Why isn't this game more popular?

[Shirotora Kenshin]

We're able to continue working on more updates and content for the game, which feels very good.

I think the „more updates and content“ part feels good on the player‘s side too

 

[Burbank]

Some people definitely play Civ because they like the idea of playing as a particular modern-day nation (or leader), but Civ's greatest thematic advantage is that it spans thousands of years of history. That really captivates the imagination. This whole thing where you play for however many hours, going from a society that's building its first permanent settlements to a global power that has aircraft carriers and a space program, that's amazing. It blew my mind when I started with Civ1, and it's still compelling enough to have me interested in Civ7.

But yes, Old World is doing well commercially. We're able to continue working on more updates and content for the game, which feels very good.

I am that guy who always insists on the slowest pace so Civ games would stay longer in ancient/medieval : )
The idea of playing a god-like king/leader makes more sense in early history imo.

Is there any plans to add more music for the game btw? I would buy that DLC.

 

[Burbank]

I installed the game recently to see what had changed in the last year. I still feel it's a great game. The mid/lategame is a lot to handle and the game overall is a bigger learning experience than say Civ games. It is very fun as I start to learn it though.

I like the idea of giving up control of the empire to AI, and I feel it would fit Old World's character system. I am in mid-game now on my current save and am going to try the city automation.
It would be fun if the personalities of the e.g. governors of automated cities influenced the decisions they made.
I would love to be able to give a small army to a general and some simple objective (harass, defend, attack this city). It would make the game feel more like I was leading a people and not just a system of modifiers. I really enjoy the AI general mod in Total Warhammer 2 where you can give control of some units to the AI.

I kept thinking about this idea. The risk/reward of delegating a city/army could be:
Risk: loss of direct control, reliance on personal opinion for compliance (e.g. a general could decide to go raiding instead of attacking the city you told him, a governor could decide to focus on building a bunch of quarries because he likes geology)
Reward: Save some orders each turn (delegating resonsibility to others), less micro to focus on interesting decisions

 

[Lazy sweeper]

And wow, is this game good.

Anyway, I've seen that this game has fairly low player counts on Steam, and this made me sad. I really want this game to be a success, because playing it just makes me feel so good. I'm wondering if anybody has any thoughts or insights on this topic. Is it a marketing issue (indie title with not much promotion)? Is it a UI issue? Am I just weird and what I want is not what the mass market wants?

The game is good but too hard maybe for more casual gamers...
The UI is very difficult to decipher even with the help of the help-files
No hypertext links either.
City Mayors dies and everything has to be done manually for each "family guy"...
I imagine if the same game was made with more "family guy" friendly faces, like a parody of history, without need to trace back the full gnoseo-something-tree-analogy of Cleopatra...
And then the fixed city locations... it's a strange concept...

Steam is fine, not much promotion? Wow I can't think of other games well promoted like Old World on Steam... Ara is not even close, maybe Humankind... maybe because I just have 4X games basically in my library so I see only those... anyway don't be too serious... It's definitely a success...
They just need some weird spinoff point n.1
Point n.2 If this was the 90s... We would have seen Old World 1,2 and 3 already... instead of 3 DLC and... 16 updates patches???
I'd call it a day and start working on OW-2 straight away.

And the MAC port... it's cool but it's not a Nintendo Ds or 3DS...or Switch lite (even if the price is crazy high compared to the old DS... it still have a massive gamers base)...
I would make a Nintendo DS pirate version and put it out there for free, just to hype the people... with maybe a Limited Run physical version.... even if I have never seen a single one
where I live, it would still be pretty impressive. Hire MVG for the job... best campaign ever.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Compared to the initial release, we've made the lower difficulty levels (which includes the default) easier. It's not perfect but based on feedback, we're now in a better place than originally.

Hep! Cool! I didn't mean to say it was hard to play as for difficulty. It is very well balanced. And the fixed city is just a gimmick. The game is great. Hire MVG and make a NDS-3DS version
dumbed down if you can. Gamers would love that. (MVG makes Switch games conversions now...). Physical release and digital for Steam emulators. Of course it could be pirated, but that's the tradeoff for the MVG popularity boost power-up... (maybe change the characters to Mickey mouse and other 30's cartoons??? some spinoff thing...simpler isometric, ditch Unity...)

I have no idea if it'd be legal or not, I'm pretending it's legal, but I have no idea really it's not an homebrew... but neither itch.io NDS or GBC games are... homebrews???
IDK I've always visioned a civ like in between minecraft and Zelda 1... I mean guys pulled Halo converted for GBC on itch.io!!! Everything is possible!!

I call it free publicity...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I originally bought Old World a couple of years ago, tried a couple of turns, found it complicated and put it aside. After the launch of Civ 7 and some time spent going back to playing Civ 3 and Civ4, I decided to pick up The Sacred and the Profane DLC and try Old World again.

And, holy cow! I have no idea why I found it complicated, originally. It's actually very intuitive. The Tutorial Events are great, the help file is great. The UI makes it easy to understand what everything means. I started playing and before I knew it, it was way, way past my bedtime after way, way too many "one more turn"'s.

Old World is everything I love about Civ, combined with an economic engine that's light-years better than any Civ version, plus my favourite things from Crusader Kings 3 thrown in. To address prior posts in this thread, yes, this is a Civ-game / 4x game, not a role playing game like Crusader Kings. But the personality strengths/weakness and skills for both you and your family members and courtiers, the various positions you can appoint people to (whose effectiveness depends on their personality and skills), balancing relationships with your internal families and external foes, watching members of my court grow old and get peeved at me for decisions I make, and the events that are influenced by these things, makes your empire feel alive in a way no Civ empire ever does. You don't need to focus on this stuff, and when I'm running military campaigns I generally don't (other than deciding who's best to appoint as general for important military units). But during times of peace the depth of what's going on in your empire helps makes every turn engaging.

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

yes, this is a Civ-game / 4x game, not a role playing game like Crusader Kings. But the personality strengths/weakness and skills for both you and your family members and courtiers, the various positions you can appoint people to (whose effectiveness depends on their personality and skills), balancing relationships with your internal families and external foes, watching members of my court grow old and get peeved at me for decisions I make, and the events that are influenced by these things, makes your empire feel alive in a way no Civ empire ever does.

To be honest, the roleplaying part is what i love the most in Old World.
I personally would even like to see it expanded in a DLC or something, maybe Skill Trees, one tree per archetype, unlocking higher skills with experience.

I can‘t imagine playing OW without the characters and roleplaying part.