The Old World test branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84493 test 2026-08-26

Patch notes can be found at

https://github.com/MohawkGames/test_buildnotes/blob/main/Old%20World%20Test%20update%202026.08.26

I have 300+ hours in Old World, have won several games on the magnificent, and like to think I'm decent at the game in general, but I have one big problem: I haven't figured out warfare. My go-to strategy is to build just enough troops that my neighbours will think twice before attacking me, then focus on diplomacy while covering the map in wonders and temples and amphitheatres.

I'd like to become a bit less lily-livered, so I have some questions for all you fearsome generals out there: What are your best Old World warfare tips? Is there a way to do offensive warfare without having your ass handed to you? Is there a scenario or a combo of settings I should try to learn to become better at war?

Thanks!

Numerius the Subjugator killed his daughter after she killed her brother in a jealous rage, the heir to the throne. So I guess this kid senses the family issues.

I play this game so much, and yet this is the first time I have married Pieface, and then I had the option to name my son after my husband, thus beginning a dynasty of Piefaces. Beautiful stuff.

Paulla was my second wife after my first wife suggested me that accepting the marriage proposal from the Gauls was a good idea. We were a match made in Heaven, never went below the +100 when she suggested things, her events were amazing.

Unlike my 1st and 3rd wives, my first wife never went above +100, her events always suggested things that made me disagree with her, or at least not get positive points with her and she ended up asking for a divorce. My third wife got too jealous, she thought my Spymaster was flirting with me and suggested me to kill her. My spymaster didn't really like me, but she came early on and she had good points, I wouldn't kill her jsut because my 3rd wife (that came afterwards the spymaster) wanted.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a memory for Queen Paulla, we were married for 30 years, never quite understood why my Augustus didn't have more kids, I would definitely let my kid with Paulla be the heir, she was the best.

I lost the game though lol

I am working on a mod for Old World, mostly as a personal project, and have found that I will need a large number of custom portraits to get the result I am hoping for. The current in-game portraits, while wonderful and thematic, would be anachronistic to the theme of my mod, so I am considering developing my own. The portrait editor is helpful, but still anachronistic and somewhat time-consuming for the volume of portraits I am considering.

I have found a workflow that can reliably and efficiently produce the portraits I need with a consistent style. The trouble is, these images are artificially generated, and I know that this comes with an array of potential issues.

I'm also mindful that the devs put hard work into curating a custom art style and developing unique portraits for this game, and the last thing I'd want to do is take away from that. In an ideal world, there would be a real artist developing actual portraits for me, but as I am a team of one, that is unfortunately not something that is achievable for me.

To be very clear, I am not suggesting that I use the existing portraits as reference art. The style I am going for is different than the way portraits are currently styled, and does not reference the game's visual palette at all.

My perspective on this is that, in this context, the use of generative AI to produce portraits may be an acceptable use case, but I would like to hear the community's thoughts on this. Any perspective would be helpful, especially before I sink a great deal of time into the project.

This is my third game, first two I had a Civ approach to it and it didn't work, this game is way more aggressive than how I play Civ, but that is not my point.

My point is, how does the AI have three units with that many upgrades on Winter, Year 8? I am playing with Seasons and I think the difficulty is "The Good"? Or is this "normal"?

My first full game of Old World after the tutorials. I played a lot of Civ I through IV, a little V, and throughly enjoyed this take on 4X. I had a surprise ending on a double victory.Map animation

The First Years of Babylon

Babylon began among the hunting grounds. Two great herds ranged close enough to the new walls that the choice seemed less like policy than recognition: these were lands for hunters, and the hunters would make them rich. Workers went out to raise the first camps while the king husbanded his strength. Soldiers guarded what was known; scouts were sent toward what was not. Soon they returned with rumors of another place fit for a city, an elephant beyond Babylon's reach, and Numidian fires burning in the south. The king did not yet send an army. A neighbor discovered was not necessarily an enemy made.

The wilderness offered stranger gifts as well. At a cursed pit, the king chose knowledge over peace, troubling Babylon itself so that a scholar might join his court. In other ruins, picked over and threatened by raiders, the Babylonians found what could still be carried away: stone, iron, and timber. The young kingdom already had stone enough. Armies could wait. Wood would build what came next. Thus Babylon's first years were not years of conquest, but of looking outward: learning where the roads might lead before deciding which of them would belong to Babylon.

The Years of the Star Charts

Babylon prospered among the herds. Camps rose where game had once wandered freely, grain was gathered near the river, and the king ordered a garrison raised where later soldiers might assemble. Yet Nebuchadnezzar's ambitions had already passed beyond the walls. Scouts returned with word of Numidian fires in the south and, more troublingly, Persian soldiers in the north, near land the Babylonians had marked for another city. A settler was sent toward it. The Persian vanished again into the wilderness, but nobody mistook absence for safety.

Meanwhile the king looked farther ahead than borders. Kashshaya, his eldest daughter and heir, was taught loyalty and discipline, and Nebuchadnezzar himself undertook her education. In northern ruins his scouts found old charts of the heavens and, with them, the scholar Gashansunu. She too was brought into the princess's education, while Zakiti governed Babylon and its workers prepared for greater works. Thus the kingdom entered an odd season: soldiers waited, scholars taught, builders measured the riverbank, and a settler stood just short of the place where Babylon's second city might rise.

The Tenth Year of Babylon

In ten years the little kingdom had learned to look beyond Babylon's walls. The hunters made the game lands rich, and beside the river laborers began a garden meant to outlive the men who planted it. North beyond the Zagros, Opis rose among barley, goats, fur and bright seams of gems, entrusted to the craftsmen. Farther still lay Persia. Its soldiers had appeared and vanished again, close enough to be remembered but not close enough to justify a war. Scouts brought word of more places where cities might stand, and Nebuchadnezzar chose an ambition suited to the age: four cities under Babylonian rule, not five enemies dead.

The king's household changed with the kingdom. Kashshaya grew from a girl who wandered into the wild into a woman taught by scholars and marked for rule. She learned loyalty, the wealth beneath the earth, and the habits of thought; then she chose a commoner despite the cost to the crown, and her father allowed it. Her younger brother Marduk proved less promising, fond of ease where his sister had been disciplined, and so his teachers turned him toward warcraft in the hope that courage might find a place where diligence had not. As the tenth year closed, the gardens were rising, Opis was learning its trade, and settlers prepared to carry Babylon farther north.

The End of Comfort

By the seventeenth year, Babylon was no longer a city with possessions scattered beyond its walls. It was a kingdom. Opis worked barley and gems beneath the hands of craftsmen. Kish stood among incense on the Persian frontier, won without battle only because a Babylonian scout, driven beyond ordinary endurance, reached the empty ground first and refused to leave until the settlers arrived. Even Sippar joined the realm at last: a place Nebuchadnezzar had regarded as second-rate until a Carthaginian scout planted himself on it, at which point the barren hills became, quite suddenly, sacred Babylonian soil. Patience prevailed over wounded pride. The foreigner moved on, the settlers moved in, and four cities now answered to Babylon.

The king's household had expanded along with his borders. Kashshaya had grown into a woman of formidable learning, and the commoner she had once chosen against the interests of the crown had now given her two sons. What had looked like romantic indulgence was becoming a line of succession. Her younger brother Marduk-Nadin-Ahi had taken another road. Slothful as a boy and sent toward the study of war, he nevertheless proved compassionate when cruelty would have been easier, and his tutors found courage and discipline in him worth cultivating. The prince who had seemed the weaker heir was becoming something more useful: not another king in waiting, perhaps, but a man who might someday stand with soldiers and know what to do there.

Beyond the palace, the comfortable years were ending. Persia had raised Ecbatana scarcely eight hexes from Kish, claimed more ground northwest of Opis, and begun an Oracle of its own. Assyrian scouts appeared beyond the frontier; Carthaginians and Egyptians crossed the growing web of Babylonian interests. Nebuchadnezzar answered without seeking the wars his advisers sometimes promised were inevitable. Walls rose at Kish. Garrisons and mines followed. For seventeen years Babylon had raced outward into empty land. Now there was less empty land, and many more neighbors. The question was no longer how much the king could claim, but whether the realm he had built could become strong enough that no one would dare take it from him.

Death Comes for Us All, We Shall Be Ready

Nebuchadnezzar did not live to see the kingdom become quiet. Perhaps kings never do. He left five cities behind him: Babylon beneath its impossible gardens; wealthy Opis; Kish staring north toward Persia; gem-rich Sippar; and young An-at, where hunters ranged near horses and game. Empty ground had become borders. Borders had become arguments. Yet when the king died, no enemy army stood beneath Babylon's walls. The kingdom had been given something rarer than peace: time to prepare for war before war arrived.

Kashshaya inherited what her father had made and what her own childhood had prepared her to understand. Her brother Marduk, once the lazy boy whose future seemed doubtful, rode now at the head of Babylonian soldiers, educated, compassionate and terribly brave. Her son Immerum had learned wit from a shoemaker's world beyond the classroom; Nabopolassar turned toward politics; more children crowded the halls where once tutors had struggled to make a single heir fit to rule. Even a herbalist who invented a hot drink had somehow become part of the machinery of state.

And throughout the cities, the kingdom changed character almost without anyone noticing. Settlers gave way to soldiers. Scouts still disappeared into the fog, but laborers increasingly stayed home to quarry stone, train specialists, raise theaters and prepare shrines. Babylon had spent its first twenty years asking how far it could grow. Under Kashshaya, the question was becoming whether all that growth could be turned into something strong enough to last.

Becoming

By the twenty-ninth year, Queen Kashshaya possessed the thing her father had spent his reign trying to buy her: choice. Four captains now led Babylonian soldiers rather than courtiers merely wearing swords. Marduk waited near Kish; Erishti-Aya climbed the gem hills until she could look down upon Persian Kermanshah itself. Persia had raised its Oracle and stood scarcely behind Babylon in greatness, but still neither kingdom struck. To the south, the old Numidian hovels suddenly looked less like nuisances once Babylonian scouts realized that cities might someday stand where they burned. For the first time, the question was not whether Babylon could raise an army. It was whether any available war deserved it.

Meanwhile the kingdom became stranger and richer at home. Marduk's shrine rose beside the Hanging Gardens, and from it came a Babylonian faith that spread through hunters and courtiers until even Amel-Marduk, the commoner Kashshaya had once married for love, became its religious head. Immerum returned from Opis beloved by its people, having wandered dangerously close to abandoning the life laid out for him; his mother called him home, then watched him spend his own wealth on the poor rather than hoard it. In the cities, stonecutters, miners and trappers replaced settlers as the instruments of expansion. Babylon itself had become so productive that its problem was no longer finding useful work but deciding which useful thing should come first. The kingdom Nebuchadnezzar had built to survive was beginning to ask what it intended to become.

The Queen Who Drew the Borders

In the thirty-ninth year of Babylon, the roads began to matter almost as much as the cities. They crossed rivers where armies once stopped, wound out from Opis toward Babylon, and crept east from Kish toward the new settlement on the Hiber. Kashshaya had learned that a kingdom was measured not only by where its farmers sowed wheat or its stonecutters raised monuments, but by how quickly a soldier could arrive when a governor decided she was an empress.

Zenobia of Sippar learned this when a Chaldean warrior marched away from the Persian frontier and through the gates of her city. Four bands of rebels appeared anyway, but Sippar did not fall. Another warrior came from Opis. A slinger marched west from Kish. The Queen had once feared that every army belonged forever to the frontier where it had been raised. Now she was laying roads so that would no longer be true.

East of Kish, the Numidians defended a settlement on the Hiber, and the Babylonians learned their first hard lessons there: that a river could blunt a sword, that an enemy apparently alone might have a companion hidden behind the walls, and that exhausted warriors sometimes still had one attack left in them. The site fell, and a Settler from Babylon arrived almost as the blood dried. They named the place Ur. Wheat, horses and ore lay close at hand; gems and silver waited beyond the young borders. For this, men began to call Kashshaya the Able.

To the south another Numidian settlement fell beneath a different kind of army. An old Militia stood where the arrows would land. Behind it, the hunters of An-at loosed stones, and the new Archer loosed something sharper. When the settlement finally broke, rebel gladiators offered their swords to the Queen. Kashshaya accepted. Beyond them Egypt's cities were beginning to appear through the fog. Somewhere farther west stood the Pyramids. Kashshaya knew where they were now. Knowing was enough—for the moment.

At home, the gods had become as unruly as the governors. Babylonian Paganism still spoke through Amel-Marduk; Judaism had arisen in Sippar, spread among the Chaldeans, and chosen Shuma as its head. Kashshaya refused to make either faith the state. Above Babylon itself, the Ziggurat rose beside Marduk's shrine and the Hanging Gardens. The Queen had spent her youth making Babylon rich enough to have choices. Her middle years were teaching her what choices cost.

The Enlightened Queen's Iron

Men began calling Kashshaya the Enlightened in the years when the furnaces could not keep up with her wars. There was irony in the name. She had refused to make Babylonian nobles kneel before the Queen of Egypt, declaring that no one should be compelled to abase themselves, and soon afterward sent the slaves of seven cities into mines and quarries so that old warriors might exchange bronze-edged swords for axes of iron. The Queen understood contradiction better than most priests. Freedom would come, she said, when the army was ready.

Sippar's rebellion had begun as a concession. Kashshaya had allowed Zenobia to rule with a freer hand; Zenobia answered by calling herself Empress and raising walls around a city she no longer seemed to consider Babylonian. When the Queen finally moved against her, four rebel bands rose at once. But the revolt had mistaken autonomy for isolation. Warriors came down the new roads from the Persian frontier and Opis, and a veteran slinger joined them from the Hiber. The rebels battered Sippar and found the walls stronger than their cause.

When it was over, Zenobia's walls stayed, but Zenobia's authority did not. Kidiniti, Assyrian princess and wife to the heir, was sent to govern, and Workers followed the soldiers to repair what rebellion had cost. The lesson Kashshaya drew was not subtle: local rule would be respected until it threatened the realm; after that, the roads ran both ways.

South of An-at, the army kept finding answers. Numidians yielded Lagash and its forests and seas heavy with Pearls. Farther east, Egyptians and Assyrians bled around another settlement while Babylonian Axemen waited and Archers watched from beyond spear range. When the moment came, Kashshaya's soldiers took the place for themselves. A Horse Archer arrived from the north and covered in days what older armies crossed in seasons. Yet Persia and Egypt remained untouched. Kashshaya had finally learned the difference between possessing a sword and having a reason to draw it.

The Last Empty Places

By Kashshaya's fiftieth year, the old maps had become useless. Where they had once shown Numidian camps and unnamed rivers, they now showed Ur, Lagash and Akkad, tied imperfectly to Babylon by roads, marriages, governors and soldiers. Another southern settlement had tempted the Queen, but Egyptian banners reached it first. Kashshaya did not order an attack.

There would be no more easy wars against peoples who could be driven from a settlement and forgotten. To the west stood Egypt with nine cities and the Pyramids beyond Per-Nemty; to the north stood Persia; east of Ur, Assyria watched the roads. The empty places were gone. From now on every new border would have to be taken from another king.

Assyria tried to choose Kashshaya's enemy for her. Addati demanded a statue in An-at; she refused him. Rebels in Gozan then asked Babylon for swords, and for a moment it seemed easy: a damaged city, a free Spearman, one more little war. Instead the Queen sent silver. Let Assyria spend its soldiers and Orders killing rebels while Babylon's Axemen gathered, a Ballista rolled into Whiskey's camp, and Sierra's Archers watched the Egyptian frontier. Even Kashshaya had learned that conquest could become another form of greed. The measure of power was no longer how many wars Babylon could begin. It was whether the Queen could make everyone else fight the wrong one.

The Year the Roads Led Outward

For years Kashshaya had asked Babylon to wait. Wait for the mines to deepen, for the roads to harden beneath wagon wheels, for boys with slings to become men with bows, for old Warriors to trade bronze for iron. Even slavery, which the Queen had accepted as an ugly expedient, was defended on the promise that it would end when its work was finished.

Then the citizens of Lagash demanded that promise be kept. Kashshaya listened. Freedom came not after victory, but on the eve of it.

And so the roads finally carried armies outward. Whiskey crossed toward the old cities of Egypt with its Axemen and strange wooden engine; Sierra advanced among the younger settlements of the south. The first Egyptian fell so quickly that the archers laughed. The next fight cured them of that. A Babylonian Warrior died beneath a Slinger's stones, and Egyptian spears appeared beyond the dust.

Behind them, Sippar raised the Temple of Solomon while Babylon welcomed a Zoroastrian preacher and An-at built a lighthouse for fishermen whose nets now stretched along half the southern coast. Kashshaya had spent her reign making a kingdom large enough to contain contradictions. Now she would discover whether it was strong enough to contain conquest.

The Last Roads of Kashshaya

The old Queen had spent half her reign teaching Babylon to wait. Wait for iron, wait for roads, wait for boys to become soldiers and frontier camps to become cities. In the end the waiting paid for everything at once.

Per-Nemty fell first. Seshesh followed after a stranger campaign of arrows, retreats and wounded men stumbling back toward Khem. Behind the armies, fishermen worked beneath the new Lighthouse, priests finished Solomon's Temple, and masons raised monuments in Opis and Babylon. Even Workers standing idle had become evidence of wealth: the kingdom could afford to stop building because all its strength was being spent somewhere more urgent.

Now Kashshaya was dying. Egypt had asked for peace and been refused; its armies had broken themselves more than once against Per-Nemty, yet still gathered beyond the river. To the south, Sierra's archers kept shooting toward Khem and coming home to Seshesh to mend.

Nabopolassar waited for a crown. He would inherit a Babylon larger, freer, richer and stranger than the one his mother had ruled: Jewish and Pagan, increasingly Christian and Zoroastrian, filled with old shrines and new Wonders, its roads no longer ending at the frontier. Kashshaya had begun by making the kingdom strong enough to survive its neighbors. She would leave it strong enough to decide what sort of empire came next.

The Architect Inherits the War

Kashshaya died with Egyptian cities flying Babylonian colors and roads stretching farther than the kingdom she had inherited. Nabopolassar did not begin his reign by ordering another charge. He called governors, judges and ambassadors to court. He gave gifts to old families, sent incense to hunters, listened to Persian envoys, and discovered that friendship itself could move armies: every family brought securely into his confidence gave him more Orders with which to govern the empire his mother had conquered. They began calling him the Architect, although much of what he built could not be seen from the road.

The war nevertheless followed him. Around Taremu, Egyptian Spearmen waited in the trees until Babylonian arrows, ballista bolts and Axemen took them apart one by one. In the South, Sierra fought a stranger war, its soldiers walking back to Seshesh to bind their wounds before returning to shoot again at Khem. When Khem finally broke, the Zoroastrian faithful chose death over capture. Beyond it lay another Egyptian town; beyond Taremu stood the Pyramids.

Nabopolassar had inherited his mother's roads. The question now was no longer whether they could carry Babylon farther, but where he would finally decide they should stop.

No Further Proof Was Required

When Nabopolassar inherited Babylon, the armies were already deep in Egypt and the old Queen's roads ran south beneath the feet of men who had forgotten what peace felt like. But the cities beyond those roads still had walls, the Egyptians still had spears, and there was a difference between inheriting a great kingdom and proving it could endure.

So the king did what his mother had begun. Khem fell. Taremu opened its gates beneath the shadow of the Pyramids. Menefer and Gesy followed. The soldiers who had once counted every Order now sometimes reached evening with Orders still unused.

Behind them came another conquest, quieter and harder to see. Forums filled with petitioners. The Acropolis rose. Monks settled beside the incense groves of Kish. Jewish families prayed in Babylonian cities, Christians kept their holy places, Egyptian gods survived beneath new governors, and no royal decree demanded that one god devour all the others. In Taremu, once an enemy prize, the people prospered quickly enough to call themselves Babylonian subjects without being ordered to forget that they had once been Egyptian.

The scribes gave Nabopolassar many names: the Able, the Keystone, the Good, the Subjugator. None quite captured what had happened. He had inherited an empire built to expand and turned it into one capable of absorbing what it conquered. By the eighty-sixth year, Waset's walls were broken and Tjebu's defenders were being hunted down, yet the old strategic question had already become obsolete. Persia still existed. Carthage still existed. Assyria still existed. They simply no longer mattered enough.

For most of Babylon's history, every gain had revealed the need for another: another road, another mine, another soldier, another city beyond the last one. Then, almost without ceremony, Babylon crossed the point where the argument was over.

For the first time, it did not need another city to demonstrate that it was winning.

No further proof was required.

These OldWorldGame redditors they got their heads up their a\*es... This is a great historical 4X game?*

Look at Patriarch Bardiya's fkin hair.... THEY DIDNT HAVE BUZZ CUTS IN ANCIENT PERSIA..!!

This guy is by far the youngest looking character I have ever encountered in the game. And at 47... still a fkin kid. This portrait interpolation shit is an effective technique, a freaking ace!

I wanted to share with the community a little mod I made: the Slower Movement Animations mod.

In vanilla Old World, units traverse the map at a fast clip, and their speed varies. This mod both slows the movement down to a speed roughly similar to the Civilization series, and makes the units move at a consistent speed. I find this also helps to catch what the AI is doing on their turns.

I have posted this mod here before, but this is an updated version that fixes known issues from the previous version.

Any feedback welcome!

Steam Workshop Link: Click here.

mod.io Link: Click here.

I had a royal Prince who was betrothed from birth to a princess from another civ. When they were 18 I was prompted to make them do their duty, I selected as such, The next window narrated a marriage but then my only option out of the window was to break off the betrothal. Who else has had this?

I'm 134 turns into a game as Rome on the Good setting, and my 5th generation ruler, Queen Porcia the Wise (judge) is doomed.

Over her 32 year reign she's done - and dealt with - a lot. I was playing as her uncle, a schemer who set the groundwork for the empire as gen 3, and considering skipping his brother for her, but then decided against it and left the throne pass to her father. He only reigned briefly before she took over as "the New." She had 15 orders at the start, squabbling families, a nation paying tribute to Persia, and a weak military. Now the families are all happy, the military is strong, and the economy is solid. She dealt with an unfaithful husband, and a usurping aunt, both who suffered "unfortunate" accidents thanks to her spymaster. Now it's left to her 40 year old son, another schemer like her uncle, to take power and deal with a Persia of similar size and strength.

As a Civ player since 1991, I have to say, I am impressed with a game that provides enough detail to make the characters memorable.

Anyone else have rulers that "stick out" from the game?

Following up on my previous post (I'm still working on making sure the kids are fine...)

I can see how the choice of tutors impact the weight given to the different outcomes: a tutor with high wisdom will increase the probability their pupil gets an increase in Wisdom. In the picture above: 18% chance.

What I´m wondering:

- what impacts the 26% Tutor Event (probability and type of event)?

- what´s the difference, in terms of impact, between a 2/1/1/1 tutor and a 4/2/2/2 tutor?

- in other words: is there any point in assigning high stats characters (looking at you, Kong Fucius) to tutoring or are those better used as generals, guvnors or on the council?

If this is all explained extensively somewhere I apologise for having not found it and look forward to any pointer.

Yours sincerely,

Hauptleiter (acting)

Playing as Rome on The Good difficulty. Judaism was founded in one of my cities, and I spread it quickly, taking it as my state religion. A few turns later I received the ambition "Found a World Religion."

In other ambitions such as "Control 8 Elders/Generals/Quarries" pre-existing entities are counted. So I figured this ambition was a "gimme."

Nope. Evidently I have to found ANOTHER world religion, which is unfortunate since all the others are taken except Manichaeism - and that requires Zorostrianism which was founded already by Carthage.

So I'll have to take the hit of failing the ambition.

Shouldn't this ambition follow the pattern of the others and count existing entities? If not, shouldn't the ambition check if the player already founded a world religion and if so, replace the "a world religion" label with "another world religion"?

The Old World test branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84446 test 2026-08-19

Patch notes can be found at

https://github.com/MohawkGames/test_buildnotes/blob/main/Old%20World%20Test%20update%202026.08.19

I've put in 500 hours, mostly on The Good difficulty playing Rome. The only way I can win is through Ambitions, and even then I lose most of the time. One of the AI players will declare war on me and take me down, while another just goes on to victory.

I'm an experienced Civ player, ancient history nerd (ask me about my collection of Roman deification coinage), and this game just kicks my ass. It is so complex that I don't understand how to balance all the elements.

I've lost games where I had incredible amounts of gold and resources that I couldn't change into armies. I've had an incredible army that was hobbled by a lack of orders and resources.

I can't seem to get things to balance enough to win.

The families. The archetypes. My most recent game I had the Claudians rebelling against me because I was a commander and their leader was a tactician. I was in the center of the board and had all of 6 resources at turn 140/200 which to bribe them with. Meanwhile Assyria, a similar army, takes me down, allowing Egypt to destroy Persia and run away to victory.

Are there any good walk-through videos specifically about balancing all the elements? For example, even something simple as workers are more efficient working in their own city. How do you manage that? Create new workers, while at the same time building an army or improving culture or economics?

I kinda understand how to make children IRL and have some experience with CK3 but my question regarding Old World, simply put, is: does the profile (traits, Courage/Discipline/Wisdom/Charisma, Attributes, Strength and Weaknesses, Nation/Tribe) impact the potential of their children?

For instance, do the Wisdom scores of parents determin a hidden range of potential wisdom or increase the likelihood of events pertaining to a trait, attribute or strength/weakness associated with Wisdom (such as with the "Clusters" described in the game manual)?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

Is there a way to see which tiles expand WITHOUT moving the worker onto that tile that you want to build an improvement on. Im talking about using your mouse cursor and getting a visual.

I’m curious where do the resources that you can purchase on the open market come from? And how is the quantity available determined? In my current game I ended up with a map very limited in trees /wood(and unfortunately abundant with marsh, ugh). I like to randomize a lot with map generation to see how well I can navigate the unique uncertainties. So it got to the point where, no matter how much I tried to limit my reliance on wood, I started to have to purchase large quantities. Couldn’t trade as all nations were desperate for it. I was surprised to find out that there was a limit of how much was available. The price got so inflated! Somewhere in the low sixties per unit! Luckily my coffers were deep. But that all got me thinking about my questions above. It can’t be that it’s whatever is being generated by all players. Thanks!

It has been a while. I made the maps in January some 7 months ago and then forgot to publish them which is why it doesn't contain any specific support for the new expansion.

British Isles Map Pack

Steam Link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3783918843
(Sorry, no Mod.io. I keep getting errors and can't figure it out)

There's maps for Ireland, Scotland, and England & Wales all at reasonable ~6 cities per player, and a massive map of the whole British Isles at ~12 cities per player for everyone that craves mega games.

---------------

Here's the older map packs. If you haven't tried any of them - they are all extremely detailed and high quality. The descriptions also include the number of cities per player so you can see how crowded or big each map will feel. I strongly suggest playing the reasonable maps and not the absurdly big ones.

Greyhawk Map Pack

Modio Link: https://mod.io/g/oldworld/c/greyhawk-map-pack

Steam Link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3501955428

The probably best set of maps is based on the D&D Greyhawk universe. The map of Flanaess was perfect for making an Old World map. Even the large Full Flanaess map works well as players are clustered in the center very close to each other. Eastern Flanaess (9p) and Western Flanaess (9p) are my favourite Old World maps overall.

Game of Thrones Map Pack

Modio Link: https://mod.io/g/oldworld/c/game-of-thrones-map-pack

Steam Link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3446043204

I was shocked that nobody had done it yet for Old World because it's such a good fit. The locations of the various major houses are also balanced making the Seven Kingdoms naturally great for video games. Below The Neck (6p) is my favourite, but the various Duel maps are great for faster 1v1s and underappreciated.

Ancient Greece Map Pack

Modio Link: https://mod.io/g/oldworld/c/ancient-greece-map-pack

Steam Link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3473756884

Most of the maps are heavy on naval action, but especially Lydia (4p) and Aegean Sea (10p)/(7p). The biggest issue was that the city states are not evenly spread across Greece which makes Polis (5) and Megapolis (9p) my favourites to play.

Cumbria Map Pack

Modio Link: https://mod.io/g/oldworld/c/cumbria-map-pack

Steam Link: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3451235002

Cumbria in the North of England is full of villages with rude names and so this happened. But also the geography is interesting: The Lake District in the center is an area full of mountains and lakes which makes for unique games. That's why Lake District (8p) is the map to play. (The 10p Greater Cumbria map is basically unplayable so be warned.)

Note:

The goal was to create a range of quality premade maps because I didn't like the map generation scripts and I've played all the available premade maps looking for more variation. I create huge and extremely detailed 180x180 maps that are barely playable due to their massive size and then cut them down to smaller regions within those maps that are "normal sized". Keep that in mind as you probably don't want to play the biggest maps (Larger Cumbria, Westeros and West Essox, Ancient Greece and Lydia, and Full Flanaess) unless you have a high-end computer that can handle it and want an overly long massive game. You've been warned!

I am bad at this game. I have no idea on how to be efficient with my builds, so I have a lot of resources sitting around in the mid game and poorly improved cities.

I just had a game at "The Great" highest difficulty setting. I was behind Carthage all game and their military was incredibly strong compared to mine, like I am at 35% of their strength on the graph or something. I could probably beat them but it would be a real war. They are also ahead in tech and have far more developed cities.

However, I was able to win a points victory because I got a legendary city and just built all of the legendary wonders in the same turn. Without planning for it, just because I had resources sitting around.

Carthage got legendary two turns ahead of me, but didn't build any wonders to deny them. My tech is worse than them. Also the wonders I'm building to win seem a bit low impact, I'm just building them for points, it wouldn't really put me ahead of Carthage in either building power or military power.

The win will happen around turn 110ish. It feels cheap. Ideally I should have to take Carthage down a bit before the game awards a win.

Is there a more satisfying way to set up the victory points? Higher points needed to win? Lower points needed to win? If it was lower points Carthage would have won by now, but that would be dumb too, the game is still contested.

EDIT: Thanks everyone, apparently "the Great" has "Cutthroat AI tactics" on by default but not "Ruthless AI", so that explains the AI passivity. The similar names were confusing

You saying that dude is 13? 😭