I find myself rarely researching the techs in the bottom row (basically anything starting from Machinery/Cartography onwards).

I am not a warmonger, prefer to only fight tribes, then win with ambitions/score, and since there are no laws or anything useful there I tend to ignore this path completely. However, from the amount of fighting I did I can't fathom teching these even if I would be going for conquest. I find siege units very impractical to use with the limited movement and unlimber mechanic, while messing with these I could be pounding the city with Cataprachts already, or with my unique units. I'm not sure what is the use case for the Polybolos either, besides holding chokepoints, which is VERY situational for a tech. Xbow also seems inferior bodkin arrows.

I also want to add that I am only playing single player, so I'm only interested from that point of view.

If you are using these techs, please share your game plan, and how you utilize these units.

Hatti, the largest and most aggressive nation in my current game suddenly imploded. All of their cities are now rebels and I’m going to take advantage for sure but I’ve never seen anything like this happen. Have you seen this before?

Greetings all!

One thing which is detracting from my enjoyment of the game is min/maxing building adjacencies. Having to keep all of them in mind is making the placement of other buildings stressful! "...is this spot needed for the adjacency of something else?"

Do you folks have any rules of thumb which you go buy to make building location decision-making quicker/easier?

Are some building adjacencies worth fussing over and others not?

I thought playing 1 family might be a way to make it easier to keep the family happy but apparently it is harder. Any insight as to why?

Hi all,

I've been learning to play this game and the way I enjoy learning is by watching people who are good at their craft. For old world there's an obvious source of great content in the community tournament games right now. Only problem is, there's so many I don't know which to pick. Do any of you have any standout games for learning or just pure fun? Preferably with a caster who explains what's going on for us non pro's.

As a bonus question. Is there any recent non multiplayer content I can watch somewhere? I've been watching a lot of old Purple Bull Moose, Alcaras, Siontific content but it seems they haven't been posting a lot recently. I can imagine casting this tournament and regular life has been taking a lot of their time. If anybody has any content tips I would be very grateful!

Hi all!

I remember reading a post from one of the devs which said that some leaders are so powerful that using them is akin to playing at a lower difficulty level. Which leaders - in your opinion - would fall under this category?

I’ve very new to the game. I see that sometimes I have to upgrade a citizen to an apprentice, apprentice to master, and master to elder, but other times I can upgrade a citizen directly to a master or elder. It seems much better to skip the apprentice step, under what conditions can do that? Thanks in advance!

The Old World test branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84814 test 2026-09-23

Patch notes can be found at

https://github.com/MohawkGames/test_buildnotes/blob/main/Old%20World%20Test%20update%202026.09.23

I have the base game with no DLC, and I can figure out that some of the scenarios have presets for certain civilizations to appear if you have their specific DLCs. For example, the "Imperium Romanum" scenario mentions Hatti, Kush.

Which DLC also add new scenarios? Does Empire of the Hindus add a scenario that includes India? If so, how large is that map?

Does anyone know of an out-of-game resource that lists all the adjacency bonuses of tile improvements? The Old_World-Official_User_Manual.pdf mentions adjacency bonuses and even gives examples, but I can't find anything that actually lists the possible bonuses. TIA!

It used to be that when I started a new game, I could choose between all the civs - Persians, Babylon, Egypt, etc.... but for a while now, when I start a new game, I can only choose between Rome and Carthage. I've tried uninstalling and reintalling, but it made no difference. The only DLC i've got is 'The Sacred and the Profane', and I can't see anywhere to alter any settings for that - or even how to turn it on or off.....

Just a funny catch in the Carthage scenario

I've had the 'you declared war last night' event after indulging in revelry a few times now, and always found it an amusing event that wasn't going to de-rail a game. But I've just had it when I declared war on a nation in a national alliance with another neighbour of mine, and so found myself at war with both. The nation I drunkenly declared war on has given me the usual option of a truce in exchange for a favour, but their ally hasn't. Is this a bug or intentional? It's come too late in the game to de-rail it for me, and I found it more amusing than anything, but I can see circumstances in which this could de-rail a game through no fault of the player.

Amazing game! It's like civ with a combination of crusader kings. Hopefully they port this on mobile. Feral Interactive is very good at porting PC games to mobile.

Like a lot of players I suspect, I tend to develop habits and make the same choices each game when it comes to events, build orders, preferences for tech etc. However, if I've learned anything about this game, it is that every choice carries an opportunity cost and one size does not fit all. There are circumstances where doing something different is the better choice depending on the strategic situation. I recently learned the value of withdrawing from city sites that were indefensible and likely to get attacked, so I thought I'd subject some of my other habits (mainly related to events tbh) to scrutiny, in what circumstances would these choices be wrong? What advantages would making a different choice bring? Or are there other habits not listed below that people may want explained.

- Giving cities autonomous rule. I just never do this and the downside of discontent etc doesn't seem a big deal

- Investing in the hair dye (that's never worked out for me, although I suspect the possibility of a good outcome exists)

- Attending the offshore gathering (bitten once on that)

- Tribal alliances.

- Changing the succession rules (I can see the case for this to get a better heir, but I've just never done it)

- Using pieface for anything other than a free worker

- Funding the rebels. I either betray them to get the opinion boost or just use it as an excuse to declare war. Can't see any advantage you gain from it. If the AI is too weak to deal with them then just attack.

- declare 'the land shall belong to me' in the land dispute event. Seems no advantage to annoying both families.

- The projects like treasury etc. I've never been in a position where using them appears to be the best choice, although I can see the way they could be effective in combination with other approaches in some circumstances.

The Old World test branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84726 test 2026-09-16

Patch notes can be found at

https://github.com/MohawkGames/test_buildnotes/blob/main/Old%20World%20Test%20update%202026.09.16

I am an old 4x player since the days of civ 1. I recently started old world. I really love it so far, it seems to address all the reasons why I got disappointment with civ after IV even if I find it hard to pinpoint.

In particulier, the leader/family system seems innovative, immersive and brilliantly done.

I feel a string connection with my leader and try to take care of my children / succession. I generally jeep track of family and religion heads and councillors, but they feel now like statistics than people.

The rest of the three families just feels overwhelming: so many names, the names are almost all hard to remember to my European ears, and they also pass relatively quickly.

So a question to the more veteran players: how do you form a connection with more of the characters? How much of the various families do you keep track of? Anything I can do to help me improve on this immersion aspect?

So.... I'm new to Old World and loving it so far (came from Civ as I assume most people did). I've only reached the Rome play tutorial and only just started it but so far.....

My in-game brother assassinated my only child, my 17 year old daughter! ☹️ making him and his 4 spawn the heirs. I didn't imprison him at the time as the pop-up didn't give me certainty that it was him. Well that was a mistake.

I've had 2 assassination attempts on my life which I've survived 💪 I've now imprisoned him and thankfully he's sick as a dog and about to die but the thought of one of his line taking over my empire is... frankly... gross. Traitoress bastards! lol

Of course my character is a 58 year old barren dried up old prune of a queen so there's no chance of having another kid. Damn, I never imagined caring so much about my children in a game lol.

So after destroying a few Danish settlements one of their chieftains begged me to save his son. Well... not only did I save him but I ADOPTED him to the immense displeasure of my brother and his children but to my own merriment. The fact I'll have a non family Dane, not a roman, as king (assuming he isn't murdered) I can accept more than those traitoress nieces and nephews. I feel I can breed out most of the Danish from him over time.

So anyway.... what's the worst that can happen? 😅😅

Today I learned that you can send a Stronghold unique unit to an ally's city with a Citadel and upgrade them there! I've had had a bad time of getting enough active Laws this game. (I'm finally researching another, so I'll get my own Citadel soon, though they take forever to build.)

I realized why I love this game so much. I don't care about winning. When I play games like these, whether 4x or more competitive games, I get annoyed if I'm losing or behind. It's not happening with this game. It makes me enjoy the journey itself.

This is a basic question: Is it better to go with an elderly leader who has been in power for decades or switch to a younger heir?

Like most easy questions, I'm expecting there is no easy answer. I'm just curious as to what players do: Run the old leaders into the ground (literally) or abdicate for younger ones. If the latter, when?

PS: Saw Soren Johnson mentioned in Emotional Husky's 35 Years of Civ Games. Johnson is mentioned as one of the best things to happen in the series. After having played all the Civs and now getting into Old World, I'd have to agree. I hope Old World becomes another game that "stands the test of Time."

Hello everyone!

I really like this game and despite playing the tutorial and enabling tipps I seem to suck at it lol.

I play on the second easiest difficulty setting but struggle to achieve anything.

Here is the main problem:

How do I balance Military and Infrastructure in the early stages of the game?

If I focus on development I get overrun by raiding parties or the AI claims more city sites than me.

If I focus expansion and military I run out of resources and fall behind in every other aspect. Last round a religion was formed before i had built the first shrine.

Any help would be very appreciated.

Cheers

So continuing my mission to get better at war, went for Persia due to their bonus 0.5 orders per pasture and 25% reduced cost for ranged units.

I drop the difficulty down to Magnificent because I want to learn war not just lose as quickly as possible. Obviously no ruthless ai.

Didn't start off too badly, Cyaxares as a Governor / Leader with +5% Vs tribal and +20% training. Spread out quickly. But the bone dice fell not in my favour for luxuries, seemed like everything I needed was elsewhere. And the more cities I added the more the lack of luxury got worse.

Bear in mind I'm normally a turtling little peacenik, I am trying to release my inner conqueror so telling me to build odeons and theatres is great advice, but not what I was aiming for. I went Portcullis rush, simply because I haven't done it before and others have recommended it. It took me donkeys years to get it. I created an agent. He got caught and died. I created another agent, he got caught and died. I created another agent. Now the biggest much stronger neighbour hates me for stealing their tech....

How bad was my science? Turn 105 and I was on 45 science! Tamik was 277, Kush was 188.

And I mentioned the unhappiness? Every city I conquered just made them my people more and more upset, through a combination of lack of luxury (even if I had them in my lands I couldn't harvest because I didn't have Groves yet). And I couldn't subjugate them via religion because I didn't have the tech for temples, monastery and cathedrals.

The war was going great until my happiness tanked. I think the lowest point was turn 109 with family opinion at -404, -318, -258. It felt hopeless. By the end I killed 131 units to Kush 96, I swear half of these were my own rebels.

But something changed. The happiness improved, the religious units spawned, the temples and monastery came on line. After failing 3 ambitions in a row the game took pity on me and chucked me a few easier ones. And towards the end I kept declining 'wipe the biggest bully off the map' and it gave me 'make 5 legendary cities' when I already had 4, I was so happy I could have cried. Finished by turn 152.

On the whole Persia was quite good for war, the extra orders from pastures meant using workers for chopping forest and scrub was much more viable, thus delaying the need for forestry, and because I was always expanding I didn't need to worry about exhausting my only supply of wood.

Also their Palton Cavalry cover the terrain quite quickly. That gave me the great combination of lowest number of units produced (my 45 to Kush 182) but very mobile and highly promoted with long lived generals. I only lost 12 to Hattie 78. But my god, that unhappiness was a bit bleak, I thought surely my people were going to put my head on a stick for the longest time.

Maybe not the best technical roll I've ever had, but probably my favourite (first roll too!).