What do Civ IV players think of Old World?

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,

Old World is Soren Johnson's (lead desinger on Civ IV) latest game. It's set in antiquity and uses many similar mechanics to the Civilization games whilst also adding in features such as family trees with characters, resource collection and the orders system.

Personally I find it a worthy successor to Civ IV and a possible competitor for best 4X game on the market - at least in the Civilization type of game sphere. I've been having a blast; it's challenging, very detailed and in-depth with a lot of moving parts and thought required per turn. Between Old World and Civ IV, I consider my 4X gaming needs fulfilled.

Has anyone here played the game? What are your thoughts on it?

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[Xyth]

I love it. Finally a worthy successor to Civ IV. Really well designed, compelling to play, and it has full Mac and modding support from day one. I can understand some people might not like it because it doesn't cover all of history or the entire world, but for those like me who love the ancient/classical world most it's just incredible.

 

[Sephi]

It's a great game if you are looking for a 4x game with a challenging AI (which most lack).

What I don't like is the One unit per tile rule. If you have 30 units in the late game, you have to give move orders to most of them every single turn which quickly gets repetetive.

 

[Gumbolt]

There is an Old World forum on this site. You would likely get better responses there?

https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/old-world-general-discussions.602/

 

[jrregan]

I think it's OK. I have never play thru an entire game, but that's the old-guy syndrome that takes over. I love certain aspects and "heard" that there will be a further development. I know it's coming to Steam Q22022, a bit delayed from "immediate" release since it will likely be incorporating the Steam Workshop functionality. Let's see what Soren has in store.

 

[eysteinn]

I do not like it. BTS with Xyth's mod is the best 4x Ive ever played and Ive played all of them. Old World is very focused on a region and an era, but not in a historically accurate way. I've been warned not to be too negative before so I will say why I prefer Civ 4. I play normal speed, largest map, max civs.
In the beginning, I'm forming my strategy based on my neighbors, my bonuses, city terrain, how many cities can I grab and defend, etc. In OW, your enemies will always be the same 6 civs, they are more advanced than you, the terrain is not that different, you cant pick strategic city placements. You just basically outgrow your enemies over time.
In Civ 4 I have large strategic challenges and choices. Do I compete with the massive cultural city stealing my borders or do I conquer them? Should I help my arch nemesis neighbor in their war with a much more dangerous enemy so they arent vassalized and combine against me? Should I risk founding an exposed new city to get a critical resource or just try to trade for it?
OW is a lot of unimportant decisions, but the order limit means you have limited unimportant decisions.

I do like stacks of doom and OW game mechanics seems to cater to the "I can't handle more than 10 units a turn" people who complain about late game civ. Defense is "keep 50 units around your cities because mobile armies are not a thing".
Unit battles are not decisive. Ancient combat was decisive army engagements. Not ww1 battle lines.
There is a quote by a game designer somewhere that says, to paraphrase, either give a player many less meaningful choices, or few critical choices. City placement, war strategy, building strategy, orders, governors, etc. From my limited experience of OW, it seems like a game you go in with a by the numbers strategy and play it off the same opposing civs. This is done by % bonus maxing. There are some unit and city variations, but not enough difference and players will always choose the max strategy rather than tailor it to their situation.

Ive gone into a diatribe elsewhere about whats wrong with it, so I wont here. The developers have already made the game based on a certain design and its not going to change. Maybe they believe its the best 4x idea ever, or maybe guys in suits convinced them this is what sells on xbox, idk.
Civ 4 BTS History Rewritten remains king. Where my army composition matters. Where I can send raiders to distract an enemy army while I sack their city behind their lines, where I have to worry about culture city stealing from staunch allies, whether I focus on my weak enemy next door or the civ about to win a culture victory on the other side of the globe.

 

[jrregan]

I do not like it. ...

np, understand. I reflect on a game and how much I like it how many times at work I think... "I'd sure like to be playing..." So that doesn't impact me as OW sometimes intrudes but not as much as CIV IV or V does.

I recall still playing CIV III after IV came out for quite a long time. It took over a year for me to twilight III for IV as my primary CIV. OW is definitely more limited of a palate. One that I still have yet to get my head around to enjoy the entire game. Still don't know the mechanics as well as I would wish, but that the crux. Don't have that amount of free time anymore. Bummer but that's life.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[eddieballgame]

Civ IV, the last great civ game in this series/genre. (imho)
Old World, in time, may very well surpass it. For now, it is my goto 4X in single & multiplayer.
It, simply, does so many things right via options & mechanics...making it a pleasure to play.

 

[Quintillus]

I like it enough that it may be more appropriate to answer in a "What do Old World players think of Civ IV?" thread before long.

Fresh, fun, challenging. It's probably the most challenging 4X game I've played since Civ4, which is a good thing, as most have been wholly unchallenging. The event-driven character/court development is a nice touch. There's plenty to build, which appeals to the builder in me. The laws system is a good equivalent to Civ4's civics, which IMO are the high point of the government/civics/etc. paradigm in the Civ series.

It also convinced me that 1 UPT doesn't inherently have to be awful. I was quite skeptical of that given Civ V and VI, but combat actually works in Old World. I think the fact that every unit has multiple movement points, and can be force-marched for more if need be, really helps, and the much greater distances between cities helps even more. That also helps in making it feel like there are rural areas. It's not cities everywhere like in Civ, which is a nice change of pace.

----

Background: Got into Civ with Civ III. Switched to Civ4 in 2005, switched back to Civ3 in 2007 in large part due to my computer not being able to play large Civ4 maps well. Eventually partially went back to Civ4 once I got a more powerful computer. Now play probably 60% Civ3, 40% Civ4. Tried Civ5 and couldn't like it no matter how many times I tried, tried Civ VI and found it better than V (mainly due to districts and the removal of global happiness) but not nearly as good as III/IV.

 

[AspiringScholar]

I'm curious whether or not to give it a try. I saw it once and remarked that it looked good, but just wasn't interested in getting into another game at the time. I've gotten absorbed into Realism Invictus over this past year, and it is so expansive and deep that I most likely won't be venturing into another 4X.

The game I'm looking forward to next is Victoria 3. I am very skeptical that it's going to be good, unfortunately, but I really like V2 so I guess I have to give it a try. The biggest red flag to me though is that they got rid of player controlled war for some reason. What...? I strongly suspect they're doing this so that they can bundle it with some other features and then sell what should be an obvious default mechanic as DLC after the want for it has simmered long enough.

A bit of a tangent which hopefully isn't too irrelevant, but that's the main shortcoming with 4X in my opinion: grand strategy diplomacy. Things like infamy, casus belli, guarantees, infamy and prestige would add a great deal of fun and depth if it could be included in Civ. Being remiss of those things is the reason I go back to EU3 and V2 from time to time.

 

[qouigv93027]

I think it's fantastic because it's brought in and integrated a lot of gameplay innovations that have happened since Civ4.