Video Game / Old World

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Created by Mohawk Games, the makers of Offworld Trading Company, Old world is described as a mix of Civilization games and Crusader Kings, but with a lot of mechanics not found in either.

The game takes place in a world like the ancient/classical Mediterranean/middle east, with big empires we all know and love like Rome, Greece, Egypt, and such. You are in charge of one of these empires, who must manage your dynasty, various aristocratic families, and the cities and military of a large empire.

Probably the most unique feature of this game is "orders". Just about every action you take (moving units, interacting with families or diplomatically, having workers build things) costs orders, which are limited. The result is that you often can't do everything you want each turn, and must prioritize.

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Tropes found in Old World

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality:. Aside from the simplifications all computer games must do:
  • By default, females and males are treated the same. Not historical, but allows some fun and makes things simple.
  • All civilizations follow the same structure of a royal family with aristocrats to run everything. No Republics, no civil service from lower classes, no different aristocratic ranks, no elected monarchy, inheritance drama mostly avoided...this also keeps things simple.
• A Commander Is You: factions have strengths and weaknesses, though not as straightforward as most examples:
  • Ancient Egypt: Can build a wonder right away, and leans economic/builder type.
  • Babylon: the research faction, good at quick technology.
  • Assyria: Militaristic, gains orders when killing units, so can snowball if combat goes well.
  • Carthage: Can hire mercenaries, and more merchant oriented in general.
  • Ancient Greece: Culture bonuses, plus other random advantages.
  • Ancient Rome: Straight up militarist, with extra training and faster movement.
  • Persia: Mixed advantages, with a ranged unit focus.
  • The different types of aristocratic families also count, giving cities they control a selection of different bonuses.
• Awesome Music: has an enormous in game soundtrack, with a few original songs mixed with classical music, religious music, music from the region (some Arabic song and Bulgarian choir songs, for example), among others.
• Barbarian Tribe: There are "barbarians" who are hostile to everyone from the start, and groups like Gauls, Scythians, Danes, and such who you can do diplomacy with, but whose cities act like barbarians.
• Bible Times: Roughly the time period and part of the world covered, though the game is not focused on anything biblical. Starts in New Kingdom Egypt and includes the big empires in the area until Rome.
• Build Like an Egyptian: Egypt gets a big collection of starting stone, allowing it to build a wonder almost immediately. Several builder traits mean Egypt can generally build things more quickly than other civs. The pyramids are a wonder available to build also.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: The orders system can do this. A smaller army/empire with the same number of orders as a larger one can use what it has more efficiently.
• Decadent Court: manage your family and aristocrats poorly, and you end up with one. Events may make this happen anyway.
• Guide Dang It!: a manual has been published, but the game has tons and tons of interactions that can be tough to figure out.
• Non-Entity General: You are one, but your Civilization is managed by people represented in game.
• Settling the Frontier: Like most 4x games, you do this at the start. Unusually, you can't just settle anywhere, only special city sites can be settled, and outside a couple near your starting location, all are controlled by barbarian tribes and must be conquered.
• Standard Royal Court: The ruler, ruler's family, a few ministers, lots of aristocratic families who manage the cities day to day, various other court officials/scientists/etc., they're all there.
• The Good Chancellor:. Hiring one of these is valuable. They can reduce discontent in cities, and deal with problem members of your family or aristocrats, and personal qualities can improve the productivity of your Civilization. Choose poorly or treat them poorly and you get an Evil Chancellor.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: Tons of resources in the game, both physical and more abstract.
  • Physical Resources: These are extracted from terrain improvements, and specialists associated with those improvements. Up front payments are required to build most things, and they also maintain urban improvements. They can be bought and sold for gold.
    • Food: used for settlers and specialists, plus cavalry, produced by farms, fishing, hunting, and ranching.
    • Iron: used by melee units and associated buildings, plus some construction. Produced by mines.
    • Stone: used to build lots of buildings, produced from quarries.
    • Wood: Used by ranged units, siege, and spearmen, plus some construction. Produced by cutting down trees and scrub with workers,,later lumbermills.
  • Gold/money: produced like abstract resources, used to buy and sell physical resources, and for various diplomatic purposes and family interaction.
  • Abstract resources: Represent other qualities/society effects of your Civilization. These are the resources that fill production bars to build things, with excess building up civilization wide for other uses.
    • Growth: Population growth. Used to build settlers, religious units, and lighter military units like scouts. When a city isn't building something that needs growth, it instead increases the population that can become specialists. Produced by special food resources and farmers/fishers/etc.
    • Civics: Civilian spirit/administration. Used to build specialists if a citizen is available, plus some city projects, excess accumulates civilization wide and is used to pass laws, arrange marriages, and other interaction. Produced in a few ways.
    • Training: Military power. Used to build military units, excess is used to assign generals, improve units, and force marches to make them move faster.
    • Science: Researches new technologies.
    • Culture: builds up over time and improves the culture Level of a city, opening up new improvements.
  • Discontent: a negative resources. Instead of a fixed level, this builds over time and causes negative effects. Later in the game, it can be controlled and reduced more easily.
  • Orders: each turn, you get a certain amount of these, most actions require orders to do. Leftovers are lost, orders cannot be stored. This limits the amount of actions you can take each turn, often you can't do everything you want.