Things I wish i'd known before I started playing...

rlw33

Warlord
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
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Under the Religion icon (3 people standing next to each other) there is also the families section:
religions.JPG

The numbers over to the right need to be kept positive or rebels appear and start attacking your cities.
A couple of ways to prevent this - one involves clicking on the portrait of the family head, the other involves clicking on the family name (Tudiya, Adasi or Erishum in the picture above).
If you click on the family itself you'll get the option to send them luxuries, assuming you have luxuries to send.
(you also have the option to reclaim/return luxuries, as in the picture below).
In the picture above you'll notice there are luxuries listed next to the families. These are the luxuries they prefer to receive.
A note about luxuries - like Civilization your worker build improvements on luxuries (e.g. a mine on gold), but unlike Civ your city also needs to build a specialist to utilise the luxury (in the case of gold your city will need to build a gold miner specialist)
luxuries.JPG

If you click on the picture of the family leader him or herself, you'll get an option to influence them (i.e. win them over and improve their opinion of you).
influence.JPG

You can also boost family appeal by appointing their people as chancellor etc.

When you activate a boat there is an option to anchor it. It took me a while to figure out what this is for.
bireme.JPG

If you have a boat next to land on either side of a body of water, and if they are both anchored, then units can cross from one side to the other (anchoring enables the boats to "ferry the unit across"). Select a hex on the other side of the body of water nd the unit will sail over there automatically!
anchor.JPG


Not only do specialists give your tiles bonuses, but building them also reduces overpopulation, which is one of the things that makes your cities unhappy.

The easiest way to get a religion is to build a city with the "cleric" family, if you have one. Failing that, you need an event or to meet the prerequisites to trigger a religion (e.g. build two ranchers (pasture specialists) to found Judaism or build two acolytes (shrine specialists) to found Zoroastrianism).
 
When you activate a boat there is an option to anchor it. It took me a while to figure out what this is for.
If you have a boat next to land on either side of a body of water, and if they are both anchored, then units can cross from one side to the other (anchoring enables the boats to "ferry the unit across"). Select a hex on the other side of the body of water nd the unit will sail over there automatically!

You don't need an anchored ship on both sides of the water body, a single ship extends transporting radius 3 tiles in every direction. You can even chain anchored ships for longer distances.

See this image where the scout is able to choose 3 different paths.

 

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You don't need an anchored ship on both sides of the water body, a single ship extends transporting radius 3 tiles in every direction. You can even chain anchored ships for longer distances.

See this image where the scout is able to choose 3 different paths.


Thanks Dale, do you mind if I steal your screenshot for the FAQ ?
Anchoring and naval movement is a recurring question, and I've never managed to explain that by text in a concise way (much easier to demonstrate in game via streams).
 
So, there are characters in your empire that become Schemers. Schemers can't be generals or governors, only spymasters or agents. Pretty sub-par, but by sending them as agents to foreign cities, they can use their stat blocks to provide bonuses similar to a governor.

Go to the characters panel and use the agent filter, and you may find some characters you might not have known you had access to.

As this is the only actual use for most of your schemers, you're missing out on some bonuses by not sending them out. Some caveats: unlike generals and governors, there are no strengths or weakness relating to agents (kind of a missed opportunity), and agents do much else (Treachery and Insurrection missions tend to blow up pretty often, and none of the success results are particularly enticing IMO). Also a schemer starts negative Courage, so most schemer agents will actually cost you some training (and if they're your spymaster, they will inflict extra discontent on all cities--boo!).
 
One thing I'm discovering is The Old World falls in line with making the same mistake games of historical warfare do they overpower spears against mounted units to the point that the mounted units really aren't worth having.

+50% with a spearman. Goes up to +100% with special units like Hoplites and Phalanxities. Now, bear in this a game where you're generally stacking bonuses in the 5-10% range. But for some reason, game design seems to leave all reason and restraint aside when it comes to sticks versus horses. It's a mythologized notion of historical combat. Mounted units were effective and often essential in warfare, and they didn't just wither helplessly in the face of spears. They countered them with their own pointy sticks.

Tne net result in this game is that a chariot is hard-pressed to get a single pip to a spearman. Without the Commander bonus for this chariot, that would be the case here. As you can see below, there are a lot of modifiers, but the anti-mounted penalty of the blue spear pretty much drowns them all out. It's just so far out-of-proportion the rest of the narrative is eclipsed.

Of course, it's a real horror-show on the defensive side. A chariot losing half its health to a spear is pretty common. So, the net effect is that if you a mounted contingent in your army, just hide them spearman are afoot. For all the time and resources that went into building those units, they'll die like militia.

upload_2021-7-25_18-50-55.png


So, some would counter-argue that you just use the chariot for routing ranged units. But let's figure out what will happen if I actually commit to that plan with the blue slinger down there. Let's say I kill the unit. In TOW, mounted units don't got to hit and run. They can't use remaining moves to pull back to safety.

Now,, combine that limitation with the ludicrous speed with which infantry can move in one turn, and it's pretty clear what will likely happen. Two spears will probably swoosh down from out of the fog and kill it effortlessly. A slinger for a chariot is not a good trade-off. This pre-empts the rebuttal of the supposed role of mounted unit being to run down ranged units.

Something needs fixing in this equation. So, if you hadn't figured this out yet, mounted units aren't worth the time until the AI starts to make maces and swords.

On another note, where is flanking accounted for? There is a unit on the opposite side, which is what the game is telling me constitutes a flank.
 
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Good question about flanking. My understanding was it only made a difference with a commander general (+20% or something). In that case, flanking is just getting more opportunities to hit a target on the flanks.

I’ve found that mounted units are best used to take advantage of their rout ability, after you’ve softened up the enemy line. The extra movement helps rush them in from a safe distance with only a few orders. But they die pretty quickly if that doesn’t clinch the battle.

That they need to play a more hide-and-ambush role than I expected is admittedly not realistic is the sense of pikes chasing down horses in open field. I wonder if their more defensive role could be implemented, such as basing the anti-cav bonus on fatigue level, so that it only really works counterattacking cavalry as the attack. Or increasing the defensive damage the cavalry receives from 1HP to 4HP when attacking units neighboring a spear. Those would make routing more costly when spears are present.
 
One could ask why you have so much fog? You should plant scouts in forests around Greece's cities to expose whether there are in fact spears up there or not, giving you more knowledge on what you can do safely.
 
One could ask why you have so much fog? You should plant scouts in forests around Greece's cities to expose whether there are in fact spears up there or not, giving you more knowledge on what you can do safely.
Spoiler Greece has spears to spare. They must be chopping lots of forest.

m not moving my scout from its current location because I'm still at a point in the game where the three-to-six moves it takes to kill one of those spearmen will bleed my orders dry. Basically, move a scout, or leave a unit where it will certainly be killed by a dogpile attack.
 
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Good question about flanking. My understanding was it only made a difference with a commander general (+20% or something). In that case, flanking is just getting more opportunities to hit a target on the flanks.
Flanking is mentioned in both tutorial and the help section as taking place when you have units on opposite sides of an enemy unit. There's just no explanation of the actual benefit, and it doesn't show up in the hover display.

I’ve found that mounted units are best used to take advantage of their rout ability, after you’ve softened up the enemy line. The extra movement helps rush them in from a safe distance with only a few orders. But they die pretty quickly if that doesn’t clinch the battle.

That they need to play a more hide-and-ambush role than I expected is admittedly not realistic is the sense of pikes chasing down horses in open field. I wonder if their more defensive role could be implemented, such as basing the anti-cav bonus on fatigue level, so that it only really works counterattacking cavalry as the attack. Or increasing the defensive damage the cavalry receives from 1HP to 4HP when attacking units neighboring a spear. Those would make routing more costly when spears are present.
In general, I understand the desire to give infantry some benefit in the whole roshambo interplay between ranged/infantry/mounted, but to reiterate my main point, a 50% is too much. It reflects a mythologized perception of how easily cavalry can be neutralized.

Cavalry didn't just rush haplessly into a lethal hedgehog of spears. They didn't just show up to do one point of damage. Usually they wait for infantry to get peppered from range, engaged by infantry, or are in motion. Basically, any opportunity where there's a breach in formation. When cavalry smashes into a flank, it's plenty effective. They can roll up footmen like a rug.

A 20% modifier would be plenty. That's enough that cavalry needs to seek out that opportune confluence of modifiers working in their favor. At 50%--in a game where promotions and other modifiers are in the 5-15% range--the narrative is that cavalry should be hopelessly outmatched against infantry, and with all due respect to Braveheart, that was simply not the case. But if you want that kind of hedgehog unit, there's a promotion for it (horsebane).

As to the idea of having melee units take more than 1 pip of damage when dealing an attack, there is a need for this. I would say that a melee attack against a fortified unit should result in extra damage to the attacker. And not just against mounted (a bristling array of pointy sticks can ham anyone charging you, horses or no). A good idea for a promotion, at least.
 
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Flanking is mentioned in both tutorial and the help section as taking place when you have units on opposite sides of an enemy unit. There's just no explanation of the actual benefit, and it doesn't show up in the hover display.


In general, I understand the desire to give infantry some benefit in the whole roshambo interplay between ranged/infantry/mounted, but to reiterate my main point, a 50% is too much. It reflects a mythologized perception of how easily cavalry can be neutralized.

Cavalry didn't just rush haplessly into a lethal hedgehog of spears. They didn't just show up to do one point of damage. Usually they wait for infantry to get peppered from range, engaged by infantry, or are in motion. Basically, any opportunity where there's a breach in formation. When cavalry smashes into a flank, it's plenty effective. They can roll up footmen like a rug.

A 20% modifier would be plenty. That's enough that cavalry needs to seek out that opportune confluence of modifiers working in their favor. At 50%--in a game where promotions and other modifiers are in the 5-15% range--the narrative is that cavalry should be hopelessly outmatched against infantry, and with all due respect to Braveheart, that was simply not the case. But if you want that kind of hedgehog unit, there's a promotion for it (horsebane).

As to the idea of having melee units take more than 1 pip of damage when dealing an attack, there is a need for this. I would say that a melee attack against a fortified unit should result in extra damage to the attacker. And not just against mounted (a bristling array of pointy sticks can ham anyone charging you, horses or no). A good idea for a promotion, at least.

I definitely get where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced a change like this would be good.

I tried relying on spearmen in recent game where I built up my economy and then a couple of axemen showed up and I could not compete. This is just as a-historical; the spear is by far the superior weapon of choice throughout history, with only a couple of noticable exceptions (if we generously include such things as halberd in the spear category).

But games like old world try to create a mix between interesting to play and good themes and you always sacrifice some for the other. The fairly strong counter system in old world generates interesting gameplay choices. Cavalry are order-cheap, you don't need to build as many to have a force ready to reach almost all of your cities if located centrally, they ignore ZOC of everything except spearmen, meaning you can absolutely demolish armies quickly. They can pick their engagements better than any other unit. They gain attack bonuses in open field, so they are better in specific locations than others. When you have a clear front with an enemy and some time to prepare, you can make sure they have no trees to hide in as they attack you, making them more vulnerable to your cavalry.

Honestly, I think the ranged units, and particularly the slinger, get the weak end of the stick in old world.

I think you might be right about horse-bane being too good though. Getting that just makes it easy to demolish scythians.
 
Ranged unit can focus fire and kill (rather than hurt) much better, while melee units can't attack if they can't get adjacent because of ZoC. In general ranged units are better in the open while melee is stronger when there is heavy cover (forested areas). Cavalry is excellent but fragile when left exposed Siege units become absolute beasts in the late game with many fights on urban terrain.
 
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