I think/hope most of the balancing is going to be targeted at the late game, which can currently fall apart pretty badly. That said, there really is an amazing evolution of dynamics from Ancient through Early Modern that can only be experienced here.
One think I love about Old World is that the orders restrict me from optimizing every part of my empire at once, which actually frees me to focus on a few things at a time, pivoting my focus from development to warfare to science at (hopefully) strategic times, often punctuated by a change in leader.
The cultures in HK do a very similar thing for me, getting to laser focus on improving one aspect of my empire at a time, and being handed really enjoyably powerful tools to do so.
I do find an awkward gap between the top two difficulties, but have settled on playing at the highest on crowded maps (large, 10 opponents) with the “new world” turned off (ie empty continent that the AI never settles).
Once you figure out how to claim territory and develop faster than the AI, it is very easy to snowball right past them if they don’t get in your way. Going up to highest difficulty that early game war upgrades from an single 8 v 8 skirmish to a 16 v 40 series of epic exchanges.
For example, in my current game I warred as Egyptians against the Zhou through a beautiful desert mountain pass. The dynamic tended toward a series of even matchups with 10-16 units on either side. Some early skirmishes pushed me to retreat back to my capital, where my recently trained warriors and spears held a defensive line together with my surviving scouts and city defense, while my chariot archers opened fire. Whatever it’s limitations, the AI usually knows how to hit the weak places and they broke through the line a few times, aided by their beastly heavy chariots. I won that battle with a few casualties, pumped out a few more units and took it on offense, and discovered the AI had built back up 8 units (probably a mix of reserves and their powerful production bonuses, they seem to train entire 4-unit armies at once and send them out when done) half of which were the scary chariots. Even though you can outsmart the AI, the shear number and power of their units creates moments of consequence. In the third such battle in this mountain pass between our cities, heavy casualties forced me to abandon the pair of choke points I started with and rush my surviving force up a hill that could be defended from one tile. I would have lost the battle staying put for one more turn and I was thrilled when this actually worked. Fighting several battles in one region of the map really gets you familiar with its terrain and provided a certain sense of immersion I haven’t felt elsewhere as I learn what features I can reliably turn to my advantage. Finally I broke through and sieged their city (unfortunately I didn’t have range siege yet, so just more chariot arching) which brought a new region of the map in play (the battle was bigger so the map expanded to include our familiar battleground but now ask the city and its surroundings). They had another full force of chariots and infantry reinforce the battle, and now I was also contending with their classical era city defense, here 6 free units that are stronger than ancient infantry. At long last I wore them down and took the city. Cleaned up another city and their war support ran out. Claiming their capital for my own, I now set out to join the rest of the empires in the race to the top. To get more fame (and the AI has a ton at this difficulty) I stayed ancient era through this war chasing a few more era stars. I just now entered medieval in 3rd place, as two large AI empires have taken control of their respective continents. My neighbor of the two, the English, have a fully developed medieval army of heavy swords and longbows. I am absolutely engrossed with how I can use Khmer to challenge them before it’s too late.
As you can tell, I find the early-mid game absolutely exhilarating, so long as I get the difficulty right for the AI to maintain the lead. The weak end game is actually less of an issue. My first playthru since release showed me how little you can do to change the fame race once the contemporary era sets in. This means the game is decided in the first 4-5 eras which the game does very well. This game looks like I’ll have to take down the English in medieval/early modern and move across the ocean to take down the leader in early modern/industrial and probably hit them again in contemporary. This level of urgency did not exist for me in Civ6, and is most similar to what I feel navigating ambitions and double victory in Old World. With the exception that the ability to destroy the AI at the end game is not nearly as helpful as doing it earlier.
