Is Old World any fun?

[MkLh]

I think it's a huge game potentially, but it's probably not for everyone. It's extremely slow paced (only 200 turns yes but those turns will take time) and it has plenty of building and plenty of depth.

 

[rlw33]

"Fun" is always subjective, I guess. Personally, I find it more addictive than Civ.

 

[steveg700]

I mean, I think anyone hanging around this forum is inclined to be positive.

I don't know how long the honeymoon period lasts. I do think the mechanic of camping a site with a scout then building a settler to travel there and claim it might need to go back to the drawing board. Lose the settlers, come up with some other mechanism for claiming the site. Something influence by proximity to other cities.

 

[PiR]

It's great fun, but (as with many complicated 4X games) it takes some getting used to. Expect your first few games to be little more than trial and error. Each new game you load up will have a sensation of, "oh, THAT'S how it works" and the game will slowly unravel. The first few games can therefore seem aimless or frustrating. It's definitely a game that requires some digging to find the treasure.

Isn't there any tutorial?

 

[Tokira]

Isn't there any tutorial?

There is a pretty good tutorial built into the game, but since the systems are quite complex it may take time to understand how they play together. All of this is a lot of information to take in in your first game. Besides, the tutorials may tell you how a certain system, character or resource works, but it doesn't tell you what you should do with it. For me, at least, figuring this out requires a bit of trial and error. After three games I feel like I'm beginning to understand optimal paths to victory.

 

[Taefin]

After a dozen or so games, I still can’t manage all the game’s systems at once, so in my last militaristic game, culture and discontent got largely neglected, so even as you are learning, focusing on a few game elements at a time, you aren’t even playing as sub-optimally as it feels. I quite like this about OW.

 

[Dale]

Isn't there any tutorial?

We're working on some stuff to help with onboarding new players. Hopefully some of that can be seen in the next few weeks.

 

[nolegskitten]

I mean, I think anyone hanging around this forum is inclined to be positive.

I don't know how long the honeymoon period lasts. I do think the mechanic of camping a site with a scout then building a settler to travel there and claim it might need to go back to the drawing board. Lose the settlers, come up with some other mechanism for claiming the site. Something influence by proximity to other cities.

there is a mechanic to make a minor city out of a site rather than settling a new city there. This is mostly a thing in OCC but can be very relevant when city sites are cramped together.

 

[Old World Fanatic]

I really like the diplomatic aspect of Old World. There is such tremendous value to managing relationships, to the point that one of the sometimes overlooked values of having a single-religion country is that you can have absolutely astonishing internal relations with all characters and families just on that.

And if you quickly spread your religion to a neighbour, they may too adopt that religion and you'll have an almost certain ally. Makes you feel like portugal, safely nestled up against spain.

The diplomacy with foreign nations is good too. It's very clear how to improve/worsen things. Sometimes it's just out of your control. Sometimes you can manage. It really sucks giving away resources, but there is no other game where I could justify the value of it better. It's also completely clear why someone hates me or goes to war with me, something I often found opaque in other civs and civ-likes. Wasn't Soren's wife a diplomat or something for a while? It shows. I also like that it fits with the overall game and diplomacy isn't the main focus.

The best part is the way adjecancies for yield, military considerations make the building and planning aspect very complex and satisfying.

I still wonder how many economy strategies there are, as I'm still exploring them, after about 500 hours of play if including pre-release.

 

[Chronicles]

I bought it a while ago, but only recently really set down to play it. I loved Civ4 and think Civ5 and 6, while fun, somehow failed to capture what made civ1-4 such great games. I find myself playing Civ5 and 6 on autopilot.

Now I'm hooked on Old World, though admittedly haven't played that much yet. Learning the mechanics but it's a really in depth game with nice decision making. Everything you do, needs to be thought about. I figured 200 turns was not a lot, but every turn takes much longer to complete because you actually make meaningful decisions. Really like it.

 

[Dale]

I bought it a while ago, but only recently really set down to play it. I loved Civ4 and think Civ5 and 6, while fun, somehow failed to capture what made civ1-4 such great games. I find myself playing Civ5 and 6 on autopilot.

Now I'm hooked on Old World, though admittedly haven't played that much yet. Learning the mechanics but it's a really in depth game with nice decision making. Everything you do, needs to be thought about. I figured 200 turns was not a lot, but every turn takes much longer to complete because you actually make meaningful decisions. Really like it.

I feel the orders system really enhances that feeling. Because you have a finite amount of orders, you need to carefully consider the use of every single one of them to ensure you're making the best choice.

 

[Chronicles]

I feel the orders system really enhances that feeling. Because you have a finite amount of orders, you need to carefully consider the use of every single one of them to ensure you're making the best choice.

That's certainly a big part of it. Another big part is that production is split over multiple resources which makes you think harder on what you need, though that can also be the first time playing. Anticipating needs from growing cities is something you kinda find out while playing.
I hope more people will give this a change. I tried Humankind but this feels much fresher!

 

[PiR]

I feel the orders system really enhances that feeling. Because you have a finite amount of orders, you need to carefully consider the use of every single one of them to ensure you're making the best choice.

It definitely changes everything. You have to chose, and therefore give up - at least for the current turn - things you'd like to do. If you could do all you wanted each turn (as in civ), there wouldn't be priorities, much less strategic decision-making.

 

[jguy100]

I tried writing up a response with my favorite thing about the order system. But it really plays into and helps so many other aspects of the game, it's impossible to pick just one.

Balance. Does your opponent have more cities, more military, more everything? You might have less things, but you can do more with them, thanks to orders. It's definitely better to be the bigger guy, but the underdog has a lot more options available than previous games.

Pacing. Turns play out differently, depending on where your empire's needs are. The last 3-4 turns I may have been managing my military. But now more economic needs arise, so I focus there.

1UPT. I despise Civ5/Civ6's implementation of 1UPT. It felt so awkward to slowly maneuver an army. I prefer Civ3's Stack of Doom any day. The order system removes a lot of the tedium since you're not slowly shuffling 1 movement units around, or trying to finangle roads everywhere. I still slightly prefer my Stacks of Doom, but 1UPT no longer feels like a huge downgrade.

 

[Dale]

1UPT. I despise Civ5/Civ6's implementation of 1UPT. It felt so awkward to slowly maneuver an army. I prefer Civ3's Stack of Doom any day. The order system removes a lot of the tedium since you're not slowly shuffling 1 movement units around, or trying to finangle roads everywhere. I still slightly prefer my Stacks of Doom, but 1UPT no longer feels like a huge downgrade.

I'm not a fan of Civ's 1upt either, because in Civ maps always feel so closed in due to trying to present an entire planet. But when you look at more local area 1upt games, like Old World is, the map is so much more spread out, and 1upt comes into a whole other way to play. Because there's so much space in an Old World map the tactical options during war are so much better, so much more, than the closed in Civ feel.

I always use the example of mountain ranges. In Old World mountain ranges (impassable terrain) could be up to 20 tiles apart, giving heaps of space for manouvering. In Civ, they could be 5 tiles apart, giving no space for manouvering.

 

[Solver]

Yeah, it's all about the space. There's nothing wrong with 1UPT. It can also work well in Civ, and Civ6 has some good twists like giving you "support units" that can be stacked with a regular unit. The entire problem with Civ combat is map size. With cities spaced 3-4 tiles apart, and little space between obstacles like mountains or water, there isn't that much space to move in, which ends up hurting the game quite a bit.

The Civ6 standard map is 84x54, for 8 players. The OW standard map is approximately 76x76 (exact size depends on the difficulty) and intended for 5 players. That makes the OW map some 27% larger by raw size, but it's also going to be more spaced out thanks to city sites, so it ends up playing very differently.

 

[jguy100]

Huh, I never noticed the huge difference in size. With how much more units can move on a turn, it doesn’t feel that much larger.

 

[nolegskitten]

Yeah, it's all about the space. There's nothing wrong with 1UPT. It can also work well in Civ, and Civ6 has some good twists like giving you "support units" that can be stacked with a regular unit. The entire problem with Civ combat is map size. With cities spaced 3-4 tiles apart, and little space between obstacles like mountains or water, there isn't that much space to move in, which ends up hurting the game quite a bit.

The Civ6 standard map is 84x54, for 8 players. The OW standard map is approximately 76x76 (exact size depends on the difficulty) and intended for 5 players. That makes the OW map some 27% larger by raw size, but it's also going to be more spaced out thanks to city sites, so it ends up playing very differently.

I feel like the much higher mobility of units also makes positioning and systems like zone of control a lot more important in old world. Screening your army with spaced out conscript to make any cavalry charge extremely costly for your opponent is a valid tactic in Old World for instance. A strategically placed fort with a spearman can be a significant roadblock, and you can set up front lines, pincer attacks, etc. I haven't played dedicated wargames in quite some time but the richness of the tactical play in OW is unparalleled in other 4Xs I've tried, by quite a large margin.

 

[Solver]

Yes, you're of course right, and it's the map size that enables those tactics. If you just look at the combat mechanics and unit abilities in Civ6, it also allows for good tactics. You have flanking and support bonuses, you have support units that extend sight, you have rules about vantage points for ranged units or about vegetation limiting sight. Then there are generals providing specific bonuses in an area. The Civ6 tactical design is good.

It's the map size that makes the actual combat experience usually fall well short of what the system can offer. The tight maps necessitate having most units move slowly, and as a result of all that you don't usually get to meaningfully use the game's tactical systems. Instead a typical battle will happen in a tight area in between several movement blockers (cities, mountains, water) where your tactics are fairly unsophisticated.

 

[nolegskitten]

Agreed of course, although I think civ 6 would have benefited from some adjustments like making spears equipped unit exert ZoC on mounted units. It had been suggested for civ 6 almost right after release, I had to wait until OW to see that in-game .
Adjustments and details aside, clearly the map offering a lot more space for manoeuvre (larger maps and more spaced out cities) and the mobility of units to make use of it are the main contributors. The order system allowing battles to unfold over more turns is also a strong factor though, even if it seems player coming from civ 6 have a hard time getting used to "no defensive damage".