Old World, New Tricks

"Well my kind's your kind I'll stay the same

Oh say, say, say

Wait... they don't love you like I love you"

 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

They said I was daft to build a kingdom on my swamp of ignorance, but I built it anyway, just to show 'em. It sank into the adjacency bonus swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the enemy empire swamp. So I built a third one. That revolted, got hemmed in by under-expansion, then got trampled into the swamp. But the fourth one... also sank, into a barbarian swamp. As did the fifth and sixth swamp castles. But the seventh! .... was less lucky than advertised, and also fraught with internal swamp strife. Anyway, around the eighth or ninth try I finally made it. Possibly tenth or twelfth. In my defense, it's a fairly convoluted swamp.

I impulse-tagged Old World some months ago for reasons long forgotten, and just as impulsively confirmed the purchase upon release. After thirty hours played in three days, I'm both burned out and loving it, having jumped right in and despite my not inconsiderable experience with such games, found myself flailing helplessly... but, y'know, the good kind of helpless flailing!

 

I gave Civilization 5 and 6 a pass after hearing some of the (largely idiot-friendly) changes they made. Though still pulling in hefty sales numbers, they noticeably lacked the enthusiastic support of a series whose second showing redefined the genre, 2.5 became an unmatched classic for its integration of story with mechanics and number four topped turn-based strategy gameplay for up to a decade depending on which nerds you ask. When Civilization 4 did gradually get eclipsed in critiques, it was more by a shift back toward Master of Orion copycats than by its own descendants, and by Europa Universalis' surprising success at pushing abundant historical references.

Enter Old World. When after a day of breathlessly shepherding the Alcmaeonids' fortunes I checked who the hell crafted this gem, I was somehow pleasantly unsurprised to see it advertised as 'by the lead designer of Civ4' - and it certainly shows. Old World is in many ways Civ4's Beyond the Sword expansion lent dominance over other mechanics, plus a heavy influence from the EU series in its emphasis on internal politics, NPC proxies and historical references to rival even Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

 

Smaller and denser than its competitors, Old World thrives on fewer cities, fewer military units (but then endlessly stacking redundant goons was always one of Civ 4's more criticized features) and a smaller timeframe (at least for now; expansions will tell) covering classical antiquity edging toward the Byzantine era instead of the full span of human history. Game length is only 200-400 turns with wonders taking ~12 turns to complete, but far more happens each turn from truly random events to your dynasty's various ongoing personal growth to fallout from political decisons you took ten turns prior. It relies heavily on "orders" as a resource literally limiting the number of actions you take per turn, be it workers' construction, units' movements and attacks, political maneuvering or tutoring your eventual successors. It's a bit ironic that the Civilization games, considered by most to epitomize 4X gameplay, actually tend to limit expansion far more than the Master of Orion spin on the genre, but Old World's orders play into its Civ inspiration by focusing gameplay on fewer actions per turn, in contrast to Stellaris' vast sweep or Age of Wonders: Planetfall's focus on strategic / tactical class-based interplay.

 

In fact, Old World impresses by how shrewdly it carves out its place among more established competitors, lacking for instance Age of Wonders' integration of tactical battles or Stellaris' freeform roleplaying options, adopting instead some of EU's focus on personalities and running with it. Your family members breed, grow, learn, plot rebellions (seriously, watch your back around Alexander the would-be-great) apply their stats to governance or pacifying the populace, and eventually die, and you'll find grooming your next generation of leader, generals and governors always on your mind as you navigate their charming little soap opera events. While the writing isn't particularly poetic or ambitious, it is far better than computer games' norm and adheres to its historical setting aside from some standard politically correct digressions like equal opportunity military leadership. The game oozes atmosphere despite its unassuming production values, from licensed music encompassing everything from airy instrumental mood pieces to folk songs and prayers directly recalling Civ 4's medieval / renaissance soundtrack, to pop-up events illustrated as oil paintings relating everything from exotic pets at court to treating with tribal powers like the Thracians or Danes to the expressive but not caricaturish portraits and nifty little gimmicks like having to discover the Drama technology before your music starts playing.

Strategically, Old World has all the old elements of Civ map occupation, but interwoven far more tightly. For instance terrain production overlaps quite a bit so the best choice (e.g. mine on hill) is oft overtaken by your need for a particular resource. Event choices rarely have a single best choice and even bad choices might fit your intentions for developing a character or city. By all means turn your general cruel by having him kick a puppy, even if it counts as a weakness. Most production buildings are initially built by workers on landscape tiles and funnel resources through the city skimming some for specialist training for MOAR POWAR and/or border expansion, compounded by the need to maintain a balance between between urban and rural tiles, compounded by forward planning for adjacency bonuses, compounded by each city (and even the units it produces!) belonging to one of three factions whose attitude determines their productivity or combat effectiveness. Luckily you do get quite a few quality of life features like undoing orders, a grace period for improvement reconstruction, cities which can withstand a fair bit of early punishment instead of instantly being lost to a single mangy tribesman, and while I've seen complaints about the interface as cluttered, as with Stellaris the sheer amount of information you need to track at any one time makes even its abundance of text a boon, as you'd have a devil of a time tracking everything by ideograms alone, struggling to remember what twelve different wheel icons represent.

Not to say Old World is perfect:

 

The end-game has a deliberately incomplete "insert expansion pack here" feel to it, and victory conditions or capstone projects (like a spaceship to Alpha Centauri) are sorely lacking. The time threshold of 200 turns is already barely long enough to accomodate a huge map, and the (uncustomizable) point threshold far shorter than even that, to the point after one win I've already turned it off. At the other end, cities can only be built on a few locations fixed from the start, resuting in quick, brutal and slightly unsatisfying Xploration and Xpansion (in direct contract to the wonders of a thousand-star galaxy in Stellaris) though at least inserting an intermediate tribal category of NPCs between neutral barbarians and full-fledged civs allows for gradual military expansion after the initial land grab, without resorting to full-scale war. Military units are slightly limited. Oceans also feel empty and pointless, extending to naval units, begging for maybe some one-tile islands to colonize for resources or human resources? Or blockades or at least some random flotsam pick-ups? It could also use unit waypoints and multi-turn pathing.

But Old World is little diminished by its few flaws, and in an industry which insists on releasing everything as beta versions to lower customers' expectations and bleed them for DLCs, it stands out for its very completeness and professionalism. Directly contrasted to, for one example, Stellaris still patching core game mechanics six years after release, everything in Old World is feels fleshed out, measured and interconnected, with not even the orders limit limiting you as much as other titles' vespene gasses.

 

Marvelous work, and worth twice its price.

 

Well then. Next stop, Babylon!