The Old World, a new Civ-like from Soren Johnson

[crazy canuck]

Got killed in my next tutorial game which was a higher setting.
Anyway gonna play for real now.

Quick question. You know how when you discover an empty city tile you can place a unit on it to safeguard it. Can it be any unit? Even workers or scouts?

Scouts are the best way to do it, but it can be anything

[Jacob]

Yeah scouts are probably the best. What I usually do is park a Scout there and then - on turns where I have excess orders - range out and collect a few resources before ranging back to the spot.

Sometimes I'll move a military unit into position to camp it, if it makes sense for that unit to garrison the city once it's built. That'll free the Scout up to do more Scouting/ resource collecting. It's usually low on the priority list for orders, but it's there.

[Josephus]

I made a newbie mistake with that   I had a scout sitting on a city spot for a while. I had a settler coming. His last turn had him two tiles away, so I figured close enough, and moved my scout away. On the AI turn, some chariot dude I didn't see comes in and takes the spot away from me. 

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, one of the first things you learn is how well the AI prioritizes occupying the empty city sites

[Jacob]

On the other hand, I've had some good moments sharking city sites from AI as well. When they're clearing out a barbarian site, if you have a few military units around you can hold back and time your attacks to occupy the site. And don't feel bad about it, the AI will do the same to you.

Occasionally I've also had some good luck with a Scout hidden somewhere near an occupied city site and the AI (foolishly) moves off for a moment. Yoink.

[crazy canuck]

On the other hand, I've had some good moments sharking city sites from AI as well. When they're clearing out a barbarian site, if you have a few military units around you can hold back and time your attacks to occupy the site. And don't feel bad about it, the AI will do the same to you.

Occasionally I've also had some good luck with a Scout hidden somewhere near an occupied city site and the AI (foolishly) moves off for a moment. Yoink.

Yeah, its the thing that makes the game mechanic less frustrating.  At first I thought the AI cheated by calculating how to go directly to the empty sites and occupy them, but with enough time spent playing I realized that it does not race immediately to the sites and it can be outmaneuvered with good game play.

One of the things I enjoy about the game 

[Josephus]

OW releasing new DLC that's bringing it closer to CKIII

t's a new playground for those who love the intricate dance of court life. We're bringing to the table mechanics that spotlight the characters' ambitions and the high stakes of court politics. Expect to tackle the challenges of keeping your ruler's rivals in check, all while managing the stresses that come with power. And yes, there's revelry involved – because what's court life without a bit of scandalous fun?

But there's more:
Over 350 new events focused on intrigue, personal ambitions, and the complex politics of court life.
More than ten new character traits, including "Stressed," "Impulsive," and "Unpopular," add new layers to character dynamics.
Introduction of goals and ambitions that reflect the deep motivations and desires of your court's key figures.
Strategic projects like Estates, Slums, and the "Opulence" project provide new ways to expand and enrich your kingdom.
Six historical characters introduced as "Rising Stars", who can either become indispensable allies or formidable rivals.
New character portraits and event art enhance game immersion, vividly bringing the stories and characters of Old World to life.

[Jacob]

Interesting.

While I like the RPG elements to the Old World, I still play it primarily as a strategy game so I'm not sure how much this is up my alley. But maybe....

[mongers]

There was a big patch 8 days ago, something like 360mb to apply to the game.

PC Games News

Historical 4X game Old World makes ambition victories easier in new update

An Old World update reworks difficulty settings in the historical 4X strategy game, makes ambition victory easier, and tweaks Grand Viziers.

Historical 4X game Old World alters difficulty and makes ambition victory easier in new update - A bearded man before a hex-grid map.
Ken Allsop

Published: 6 days ago

With Civilization 7 just around the corner, you'd be forgiven for having a real itch for a great 4X game, and the latest Old World update might just be the solution. Built by Mohawk Games and published by Hooded Horse, it blends all the exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating that you love with more personality-driven events and drama in the vein of grand strategy games such as Crusader Kings 3. Whether you're already a fan or have yet to try it, the fresh Old World update makes its ambition victory easier to achieve, reworks Grand Viziers from its most recent DLC, and clears up some confusion around difficulty settings.



Old World is a 4X game that might have flown under your radar against the sheer might of Civ 7, but if our recent Civilization 7 preview has you desperate to play something right now, it's certainly a solid challenger that's worth trying. Its penchant for more character-led storytelling around families and dynasties brings a dynamic that Civ's more grand-scale focus generally doesn't touch upon.

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In its new update, Mohawk Games has expanded crowning ambitions, giving you more choices in many of the events to increase your potential options. You should find more such ambitions available, and that increased variety should make it a little easier to reach the ten completed ambitions required to net yourself the eponymous victory (a more goal-based way to win than simply wiping out your opponents or racking up more victory points). You can also choose whether you want to enable shared alliance victories when setting up a game.

Grand Viziers, introduced with the Behind the Throne expansion pack, have been heavily reworked based on player feedback. They'll now take charge in any of your cities that are without a named governor, but will only control the production in those specific locations. All other Grand Vizier yields have been removed, and the cities they're managing can no longer rush buy.

Mohawk has also renamed several of its difficulty settings to help improve clarity between presets and individual settings. The 'advanced setup difficulty' setting is now called 'prosperity,' difficulty components are now grouped together, and settings outside of the simple presets are now displayed as 'custom.'

Old World - Event screen for the Rise of Carthage.

This latest Old World update is out now. There are even more tweaks to be found in the full patch notes courtesy of Mohawk Games, such as requiring a scheming leader to be able to use the 'ask to declare war' action, or needing to be on friendly or neutral territory to take advantage of territory-specific bonuses such as added defenses and faster movement.

For myself I've had my first session playing the game, 4 hours of the tutorials, very enjoyable.
And as has been mentioned, less micro-management is nice.

For a newbie, what's the difficulty level that we only leave you with a very small chance of winning?

That's my general approach to strategy games.

Steam Page announcement:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/597180/view/543346800751280244?curator_clanid=3693985

Old World Update: New Crowning Ambitions and Grand Vizier Rework
From better governance to new victory paths — change is in the air.
Build 1.0.75717 brings several adjustments to the Stable Branch based on player feedback. Difficulty settings have been renamed to better differentiate between preset modes and custom configurations, with custom settings now clearly displayed in-game, along with a breakdown of their individual components.

Crowning ambitions have been expanded, offering more choices in events to increase the variety and make ambition victories easier to achieve. The Grand Vizier role has been reworked: they now serve as governors in cities without a named governor, focusing solely on production management in those locations. This simplifies their function while aligning with their intended purpose.

Other changes include updates to war declaration missions, improved AI decision-making, UI improvements for tooltips and notifications, and a wide range of bug fixes addressing issues with events, ambitions, and gameplay scenarios.

Build 1.0.75717's Headline Changes
Difficulty Settings Renamed: Difficulty settings were renamed to make the difference between presets and individual settings clearer. Settings outside the preset are now shown as 'Custom' difficulty in the game with a breakdown of the individual settings.
Crowning Ambitions: Increased variety of crowning ambitions. This should make winning an Ambition victory easier and more varied.
Grand Vizier Changes (Behind the Throne): A big change to Grand Viziers based on player feedback: they now act as governors in all cities without a named governor and only control production in these cities.

Design
Difficulty Rename
The Advanced Setup Difficulty setting is now called Prosperity.
The Simple Setup Difficulty presets remain unchanged.
Difficulty components are now grouped together and indented under the difficulty mode in the game parameters tooltip.
Difficulty is displayed as "Custom" for combinations outside of the simple difficulty presets.
Distant raids are now tied to Tribe Level instead of Difficulty.
Achievements related to difficulty are now tied to Difficulty instead of Prosperity.
Changes to "Ask to Declare War" Mission
"Ask to Declare War" mission now requires a Leader with the Schemer archetype.
Removed mission tech requirement and lowered the opinion threshold to Cautious.
Mission disabled for allies.
New "Ask to Join War" mission added, which requires you to already be at war with the target. This mission requires Pleased opinion.
With Ruthless AI enabled, war requests will be denied if the player is close to victory.
Crowning Ambitions
Family preferences have been removed.
Most crowning ambition events now offer three choices instead of two.
Bug fixes have increased the variety of crowning ambitions available.
Alliance Victory
Alliance victory is now a setup option (default: off).
Unit and Territory Updates
Upgrading a unit retains its fortification state.
Units can no longer be gifted, converted, hired, or recruited into territories where they shouldn't be.
Units can now be upgraded inside cities owned by teammates, even if they are not your own.
Achievement Updates
The "Alexander the Great" achievement no longer requires the "Great" cognomen. It now requires only the destruction of Persia as Alexander.
Scenario Adjustments
Restrictions on marrying Libyans in the Rise of Carthage Scenario 1 have been removed.
The Random Improvements option now allows any combination of shrine effects instead of selecting a set from a random nation.
Gameplay Mechanics Adjustments
Launch Offensive can now be used from a unit with a rout cooldown. It also removes rout cooldowns from adjacent units.
Pathfinder trait adjustments:
Now gives a 50% bonus to Camps and Nets as Governor and a 20% bonus as Leader (previously 100/50%).
Maintenance costs swapped for the following:
Philosophy/Engineering.
Professional Army/Volunteers.
Neutral territory is now defined as:
Unclaimed.
Anarchy (city being captured).
Owned by a nation or tribe you are not at war with.
Territory-Specific Mechanics
Fort defensive bonus, road and exploration river movement, Hero and Fort healing, and Scout tree invisibility now require neutral or friendly territory.
Road and Fort construction requires friendly, unclaimed, or Anarchy territory.
Miscellaneous Updates
Added a regular reminder to complete the Influence goal in Learn to Play 3.
Characters with religion traits (e.g., Clergy, Mani) can no longer be targeted by conversion missions.
Conquered cities can no longer be given to a family that has not yet been founded.
Grand Vizier Rework (Behind the Throne)
Grand Vizier now acts as a governor in cities without a named governor, controlling production in those cities only.
All other Grand Vizier yields have been removed.
Grand Vizier-managed cities can no longer rush buy.
Grand Vizier courtiers are no longer giftable in multiplayer.
Unpopular Trait Update (Behind the Throne)
The Unpopular trait now gives a nationwide 5% rebel spawn chance.

Programming
AI performance optimization.
AI now builds fewer duplicate roads.
Improved AI decision-making for retreat versus attack scenarios.
Added more detailed logging for AI unit priority comparison failures.
Hall of Fame games now store the active player, ensuring consistency upon loading.
Replay functionality improved to work even if data is only from the current turn.
Removed improvement dynamic text objects from each tile to save memory.
Bonuses and EffectCities now provide only EffectUnits, not Promotions.
Promotions are now exclusive to units capable of gaining XP.
Unit effects from disabled promotions can now be assigned via bonuses and city effects.
Disabled implicit subject conversion for DiplomacySubjects bonuses.
Turn Lock function removed.

UI
Character tooltips no longer display trait effects.
All attacks are now listed under Units Attacked notifications (kills were previously omitted).
Free promotions are now indicated in the city production list and unit type tooltip.
"Death of Governor" decisions now auto-invalidate if the city can no longer have a governor.
Defeat status is displayed when the active player is eliminated in multiplayer, even if the game continues.
Event browser story previews improved.
Law strategy notes updated.
Added a minimize toggle to the player goals/ambitions display.
Red/green warning text for negative yields is inverted in some cases.
User-assigned hotkeys now offer more flexibility and can conflict with previously reserved keys.
Crowning ambitions are now marked with the legitimacy crown icon.
Missing keyboard shortcuts added to button help.
Improved Choose Governor tooltip.
Pillaged permanent improvements now display a pillaged icon.
Encyclopedia updated with various improvements.

Bugs Fixed
Fixed invalid moves adding undo points.
Fixed some events failing to appear with the Ruthless AI setting enabled.
Fixed player connection state UI for single-player network games.
Fixed Thracians in Learn to Play 4 being visible before they should be.
Fixed server games preventing eliminated players from rejoining one last time to see the outcome, and to save the game locally as a loss.
Fixed bug where the client could be in a different language than the active player.
Fixed Hall of Fame bug where regenerating replaced scenario-specific text with generic text for nation, leader names, and difficulty.
Fixed Hall of Fame difficulty sorting.
Fixed network messages being sent out of order.
Fixed achievement text referencing Kushite Cavalry instead of Mounted Lancers.
Fixed "Ten Crowns" achievement incorrectly counting regents twice.
Fixed improvement pings not appearing when law requirements were unmet.
Fixed vegetation help text to correctly state a ranged attack penalty.
Fixed possible array out-of-range error for bad event links.
Fixed bug preventing some Crowning Ambitions from appearing.
Fixed bug allowing ambitions to appear in events with random selections that should only appear in specific events.
Fixed cycle button position not updating shortcut keys and not being saved.
Fixed road pathfinding issues.
Fixed player start location bug in the desert map script and made start location picking more robust.
Fixed illegal urban tiles placed in mirror maps.
Fixed character ratings appearing with a divider in some cases.
Fixed research popup closing after using Redraw.
Fixed null reference in the encyclopedia.
Fixed duplicate Hall of Fame entries when reloading a completed cloud game.
Fixed character suffix bug where rulers incorrectly received the "II" suffix if a parent had the same name but never ruled.
Fixed incorrect suffix on Ptolemy II.
Fixed an event system bug that could very rarely deem valid subjects invalid.
Fixed tooltip expansion when hotkeys were changed.
Fixed order yield rates not updating when starting or finishing construction.
Fixed broken Civ Fanatics forum link on the main menu.
Fixed AI movement null reference.
Fixed several Portrait Editor bugs.
Fixed load/save bug for mods that give bonus EffectUnits.
Fixed duplicated Hittite portrait.
Fixed errors when loading saves with deprecated promotions.
Fixed incorrect memory display when giving a conquered city to a family.
Fixed opinion and legitimacy bonus from founding a family seat being applied more than once in some cases.
Fixed enlist effect not being cleared after use.
Fixed cases where opinion and legitimacy for founding a family seat could be applied multiple times for the same family.
Fixed spymaster context menus sometimes not appearing.
Fixed agent missions and network menus appearing for foreign spymasters.
Fixed formatting of tile and city tooltips.
Fixed improvements from inactive DLC showing up in build menus.
Fixed invalid improvements sometimes appearing under the Valid Improvements filter.
Fixed goals display spacing.
Fixed AI modified collection exception.
Fixed event audio issues.
Fixed trait loss triggering unrelated events.
Fixed tribal invasions getting stuck
Fixed Rise of Carthage Scenario 2 goals sometimes not being offered.
Fixed olive-counting goals in Rise of Carthage Scenarios 2 and 3.
Fixed Rise of Carthage starting heirs not being Royal and therefore not being tutorable.
Fixed Macedonia not receiving family promotions on starting units in Heroes of the Aegean Scenario 6.
Fixed a bug in Heroes of the Aegean Scenario 6.
Fixed Pharaohs of the Nile Scenario 2 event triggering multiple times.
Fixed Grand Vizier traits not affecting the cities where they are acting as governor (Behind the Throne).
Fixed some UI instances where the acting governor was treated as the actual governor (Behind the Throne).
Fixed unit widgets failing to display icons and shapes not included in their respective default sprite atlases (affects mods).
Fixed Generals not being removed when upgrading a unit to a type that cannot have one (affects mods).
Various text and event fixes.

[crazy canuck]

As a Newbie, even the lowest difficult will be challenging. The game mechanics take some learning. There is a lot going on.

[mongers]

As a Newbie, even the lowest difficult will be challenging. The game mechanics take some learning. There is a lot going on.

Thanks CC, I'll give that a try.

[Solmyr]

Also, your units WILL die in most conflicts (except maybe against a fairly weak tribe). A lot. This is not Civ where you can keep most of your units for hundreds of turns.