Old World

Old world is a must for all 4X sandbox fans .

As a turn-based strategy game it's excellent with many layers to it's intriguing events system

It has so much to like, if it ever moves up the ages and out of the "Old World " it will be awesome and simple the greatest 4x game ever including Civ 4 ( thou not SMAC!)

Picked this one up on sale with all the DLC for like $30.00. Totally worth it. A deeper experiance than Civ and not as cartoony. You stay in the ancient times but it is named "Old World" so yea. The dynasty mechanics are challenging and fun. This game is not easy though.

People call this a cross between Crusader Kings and Civilization and they're not wrong... Leaning more on the Civ side with a more focused time period and location.

War is a big deal, it feels massive and although you can't doom stack, it still feels more epic than Civilization.. and with the limited orders you get to pick between developing and fighting when a war rages.

This game may be better than Civ... But not as mindless. Even on easy modes I don't think you could mindlessly just auto-play without thinking.

this game rules. the border expansions are interesting, and the family lineages are full of cool stories.

9/10
A solid 4X game that perfectly combines Civ 6 with family dynasty elements from CK3. Mohawk actually designed every mechanic in this game correctly, unlike Civ where some systems make you wonder if they're just bad design choices or if they're incomplete to sell you DLC later. Honestly, the base game of Old World feels complete already. I don't even find myself wanting more DLC, which is pretty rare these days.

Absolutely lovely 4x game. Way more creative than the last few CIV games, and it has that "special something" which will make you suddenly lose hours when playing. Love it, I hope the developers continue supporting it going forward.

was really enjoying the early + mid game, then got into first empire war. It was such a waste of time, hated it so much didnt even make it to the 10 hour mark. Units can just fly across the map, so if you move any of your units to your border city watch them get picked off every turn, the AI can and will send units from 40-60 tiles away to snipe your units and you can't build anywhere as quickly as they can

Starting off if you are looking for a historically accurate game. This game is not. If it was I would recommend this game. Just for that, but the age of marriage and the age that characters tend to be before passing away is heavily exaggerated. The game feels like it takes a modern rewrite to history. Which believe it or not is fiction. So this game should be described as historical fiction.

The games starts off as a new interesting take on 4X with lots of new features that are intriguing, but end up falling short because of the balance of things. With little clarity given to how things work. For example I can't tell you what causes one city to build things faster then another city yet it happens. Essentially every new feature it adds feels poorly executed.

The succession system feels more of a hindrance to the game then intriguing addition. It's pretty simple get married have kids and raise them. Who you get married to doesn't really matter, dowries are small and it can be really frustrating because your heir can get a detrimental trait that you don't with no way to fix it and you are punished more for wanting to swap heirs. The whole system is interesting, but poorly executed.

City culture level is by far the worst thing in the game. As you really only get punished for building up your cities with this function. The only boon is you get to build more types of buildings. Which means nothing when it just cost you more resources to run your city. This game continuously punishes you for building up your cities. It much better to focus on expanding then making a mega city. One easy fix is to provide cities with more construction queues every culture level. Developing can craft two things at once. Strong three and Legendary four and so on. This would make upgrading a city a serious boon that speed up your ability to construct armies and other things. Rather then the current state of the game where it's better to spend most of your resources building an army then making your cities more prosperous. This would also fix the heavy pacing issue this game has. Where early game is fun as you start to build up, but as you get deeper into the game. The game feels slower and more of a slog. A lot of this is because even if you are ahead in this game.

Other issues are the order system. It can feel impossible to have enough orders at times as their is no reliable way to build them up early. Not to mention you are punished for upgrading your cities again. As every worker actively building something reduces how many orders you get. I really like the order system, but their needs to be a system overhaul that makes it easier for people to get more orders without punishing themselves at the same time.

This game also has no since of progression. I know this is common in 4X titles, but with more and more games coming out these days. People are less likely to want to stick to one game. So giving your players goals to feel like they completed the game is a great way to do this. Achievements outside of game is not a good way of doing this.

Lastly difficulty settings. These almost never add to the experience of a game. Especially in this game and many games like it that. use difficulty settings as an excuse to not actually balance the game. Most people want to hop in a game and just experience it. Most people don't want to have a game perfectly cater to them. To be honest if it wasn't for the learn to play section I probably wouldn't have gotten around to playing this game for a few years. As trying to fiddle around and find the difficulty setting that is best to play on is not worth it. Not to mention it creates unhealthy mentality of either always playing it on easy or always playing it on hard or if things are to hard I'll just make it easier. Difficulty settings aren't always bad, but when they are just added to lazily not balance your game or to cater to people who want an easier or harder game it never is good. Rogue-likes are the biggest example of difficulty settings done well. Where harder difficulties are more rewarding. Heaviest example is Against the Storm. If you add difficulty settings you should always incentivize people to challenge themselves. Let them decide if the reward is worth the extra hassle. Alternatively you can just not add difficulty settings and make a fun base experience.

I really enjoy how you expand city borders in this game this is probably the best things about this game.

All in all this game needs a lot of work sadly and I can't recommend it to anyone. The game isn't historically accurate enough to get the game for a historical stand point. Which I'm looking for games that I can let my kids play that will teach them history. The Last Train Home is a great example of being historically accurate, but still being a fun game. It's honest about history while still making a game out of it.

Great game for a fair (maybe too low) price with a lot of really good additional content.

If you have any questions the community and the developers are really helpful (on the forums and on discord).

It takes some time to understand, due to the many complex mechanics. I recommend playing the tutorials. Once it clicks, it's one of the best 4X games out there. The mixture of classic 4x gameplay, dynasty management and role playing elements just works really well.

For years I skipped this because I thought it was a cheap Civ clone.

It's not.

I've played hardcore grand strategy games to death. HOI4, EU4, Stellaris, Civ4/5/6, Total War, Frostpunk, Dominions, etc etc etc...

This is fresh. The different systems are meaningfully interconnected & weighted together; almost all actions are complex trade-offs.

I am in love. This game is IT. That it has a lower rating than it should pry reflects the misalignment of kinda casual marketing vs hardcore deep reality.

The baseline of a civ-like game is pretty good, but there are a few things that make this game bad in my opinion.

The economy is weird I had so much basic resources (gold, food ect.) that I didn't know what do with and I really couldn't spend it on anything, and let me tell you when you have so much resources any of the story bits happen when you have to choose what to do or there will be consequences.. Its just laughable that someone wants 500 gold or else.. and you have 10k in the bank and 400 per turn.

You can settle only in pre-defined city spots, which doesn't sound that bad at first but there are too few of those and it basically will mean that realistically you will be locked to 4 maybe 5 cities for the majority of the game - if you want more you need to conquer some from the enemy, which brings me to the other even bigger issue. The combat..

The combat.. it is such a slog.. and since combat is such a crucial part of the game if its bad the game is not worth the time. Basically the enemy will spam units, and I mean spam - one or two per city per turn, that will move all over the map and attack you (and I mean literally from the other end of the map), and this was on normal difficulty also.
You will will probably lose 2-3 units per turn this way, the enemy as well but they will constantly reinforce and simply out spam you because its impossible to keep up even if you try to rush production.
The dmg amounts are kind of weird to predict you are not sure if the enemy archer will deal 3 or 8 dmg for example.
Also, since the units can move so far, its difficult to get a good defensive position, for example in civ a unit can move one or two hexes on the enemy territory, here you can basically flank the whole army trough the forests and hills and still attack.

A lot of very elegant design went into Old World with the singular purpose of making you have interesting choices while playing this magnificent 4X. It will keep you adapting to new conditions. This game went back to re-evaluate a lot of design that permeates the genre down to its more core mechanics and emerged the other side with new exciting ideas and executed them perfectly.

You play as a dynasty, throughout the course of the game individual leaders and their special traits will come and go, it works very well because you can assume each leader will live a certain amount of time, letting you plan ahead and use their unique stats, when there's a succession things will be switched up on you, new problems and benefits will arise, take interest in how your hiers develop to take advantage of the next succession, maybe you want a smooth transition, maybe you want someone with very different traits, maybe an event will make you consider someone else as hier, it's a very nice balance between planning ahead and changing your conditions. Other recent 4x games have tried similar things to keep things fresh but not only is this the only one that truly succeeds, I can't imagine old world without it, every run feels different.

The events in the game are probably landmark and singular most differentiating feature from this particular 4x, events are moments where decisions will impact the current state of affairs or future events, they come in at a steady pace and again, break up samey habits players might develop from game to game, even during times where not much is happening, these always keep things fresh and lead to very entertaining gameplay, both mechanically and story wise. Perhaps someone accuses you of betraying your spouse, and you decide to jail them, or let the rumors spread because you can't afford the political resistance that jailing a prominent figure will attract.

In order to win the game your leaders will choose periodically between different ambitions, completing 10 of these will net you a win. These ambitions change every game, they are mostly mid-term goals that require some effort to complete bust most likely won't change up your plans drastically. These will prevent you from planning for the same strategies every game, always give you small goals to strive for, make sure theres always something to do in Old World while progressing you towards victory, they are very satisfying to complete.

The research tree is semi random, again, the game is trying really hard to prevent you from going for the same game plan before you even start the game, it's just more fun when you need to consider your current goals and options, evaluate your priorities. Whatever tech you don't research will take longer to cycle back, an interesting choice and a way to cut back on sameness. You can plan ahead since its randomness is limited.

The order system changes how you give commands to your units on the map, you usually don't have enough of them to move all your workers and military. Which also makes you think if you really need an extra worker at this point in time if you won't have the extra orders to give them tasks or if you really can afford to go to war, if all your orders go out to moving and attacking with your military, your workers might not develop your nation as fast as needed, It both gives you something to think about and cuts down on uninteresting moves.

The production queue is excellent, cities instead of using one singular resource for production they use 3 distinct ones, you can have a city that is excellent at creating soldiers and poor at building settlers, but most importantly, when a city isn't using one of these resources to build something, they get stockpiled as a global resource that you will also need for different things like passing new laws or sustaining specialist workers. Therefore, if you make all your cities build military units for several turns, you won't stockpile any of the resource to upgrade them during that time. Again, this makes the decision on what to build more interesting.

The most basic mechanics in the genre have been readjusted with the focus on cutting down on automotive habits and meaningless moves that one develops after a number of runs in any 4x game, it succeeds beautifully, then old world opens up possibilities by building on top of this lovely foundation.

The developer has definitely been busy polishing the game over the last few years. Playing now is much more enjoyable. Some annoying features like discontent are easier to manage, and the fun parts like all the family infighting are more realistic. Many of the newer events are very interesting.

A great civilization game. It has a little bit lower pace than Civ6 but you can get used to it. I really enjoy it!

Pros:
- A good, realistic graphic
- Interesting narative system
- Cool leaders system, it feels like roleplay sometimes.
- Victory conditions fit your play style
- Order system makes you think about the priorities of your needs

Cons:
- Only old world era (but you can understand it by name :) )
- Some mechanics are not intuitive (like water movement)
- Not so much mechanics (comparing to Civ 6).

A refreshing take on the 4X genre! The game offers a unique and engaging experience. It’s clear that the developers are passionate about their work, consistently improving the game with thoughtful updates. Well done!

Honestly, this is the best 4X game out right now. It doesn't get enough love.

I don't often review games, but I really wanted to add a thumbs up for this lesser known title. The best way I can describe Old World is "lovingly crafted". You can tell the devs are passionate about every little corner of this game. If you like 4x style games, you need to try this.

I fell out of love with 4x games after falling down the grand strategy rabbit hole and this one has been the only one that managed to still hold my interest and enthusiasm, highly recommended

Loved what I've played so far, had lots of fun learning the different maniacs unique to the game. It's also the PERFECT title to get into while we wait for civ7 to be playable.

A very elegant design in so many ways. Good atmosphere pushing you to take just one more turn. However, the constant barrage of decision making required can be exhausting.

If you're looking for a fun-to-play strategy game that is easy to jump in and out of without lengthy commitments then this is the game. I weekend binged my first time out and now jump in for a couple of hrs at a time. The customization menu allows you to tweak the game to your liking which is a huge plus for me. It does have a Civ-like feel (granted I stopped playing after Civ 5 for same reasons as many others) There have been a few good updates so far (as recently as Feb) and this game can only get better.

Different enough from Civilization to justify purchase.
The families and stories are fun, but not really consequential to the gameplay.
The economy with multiple resources and buying/selling is more interesting, than civ.
User interface and presentation are top notch. Very nice soundtrack.
Tribes are fun. For my whole playthrough I had alliance with one of the tribes, and used them as a buffer from other civilizations. I wish, there were more interactions with tribes, like i.e. trade.
Sadly end game gets really stale, as there is not much to do except fulfilling arbitrary and tedious objective or just destroying other civilizations.

The game is interesting for a while but becomes formulaic where games don't really differ and on harder settings military is so important, all other factors become irrelevant.

Worse, once you become bored of single player and venture into multi-player there are no in-built tools to find games, the lobbies in the game are password only with games organised in discord. I questioned this as I have a life and would just like to queue up for a game - having posted interest in a game and had no response from anyone for multiple hours - maybe because not known to the in crowd but as a new player, that will be your experience also.

To my surprise on seeing if there was any response or interest a day later, i have been removed from the discord - presumably for voicing dissatisfaction at the complete lack of support for finding multi-player games, rather than address the issues, just ban people to avoid any visible dissent.

What is worse, I have been given achievements for playing a multiplayer game when all i did was open a lobby which nobody joined - after a significant period of time - this distorts the true numbers of the active multi-player population.


The problem with this approach is it means this is a developer i need to avoid moving forward and i would advise you to do the same.


Edited below:
Thanks to the Developer for a measured and professional response.

I have updated this review to positive on reflection that there is enough content that is well made to warrant a significant amount of quality entertainment in single player.

With regards to discord, I apologize for the error on my part, it seems the Old World discord is in a different account in my browser instead of adding to my discord servers in the application which is a discord issue, not your's. Again, I apologize, clearly the behaviour was not to hide dissent or remove me and I apologize for that.

Old World is a great 4x game. It's just about at the midway point between the Civ series, and Paradox grand strategy titles. It has the deep management of something like Stellaris and the relationship management (albeit less complex) of Crusader Kings. But it also has the focus and addictive quality of the Civ series. This is one of the better turn-based strategy games out there.

One of the best Civ-likes at release and its only gotten better since. A unique mix of ancient age Civ and Crusader Kings unlike anything else out there.

Made by legendary designer Soren Johnson who was the lead on Civ 4 and has since also made the excellent (and again, unique!) Offworld Trading Company.

Worth your time and money.

I really dislike that you can only settle cities in pre-defined spots. It takes a lot of fun away from the 4X framework.

Really delightful. It's a "civ-like", but about 1000x more innovative than any of the last several brand-name-Civ releases. tl;dr: Give this developer money, IMO.

The emphasis on the ancient eras -- and _absense_ of any shift to the modern world -- feels great. It lets the game get in-depth and be balanced in the mechanics and the scale that make sense for the time periods it's focused on.

And the multiple different resources in each city -- growth, training, and civics -- used for workers+settlers, military, and features and improvements, respectively -- is a huge innovation of the genre. It makes each city distinctive, and means you give more consideration to where some work should happen than just "okay, which city has the most production". Furthermore, each of those has local applications *if you're using them*... *or* contributes to a global, similar (but not interchangable) resource... meaning, for example, that if every city is working on local civics improvements, there's an opportunity cost, whereby your ability to afford to push through civilization-wide laws will be reduced. Really sublime balance in this.

A global count of "orders" per turn also keeps things moving and provides another nice piece of balance. It's very typical that you won't be able to move every single one of your units their maximum distance every turn, because you'll run out of orders. This presents the player with prioritization choices that result in a lot of excellent balancing. For example, sometimes you might choose to avoid a war, even if you have plenty of soldiers, because you don't want to pressed to spend lots of orders every turn that you'd rather use to continue moving workers around to improve your terrain at home.

The presence of characters with their attributes and agendas and events adds some spice to the game, but doesn't completely overpower the other familiar 4x mechanics.

My only complaints would be that the UI is a little... heavy. Making sure characters are adequately busy at all times, that governors are assigned, etc, can be a little hard to see. Sometimes I go several turns without realizing some role with huge potential bonuses is simply completely unfilled. It's not a game killer, but it could be improved.

Overall: Great game. Tons of innovations. And it just plain plays well. I'm spending tons more time on this than I have on the last several Civ releases combined. Give Old World a spin!

Great game. I really enjoyed CIV6, but Civ7 was such a let down.. They ruined a good game. Fortunately Old World came under my radar and I tried it out. Everything I've been looking forward to in a Civ style game. Worth the steep learning curve. READ THE MANUAL!!!

I was holding out for Civ 7 - but after reading the review, I decided to look at what else could scratch my 4x itch. I like how Old World is familiar yet it has it own mechanisms and systems which make the game feel fresh and provides me the "ogg, just a bit more" vibe that I remember playing civ for some many years.

Maybe all you need to know is that Old World's lead designer (Soren Johnson) was the lead designer for Civ 4, Spore and Offworld Trading Company. I suspect if Civ 4 or 5 was your entry into 4X, like it was for me, you'll fall in love with this one.

There's a clear passion for history and attention to detail from the devs that makes Old World rise above its competition. I bounced off of Civ 6 hard because it failed at selling you on the fantasy of running an empire. Every game boils down to running down the same tech tree, accumulating as many blue, red or yellow points as possible. History becomes fluff to give you +X of these points.

Old World, meanwhile, is mad enough not to play any music until you research it as a tech (!). It's mad enough to let you play as Egypt with every city's name in hieroglyphs (!!!). It's mad enough to mulligan techs as you discover them!

If Civ feels too boardgamey and Paradox's fare feels too spreadsheety, Old World might be what you want in your life.

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.

Honestly... its bland.

Is it a bad game? Not necessarily, its decent.
What makes this game unique? I don't know.
Is this game forgettable? Yeah

Only buy if you already have other 4X grand strategy games and you're bored of those, and buy on 75% sale.

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.

[hr][/hr]

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.