Victory Condition additions and sundry suggestions

[StrangeKiwi]

As with any game that I find particularly excellent, I spend time pondering potentialities that (to me) seem appealing. I thought I might share some here, and invite others to do the same. I realize by perusing the threads that some consider the game perfect as is, so I would offer any suggestions as options rather than default features. As things stand, this is an outstanding game that I am grateful to have found.

I would like to see a bit more variety in victory conditions. There are many options from other games but something that rewards trade, diplomacy, happiness, or religion would add some much needed variety. A religious spread victory would also tick the diplomatic box, as spreading the religion would most likely require peace agreements. A conquer all tribes option could be interesting, where one's relationships or conquests of tribal cultures leads to victory. I would love to trade myself to victory by doubling the annual gold income of another civ rather than simply doubling their points.

This leads me to trade and diplomacy. Both feel quite random. I would love to have a bit more control of what resources I offer or receive rather than simply sending a trade mission. I realize that this probably opens exploitation of the ai, but as things stand, trade seems underdeveloped to me.

Which leads to resources. It would open up gameplay if one could acquire resources other than luxuries or find further uses for resources rather than just producing more ore or more stone. I mean, how about a wonder requiring only marble? Or allowing me to build War Elephants by importing the Elephants?

This leads me to...I'm sure that "health" was excluded from the game for valid reasons but having a health factor inside a city gives some value to different food resources: after all, a balanced and varied diet would improve health, making different farm types more than simply flavor. A health line of buildings would be simple to create, and it seems like an obvious component of managing a city/empire. Where are the aqueducts?! What about the plague of Athens? The great speech of Pericles? The Hippocratic Oath, the funeral nuances of Egypt?

Happiness: it seems to me that the fundamental principle of city unhappiness is flawed. From my readings of history and literature, I see no evidence that people rebel, loot, pillage, migrate when their lives are not improving or, as modern parlance would have it, "upgrading." For most people over much of civilization, life would have changed but little, and there are seldom revolutions when food, water, and health are sufficient. I hardly think that there will be a world revolution if Apple stops introducing new Iphones or Microsoft new operating systems. For my part, I would cry hallelujah if such things would abate! In other words, unhappiness should not be the default condition of the game, but should be caused by player mistakes, mismanagement, and random events. Otherwise, the whole happiness mechanic feels a bit like Sisiphus trying to push a smiley face up a hill.

Lastly, it seems like the new DLC will partially address this, but having an epic or heroic component to the game would add depth, fun, and flavor to the game. Some of the leaders, such as Romulus are arguably mythological figures, why not go whole hog and add true heroes to the game? This would open up quest lines, monsters, mythical places...adding a little magic to this historic title. If packaged as a DLC, it would be an option, letting players who prefer a wholly historic approach avoid the messiness of myth.

Thanks to anyone who reads this, and I'll be interested to read the ideas of others.

 

[King Jason]

Old world does have some Diplomacy, Economic, Science, Cultural, and even Religious victory conditions.

I think the main issue is that these victory conditions are tucked inside of the ambition victory, and tied exclusively to the way ambitions are delivered.

Which means, that a player doesnt have the option to engage with any of these possibilities until the game is already essentially over.

A player can still do the same thing as in civ and decide to push a "culture win", and set themselves up to achieve the 6 legendary cities crowning ambition.

However, no one who is new or inexperienced with the game would actually be able to engage with it in that way because players aren't told what any of the crowning ambitions are, nor is there an easy method to ensure you can target one specifically.

There are still ways to target crowns and then essentially ensure the crown shows up at the endgame, but this is clunky, and requires game knowledge and gimmicks.

The fact that crowning ambitions exist behind this veil for the player to discover through game experience prevents players from being able to engage with the variety of different victory types that actually do exist in the game.

 

[King Jason]

Also for what it's worth, happiness doesn't cause rebellions in old world: Low family opinion does. There is a correlation between discontent and family opinion, to be sure - but ultimately the task of the ruler is to keep the ruling families happy, not the common people. The rise of discontent of the common people can put enough stress on a ruling house that they might begin to rebel, but that's not technically the same thing.

Primarily, it's the nobility you need to worry about. The populace of your empire can be absolutely miserable and things can run smoothly as long as you ply the nobles with gifts, power, and prestige.

 

[PiR]

The populace of your empire can be absolutely miserable and things can run smoothly

Yes. Although it'll add cost and productivity in cities.

I would love to trade myself to victory by doubling the annual gold income of another civ rather than simply doubling their points.

Customizing the victory is interesting. This one in particular is tricky though, you'll see that your leader can influence money per turn so much you can ride on a golden horse and once your crown goes to your heir the kingdom is in deficit immediately!

Or allowing me to build War Elephants by importing the Elephants?

That is possible: once you import and get the resource into a city, build a camp, and then you'll be able to build the units.



About the myths: please no zombies

 

[StrangeKiwi]

Thank you both of you for the replies. I had not known about the crowing ambitions! Clearly I have much to discover

All the trade relationships that I have been able to initiate have only involved resource swaps: timber, gold, etc, not specific resources such as Elephants. Perhaps this is another thing that I have to find in the game.

Definitely no zombies! I was thinking of a Harpy or two and, since the game features a labyrinth event, maybe a minotaur

 

[Verrucosus]

... some consider the game perfect as is ...

Well, that can't have been me. I only wrote "close to perfect"!

Seriously, I'm extremely happy with the victory conditions as they are. The points victories are simply "Old World" whispering to me that I can tell myself that I've won and that it's ok to start another game. The ambitions victory fits very well with the character system and is varied from game to game. I get some choice about individual ambitions. However, I don't know get a list of goals from the start and have no idea what 10th ambition my greatgrandson will come up with, so I better play a balanced game. That happens to be the kind of game I've enjoyed best even back the days of Civilization II whose highly specialised victory conditions betrayed its motto "In omnia paratus".

In his Designer Notes (#11), Johnson was explicit about his goal not to encourage extreme strategies: "I have grown disenchanted with the increasing specialization of victory conditions in 4X games, which provide a path to victory by just focusing on one aspect of the game, such as culture, religion, or diplomacy. The problem with these victory conditions is that they are so specialized that the player needs to aim for them from the beginning of the game, which turns their play into an exercise in predetermination. Want the religious victory? Then make sure to always choose the religious option! Hence, themed victory conditions were out for Old World, ..."

Having said that, I'm not sure there would be anything wrong with letting players pick one of the crowning ambitions as their game goal. As King Jason pointed out, these can be viewed as hidden themed victories. "Exercise in predetermination" as an advanced setup option if you will.

Regarding mythology, I'm really curious about the new scenario that seems to let you play out a fictional founding myth for the Old World nations. As a matter of personal preference, I wouldn't want too much myth and magic in the main game, so if the expansion adds too much of that, I'll have to remember to disable it ... and if Romulus shows up, I'll just pretend he's a historical character.

 

[Dale]

Regarding mythology, I'm really curious about the new scenario that seems to let you play out a fictional founding myth for the Old World nations. As a matter of personal preference, I wouldn't want too much myth and magic in the main game, so if the expansion adds too much of that, I'll have to remember to disable it ... and if Romulus shows up, I'll just pretend he's a historical character.

Only the disasters (and associated events) will show in the main game. The mythological components (ie: keeping the Gods happy) are only for the scenario.

 

[King Jason]

The design theory was sound, the execution - not so much. Unfortunately once a player understands how the game delivers the ambitions, and understands what the crowning ambitions are, then you're effectively right back to square one with the players when they're actively aiming to achieve an ambition victory.

After a handful of playthroughs and players familiarize themselves with the game, they're still going to (or at least, can) do the exact same thing that anyone in a game with a themed victory condition would do. Once you know that you're going to get offered 6 legendary cities, or peace with everyone, or 15 laws; you just plan for this stuff.

Even weirder - if you get a crown you don't like? You just decline it and wait a few turns to be offered a better one that you can do easier or one that you prepared for.

So really, the exact same system is already in place as other games. Soren just chose to obscure it from the player until the end of the game, and lock it behind a quest progression system.

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

In almost three years of playing the game, I've never won an ambition victory, despite it allegedly being the "main" way of winning the game. Improving one's military, culture and science to smash your opponents into dust is much more fun!

 

[Verrucosus]

After a handful of playthroughs and players familiarize themselves with the game, they're still going to (or at least, can) do the exact same thing that anyone in a game with a themed victory condition would do. Once you know that you're going to get offered 6 legendary cities, or peace with everyone, or 15 laws; you just plan for this stuff.

Interesting. I have declined ambitions that seemed completely delusional under exisiting game circumstances, but I didn't use that mechanism to get one particular ambition that I had planned for. At any rate, if you have to be this clever about it, that's quite different from a game that encourages you to put "Do we go for a culture victory?" on the agenda of your 4000 BC tribal council. Also, there are nine other ambitions along the way, some trivial, some not at all. Maybe, you can keep declining those as well until you get one that you can complete along the way to your chosen victory, but again, the game being flexible enough to allow that is different from encouraging it.

By the way, while I'm often pursuing the ambitions victory, it's not my main way of winning in terms of frequency. The balanced approach that I use to be prepared for future ambitions often leads me to points victory along the way. (I should add that I don't play on the highest difficulty levels.)

I'll be sure try the disaster mechanic in the main game. The original Civilization had (usually mild) city disasters, but except for Alpha Centauri, Beyond the Sword and Gathering Storm, the sequels stayed clear of them. Disasters seem to fit well with the Old World event system, but it's probably a challenge to balance them well.

 

[King Jason]

At any rate, if you have to be this clever about it, that's quite different from a game that encourages you to put "Do we go for a culture victory?" on the agenda of your 4000 BC tribal council. Also, there are nine other ambitions along the way, some trivial, some not at all. Maybe, you can keep declining those as well until you get one that you can complete along the way to your chosen victory, but again, the game being flexible enough to allow that is different from encouraging it.

Indeed, it's different - but only because this information is obscured from the player. Literally any player who wants to win an ambition victory by adopting 15 laws and making peace with all 3 families can manufacture this.

In fact, you'll see players doing challenge runs or OCC GoTW games where they are specifically keeping themselves at 9 out 15 laws in order to keep the crowning ambition open. Since it's not a secret (Mohawk will tell anyone that asks) that you won't get an ambition offered to you if you're more than 70% complete with it.

Relying on player ignorance to make a mechanic work is just silly - any player with experience, or any player who comes along to read this forum post, can now play their game and get 9 laws, and decline crowns until the 15 law ambition gets offered and then win the game immediately when it does. Or to cover your bases you can get set yourself up to be at peace 3 out of 5 nations on the map with healthy relations with the other two, and then accept Peace all Nations crown and then finish it in 4 turns off of 2 diplo missions.

Hell, the control 7 wonders ambition WONT EVEN BE OFFERED TO A PLAYER THAT ALREADY HAS 7 WONDERS.

Imagine that? You spent your game spamming wonders and you can't even win off of the wonder crown. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you can just spend you game starting wonders and leaving them unfinished, only to finish them all once you accept the wonder crown. So if I OWN 7 wonders - no crown. If I have 7 wonders UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Oh, my - look, a crowning ambition I can complete in 10 turns because I've sidestepped the way the game works.

Which brings us to another part of the issue: 7 wonders and Control 4 holy sites are effectively just conquest ambitions. Since the player can't get offered these victory conditions if they actually did well here: you founded all 4 religions?? Holy crap man good job! Also - you're locked out of this crowning ambition.

Only founded 1 religion? Cool - here's a crowning ambition to control all 4 holy cities in the game. What? Your ally has one of them, as does the nation that's 3x your size and stronger than you? Guess you should start building an army and murdering everything. Oh look a points victory instead.

Or I just decline and go "ah, yes - 15 laws. Another easy ambition win - thank you; silly game mechanic." In 5 turns.

it feels like you're engaging with a system that punishes player progress and encourages gimmicky exploits and cheats while masquerading as a good idea.

 

[StrangeKiwi]

Indeed, it's different - but only because this information is obscured from the player. Literally any player who wants to win an ambition victory by adopting 15 laws and making peace with all 3 families can manufacture this.

In fact, you'll see players doing challenge runs or OCC GoTW games where they are specifically keeping themselves at 9 out 15 laws in order to keep the crowning ambition open. Since it's not a secret (Mohawk will tell anyone that asks) that you won't get an ambition offered to you if you're more than 70% complete with it.

Relying on player ignorance to make a mechanic work is just silly - any player with experience, or any player who comes along to read this forum post, can now play their game and get 9 laws, and decline crowns until the 15 law ambition gets offered and then win the game immediately when it does. Or to cover your bases you can get set yourself up to be at peace 3 out of 5 nations on the map with healthy relations with the other two, and then accept Peace all Nations crown and then finish it in 4 turns off of 2 diplo missions.

Hell, the control 7 wonders ambition WONT EVEN BE OFFERED TO A PLAYER THAT ALREADY HAS 7 WONDERS.

Imagine that? You spent your game spamming wonders and you can't even win off of the wonder crown. Though I wouldn't be surprised if you can just spend you game starting wonders and leaving them unfinished, only to finish them all once you accept the wonder crown. So if I OWN 7 wonders - no crown. If I have 7 wonders UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Oh, my - look, a crowning ambition I can complete in 10 turns because I've sidestepped the way the game works.

Which brings us to another part of the issue: 7 wonders and Control 4 holy sites are effectively just conquest ambitions. Since the player can't get offered these victory conditions if they actually did well here: you founded all 4 religions?? Holy crap man good job! Also - you're locked out of this crowning ambition.

Only founded 1 religion? Cool - here's a crowning ambition to control all 4 holy cities in the game. What? Your ally has one of them, as does the nation that's 3x your size and stronger than you? Guess you should start building an army and murdering everything. Oh look a points victory instead.

Or I just decline and go "ah, yes - 15 laws. Another easy ambition win - thank you; silly game mechanic." In 5 turns.

it feels like you're engaging with a system that punishes player progress and encourages gimmicky exploits and cheats while masquerading as a good idea.

You've shared a lot of helpful information in this thread, thank you. Old World is the game that I've always wanted to play: something with empire building, role playing, and combat strategy focused on ancient civilizations. It is the ideal game for me.

What I have found challenging relates to what you post above: much of the time, even though I am doing really well, I feel like I have no way to win the game other than slog through a points victory because I don't know what other objectives are hidden in the game that will enable me to win. While randomness in a game is appealing, feeling empowered to pursue a given focus or direction and then succeed at it is immensely satisfying, and that is what I'm missing (so far). I'm a simple person, and wouldn't be upset if I managed to win simply because I made a lot more money than the other civilizations, or spread my religion across the Old World, or had an outstanding happiness rate.

Ultimately, if the player decides to pursue a given victory type, finds it satisfying and challenging, then I think it's a win for the game designers and the customer. A few more streamlined and less opaque or condition dependent victory types would be quite appealing for me.

 

[King Jason]

I agree, I think the progression of the ambition system in and of itself is mostly fine, and I enjoy engaging with the system. It's the final ambitions often feel like it's actually thumbing it's nose at a player. Objectives that are random and responsive to the path of the player throughout the game is fun and engaging - hitting the end of the game and being given an ambition that you can't reasonably complete, or being forced to just cycle to the next option and cross your fingers while something better comes along; or having the final objective of the game be a complete 180 game shift (Oh you've been a peaceful builder all game? Time to go conquer stuff because of your crowning ambition) is my only main gripe with the system as a whole. It's a very unsatisfactory finale to what is otherwise I decent enough progression system.


They've added twice the number of ambitions to up the variety of potential end game victory conditions - but for me this doesn't solve the problem at it's core; which is the player is at the mercy of a random draw to determine their potential to actually achieve victory. Even if you reject the crowning ambition to fish for another one, you could still be putting yourself in a position to lose the game via points while waiting for an achievable condition. Nolegskitten did a One City Challenge game on the mohawk stream recently and while that mode is a touch harder - they ran into this exact same situation; they were trying to game the system to do the 15 law ambition, and kept rejecting crowning ambitions to try and find one they could finish, and lost the game because they ran out of time. The whole presentation of that mechanic was just a masterclass in how silly it actually is.

The game is very good, and is pretty much the perfect game for me, too. If they ever find the time, though, then I think crowning victory conditions and how they're delivered to the player should be revisited.

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

Some great discussion here regarding the ambition system that I, admittedly, have little experience with. I tend to use early ambitions as a way to boost legitimacy in the early game but then lose interest as the game develops. King Jason raises some salient points about how the finale of this system is a significant design flaw. If a player is deliberately holding back on nine laws so they can get the ambition to enact 15, the player is no longer playing the game, but rather playing the mechanics. It's also silly that a player can realistically achieve one - or multiple - crowning ambitions through normal gameplay (it's not that difficult to enact 15 laws with proper civic management) but it will only count as a win if the player chose the right button at the right time.

Something should also be said regarding the varying difficulties of crowning ambitions. Being asked to turtle up and press end turn until you have the required civics to enact 15 laws is a much simpler task than being asked to wipe out your opponents. If crowning ambitions took your game into account thus far - e.g., a war-focused game is more likely to ask you to wipe out your opponents - perhaps this wouldn't be so egregious, but it seems random in what it offers you.

As an aside, I'd be interested to see nation-specific crowning ambitions that are unique for each country in the game, as a kind of nod to their historical achievements. This gives the player something to aim for from turn 1. Rome famously conquered a vast empire, so should be expected to hold a certain number of cities and defeat a certain number of opponents. Greece was a place of culture and learning, so should aim to produce certain numbers of theatres, ministries and specialists. Just spitting out some ideas.

 

[StrangeKiwi]

Some great discussion here regarding the ambition system that I, admittedly, have little experience with. I tend to use early ambitions as a way to boost legitimacy in the early game but then lose interest as the game develops. King Jason raises some salient points about how the finale of this system is a significant design flaw. If a player is deliberately holding back on nine laws so they can get the ambition to enact 15, the player is no longer playing the game, but rather playing the mechanics. It's also silly that a player can realistically achieve one - or multiple - crowning ambitions through normal gameplay (it's not that difficult to enact 15 laws with proper civic management) but it will only count as a win if the player chose the right button at the right time.

Something should also be said regarding the varying difficulties of crowning ambitions. Being asked to turtle up and press end turn until you have the required civics to enact 15 laws is a much simpler task than being asked to wipe out your opponents. If crowning ambitions took your game into account thus far - e.g., a war-focused game is more likely to ask you to wipe out your opponents - perhaps this wouldn't be so egregious, but it seems random in what it offers you.

As an aside, I'd be interested to see nation-specific crowning ambitions that are unique for each country in the game, as a kind of nod to their historical achievements. This gives the player something to aim for from turn 1. Rome famously conquered a vast empire, so should be expected to hold a certain number of cities and defeat a certain number of opponents. Greece was a place of culture and learning, so should aim to produce certain numbers of theatres, ministries and specialists. Just spitting out some ideas.

Nation specific victory conditions could be implemented in a flexible but historically germane way. It would require a fair amount of time, probably wouldn't sell more units of the game, and would be a one off experience per civ, but would be great fun I do wonder if this is something that could be modded?

 

[Verrucosus]

it feels like you're engaging with a system that punishes player progress and encourages gimmicky exploits and cheats while masquerading as a good idea.

That sounds harsh. I hope (and strongly suspect) that I won't feel like that next time, now that I know about the 70 %-rule that these exploits are based on. Maybe the fact that the goals are presented as character ambitions will help me to overlook it. The character connection is definitely the reason why I have no problem with not getting a 7-wonder-ambition when I already have seven wonders ... that would be one unambitious ruler. As a matter of personal preference, I'm glad that the ambitions victory is part of the game. Having said that, I can understand how players who enjoy mastering the system might prefer not to be tempted ("encouraged" seems like the wrong word here) to do something that feels like cheating. Would you prefer it if there was a setup option to disable declining ambitions?

 

[PiR]

Thanks Jason that's very instructive.
I think all games have their meta and breakable parts once you know every detail of them.
What I love about Old World is that it's about making choices that are impactful, trade-offs where you sacrifice something to gain something.
In this case, I think declining the crowning ambitions presented to you until you get the one you want has its own punishment: do it too many times and you waste turns that will enable your opponents to win.

 

[King Jason]

Thanks Jason that's very instructive.
I think all games have their meta and breakable parts once you know every detail of them.
What I love about Old World is that it's about making choices that are impactful, trade-offs where you sacrifice something to gain something.
In this case, I think declining the crowning ambitions presented to you until you get the one you want has its own punishment: do it too many times and you waste turns that will enable your opponents to win.

Indeed, but part of the problem of the system which promotes this behavior is that you also get presented with options you cannot achieve.

Such as, for example, being Offered the obtain 7 wonders ambition on turn 130 on the highest difficulty setting when you have perhaps one or two wonders of your own, and the nearest opponent who has wonders you can steal is halfway across the map with another nation in the way of them and the point leader is approximately 20 turns away from winning the game.

Or getting "Destroy a Rival nation" and having it target the largest nation on the map that's also on the other side of the world from you.

These ambitions are delivered at the end of a game unless a player is exceedingly efficient at clearing ambitions; which is a pretty silly expectation to have of new or inexperienced players. Acquire all 4 holy cities basically demands 3-4 different wars from a human who has one or none of the world religion's cities in their empire.

That's effectively impossible to do in a reasonable timeframe - you're either going to win the game through points yourself, or lose the game to the computer nations.

Hence why players just use cheeky mechanical knowledge to get themselves to that 70% threshold on the easiest ones and then crank out the last 30% when the crowning is offered:

Half of them are impossible to do at the end of the game unless you've been actively planning to try and complete them all game **anyway**

Which is why I think it is essentially pointless not to let the players select the crowning ambitions as an end-game goal from much earlier in the game.

I want to be clear and emphasize that I LOVE ambitions in the game, and I enjoy it as a sort of quest track and win condition - the implementation of the crowns, however, is just all wrong imo.

As mentioned, Mohawk has added in a handful of newer, and easier ambitions to achieve. But imo, that's more of a bandaid to issue at hand; indeed it makes it more likely that players can end up being offered ambitions they can finish in a reasonable timeframe, but it sort of sidesteps the issue lying at the core of the mechanic as I see it.

 

[Verrucosus]

Test Branch 1.0.76797 Test 2025-03-12​

National Ambitions:

• The final ambition is now called a National Ambition and may be offered early, after a player has completed 5 ambitions
• The offer is triggered soon after the player reaches 75% progress towards one of the national ambitions
• National Ambitions are not used for tier counting purposes i.e. they do not make regular ambition offers harder
• All National Ambitions are listed in the Encyclopedia under their own category
• Added new National Ambition '+250 Food, Iron, Stone, Wood and Money per turn'. This replaces the previous ambition to stockpile 2000 of each resource
• Added new regular Ambition 'Control 4 Hamlet class improvements'
• Adjusted ambition threshold calculations and ambition events to allow a greater variety of ambitions to be offered

Well, that happened fast.

The second bullet point is open to some interpretation. The trigger is described as 75 % "towards one of the national ambitions". It doesn't say that it's exactly that ambition that will be offered. On the one hand, it would be strange if strong progress towards one ambition triggered another one whose completion is far beyond the horizon. On the other hand, if the triggering ambition were offered (or at least eligible), that would be a complete inversion of King Jason's 70 %-rule. That rule has a useful purpose in avoiding "unambitious ambitions", and there's no mention of that being abandoned for the regular ambitions. Do we end up with almost opposite trigger rules for regular and final ambitions (regular ambitions excluded at 70 % progress, final ambition triggered at 75 %)?

Finding myself at serious risk of overthinking this, I'll better go back to getting smashed by the gods.

 

[PiR]

Good question, I'm also wondering if you have 5 ambitions and the National Ambition, do you still miss 4 to win or not?
I guess you do and that's why it's not called "final" anymore.