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

[mediocrepoet]

Some of the events lead to follow ups too, so something that didn't start out as much of anything can turn into something more significant. Or even just impact attitudes towards one another enough that it sets things up for later.

 

[Lacrymas]

On top of that, the game is still in active development, so more balance changes will come and might address concerns. The devs are aware diplomacy is a bit too strong right now for example.

 

[Humanophage]

Played it a bit, didn’t really click with me. I had an impression that despite there’s seemingly an abundance of events each turn few of them really matter.

Which map and difficulty settings would you recommend to give it another try? I played the default difficulty and the middle east map.

Honestly I’d rather this game was in spehs. None of these nations makes sense history wise, so why even bother.

I would recommend playing on higher difficulties. Perhaps play an incomplete campaign on Noble or Glorious for learning, then try to complete a campaign on The Great. It's more fun to be challenged but lose than to not be challenged at all. Also the Great is actually not the highest difficulty as you can further increase it in custom options.

Seaside, Medium, default number of players (4 + 1) seemed adequate to me.

The events actually seem rather impactful and not too abundant, far from event spam in games like CK2. You get 1-4 events per turn and some of these really define your direction. For example, I have just had this event which gives you the option to change the class of your main character, changing their abilities, etc. whilst also having a fun RP element (a zealot finds a scroll, stops being a zealot and becomes a scholar).

Or take a look at this nigga moment of declaring war due to getting drunk:

 

[Gerrard]

Where is the "Expel" option?

 

[Lacrymas]

You can persecute the various religions in a manner of ways, but to expel them completely from a city you need a disciple of a rival world religion.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yesterday, I lost a pre-made Mediterranean map as Ptolemy to Rome and it was quite the ride. Even though I enjoyed it thoroughly, the map is lopsided specifically when playing as Ptolemy because he founds the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, so the "real" Egypt is cockblocked by me and couldn't expand at all before I conquered his only city, while Rome has the entire northern part of the map to itself because there is no other Greek nation to halt their progress. This means Rome is essentially uncontested and can rack up hilarious amounts of victory points quickly while Carthage and I had to battle it out for the pitiful resources of Africa. In hindsight, I should've continued my conquest north to settle Greece as well, but I didn't know Rome is alone up there in the beginning.

 

[Serus]

Only played a couple of hours so far and i have no idea what i'm doing but i like it (still reading guides/wikis).

It's a bit "gamey" like all 4x but in a good way (reasonable abstraction) unlike new CIV6 where nothing make sense and you feel like playing a really dumbed down boardgame.
Presentation is great (music, portraits, map etc...) and unlike CIV6 it doesn't look a shitty mobile game (uninstalled CIV6 after like 30 minutes). This game is clearly a labour of love.

Characters events are kinda funny... my favourite heir is now gay and he has a dog

Does it make him less likely to produce a heir (if it matters a all in this game)? IIRC in Crusader Kings 2, "gay" trait(?) meant exactly that and was bad as a rule (duh).

 

[Lacrymas]

Only played a couple of hours so far and i have no idea what i'm doing but i like it (still reading guides/wikis).

It's a bit "gamey" like all 4x but in a good way (reasonable abstraction) unlike new CIV6 where nothing make sense and you feel like playing a really dumbed down boardgame.
Presentation is great (music, portraits, map etc...) and unlike CIV6 it doesn't look a shitty mobile game (uninstalled CIV6 after like 30 minutes). This game is clearly a labour of love.

Characters events are kinda funny... my favourite heir is now gay and he has a dog

Does it make him less likely to produce a heir (if it matters a all in this game)? IIRC in Crusader Kings 2, "gay" trait(?) meant exactly that and was bad as a rule (duh).

It used to do that, but they changed it due to you losing the game if you had no heir. Now, you don't lose by not having an heir, so they can reinstate it if they want to. They haven't, however, so it doesn't matter whether a ruler is gay or not.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Only played a couple of hours so far and i have no idea what i'm doing but i like it (still reading guides/wikis).

It's a bit "gamey" like all 4x but in a good way (reasonable abstraction) unlike new CIV6 where nothing make sense and you feel like playing a really dumbed down boardgame.
Presentation is great (music, portraits, map etc...) and unlike CIV6 it doesn't look a shitty mobile game (uninstalled CIV6 after like 30 minutes). This game is clearly a labour of love.

Characters events are kinda funny... my favourite heir is now gay and he has a dog

Does it make him less likely to produce a heir (if it matters a all in this game)? IIRC in Crusader Kings 2, "gay" trait(?) meant exactly that and was bad as a rule (duh).

It used to do that, but they changed it due to you losing the game if you had no heir. Now, you don't lose by not having an heir, so they can reinstate it if they want to. They haven't, however, so it doesn't matter whether a ruler is gay or not.

Eh, any time I had a homosexual ruler and didn't go for the fertility rite thing, they had no biological heirs and I had to start screwing around with succession planning.

 

[3 others]

There's a new expansion coming again: Wrath of Gods

The whole release blurb is there at the link but looks like it will include significant natural disasters and other calamities, some new scenarios, two new map scripts with dynamic terrain, and a new nation: Aksumite empire. I'd rather see them broaden the Greek civs to Lydia/Mycenea but maybe they need something that won't cramp the premade Mediterranean/Mesopotamian map.

 

[Lacrymas]

 

[Malakal]

There's a new expansion coming again: Wrath of Gods

The whole release blurb is there at the link but looks like it will include significant natural disasters and other calamities, some new scenarios, two new map scripts with dynamic terrain, and a new nation: Aksumite empire. I'd rather see them broaden the Greek civs to Lydia/Mycenea but maybe they need something that won't cramp the premade Mediterranean/Mesopotamian map.

Id love more new nations, some indians, some Levant, Etruscans, maybe Pontus or Armenia. Surely it cant be that hard.

Disasters are whatever, hate too much rng in my strategy.

 

[Lacrymas]

You'll probably be able to turn off the disasters in the pre-game options if they turn out to be too RNG and just a nuisance. I'm more excited about the new civ and the scenarios.

 

[Malakal]

You'll probably be able to turn off the disasters in the pre-game options if they turn out to be too RNG and just a nuisance. I'm more excited about the new civ and the scenarios.

I probably wont so hopefully they atent too annoying.

Ah and maybe they make AI cheat less blatantly

 

[Lacrymas]

Ah and maybe they make AI cheat less blatantly

The AI doesn't cheat as far as I know?

 

[Malakal]

Ah and maybe they make AI cheat less blatantly

The AI doesn't cheat as far as I know?

I absolutely dont believe this, AI units are overpromoted and fielded in insane numbers, their cities underdeveloped (my last game Egypt didnt even connect roads from its capital to major cities long established) while all city pop is somehow promoted into specialists.

My late game cities are an endless urban sprawl of improvements and farms, mines, quarries, you can literally see AI being not developed. Granted its possible unit building takes too much priority.

AI order counts are obviously fake too, you can see them having 50 orders on 5 laws. Doesnt add up.

 

[Lacrymas]

Ah and maybe they make AI cheat less blatantly

The AI doesn't cheat as far as I know?

I absolutely dont believe this, AI units are overpromoted and fielded in insane numbers, their cities underdeveloped (my last game Egypt didnt even connect roads from its capital to major cities long established) while all city pop is somehow promoted into specialists.

My late game cities are an endless urban sprawl of improvements and farms, mines, quarries, you can literally see AI being not developed. Granted its possible unit building takes too much priority.

AI order counts are obviously fake too, you can see them having 50 orders on 5 laws. Doesnt add up.

You have to keep in mind the AI plays on The Good difficulty in terms of starting orders, resources and happiness rates. You absolutely can overpromote and overspam military units if that is your priority. I really haven't noticed the AI doing something overly egregious or impossible. The AI *does* get some bonuses to make up for the fact they don't have events, though, and gets more courtiers than you can normally because of it.

 

[Modron]

AI order counts are obviously fake too, you can see them having 50 orders on 5 laws. Doesnt add up.

Because they aren't building as many improvements as you they have more orders free. The continued cost of building improvements can really eat up a lot of orders before your turn even starts.

I think if you look at the difficulty it will tell you if enemy ai is getting bonus resources when you're setting up the game in case you're wondering how they afford to pay and feed all those units on what little they've built up (granted specialists can really up the output).

 

[Malakal]

Ah ok I havent checked how lower difficulties work started mid difficulty and now am playing on noble. I guess AI could be playing on lower and then it makes sense.

 

[Lacrymas]

What I've noticed trips people up in regards to orders is indeed that the continued building of an improvement eats up 1 order. Having 5 workers building 5 improvements at once is -5 orders for the turn.

I also just checked, the AI plays on The Strong (I'm pretty sure it used to play on The Good, it seems like they've changed it at one point), which means they can get more orders than you due to the stacking % modifiers. The AI doesn't get economic bonuses on The Noble. The AI in OW is actually pretty good for a 4X game and as far as I know it doesn't generate anything out of thin air except courtiers, especially not military units. What I've noticed the AI doing is prioritizing military techs to get better units more quickly. Longbowmen are devastating if you get them earlier than other nations f.e.

 

[Malakal]

Ehh wouldnt call it good its competent early game but in most cases falls off like a rock not keeping up with tech and laws.

Late game its common to see hordes of max promoted slingers fighting my swordsmen. For melee it often caps out at axes when game ends.

I am aware how workers eat orders but improvements also give them. Garrison shrine temple stronghold citadel add up to like 3 per city especially if you have multiple religions.

 

[Lacrymas]

If you feel like the AI is too easy, bump up the difficulty to The Glorious, that's what I usually play on and am not guaranteed to win.