Old World: A Civ-Like 4X game

[Viper87227]

I caught wind of this game about two weeks ago. The game is being made by Mohawk Games (Offworld Trading Company) and headed by the lead designer for Civilization 4. Looks like it focuses purely on ancient civilizations and tries to retool how unit orders get assigned, turning movement points into a sort of currency. The idea being that giving orders to units needs to be more carefully managed, hopefully doing away with the gameplay mechanic Civ suffers where in if you cannot succeed elsewhere, you can just build an army and steamroll everyone for a domination victory. It really looks like this could have a much more enjoyable late-game than Civ. I really didn't enjoy the modern era's in Civ, so a game that takes its concepts but stays in ancient civilizations, I'm all about.

Yesterday a couple youtube channels got to stream some gameplay. Given that Civ 6 clocks in as my highest played title on Steam, I'm super interested in this. Game is $40 for early access, launching May 5th on EGS (IDGAF about your feelings on EGS, please keep this topic on discussing the game). After spending months pining over Humankind, this games surprise reveal really grabbed me. I don't often pre-order games anymore, especially early access, but this just looks way to good for me to wait on. I know if it's even half way decent, I'll get hundreds of hours out of it.

 

[schizrade]

So have you popped for it? This looks totally up my alley as well. Been playing Civ since the early 90's.

 

[Viper87227]

So have you popped for it? This looks totally up my alley as well. Been playing Civ since the early 90's.

Yep. Preordered this morning. Epic says available 4/30 but I'm guessing that's a preload since the store page says 5/5.

I'm temp layed off, likely till the end of May. This should be a great way to kill some time during our quarentine.

 

[schizrade]

Yep. Preordered this morning. Epic says available 4/30 but I'm guessing that's a preload since the store page says 5/5.

I'm temp layed off, likely till the end of May. This should be a great way to kill some time during our quarentine.

Dang sorry about the temp layoff, but hey... make the best of it? I am actually taking a day off today as I am classified essential and haven't had a day off since early feb. I dont even know what to do with myself not working lol.

When it unlocks, post some thoughts. Cause im interested.

 

[OnceSetThisCannotChange]

Once it gets to Steam... I was waiting for a decade since Civ IV, for a decent Civ type game. I can wait some more.

 

[Viper87227]

Once it gets to Steam... I was waiting for a decade since Civ IV, for a decent Civ type game. I can wait some more.

They haven't commented on it yet... But I assume that whenever early access ends, that's when it will launch on steam. That's how they seem to be getting around steams policy of not allowing games that launch somewhere else first.

 

[Viper87227]

Game unlocked today. Been playing 4.5 hours straight now... telling myself I should probably take a break but it definitely invokes the "one more turn" mentality of Civ. I am enjoying it immensely. Firstly, I'll say, that for an early access title, it's incredibly stable. I haven't had a single glitch, crash, or any other sign of instability. Ultrawide support is here, which I'm surprised about. The only tells I've even noticed of it being EA is some random visual stuff like movement animations are sometimes janky, and art assets are missing... stuff that has absolutely no impact on the gameplay. It's probably the most playable early access title I've ever purchased.

As far as how it plays... there is obviously a lot of Civ going on here, but with some important changes. It seems like a lot more focus is put on what's happening internally in your civilization, versus what other players are doing. Building your lineage, where in you have to chose how your family grows and learns, and keep them happy, is really satisfying. I've heard a number of claims it's like Crusaider Kinds II, but I've never played that. Certain aspects are a little confusing, the way resources are earned and spent is a bit different than Civ. None of it feels unnatural though, I just have to change my thinking that not everything is bought with money like Civ, you have Science, Training, and Civics that are sort of treated like alternate currencies. Which is actually pretty cool. As an example, my go to strategy in Civ was to put everything I could into commerce and then use my massive wealth to buy an unstoppable army. That doesn't seem possible here... thus far, units don't seem to be able to be bought with money, and they are upgraded using Training points. Money really doesn't play in at all to combat superiority. Victory is achieved by way of ambitions. Think almost like victory points in Catan. You need to finish 10 ambitions to win the game. Ambitions are not fixed goals, they are things that are generated based on the course of the game. It appears this will make for a much more varied path to victory as you don't go into a game with a specific plan on how you are going to win. You don't just pick a focus and go hard into it. As an example, my current ambitions are as follows: Control four cities, enact four laws (these are choices that you unlock after finishing research projects, and then spend civics on, that change how your government grows), control six temples, control five mounted units, and kill 15 enemies. The first two i've completed. The temple one I've made no progress on, as I don't know how to do it. The mounted units and enemy kills i'm partially done with, but these two are bigger challenges than they might sound like given that combat is much less of a focus in this game versus Civ. In my current playthough I've had one war, and given that I have not been focusing on military, my goal in the war wasn't to keep fighting (like it would have been in Civ), it was instead a race to figure out how to make peace as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to end up liking this more than Civ. At 4.5 hours in, I feel like i'm just scratching the surface of the game... I still have no indication of how long a game is going to take to complete. But it'll be a while. Hard to say at this point what the replayability will be, but I imagine high. Like Civ, the game gives you a number of modifiers when you start your game so that you can set up different circumstances with each play though. I'm currently playing the easiest difficult so that I can learn all the games mechanics, but I'll pump it up on the next game in hopes to experience some challenges.

Also, the game has planned multiplayer, but I don't know if it's functional. There is a stable branch and a test brand. Multiplayer is only accessible on the test branch. I don't know if it's functional, or what state it's in. Devs said that MP was not their focus until later into early access, but I didn't see any clarification beyond that.

Overall, I think the game is excellent so far. It launched at 25% off (currently $30, normally $40, no idea if it will go up when EA ends). At $30, for fans of Civ, I'd wouldn't hesitate for a second to pick it up.

EDIT: Started running into some instability issues. Not quite sure. After about 7 hours into a game yesterday I suddenly hit a wall where the UI broke. Couldn't do anything. It persisted on my save. If I went back to an autosave before it happened, the game worked fine, but it happened again. Today I started a fresh game and the same thing happened again about 2 hours in. I'm not complaining, I know it's EA and there will be kinks, but this obviously contradicts the statement I made yesterday that everything is running smooth.

EDIT 2: They pushed a patch that fixed it. All is well again.

 

[schizrade]

I picked this up over the weekend. As a very long time Civ Player, I REALLY like it. The dynastic aspect is real. When I get a really long lived influential leader, I find myself trying to cement that persons legacy with something notable like a wonder or expansion.

 

[deadrody]

They haven't commented on it yet... But I assume that whenever early access ends, that's when it will launch on steam. That's how they seem to be getting around steams policy of not allowing games that launch somewhere else first.

Who would have ever expected it would take two full years for it to come to Steam!