” affect eligibility, although the term “trait” seems to be synonymous with “archetype” in the civiliopedia. Which means I’m not sure what you call the elements of personality like greedy, thoughtful, righteous, cruel, etc. But I’m 99% positive eligibility is entirely a matter of the character’s archetype, which is sort of like a class in an RPG: judge, hero, schemer, and so forth. Archetypes can exclude or require certain “personality traits”, though.

Again, that’s your council, not your court. Seems like courtiers are just family options to squeeze a bit of a bonus from a character’s stats and presumably make him or her like you more.

-Tom

Thanks for correcting the terminology I used, I’ll update my post! I meant Council when I was saying Court positions. :)

Yeah, I’m mixing up terminology again, thanks! I was referring to stuff like Judge, Hero, etc. when I was talking about traits. It’s been a couple weeks since I last played so the terms are a bit muddled in my head, I think.

Not sure if answered already, but how do you lose a game, and how do you win a game? Is this a thing? If I know how I lose a game, usually I know, what to do in a game.

F1 brings up all the ways to win the game, along with your progress in each category. Bascially, barring non-default set-ups, you win by a) having more and better cities than your opponents, or b) completing 10 ambitions, which are like quests.

You lose by realizing you’re not going to win and starting another game. :)

Note there’s a setting when you start a game to determine whether the AI will try to keep anyone from winning. It’s called “Play to Win”. The default is off. So unless you mess with that, this is basically a race game in which all the nations are perfectly happy minding their own business and coming in last place.

-Tom

There’s multiple victory objectives which an be toggled in the game settings. Off the top of my head you can win by accumulating enough Victory Points or completing 10 ambitions. Victory Points are accumulated through a lot of different things. Building Wonders grants them, having culturally developed cities, etc.

You lose the game if you get wiped out or the 200 turns are up and you’re behind on VPs. I’ve also lost a game when I died without an heir, but that’s only happened once.

There’s also an option (I believe the default is “on”) where once you have half the required VP’s to win, it’s an automatic win if you have twice as many as your closest competitor.

I know you get victory points from cities based on their cultural levels and wonders of the world, but what are some of the other things? Maybe I haven’t played enough, but it looks to me like those are the only things that give you victory points. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover there are other ways waiting in the wings.

Oh, man, that must have stung. How did you manage to back yourself into that corner? Or did your leader die unexpectedly or something?

-Tom

Q: What determines the boost cards put into your tech draw deck? Is that something I can influence or control?

I like the idea, but as with any card-based gameplay that involves drawing from and reshuffling a deck, I’d like to have some understand of what’s in the deck and how it gets there.

-Tom

EDIT: Ah, I think I figured it out:

A: Certain techs list the bonus card they’ll add to your next tech draw after you research that tech. It’s displayed in the tooltip on the tech tree. Although the tooltip says these cards are “permanently trashed when discarded”, that doesn’t seem accurate. They cycle into your discard pile just fine when you don’t use them. Seems the more accurate description would be “permanently trashed when used”. Which is the same as every other tech – you don’t redraw techs you’ve previously selected – so I’m a bit confused why it’s presented that way.

Just a couple really unfortunate events. Thankfully it was very early in the game so not much lost there and I haven’t encountered that situation since, so I’m guessing it’s not common. Usually if I don’t have an heir I get events to adopt and that sort of thing. I also wasn’t aware at the time there’s different succession laws, so changing those may have got me out of the jam.

Indeed but I discovered yesterday that if you double your nearest opponent but that score is less than 50% of the VP target then you don’t win until your reach the 50% score. In case that’s not clear, I was on 26 with my nearest opponent on 13 but I couldn’t win until I got to 31 because the VP victory target was 62. In other words, you can’t win as early as you want to this way, even if you are miles ahead.

We debated having the Automate option at all as it doesn’t necessarily fit well with the Orders system. We felt that enough people wanted something like it that we added it at the end, but we stuck it behind a tech to make sure people don’t shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak, at the beginning of the game. (We are adding an option, not sure if it’s in yet, to have automated units not move until the END of your turn, so they will only take action if you have extra orders left.)

Archetypes are Traits - they are basically special Traits that you can only get one of, and they unlock what jobs the characters can perform.

You lose if the AI hits the VP threshold in the upper right (besides city culture level and wonders, you can also get VPs for end-game techs). It’s sort of like a dynamic timer that might end your game early if one AI grows too big.

For most players, I would focus on Ambitions as the way to win. Basically, finish 10 Ambitions, and you win the game.

They are put in your discard pile when they are first unlocked (by researching the tech that unlocks them). They are permanently discarded if you don’t choose them, so you only get one shot at them.

Now, this may have changed since Early Access, but say you researched stone cutting, That opens up the stone boost card. If you have the option to research stone boost and you don’t take it you lose it forever.

Edit: Posted while Soren was posting. I’m glad we said the same thing. LOL

Question 1: For us day 1 early access players is there a master list of all the changes made since the first version?.

I started with Egypt and built a quarry on river expecting a 40% bonus, only to find Egypt has been nerfed and they only get the bonus to farms.

Question #2. When will we have the new Tin Tunes?

Oh, jeez. They patched weekly and those notes are linked in their Discord. I don’t know if a high level summary of what all changed. It was quite a bit.