Old World (Steam Link) is an interesting game. Developed by Soren Johnson, the lead designer of Civilization IV (arguably that franchise’s best iteration) for Mohawk Games, Old World feels both familiar and startlingly different to Civ players. It’s complex, without being complicated, and the fact that it does an excellent job of hiding some of its more sophisticated systems makes it relatively easy to learn. At the same time, this smooth introduction conceals, at first glance, some of the Old World‘s most exciting aspects. I speak from experience.
Despite a love of 4X games and a lifelong fascination with the ancient Near East, I bounced off the game a few times before recognizing its many strengths. Once those strengths became apparent, I spent a lot of time with Old World and then, as one does with games, moved on only to return to review for the latest DLC. I’m glad I did because I’d honestly forgotten how good this game is. Consequently, this piece will also reflect on the current state of Old World, but if you want to know what I think of the DLC, it’s great. If you like Old World, Wonders and Dynasties gives you more to love and many ways to extend your enjoyment.
The most significant of the new improvements is the addition of multiple new leaders for each faction. This addition addresses one of Old World‘s most significant drawbacks – replaying faction leaders can feel repetitive. Many 4X games offer a finite number of playable factions, and replay value comes from the change in settings and the variability of the map, starting circumstances, and opponents. Old World, however, is built with character and event systems, which is why the game is sometimes described as Civilization meets Crusader Kings.
Your leaders and their relationships, both inside and outside of their courts, have a huge impact on how you play and what strategies you can use to address your goals and problems. However, many events are tied to specific characters meaning that, especially in the early game, you are likely to see events and face challenges you’ve encountered in previous playthroughs. The specific circumstances of this Rome start might be entirely different from the last Rome start but, when Remus begins plotting against Romulus, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve seen all this before.
I don’t want to suggest that the character system isn’t practical because taking advantage of a leader’s archetype to boost your economy, your research, or your military development can feel extremely rewarding, even overpowered. Adding the right governor to a city or general to a unit can change your fortunes. Moreover, you can synergize your leader’s abilities with other aspects of your empire to best exploit the current circumstances or the other characters in the game.
Almost everything in Old World works this way: asking you to consider how choices will interact with other game elements. Everything synergizes from making use of terrain with your military units to choosing where to place your improvements to selecting a general to assign to a unit. You can ignore many of these synergies on lower difficulty settings and, if you don’t read the tooltips diligently, you may not recognize that some exist. If you exploit them, however, you can gain huge advantages.
While the character system is extremely rewarding, the events system can introduce an element of chaos or, sometimes, even tedium. Many events repeat across factions and appear in nearly every game. I’m an animal lover, but I’m ready to strangle the pet monkey that comes up regularly. Moreover, these events can sometimes feel arbitrarily penalizing. In one of my early games, I spent many turns grooming my heir with the skills I wanted for my empire, only to have her elope with her lover and abandon her dynastic duties. This was probably on me, as I might have been able to use my leader’s influence ability to keep her from eloping if I had my eye on the ball, but other events feel entirely random and unpreventable.
If you stumble across an ancient ruin (Old World‘s version of the goody hut) too early in the game, or if your leader lacks a particular beneficial trait, you might find yourself choosing between bad options. Sid Meier has famously observed that a good game should consist of a series of interesting choices, but often enough, Old World presents you with a series of infuriating choices.
Ultimately, choosing between bad options is nothing new in 4X games. Finding ways to pivot when your back is to the wall is all part of the fun but, at the same time, Old World is a game that wants you to think and plan and synergize to such a degree that these random elements can feel unfair. I’m not advocating eliminating the event system – I don’t think the character system would be as meaningful without it – but I wonder if there could be ways to make the events feel more earned and less like arbitrary intrusions, which they sometimes do.
The gameplay, over which the player has more control, still feels consistently excellent. Old World‘s orders system — wherein there are only so many moves of any kind you can perform in a single turn – forces players to make difficult choices, particularly early in the game when orders are hard to come by. I do sometimes feel the pacing of the game, especially early on, feels a bit sluggish. It can take a long time to produce a single unit or city improvement but, fortunately, city expansion happens quickly (are there more city sites near the founding city now, or is that my imagination?) and players will very quickly rack up new units and improvements on every turn.
I do sometimes bristle at the artificial constraints imposed by the game, even if they are typical of the genre. I get that limiting production is necessary to give players hard choices, but I think Old World might be improved if it implemented a system like that in the recent Age of Wonders games, wherein you can develop social and military improvements simultaneously. Again, I get it. Interesting choices. I suppose having a city develop only one thing at a time mirrors the limited resources of the bronze and iron ages. At the same time, if a city has surpluses of all available resources, I don’t see why it can’t train military units and improve a mine at the same time. It might be interesting if Old World deployed a city improvement system more like its orders systems – something that might allow you to develop three things in a single city while letting other cities stand pat.
In terms of combat, Old World offers some great strategic possibilities. There are countless ways to specialize and upgrade units, and paying close attention to abilities and terrain will yield real benefits. You’ll need to use every advantage you have because Old World‘s AI is impressive. Units know how to use bonuses and when to retreat. They will focus on wounded units and exploit weaknesses. More than once, I’ve been attacking a tribal enclave to steal the city site only to have an AI faction swoop in from the fog of war and polish off the units I’ve wounded and claim the city site for themselves. And you’d better be sure to protect the unclaimed city tiles in the early game because the AI will steal them, even if they are located right next to your capital.
Since its launch, Mohawk has done an excellent job tweaking and improving Old World, making it my absolute favorite historical 4X right now, and possibly ever. The good news is that Wonders and Dynasties makes a great game significantly better. Several of the previous DLCs have launched along with free updates that add new factions, and now every faction has a choice of multiple leaders. New leaders mean more events, but even better, new ways to play. I had a particularly fun time playing as Egypt, already a powerful builder of wonders, with Khufu as my faction leader. He brings even more bonuses to wonder-construction for a faction already good at building, meaning I was able to snowball early. I also enjoyed trying out familiar civilizations with new bonuses or focuses. I’d previously felt that I never needed to play as Rome again, but the new leaders brought a new focus to Old World‘s most militarily overpowered civilization.
The DLC, as the name suggests, also adds new wonders, many of which are far more dynamic than those already in the game. The Colosseum, for example, churns out a new swordsman every five years and the Cothon generates a new trireme every decade. These can feel quite powerful. As always, you’ll want to consider placement to best synergize your wonders, but it’s great to get more than passive bonuses for your investment.
The new characters also provide new events, which for me feels like a bit of mixed bag, but other players may enjoy the enhanced roleplay experience. Overall, the DLC doesn’t change the way you play the game, like The Sacred and the Profane arguably did with its introduction of complex religious systems. It is likely to change how often you want to play the game. Wonders and Dynasties gives me plenty of incentive to keep coming back.
I have no idea what’s in store for the game’s future, but there are certainly good options for new factions. I’ve seen discussions on message boards in which players ask for China and India, which could be interesting. Personally, I’d love to see the addition of Judea, which would mesh well with the game’s Near Eastern and Mediterranean flavor. I’d also love some kind of character creation system so players can design or redesign leaders. Yes, Old World‘s bread and butter is riffing on real historical figures, but a game in which Rome can go to war with the Hittites while being led by Romulus is already operating ahistorically. There’s no reason not to give the player the option to lean away from documented fact and into customization.
Regardless of where the game goes, I’ll be sure to keep following it. It’s fantastic and has only been getting better.
