Old World (PC) (Civ-like strategy game)

[Osprey]

This looks and sounds really good. It's seemingly a cross between Civilization and Crusader Kings, or Civ-like gameplay but with CK-like dynasty roleplaying. It's from the lead designer of Civilization III & IV and Offworld Trading Company. It also features a soundtrack by Christopher Tin, the guy who made the terrific soundtrack for Civ IV.



This wasn't even on my radar and was released yesterday. Unfortunately, it's exclusive to the Epic Games Store (Edit: apparently, they lost their publisher and funding a year ago and Epic's deal saved them), but the reviews are very good, including an 87/100 from PC Gamer:

Old World review | PC Gamer

Despite its understated victories, Old World is a brilliant 4X, and one that I'd actually recommend over Civilization at the moment. It feels like a genuine step forward for the genre, boasting so many inventive, smart design decisions. And I can't believe I've reached the end of the review before even mentioning the exceptional soundtrack from composer Christopher Tin. Civ 4's Baba Yetu might still be my favourite of his pieces, but Old World is full of evocative orchestral and choral compositions. There's a lot to love here, and if you've got an itch to conquer the ancient world you absolutely need to give this a shot.

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[RandV]

One thing I don't see covered is what are the game options like? Is it just a single 200-turn Mediterranean map but with different difficulty levels, like Crusader Kings or Total War, or do you have a wide variety of game options and random map settings like Civ? I would hope they have all the random options but considering there's only 7 leaders to pick from I'm worried it's just the single map, and that would be a damn shame.

 

[Osprey]

One thing I don't see covered is what are the game options like? Is it just a single 200-turn Mediterranean map but with different difficulty levels, like Crusader Kings or Total War, or do you have a wide variety of game options and random map settings like Civ? I would hope they have all the random options but considering there's only 7 leaders to pick from I'm worried it's just the single map, and that would be a damn shame.

My first thought is that I actually kind of like that because it adds to the historicity. I like the feeling of playing out history and I don't get so much of that feeling unless the map is historical. I wouldn't want to play Crusader Kings on a randomly generated map. Even in Civs going back to the 90s, if I'm given a choice of choosing a map of the Earth to play on, I'll usually choose that, just to try to squeeze as much of the feeling that I'm conquering the real world as I can.

Now, that said, I can see how having a single map might get a little boring and limit the game's replayability eventually, at least for many people. Hopefully, in addition to the main Mediterranean map, there's also a random generation option or, at least, other hand-crafted maps. It might even be smart to have maps of other regions of the world, so that people could play out less historical scenarios, like conquering North America with the Greeks, for example.

 

[RandV]

My first thought is that I actually kind of like that because it adds to the historicity. I like the feeling of playing out history and I don't get so much of that feeling unless the map is historical. I wouldn't want to play Crusader Kings on a randomly generated map. Even in Civs going back to the 90s, if I'm given a choice of choosing a map of the Earth to play on, I'll usually choose that, just to try to squeeze as much of the feeling that I'm conquering the real world as I can.

Now, that said, I can see how having a single map might get a little boring and limit the game's replayability eventually, at least for many people. Hopefully, in addition to the main Mediterranean map, there's also a random generation option or, at least, other hand-crafted maps. It might even be smart to have maps of other regions of the world, so that people could play out less historical scenarios, like conquering North America with the Greeks, for example.

Yeah you want to have the historic Earth map option available but to get Civ-level replayability you need the random map, otherwise you lose the "Explore" part of 4X.

With Paradox games, the map is drilled down into such fine detail that you can make do with the one map. Total War games pad their time out with the big real time values so you can play a long time on the single map. But for more of a Civ-like game though with the hex grid and looks like similar combat and city conquest the single map isn't going to work. Like you can start a game as Philip and conquer Rome, then next start a game as Dido and conquer... the same Rome. With only 7 civ's/leaders to choose from, then with a 200 turn limit so I'm assuming games take 5-10 hours to complete, as it is you're probably only going to get 30-50 hours out of the game.

I see now that it's just in early access, so I'll have to assume there's still plenty more to be added.

 

[Osprey]

Yeah you want to have the historic Earth map option available but to get Civ-level replayability you need the random map, otherwise you lose the "Explore" part of 4X.

Good point about the exploration.

I see now that it's just in early access, so I'll have to assume there's still plenty more to be added.

No, it was released a couple of days ago. After all, PC Gamer officially reviewed and scored it. It is kind of strange that their early access lasted less than two months, but it seems like it was the plan and they just treated it as an open beta period to make sure that there weren't any game breaking bugs in their nearly final game. I kind of like that release model as opposed to the "in early access for 3-4 years" model.

 

[Villella McMeans]

Yeah, it too bad only 7 races to choose from, but the game is called Old World the old world being what Europe is referred to now - there will most likely be add ons maybe a new world add on for the new world and all the indigenous races there, then maybe a far east and on for all the Yental races etc.

This game looks good though with a different game play from what we used to with turn based strategy games that they pointed out in the trailer.

For me the most interesting difference is being able to use all you moves once for each of your units or use whatever moves you have all on one unit or whatever combination you want - like if you don't move a unit your other unit can have that extra move.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

I keep hearing how the game's performance just tanks like 50 or 60 turns in, no matter the PC it's being played on.

 

[RandV]

Yeah, it too bad only 7 races to choose from, but the game is called Old World the old world being what Europe is referred to now - there will most likely be add ons maybe a new world add on for the new world and all the indigenous races there, then maybe a far east and on for all the Yental races etc.

"Old World" is basically just focusing the time line on the classical era, no reason beyond that why it needs to stick to a single classical map. Civ V and Civ VI (not sure about earlier) both have a conversion mod called Anno Domino that basically does the same thing.

Really what it comes down to though is games like Paradox or Total War have very hand crafted map that has a lot of underlying elements built in like trade routes and such (I'm much more familiar with Total War here). Extensive mods can create custom maps, like the Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings, but otherwise it's not an easy task to auto-generate those worlds. I don't know what kind of underlying details go into Old World here, but it's a Civ-like hex based map where this tile is a mountain and this tile is desert and this tile is a coast etc etc, thing it should be trivial to add in a random map generator. They must have a tool created they used to build the map, and with that any decent modder could write a script to randomly build a world with it.

I have a really hard time understanding why this wouldn't be a feature so unless they say otherwise I have to assume it will be in there at some point. I would suspect that as this is a brand new release and apparently they're having performance issues at launch they could be keeping a single map while they tune things up.

 

[Osprey]

It does appear to have map generation. There's a "Premade Map" option, which lets you pick from a few real world maps like The Mediterranean and The Middle East, and then there's a "Random Map" option, which lets you choose the map type (coastal, archipelago, plateau, continent, etc.) and the map size (small to huge). It doesn't have the advanced options that Civ VI has (like picking your opponents and the abundance of resources), but the basic options are there and maybe advanced options will come in time.

 

[RandV]

It does appear to have map generation. There's a "Premade Map" option, which lets you pick from a few real world maps like The Mediterranean and The Middle East, and then there's a "Random Map" option, which lets you choose the map type (coastal, archipelago, plateau, continent, etc.) and the map size (small to huge). It doesn't have the advanced options that Civ VI has (like picking your opponents and the abundance of resources), but the basic options are there and maybe advanced options will come in time.

Yes that sold me on buying in and playing around with it for a few days I see it has everything I want - map scripts and already existing mods that change game play(like allowing to settle anywhere), add more map scripts, add new Civs & units, etc etc.

Initially I didn't like the idea of having designated city locations, but having put some hours in I think I see what they're going for and it really exposes a flaw in Civ V/VI that I've heard other people bring up but hadn't really noticed myself: intentionally designing the game to limit the number of units on the map. In Old World you have much more space on the battle fields and units are far more mobile, which makes it much easier for the AI to figure out as they can focus on killing one unit at a time while retreating their own units to heal. My first time at war here the Greeks were occupied with the Assyrians so I sent my 3 units to their exposed city to pillage, harass, and maybe get a few kills in like I would in Civ V/VI... and then after a couple turns to respond the AI just easily batted me away. Battles in Old World are much larger with much more attrition and with more capable AI, so should be a significant improvement over Civ here.

One thing in my current game I can't really figure out is what exactly to do with minor tribes. I'm friendly with the Thracians to the West, even married my current king to one of them, and have peace with the Vandals to the East... but I'm getting the impression all they do is provide some shallow meaningless diplomacy options while squatting on city locations blocking your expansions. I have some units ready to clear the Vandals out to settle a city but I'm going to take a diplomacy/happiness hit if I break the peace treaty and it's hard to determine what exactly that means.

I'm also confused about the difference between founding/adopting an actual religion and just sticking with my cultural paganism. Overall there's a lot here to figure out and the resources for that aren't very good right now.