K_away_0514
Chieftain
Hey all, just bought the entire game during the recent sale and haven't had time to really play it till now - I feel like the new National Ambition system really changed how the game plays compared to the older discussion I'd read on Reddit and elsewhere and so would like to offer my two cents.
I've played CIV5:VP before fairly regularly until recent 4UC integration so am familiar w/ 4X. For OW I went through the tutorials, consulted the manual regularly and watched the early-mid game of Purple Bull Moose's playthroughs, which were immensely useful in terms of seeing how stuff like families and attributes actually interacted w/ the overall strategy.
I've fully played through 2 games, one at The Strong and one at The Noble - both random dynasties/civs/6 players/large map on lakes & gulf and Mediterranean respectively(drew Suppiluliuma and Cyaxares). Both games ended up easy ambition victories w/ minimal warring. Not a big warmongerer at all but the AI didn't really give me any reason to fight them so that's part of it. I will be moving up in difficulty but in the meantime, here's some of the stuff I liked and didn't like!
Here are some of the things I loved the most, just a brief list as I'm sure y'all already know how great this stuff is
1. Undo button
2. Tech draw pile
3. Events/characters storyline
4. Separation of infra resources
5. Ranged units: distance dmg modifier, increased range on hills
6. Music starting at Drama
7. Orders system
8. Fast sea travel( at least within borders)
9. MMB to fix tooltip - didn't realize how useful it was til playing.
In general it feels way more realistic (except for the undo button but that is just an awesome QOL improvement replacing clunky save scumming lol) and everything ties together nicely - the UI also clearly communicates the consequences of your choices clearly.
Main stuff that I felt could be better:
1. Victory conditions
From everything I read I expected to get points before ambitions -- this was not the case. I had the points lead in both games, sure, but also achieved ambition victory at ~70% of the points required w/o really optimizing at all. It seems these two could be more balanced if the devs think they should be equal in difficulty (I personally prefer ambition as it really ties well w/ the roleplaying part, but there appears to be differing opinions on this.)
I believe the recent changes to the Ambition system have played a large part in this. Instead of offering the last Ambition when one is completed to 75% or more, perhaps offer the choice when two have reached the 75% mark? This would lengthen the game and give more time to explore the mechanics. Additionally, I would be in favor of removing the choice to reject all the ambitions offered - or at least penalizing it heavily. It just feels a bit gamey imo. Or there could be an option to increase ambition win count -- dunno if the ambition pool can deal w/ this though.
2. Unique components
I feel like the unique units come online a bit too late to actually impact the game. Perhaps that's due to me not having to fight anyone, but it's kinda jarring to win the game without having to bring those UU's online - especially the second one. I guess this could just be a side effect of me coming from Civ where usually the UC's are an integral part of strategy. Or maybe difficulty setting/civ choice has something to do with this...
The shrines are also basically identical. Civ definitely has more variety but I suppose it necessarily would be just in terms of scope...just would be nice to have a bit more differentiation on the civs.
Additionally the names of the unique units are kinda bland. I will need to find a mod for this lol.
3. Easy resource trading
IMO it's too easy to get resources you don't have. Yes there's a large buy-sell spread to incentivize a balanced economy but the market is literally frictionless and entirely unaffected by relations w/ neighbours etc. I mean, even in the year 2025 we have egg shortages, food shortages, people have to ration water when there's a drought, grain shipments are affected by war, etc. - this is IMHO the most unrealistic part of the entire game, even the undo button has more real-world flavor. There aren't easy ways around this without making the game extremely tedious and frustrating I suppose, but it's still my main complaint w/ the base game mechanics.
4. AI issues:
It appears to me that the AI does not utilize its scouts properly at all. N=2, but in both games I doubled the AI in exploration and got ruins well into the mid-game -- they apparently start off slow and give up on it fairly quickly. Pics for reference. It feels important to me? Unsure how important it actually is though.
(Poor Rome got trapped in a corner too
)
I also feel like the AI isn't developing their lands properly in terms of stuff like improvement placement or getting the necessary number of workers online. In both my games I was first/2nd in worker count but only third or fourth in territory. Not sure how easily this could be fixed though -- coding for more workers seems fairly straightforward but unsure how well stuff like adjacency can be adapted.
Finally both of my games Egypt seemed quite a bit weaker than it should be, just from reading the guides it seemed a bit op. In my Persian game it didn't even get a wonder -- pretty surprising stuff.
For war I really couldn't say how it was as I barely fought at all.
5. Religion:
There seems to be a lack of religious variety. I feel religion is under-utilized and can tend to be an afterthought in terms of policies, especially when you do not have a state religion(which is likely not optimal play but eh). It basically seems a bit more marginal than expected is all.
Despite these flaws, all in all, this is simply an amazing game that is criminally underappreciated -- devs also seem pretty involved w/ the community which is always a plus. Kudos to the developers, this is the most fun I've had since my dad first got me vanilla Civ5 like a decade ago lol, thank you so much!
I've played CIV5:VP before fairly regularly until recent 4UC integration so am familiar w/ 4X. For OW I went through the tutorials, consulted the manual regularly and watched the early-mid game of Purple Bull Moose's playthroughs, which were immensely useful in terms of seeing how stuff like families and attributes actually interacted w/ the overall strategy.
I've fully played through 2 games, one at The Strong and one at The Noble - both random dynasties/civs/6 players/large map on lakes & gulf and Mediterranean respectively(drew Suppiluliuma and Cyaxares). Both games ended up easy ambition victories w/ minimal warring. Not a big warmongerer at all but the AI didn't really give me any reason to fight them so that's part of it. I will be moving up in difficulty but in the meantime, here's some of the stuff I liked and didn't like!
Here are some of the things I loved the most, just a brief list as I'm sure y'all already know how great this stuff is
1. Undo button
2. Tech draw pile
3. Events/characters storyline
4. Separation of infra resources
5. Ranged units: distance dmg modifier, increased range on hills
6. Music starting at Drama
7. Orders system
8. Fast sea travel( at least within borders)
9. MMB to fix tooltip - didn't realize how useful it was til playing.
In general it feels way more realistic (except for the undo button but that is just an awesome QOL improvement replacing clunky save scumming lol) and everything ties together nicely - the UI also clearly communicates the consequences of your choices clearly.
Main stuff that I felt could be better:
1. Victory conditions
From everything I read I expected to get points before ambitions -- this was not the case. I had the points lead in both games, sure, but also achieved ambition victory at ~70% of the points required w/o really optimizing at all. It seems these two could be more balanced if the devs think they should be equal in difficulty (I personally prefer ambition as it really ties well w/ the roleplaying part, but there appears to be differing opinions on this.)
I believe the recent changes to the Ambition system have played a large part in this. Instead of offering the last Ambition when one is completed to 75% or more, perhaps offer the choice when two have reached the 75% mark? This would lengthen the game and give more time to explore the mechanics. Additionally, I would be in favor of removing the choice to reject all the ambitions offered - or at least penalizing it heavily. It just feels a bit gamey imo. Or there could be an option to increase ambition win count -- dunno if the ambition pool can deal w/ this though.
2. Unique components
I feel like the unique units come online a bit too late to actually impact the game. Perhaps that's due to me not having to fight anyone, but it's kinda jarring to win the game without having to bring those UU's online - especially the second one. I guess this could just be a side effect of me coming from Civ where usually the UC's are an integral part of strategy. Or maybe difficulty setting/civ choice has something to do with this...
The shrines are also basically identical. Civ definitely has more variety but I suppose it necessarily would be just in terms of scope...just would be nice to have a bit more differentiation on the civs.
Additionally the names of the unique units are kinda bland. I will need to find a mod for this lol.
3. Easy resource trading
IMO it's too easy to get resources you don't have. Yes there's a large buy-sell spread to incentivize a balanced economy but the market is literally frictionless and entirely unaffected by relations w/ neighbours etc. I mean, even in the year 2025 we have egg shortages, food shortages, people have to ration water when there's a drought, grain shipments are affected by war, etc. - this is IMHO the most unrealistic part of the entire game, even the undo button has more real-world flavor. There aren't easy ways around this without making the game extremely tedious and frustrating I suppose, but it's still my main complaint w/ the base game mechanics.
4. AI issues:
It appears to me that the AI does not utilize its scouts properly at all. N=2, but in both games I doubled the AI in exploration and got ruins well into the mid-game -- they apparently start off slow and give up on it fairly quickly. Pics for reference. It feels important to me? Unsure how important it actually is though.
Spoiler pics :
(Poor Rome got trapped in a corner too
)I also feel like the AI isn't developing their lands properly in terms of stuff like improvement placement or getting the necessary number of workers online. In both my games I was first/2nd in worker count but only third or fourth in territory. Not sure how easily this could be fixed though -- coding for more workers seems fairly straightforward but unsure how well stuff like adjacency can be adapted.
Finally both of my games Egypt seemed quite a bit weaker than it should be, just from reading the guides it seemed a bit op. In my Persian game it didn't even get a wonder -- pretty surprising stuff.
For war I really couldn't say how it was as I barely fought at all.
5. Religion:
There seems to be a lack of religious variety. I feel religion is under-utilized and can tend to be an afterthought in terms of policies, especially when you do not have a state religion(which is likely not optimal play but eh). It basically seems a bit more marginal than expected is all.
Despite these flaws, all in all, this is simply an amazing game that is criminally underappreciated -- devs also seem pretty involved w/ the community which is always a plus. Kudos to the developers, this is the most fun I've had since my dad first got me vanilla Civ5 like a decade ago lol, thank you so much!
