Old World

The finest 4x game out, character interactivity and events a la Crusader Kings mixed with both new and traditional 4x systems make this a must play

This game is to civ as city skylines is to sim city. i'm absolutely in love with every aspect and this game feels alive

game good. game very good. 1/3 crusader kings, 1/4 stellaris and whatever the rest is civ (with a nod to I think the original Rhys and Fall mod from CIV III with set city locations)

fantastic mix, devs are just like good at game mechanics? UI has care in it

Old World is excellent. The developers really seem to care and are constantly making gameplay improvements. I am excited about the March 2025 expansion and this will be my go to game for quite a while considering the disaster that is Civilization 7.

Many mechanics similar to Civ 6 with greater emphasis on managing government, building family and story making. Greater complexity which has pros and cons..

Runs fine early game on an M1 8gb Macbook Air, gets choppy as the map enlarges.

So much more personality and depth than recent Civ games. I found the tutorial to be a bit of a slog, but the setting, strategic options and compelling story lines have me hooked.

Excellent 4X game. The design is well balanced and systems work really well together. The events and character management make the games more interesting and dynamic. I highly recommend Old World!

Old World runs fine on the integrated Intel Iris Xe Chip of my mother's cheap Lenovo Laptop that only uses System RAM (7.GB), in spite of the supposed need for a dedicated GPU. (The game will stutter a bit when scrolling around in the late game, but not critically so).

Civ 4 is the best Civ IMO.

This game captures the Civ 4 feeling and adds a dash of crusader kings. It mixes in some Civ 5 elements as well, but so far nothing negative.

Fun 4x game, play this instead of Civ whatever...

There is little doubt in my mind that this is the Civ IV BTS of the 2020s. What this means, if you are not an old fart like me, is that this game has no real rivals in its space currently. If you already like 4Xs and have the time and money, there is no choice but to try it out.

Sure, we can have fun with the competition. In particular with Civ VI, and I still do, but OW (Old World) is vastly superior, in several spaces. Most importantly, war in these games, war in Civ VI is a joke due to the inept AI. It's "press a button to win", and the AI always press it for you on the hardest difficulty, and you always end of rampaging their faces despite your vastly inferior numbers. In OW, war is oh-so-hard and oh-so-rewarding.
Imagine fighting over a mountain pass you fortified, except you don't have the feeling of shooting pigeons because the AI brings the best counter to what you have to offer, like a human would. In every 4X, I never lose a unit. In Old World, it's next to impossible.
So war is actually so damaging (like, guess what, irl) that you will probably try to avoid it.

Which brings me to diplomacy. Remember when Civ obscured diplomacy and we discovered it was all just pure random ? It's actually more challenging in OW but all the randomness now gets an actual explanation. I'll give an example : you have an excellent relationship with the old ruler of Persia, your stronger neighbor. Trade is good and you are at peace. Except you insulted their heir at some event because that earned you something, whatever it was. Can you see what's brewing 15 years down the line ?
You can plan for that.

Which brings me to the rewarding and constant challenge of deciding between the immediate returns and long term returns.
Arguably I am now at the core of the reason why this is the GOAT. This is why we play 4X, and how we do it. It's always about the balance to get the best long-term without sacrificing too much on the short term, and grabbing the best shiny pretty bounty now that still preserves the chances for our uber domination late game. And oh my god this game is cocaine on that front. There are just so many levels of relevant decision making. And the fact that the UNDO ACTION IS EMBEDDED IN THE GAME DESIGN means I don't have to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ save scum anymore because the designers UNDERSTOOD THAT WE DO IT anyway.
Because when you play on the hardest difficulties, losing an important unit because of a silly mistake is game over. So you would save scum (because the alternative is starting over, or doing something productive like knitting, playing Dota or hitting your cat). Except in OW, you just click click click that ♥♥♥♥er and go back in time. It's part of the game. It's probably the feature I miss the most in all the other games nowadays.
I want that in all future 4X games, pretty please. Thank you Santa.

It also helps learning the game. What does this do ? Let's click. Meh, it's ♥♥♥♥, undo. What if I flank their units with my pikemen and block the path with my archers. Let's do it. Okay it looks stupid and like I am going to get kicked in the ♥♥♥. Undo undo undo, let's try something else. What if I take that decision, what if, what if...

Finally, the game is pretty and the music is god tier. It also helps escaping our very divisive political landscape : today, there kinda is an agreement over the personality of Dido or the politics of Assyria, you know, right, and even if you disagree with my opinion about these, it wouldn't make me, or you, a -phobe or a -cist. Invading other countries and killing people is still bad no matter what, no debate possible here, eh.

It also helps it's filled with little details (mountain foehn effect anyone ?), embedded game-pedia and is a work of love, being consistently taken care of by the developer since I bought it day 1 (on Epic). To compare, Humankind|Endless Legend is also a pretty work of love (unlike the recent Civs), but whenever I come back to it, I quickly remember why I left. When I come back to Old World, I think instead, '♥♥♥♥ this is dope'. And I proceed to lose another whole week-end.

Finally FINALLY, you don't need the DLCs to enjoy the game at all. Most of my playtime is without the DLCs. Start without them. They do add content but it's "the good way", not the Paradox way. It's similar to Amplitude in terms of philosophy - so get them only once you've convinced yourself this studio deserves your hard earned coin.

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TL;DR Old World is a leap forward in 4X videogames. They are to their competitors (including what we know of Civ VII that's about to go live) what Civ VI BTS was to Civ II. I miss Millenia, Ara & Shadow Empire in my playlist but I've played all the others so I feel confident stating this. That's also why I felt confident buying it a second time on a different plateform.

I am going to play this for the years to come. Like Civ IV BTS in its time.

Really. Frankly, the only better value for money I can think of would be Dota. ♥♥♥♥. No. No god no. Not again please no ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ Noooooooooo...!

Gameplay very good.. Civ like city management & foreign conflict + drama between nobles and heir.

a good way to scratch that civ itch that civ6 left behind.

Civ6 is chaotic, and obtuse, this game, once you get into it lets you in on its machinations under the hood so you have a more strategic play.

However, hex style maps are not working for the genre. Since civ 5 we are seeing this again and again.
1- combat becomes a hectic wait for the next turn to manage a backed up stack of incompatible units.
2- the adjacency rules become hard to keep track of, compounding becomes a hell to manage.

Overall great game, well done to the team. I hope they will fix the combat traffic issue. There should be a balance between micromanaging and lower level strategy.

One idea is this: make your own civ as you go along with some initial but less constraining civ specific attributes. That way you will see your play style evolve across a session and it brings a more RPG style playability to the game.

The best Civ like i have found so far. Ara would be my top choice but it runs terribly. Love that the graphics are similar to Civ V. Several choices to make it your own. Very easy to learn. Havent tried the DLCs yet but i can imagine there also great.

I enjoy 4X games though I'm not particularly good at them. What I like about Old World is that it feels like it focuses on my favorite part of CIV -- the early game -- and expands on it without feeling too fiddly or like busywork. Even for a casual fan like me I can appreciate the changes and improvements Old World has made to the formula. Seems like a real winner.

Fun thematic 4X game. The focused time period makes for a different experience from the Civ series. It's definitely a worthwhile change of pace.

I love this game. I am absolutely that target audience as I already loved both civ and ck. It maintains some of the most engaging mechanics from both while managing to still feel fresh and innovative. If you love either/both of those games, you'll love this one.

I find this game boring, not even close to the same feel as a civ game as stated in many reviews. The so called ck element seems cheap and not really relevant to anything in the game. Just tedious pop ups. Felt like i wasn't accomplishing anything, felt very shallow besides killing barbarians and upset court members whining every turn. I would not recommend this game buy a different x4 game.

Wish I refunded before playing over 3 hours. Don't buy into the hype its better than civ, its not, its an over priced try hard. I really wanted to like it. Its not even 25% of what a civ game is.

Enjoyment 2 out of 10

Graphics 5 out of 10

Depth 3 out of 10

Annoyance 10 out of 10

Moves faster than Civilization, particularly combat and has some nice innovation, especially the wheel for marking the map.

Less content than Civilization but does some things notably better, the courts and characters are more busy, almost too busy- I don't want updates on how sick 10 different characters are every turn and the minister functions can be ignored 80% of the time other than making sure you have assigned a character with useful traits to that minister position.

Idk, this isnt a thumbs up or down situation. Just middle. I wanted to try and alternative to Civ but after playing this I still prefer Civ. The start is fun but mid game there's really nothing to do, just drags. At least in Civ every era, resource discovered, and tech changes the game and gives you something new to focus on. This doesn't. The story and character development is cool but really doesn't effect the game much. It got to the point that ill just skip the story and choose whatever answer, same with tech and laws, not a big enough impact. Much slower pace than Civ and im sure people like that but isnt challenging enough for me

Fantastic entry into the Civ genre! If you're into the ancient era of civilizations and technology, you're in the right place.
I also really enjoyed the Crusader Kinds-like events. Added a lot of flavor and interest. It also makes the changing diplomacy feel real and grounded. So say suddenly the Danes are mad at you - well you know why, and you're offered options of what to do about it - prevent war through your personality or resources, or go to war.
I loved this game, definitely pick it up if you're into Civ games, Crusader Kings, and the ancient era.

I am a university professor, game developer, and 4X TBS game fanatic. I played, developed, collaborated on, play tested, analyzed, wrote about, and searched for 4X TBS games most of my life.
I played thousands of games and tens of thousands of hours of TBS games. I make this post after 300 hours of playing Old World. My estimated level of knowing and understanding Old World and its features: 60%.
Far from being perfect, but my perception is that Old World is currently the second best game out there. (I may be biased to 4X TBS, although I played many other genres).
Old World has the usual big problems with the UI: cumbersome, confusing, slow, buggy. Its AI seems to be somewhat better than the other 4X TBS AIs. As of today, 4X TBS AIs without exception are very poor based on my personal experience with hundreds of these games.
But Old World’s design is one of the best I have seen so far in any 4X TBS game. Finally, I see Order Points that limit the number of actions per turn and limit my movements. I advocated for this for 30 years in 4X TBS development. This game has great feature diversity, depth, and attention to details. Many things can be customized, even the music. I am yet to try the multiplayer. The developers genuinely understand and care about their product which combo is rare to find in the 4X TBS genre. This is not just another dumbed down “clone” of an earlier game that dominates the 4X TBS market today. They still push new patches which is great. This game is similar to Civilization 4, but much better. It also has tactical depth, role playing, and probabilistic planning, and a lot more. Kudos to the developers and I wish they will provide many years of support to fix the bugs, improve the UI, further tune the balance, and strengthen the AI to make the game even better than now.

A very fun historical sandbox. Easy to learn, hard to master, addictive as all get out.

I highly recommend this game if you like the politics of Crusader King and the city management of Civ. This game gives much needed love to the ancient era so if your a history nerd please give this game a chance.

This game cheats during combat. Making moves the player can't make.
The Computer always has 2,000 Shields, which allows it to Force March troops, even after spending all of those points to move troops or attack.
EVERY army the AI has, has a General in it.
The AI brings back Generals the next turn.
It's oppressive.
90% of the Events that happen are bad for you, or negative, or cause negative effects.
It's way too hard to be peaceful and ally with another nation.
No matter what you do, what tech you have, or how good you are with other AI players, they backstab you.
The Orders system is F'd, because you're restricted every turn, and you can't DO everything you need to do in your turn, like fight a war. If your king/queen has less Orders (moves) than the enemy and you have to fight a war, you're already dead. I hate it.
I've been trying to deal with this since I got the game, and have disliked it, and the further I get into a game, the worse it becomes. This ONE issue is enough to make me never play it again.

I've been spending up to 12 hours a day in this game for days now, and it's just stupidly overpowered against the player. Just when you start to get things right, the game sh_its on you. I had a few years of absolute peace, and building up my army and building up my cities, only to get absolutely rolled by the AI, who always had better tech, had more troops, and never ran out of Generals.
The movement across mountains, or using more Shield points than it should have to move troops is what did it for me.
I know the AI cheats in every game vs. Humans, but this is ridiculous.
F this game. It's got so many problems that Civ doesn't have. It's like they looked at Civ and went, "You know, how do we make the game way harder, and more difficult at the same time?... Oh, I know! We'll add families and traits, and negative events THAT NEVER STOP every turn so the player never wins..."
Also, this game will make your computer get really hot, max our your fans on your GPU, and has a conflict with Medal where it makes Medal tell you it's going to record the game every 5 min.
I had 2 cores heat up to 92c, which NEVER happens. And maxed out all of my P-Cores to min of 80c. (80-92c) That's insane!
I have a 13900K (Yes, I did the BIOS update to keep it from melting.) with a Lian Li 360 AIO running at full speed 100% of the time, and a total of 7 fans. 32GB of DDR5, and a 2080Super. I watch HWMointor because this game makes my computer a Space Heater. I watch voltages, I watch clock speeds on all cores, and I watch temperatures. No other game does this to my machine.
I don't know how people play this and are OK with it.
I'll probably uninstall.
Don't buy it. It's not what you think it is.
Just go play Civ and be happy.

cant recommend it.. it has some interesting aspects to it.. but the REALLY stupid part of the game is the rate at which ppl die in it! I've only done the tutorial so far, and in one of them, I had 3 ppl die in about 4 turns (not the one where the king is scripted to die)! I mean sure.. in ancient greece, 60 was pushing it.. and they were rough times and ppl died of all kinds of things.. but this is going just a bit too far! and even worse is the birth rate.. one child.. the devs claim 'realistic' mortality.. well ancient greece had 'high' birth rates and infant mortality was ~1 in 3..and 1 in 4 mothers died after birthing a child.. but the way they model it.. low birth rate and high mortality.. there'd be no one left in a hundred years!

so while I like some aspects to it.. I wont hold my breath that I'll have a good experience when playing the real game.. and while you can change the 'RNG' of ppl dying to a degree (at least its an option somewhere).. I just failed the final tutorial, because I didnt finish an ambition of the king that is scripted to die.. because I couldnt select the required research (apparently the ones listed are RNG based too!?!) honestly. just about every turn someone was getting sick and/or dying. just too stupid... so I cant recommend it as a 'good game' when you cant even finish the tute! which I assume is an example of the game play!!

NB game play is worse.. these 'events' are beyond stupid.. and really wreck the game play experience.. not sure why they think all these negative events are 'fun'!?!! and yes I know I can turn it off.. but thats NOT the 'experience' these devs wanted to 'give you'

Similarities to Civilization, but there are meaningful actions called "orders", a non-stockpiled resource that makes you prioritize your empire's growth focus.

This is a huge plus, and sometimes a minus. If you like min-maxing there are SO many things to juggle that makes every game different and prevents steamrolling.

Great game with pretty decent learning curve; easy to learn hard to master with this bad boy. I started on defaults for 10 hrs. or so, and found it a little too easy. Then upped it the hardest, "The Glorious"- that's where the fun and a bit of frustration started. 8.5/10 over all for me.

Pros:
- Great mix of 4X and RPG elements. The event system is deep and can make every faction, or even faction ruler play through very unique and challenging.
- Tactical AI is solid, and will look for weaknesses, retreat, perform amphibious landings with intent to beat you.
- UI is tight and intuitive. Simple concise tool tips for everything.
- Highly customization settings. Don't like raging barbarians? Turn them down or off.
- Factions play differently enough to fit different play styles, but not so different that you have to learn different mechanics.

Cons:
- Steep learning curve. The elements of the game seem intuitive enough, but there's a lot of them to figure out and balance based on your goals. First you have to figure out what your goals are- victory condition. Order system can be a bit off putting at first until you figure it out.
- Late game is a slog. On harder difficulties AI is probably going to corner a point victory, and is not aggressive enough late game. Going for "challenge win" I had rulers all super mad at me with the "ruthless AI" option turned on . Which is supposed to basically make them declare war if you are close to winning- they did not. Just turn after turn waiting for last buildings to be built.. They will declare war if you box them in, or hinder their expansion.
- Wish it had the progression of time like Civ, maybe next game they release.

Coming from someone who has played lots of Civilization and dabbled around with Crusader Kings, this game feels like it sits in the perfect spot in the middle. I'm honestly surprised Old World doesn't get more hype. Very enjoyable game!

I cannot describe just how much this game has come to dominate my life in the last two years. I've racked up over 1200 hours and I'm only jut starting to ease up.

Old World looks, feels and plays like it was made by 4X fans for 4X fans. It remedies so many of the genre's pitfalls, and the replay value is through the roof. The mix of nations, families, events and characters give each and every game a different flavour. The developers have also kept it consistently patched and tweaked. Cannot recommend it enough, this game beats any other in the genre.

Old World (OW) is brilliant in its design and the experience it creates. OW is the most interesting, if not the best, 4x, tactical, turn based strategy currently! Complex, challenging and fun!

(MANY) POSITIVES
1 AN AMAZING PACE: OW has a brilliant mechanic of Orders that limits how much you can do in a turn. Everything, but production in cities, costs Orders: moving and using workers, scouts, army, attacking, council tasks, interactions with courtiers and nations. Each turn you think, prioritize and make choices.
This way everything in OW feels earned! Because of the Orders limitation even in the late game a war can be exhausting for your empire. Moving many army units can deplete your Orders pool, not leaving any for workers, heir education, or scouts. Of course things get easier in the late game, but still you can find yourself vulnerable. One of the rare strategy games where the late game is cool!

2 CLEVER SYNERGY OF THE GAME'S SYSTEMS
In OW everything relates in a deep, satisfying way. Opinions of you impact how well armies fight, productivity of your cities, courtiers interactions with you. Resources and Buildings have efficiency combinations. All systems of OW interact.

3 TACTICAL WARS WITH PROPER AI
OW has competent AI that plays the game properly. It's perhaps a 4x game with one of the better AIs I've played against. In a war it tries to flank you for max damage, shoot from hills for maximum range, use forests to minimize ranged damage etc. War in OW is tactical. Flanking, units adjacency, terrain, and preparation (you can't heal in a neutral land, unless you have certain skills) - it all matters.

4 DIPLOMACY IS COMPLEX AND CRUCIAL
Diplomacy in OW has two levels: internal and international with Opinions mechanic that synergizes with other systems.

In OW you don't just establish cities of your civilization. With each new city you choose a renown family to run it (3 families each game out of 4 options; each nation has a different set). They have different bonuses, interactions with terrain, demands and limits to what character can govern their city. The Families opinion matters. Low Family opinion affects the productivity of their cities. Armies you produce belong to the families and their combat effectiveness synergizes with your internal diplomacy as well (including General's opinion of you if one is added to an army).
On top of that you also have individual characters (courtiers) with friendships, love affairs, rivalry, assassinations, ambitions (craving power), or significant public popularity (Rising Stars that can overthrow you). You also have civil wars where you may end up destroying your own city.
Wars in OW can be intense and can significantly compromise what you can do in a turn. It really pays off to prevent war with a political marriage, even with a tribal leader against the public opinion, than risk invasions on multiple fronts. Besides, happiness in attacked cities tanks down and this can trigger further problems (unhappiness raises city's maintenance and a chance of rebellion). War in OW is a big deal: victories can boost your Legitimacy, but also break it. You need alliances and proper diplomacy to secure survival. You invest in building trust (Opinion) for more diplomatic options.

5 The BARBARIANS, TRIBES AND FIXED CITY SPOTS
Besides different nations OW has Barbarians and 6 different tribes. Tribes may occupy vast or smaller map space with their camps. And the tribes in OW can be devastating. Each camp spawns units every few years and if too many they become raiders, even if you're at peace with them. You can get unexpected mini invasions where they pillage, attack cities and wound/kill workers. So your city placement, armies stationing and natural barriers like mountains play a role.

There are benefits to defeating tribes and to alliances with them. In OW you have fixed city settlement locations. A few guaranteed ones at the start; more you get from warfare or diplomacy. I think the fixed City Spots improves the game significantly. There's no dumb AI settling a city on your border for irrational tensions. And a wide expansion makes you think and plan how you can secure distant, new cities.
Overall, the tribes in OW add a lot of tension, threat and historical sensitivity that I really like.

6 ECONOMY WITH THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF RESOURCE TYPES
All resources matter and you can run short of something even in the late game. Access to the best units is not just a matter of tech, but also depends on the level of your culture, a chain of buildings and multiple resources to maintain them.

7 DYNAMIC, MORTAL CHARACTERS
Playing as a mortal ruler, that you develop in stats and traits, is more fun than having one fixed option throughout eras.
I love the Archetypes for Characters, with different layers of bonuses when acting as the Leader, Governor or army Commander. For Instance a Builder Leader can assign multiple workers to a project and they have -1 turn to build improvements and more.
It's also brilliant that courtiers' stats contribute to the resources pool of your empire. Giving them a job provides a yearly experience, thus upgrades. Using courtiers missions gives them even more experience. This way even having spy agents in foreign empires benefit your resources pool. Its a dynamic system where you want to use courtiers, they change and play an important role.

8 EVENTS THAT BRING FLAVOR AND VARIETY
OW claims to have over 3 thousand events!!! Some go in chains and develop over time. Some involve historic characters and situations. I love that the OW events pop up with jingle sounds! Big, immersive windows with beautiful art! Love all the art of Wonders especially – they represent so well the grand scale of these projects! My favorite events are when a courtier becomes inspired by my empire's wonder (that they aren't just buildings with buffs) and when a battles winning general becomes a Rising Star and creates political threat for you.

9 there is DEPTH, NUANCES, AND HISTORIC SENSITIVITY
So many things in OW make it's "world" alive and interesting beyond the clickfest of building or attacking.
When your worker is wounded it builds a turn longer.
When you're allied with a tribe you control their units. And when ravaged by war a Tribe can ask you for refuge, creating slums in your city.
Scouts in OW can do many things and remain useful. From providing Legitimacy for discovered landmarks, to harvesting resources and spying. With proper tech, a Scout can establish spy network in foreign city. Then your spies can provide you with vision and destabilization options; for instance you can try to trigger rebellions in several cities at once right before you attack. All these in a Civilization like game!!!

I also like that the Tech options are semi-random.

10 ART STYLE, (fantastic) MUSIC, and ATMOSPHERE
Music in the OW is just AWESOME! Sometimes I just keep playing OW because I enjoy its soundtrack so much.
It's a good looking game that sticks to one period of history but with depth and atmosphere. This way playtime isn't that long, but isn't short either. Due to the Orders mechanic limitations other players turns go fast, so less waiting time.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
The game has never crashed for me.
I haven't found OW to be overwhelming to learn. It took me around 10 hours to become familiar with all the basics.
OW has an excellent in-game encyclopedia.
The base game of OW has the full, good experience and not hiding crucial features behind paid DLCs.
OW is first and foremost a great strategy game (with RPG flavor). It has a healthy complexity, depth, historic references, and fulfilling struggle.

NEGATIVES
I've got an impression some nations are better than others. I'm still figuring out if it's inflexibility of my playstyle or design's imbalance.

One of the better strategy games that I have ever played. I love the well-crafted, narratively-driven event system. I love that having more children, and investing more into them, consistently produces a more robust nation in spite of the possibility of negative random events. I love that world wonders get locked in once you start to build them. Most of all, I love the realism and atmosphere of the game. There is so much that I want to say about this game, which is overwhelmingly positive in nature. Unfortunately, I can only issue a very cautious recommendation here, because of what I consider to be two major issues with the game... Or, perhaps just one.

I am not very happy with the current settlement system, which causes the game to feel overly restrictive, and I am truly unhappy with the current orders system, which greatly exacerbates that problem to an unfun degree. As to the former problem, I feel the settlement system is bad because of how small and constrained each game map tends to feel, even on huge map settings. "Huge" maps are many, many tiles smaller than in comparable games, such as Civilization, and they feel outright cramped with the intended number of players (7.) On the highest difficulty settings, if you're lucky, you'll have maybe three or four settlements by turn 50 or 60. Maybe five, if you're really lucky. The AI moves too quickly, has too many orders, and gets too many other advantages, so you'll be boxed-in in no time. This causes the game to feel extremely restrictive, to the point where there is almost no reason to build settlers, or to continue to care about tribal relations whatsoever, after turn 60 or 70 on the highest difficulty setting.

Enough said on this subject, because I'm a big believer in making due with what you're given, and I like that the current system requires such an advanced level of planning to make things work. I also think some minor balance fixes could solve these problems. For example, the developer could slightly increase the amount of available, unoccupied settlement sites, and/ or give the player two scouts in the beginning of the game. I actually think the latter option is so important as to be outright essential, and that the developer should implement this change right away, regardless of whatever other changes they choose to make down the line. Starting with two scouts should be a given because, on the highest difficulty level, the player has absolutely no freedom to waste 5-7 years building a single extra scout in the early game. But you need the intelligence they provide, or else you can't make good decisions. Psychic (or near-psychic) AI with a huge bounty of starting advantages don't benefit from them as much, so it would really make the game a lot more enjoyable if the developer could quickly implement this change.

The orders system, however, is extremely bad, and I'm not sure how to fix it because it seems like the entire game was designed around this concept. To make a long story short: Every action in the game, sans choosing city production, costs an in-game currency called "orders." Your possibilities for movement, attacking, diplomacy, trade, etc... are therefore artificially limited by how many orders you can produce per turn. Everything costs orders. Story-wise, I feel this was a poor decision; it doesn't make any sense that you can't move your troops two orders' worth of spaces because you chose to arrange a marriage between your son and a nearby tribal leader that year (this game's turn-history is measured in single years.) That being said, the narrative implications of the orders system are far from the worst thing about it.

Gameplay-wise, the orders system problem is far worse. Because every unit or diplomatic action in the game costs orders, it is by far and above the most important currency in the entire game, bar none. Naturally, there is an extreme amount of demand that needs to be satisfied as it pertains to orders per turn, or else you won't be able to accomplish enough each year to remain competitive against the AI on the highest difficulty levels. This wouldn't be quite so bad if the available supply of orders was greater, but it isn't... And not only that but, IMHO, there is actually a serious supply shortage at said difficulty levels. This is a problem made worse by the fact that building an improvement or wonder does not cost just one single order... It costs an order every single turn that you spend building the improvement, with wonders often taking a decade to build! Because of all this, you will often find yourself running short on orders... And oftentimes, not until many turns after you originally developed the problem (Meaning: That the past 20 or so turns were a huge waste of time.) Even if you consistently choose a leader background that decreases improvement building times, it won't help much.

It is no exaggeration to say that this problem is so bad, that nearly every choice you make in this game needs to be decided by the sole question of, "Does it increase or decrease how many orders I get per turn?" For many, this will trivialize the game's brilliantly constructed narrative elements, and for many others turn the game into a brutal slog. Even if you spend all game making every choice possible to farm up your legitimacy (the currency which increases orders per turn,) you will still very often not be able to mount enough orders to move every one of your units every turn. This is bad, because your units have an upkeep cost every turn, whether you move them or not. You need to spend your orders so wisely, but this is difficult to do without perfect information (which is, again, very difficult to obtain because you can't afford to build scouts in the early game.) You can get some decent orders per turn from map resources, but this is contingent upon whether or not you have a hunting family, whether or not you spawned nearby to a settlement location that spawned many camel and elephant camps, whether or not you correctly scouted the location on time and got to it before an AI, etc... In other words, it is not at all reliable.

A final problem: There are mechanics which exist that completely break the game if you have an abundance of orders per turn. If you have a ton of orders and military currency, you can force march your units past their normal limits to take someone off guard, without enduring any other consequences. I oftentimes get completely bamboozled by the AI, which gets a huge amount of orders per turn. You can move your units two cities away, and still get hit. This is very frustrating, and very, very hard to protect against (because building a ton of tile fortifications costs a ton of orders, orders per turn, and opportunity cost.)

Where does this all get me? By turn 50, I oftentimes decide that I no longer have anymore interest in playing this game. By this point, either I do not have enough orders per turn and I'm getting choked out by the AI, or I'm in good shape but simply have no more interest in playing the game because I no longer wish to spend my life minmaxing orders per turn. I would rather play a fun game like Battle Brothers, XCOM: Long War, or Civilization, where I can choose things other than whatever provides me the highest amount of orders per turn. I think that's such a damning indictment of the current state of the game that it makes it difficult for me to recommend it, even though it's an amazing game with so many positive qualities. I love the mature feel of this game, and it really is one of a kind. But it's just... In a very strange place, needless to say.

How to fix this issue: I don't know, but I would start by completely decoupling diplomatic choices, the implementation of laws, etc... from orders. They never should have cost orders, and decoupling them will help. This needs to be done before I will have any interest in playing a full game, and I want to play the game now, so it should be done IMMEDIATELY.

This game has its own charm, but also plenty of flaws. How to play learning scenarios are of various quality, with scenario 4 being pretty awful.

Game itself is similar to Civ series, with some cross from Crusader Kings series. It has clearly more micromanagement required than Civ series, but less than Paradox games. A lot of deeper mechanics are not explained in details, so a lot of things have to be learned via trial and error.
Also get more workers, there are never enough workers.
Decision on city sites is... debatable but I guess okay.
AI presents good challenge and almost does not cheat.

Try it out on deep discount, game will be fun for some 20-30 hours.
Or try demo first and see if you like what you see.
Solid 7/10, playable with limited amount of fun.

The 4X community is sleeping on this hit. Don't let the "limited" scope fool you, this game is as rich as any of the big hitters in the genre.

Steep learning curve but so much more intriguing than civ 6 once you understand all the mechanics and how they interact. Continuous developer support and updates is really appreciated

There were random "great persons " In Civ4, Civ5 and Civ6 that appeared from time to time. In Civ6 (with the latest expansion pack) there were governours you could assign to the city. Also civ leaders had fixed "special abilities", sometimes unrealistic ones. Old World takes HR management it to the entire new level and gives you a bunch of persons that could be your great persons, governours, heads of chuchs and etc. In addition to plain "civ management" of classical Civ games it presents the entire structure of team (court) management. At first glance this can seem as"micro management", but it gives indeed a feeling of decisions that every empiror (a team manager) needs to take, both on strategical and tactical levels, including managing own network but raising and taking care for education of new generation. I would very much love to see this game to go beyond classical era, but also realize that scaling many concepts maybe not so easy. Orders concept is also interesting, but there could be more advanced ways of using orders for just moving the units. If the game goes to eras beyond classical ones(and allows story brunching with different kinds of eras as Milennia game does), it will be very challenging for classical Civ series to compete with it.

Love the dynasty system! The random events are varied and entertaining. Play it with the role-play setting on and victory conditions off to sit back and enjoy the drama.

A fun Civ-like game. Has a bit more complexity and doesn't need to be as long as a game of Civ. Lots of interesting dynastic mechanics and such to dig into as well.

The game I always wished Civilization would be. So much more depth and immersiveness.
If you like CIV you need to try Old World.

Worst combat system in all of Turn-based-strategy games... Holy shit is it bad. Let me explain:

You have "orders" as a resource and every movement and action of a unit costs orders. And the units have no real upper limit to their movement so if you have enough orders your units can move through an entire continent in a single turn. Doens't this sound fun? And the units get boni through leveling up. So sometimes your unit of Archers is stronger in melee than your swordsman.
And when you need all your "orders" for your units in times of war, then your whole infrastructure comes to an stop. Because almost every action need orders.

This stupid "orders" resource makes no sense and is only there to punish the player and restrict him. In theory this system sounds neat, but in reality is sucks. Hard.

And some units are so strong, that you don't need any other units. The Onager for example. Stronger than every missile unit in this range and he hits not only 1 hex field, no he hits 7!!! So spam the onager and no army can stop you. On top of that the onager does high damage to city tiles. And melee units do little damage against them. Do the devs play their own game?

Oh and the AI doesn't play by the same rules. I am fine with an AI that gets economic advantages, but when an AI drowns you in units despite him losing 5-6 EVERY ROUND while he has fewer cities than yourself, than the game is broken. I am sorry, but this is bullshit.

The rest of the game is good, but the whole combat system makes this game only frustrating to play.

Really fun. Lots of unique mechanics and feels like a narrative game in some ways. I just wish it took less time to finish a multiplayer game of this.

Only a little way in now, Shocked at how large the discount was on such a good game.
The tutorials work, the game play is good.

Think paradox produced Civilisation and sold the full game for less that one DLC.

Loving it so far.

Its worth playing. Old Wourld is an enjoyable mix between Civ and Crusader Kings.

Wonderful game. If you play civ and are looking for a break from civ, then this is the game of choice. Instead of progressing with a historical timeline like civ, here in old world, the progress is mainly focused on your dynasty and maximizing the yields from your cities. The more cultured the city, the more buildings are available to build and eventually win the game.

I like this game and it has it's niche on the 4X genre but it has to improve it's naval mechanics. Currently, building a navy isn't all that important and the anchor mechanic is cumbersome at best. Considering that Carthage was a naval superpower and that the premise of this is mostly around the Mediterranean during antiquity, the naval mechanics need a lot of polishing.

Amazing game, more complex than Civilization but with much better QoL where every time you don't know what does that think do you can check it.
It is not as stale as Civilisation, you can change your tactics in the middle of the game, even sometimes have to, but also can develop your empire as you want it to be.
Great game, recommend not only for 4X fans but strategic players.

It's like civ, but better. But not really because it's stuck on classical era even though they put longbowman on a Greek unit. I guess what im trying to say here is that i want the tech tree to advance into a musket era so that i can do pike and shot :(

Enjoyed it much more than Civ 6, which is probably the closest comparable game I've played.

Pretty good game, very similar to Civ5 and Total War: ROME II.

A little difficult to get into but its been fun to figure out so far

I really recommend this game, however I think is a little bit more complicated that civilization.
The events are really interesting, it's a good mix between crusaders kings and civ