4X Old World - historical 4X strategy by Civ 4 designer (formerly 10 Crowns)

[spectre]

I want to like it more than I do.

Sums it up for me as well. I'm currently stuck in a cycle:
1. Ok, I'm not playing this shit anymore.
2. Uninstall.
3. Going back to this thread to tell y'all it's fucking shit
4. Ok, maybe I'll give it one more go go?
5. Reinstall
6. Play 40-something turns, goto 1.

Not sure what's this about. If it's the process of learning the game when you're a long-time civ player, it's most definitely a weird one.
The game certainly promises a lot and there's plenty to like in there. Then suddenly I see come across something that annoys the living fuck out of me.
One thing's for sure, it is a larpers paradise.

I think it tiptoes the fine line at which randomness keeps things spicy and just gets in the way of things. Some things are baffling in this regard. For example, why the need to randomize unit promotions? Another thing is how research is organized as a stack of cards to shuffle. This one is actually a bit less annoying, because you can manipulate the odds with leader abilities and increase your options, e.g. by building the Oracle which reveals one more card.

Jury is still out on whether the AI is actually good. It can bite you in the ass while playing on the defense (though tbh, taking cities is a bit of a process in this game), on the other, I've yet to see it launch a decent offensive against something that isn't a minor tribe. Then there's the elephant in the room of the AI getting all kinds of bonuses, like an extra city or three, etc. But this is the way a lot of civs and civ-alikes are doing it.

 

[Joggerino]

If you're wondering about the AI, in my game the Romans sent their entire army (we were allied so i had vision) across literally the whole map to take out a barbarian encampment. It was quite a long snake, and the AI cheats with troops. They have way more then they realistically should be able to.
This insane expedition ended with their closest neighbors declaring war and attacking their undefended cities.

 

[spectre]

So, makes a decent first impression... until you actually get to look under the hood.

I really like archipelago maps, problem is, the AI is absolutely dysfunctional on them. One time, it generated a world where no civs could attack each other for 100+ turns.
I managed to grab three islands just for myself, and after that I needed to chain 2+ anchored ships just to get to the nearest one, which is probably what the AI couldn't do.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

I immediately refunded this game, because it didn't let me rebind hotkeys.

 

[oscar]

AIs in this genre always kind of suck (if not outright incapable) at naval affairs so island maps are easy mode in about every damn Civ-like I've played (hell even the broader grand strategy genre).

 

[spectre]

AIs in this genre always kind of suck.

That looks more to the point. I know that expectations for these things are best kept low, but on the other hand
I don't see the point in justifying this state of affairs. When the AI sucks negercock, it needs to be said and properly ridiculed.
If an entire map generation setting is dysfunctional, it's laughable and either the AI or the map generating algo needs to be unfucked. I'm only a bit butthurt about it, because all other settings I tried feel too land-locked to me.

 

[LizardWizard]

This is a fantastic and a very deep game, a true homage to lat '90 gaming when devs were not afraid of experiment and complexity. I haven't played this more than a couple of minutes since 2020 and gave it a couple of hours yesterday. The game has developed vastly since early access. It feels complete now, in almost every aspect. It is a demanding product, not for ones expecting cheap and quick pleasure - you need to invest some time to learn the basics and to understand the differences between your usual 'Civ-like' routine vs how does The Old World should be played. And it should be taken slowly, with a glass of good wine or something stronger. With a clear head and...who knows, maybe a bit of larping/role playing. As Gamezor mentioned - this is not a product for mini-maxers, which makes the game difficult to approach for competitive players.

It might be a superb base for next games/dlc's. I can imagine it during the 10th Century of middle Europe. Or during the WWI. Or even a sci-fi/fantasy game.
Right now it needs some more biomes, different landscapes and possibly some major events, changing the nature and predictability of gameplay.

Game is pretty good, but really not that great. Better than Civ 5/6 without the voice acting budget, which isn't a high bar. AI is absolutely pants on head useless.

 

[Gamezor]

I have been playing more and liking this more. I wish in game help was more detailed. Exactky what difference does it make for chars to have highor low opinion of the king? cant find anywhere thisis explained in detail.

 

[covr]

They will try to fuck you up with some random events.

 

[Gamezor]

I played as Rome on the actual old world map, but could tell I was snowballing on about turn 120, plus major slowdown on my pretty good computer late game. I bumped difficulty up another notch (I think I'm on "the strong") and started new game as babylon on the default seaside map, which is really just an ocean free map with the player basically in the middle. In both games I'm running into the fact that the AI is not aggressive enough in war (could pwn me but doesn't) when I am vulnerable and is not great at waging it. They aren't terrible either so that is good. I remember Endless Legend having the same issue. I could adjust the difficulty options to make the AI more aggressive I suppose, but I also don't really want to have to min max every freaking decision to keep up. This is one thing I liked in EU4, at least when I last played it a year or two ago. First game I played as Muscovy which, granted, is a very easy start, but I also had no idea what I was doing. It was no joke if the Ottomans declared war--it was actually scary, unlike so far in this game.

Old World appears to also lack any kind of mid to late game crisis to shake things up like EU4 has reformation, revolutions, shit like that. I like the orders system, but as far as I can tell orders are byfar the most important resource to the detriment of all others. Once you have a lot of orders, it makes sense to use them to conquer shit, so most games probably end up going for a conquest type victory. May put it on the shelf for a while and wait for expacs.

 

[LESS T_T]

Hmm, maybe this is coming to Steam after all? They're updating Steam builds after more than a year.

https://steamdb.info/app/597180/history/

 

[ADL]

Old World/Initial release date May 5, 2020
Might be a six month long contract? Hopefully it's not a year long contract because I've been waiting to play this.
I'm probably retarded I thought this came out this year.

 

[LESS T_T]

Old World/Initial release date May 5, 2020

It's more than a year.

To be honest, considering that the Epic deal presumably saved them from millions of debt and enabled to finish the game, I think the contract might be longer than a year.

 

[fork]

AIs in his genre always kind of suck (if not outright incapable) at naval affairs so island maps are easy mode in about every damn Civ-like I've played (hell even the broader grand strategy genre).

fixed

Everyone's talking about AI, neural nets and machine learning. Meanwhile, there has been no development in gaming AI for at least two decades whatsoever. Why? Because people are retards (I know, the answer is getting boring, but it is what it is).

 

[spectre]

You had Google AI beat the top Starcraft 2 players in 2019. And I'm sure everyone knows the situation with Chess and Go. The problem is, it's not actually desirable to develop an AI that can beat everyone everytime. Instead, what we want is an AI that's fun to play against.
Seeing that it requires actual thought and work, the typical developer response to this problem for a long time has been: fuck off and play multiplayer.

 

[cvv]

You had Google AI beat the top Starcraft 2 players in 2019. And I'm sure everyone knows the situation with Chess and Go. The problem is, it's not actually desirable to develop an AI that can beat everyone everytime. Instead, what we want is an AI that's fun to play against.

Not really, stuff like chess is all about brute combinatorics so of course computers were able to beat the best human players decades ago. Since calculating permutations is what they're good at. And Starcraft is all about clicking LMB very fast.

But an AI able to rationally asses the strategic situation in Civilization, figuring out who to befriend, who to attack (plus when, how and with what), what to sell or buy, what technologies and goals to pursue long term with the resources and map location you have....all that is a completely different cognitive challenge than simple chess.

That's why the standard solution to AI difficulty has been for decades just straight +% bonuses to production. In other words more challenging AI almost always means "I start with some basic buildings and techs and I produce 100% more than you every turn".

 

[spectre]

I know these are different games, just posting examples to show why no one ultimately wants that.

But an AI able to rationally asses the strategic situation in Civilization, figuring out who to befriend, who to attack (plus when, how and with what), what to sell or buy, what technologies and goals to pursue long term with the resources and map location you have....all that is a completely different cognitive challenge than simple chess.

Hence, we look into the "magic" of AI, neural networks and machine learning. Turn this problem into brute combinatorics as well by analyzing a significant enough number of games to pick up on the most effective patterns of play (if any) and turn them into a set of rules for the AI to follow in order to optimize its game. I suppose the problem is nobody really has that kind of data or is even interested in gathering them.

 

[Joggerino]

Since calculating permutations is what they're good at. And Starcraft is all about clicking LMB very fast.

No, Starcraft is about multitasking and unit micromanagement. That's why no human can reach the level of an unrestrained AI in SC.

 

[mondblut]

Meanwhile, there has been no development in gaming AI for at least two decades whatsoever. Why?

Teach AI to buy games, then we talk.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

This is a fantastic and a very deep game, a true homage to lat '90 gaming when devs were not afraid of experiment and complexity. I haven't played this more than a couple of minutes since 2020 and gave it a couple of hours yesterday. The game has developed vastly since early access. It feels complete now, in almost every aspect. It is a demanding product, not for ones expecting cheap and quick pleasure - you need to invest some time to learn the basics and to understand the differences between your usual 'Civ-like' routine vs how does The Old World should be played. And it should be taken slowly, with a glass of good wine or something stronger. With a clear head and...who knows, maybe a bit of larping/role playing. As Gamezor mentioned - this is not a product for mini-maxers, which makes the game difficult to approach for competitive players.

It might be a superb base for next games/dlc's. I can imagine it during the 10th Century of middle Europe. Or during the WWI. Or even a sci-fi/fantasy game.
Right now it needs some more biomes, different landscapes and possibly some major events, changing the nature and predictability of gameplay.

What a terrible review, do you work for a gaming magazine?

This is a fantastic and a very deep game, a true homage to lat '90 gaming when devs were not afraid of experiment and complexity.

It feels complete now, in almost every aspect. It is a demanding product, not for ones expecting cheap and quick pleasure - you need to invest some time to learn the basics and to understand the differences between your usual 'Civ-like' routine vs how does The Old World should be played. And it should be taken slowly, with a glass of good wine or something stronger. With a clear head and...who knows, maybe a bit of larping/role playing.

I haven't played this more than a couple of minutes since 2020 and gave it a couple of hours yesterday.

 

[covr]

What are you trying to say?

 

[Sranchammer]

This is the Citizen Kane of 4x

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

What are you trying to say?

That a person who has played a game for only several hours has no way to judge if a game is "very deep" and "true homage to lat '90 gaming when devs were not afraid of experiment and complexity".

Thus why I accused you of being writer for a video game review site.

 

[covr]

What are you trying to say?

That a person who has played a game for only several hours has no way to judge if a game is "very deep" and "true homage to lat '90 gaming when devs were not afraid of experiment and complexity".

Thus why I accused you of being writer for a video game review site.

Ok, now I get your point. It was not clear - I've played a lot of this game just after it was released on early access. I've put 5-10 hours for every leader and then decided to wait until they improve performance. I gave the game another spin after 1.0 was released and it was a much better game than before. Apparently devs are still actively working on it, releasing quite large weekly updates, so I guess we're still at EA again untill it hits Steam.

So yeah, it was misleading sentence, I've put enough time to formulate my opinion.
I am not a professional game reviewer, I haven't read any professional game review in like 20 years. Unless 'dex reviews counts.

 

[0wca]

I almost trashed the game for poor performance. Then i found out a process which shouldn't have anything to do with the game was starting with it and using 50% of my CPU. And finally i found out some fucking asshole embedded a coin miner into the codex installer.

Can you share which process that was? I got performance issues on my end too.

As for the actual game I'm thoroughly enjoying it although I'm just about 5h deep so I can't give a full review yet.

I like the whole event system as it often leads to traits for your leaders, most of which you can control. I can basically get a custom made court member this way by deciding what they'll learn and stuff.

Btw, if you guys want to have less events you can actually customize the difficulty and can have less or more events. There's also an option in there for the AI cheating that you can enable/disable.