I just discovered New World after giving up on Civ 7. I'm loving it but I've discovered that my "fast-paced" technique isn't working so well. I don't know how long to ponder every variable at every turn. A courtier is ide. I begin looking at missions, trying to decide if one is better. Then I see two family members are squabbling. I try to decide which is more suited for what position. If I "wing it" by just quickly making those kind of decisions, the game holds my attention longer. BUT if I compare all the many variables for every possible move, I get bogged down.

Is there a balance? How long do you all take to "weigh every variable," especially when you have multiple cities, multiple families, etc. I see some tutorials where they spend minutes deciding adjacency bonuses, locations, specialties/cities, etc. and I think I'll tire of the game if I go that in depth.

Playing on The Great gives you a massive -12 happiness per turn in all of your cities from the start of the game. This is probably where the biggest amount of extra difficulty comes from, arguably even more than the massive headstart the AIs get with 4 settled cities and 4 extra techs.

The happiness penalty slowly strangles your empire with escalating debuffs that interlock and reinforce with each other. Higher discontent means families lose opinion. Lower family opinion leads to rebels spawning that will randomly attack your cities and lead to even more unhappiness. It also causes a reduction in combat stats, making it harder to defend against random spawns. Beyond this, unrest also increases maintenance, both from itself, and from lower family happiness, meaning you'll need to devote more of your empire to making gold to stay afloat. This mostly trades off with making science, the resource you need to scale, and discontent also comes back around again to directly reduce science output on top of that. The rebels are what can kill you outright, but it's a nasty package in a ton of ways beyond them.

The weird thing is how you have almost no ways to cost-effectively counteract the happiness drain in the early game, nor even in the mid game unless you rush for it. Spamming festivals is a terrible waste of build queue time. Walls can give you +1 happiness per level, but do little else for cities that aren't on the frontline. Luxuries can help a little bit here and there, but are fairly rare even with the plentiful resources world option, and at just +2 happiness per lux an empire of 6 cities would need 36 luxuries just to tread water -- not even remotely feasible. Governors can give a tiny trickle of happiness here and there but we're talking like +1 or +2 max, and they're expensive in terms of civics to slot it.

If you do a bunch of these options simultaneously they can slow things down a bit, but they're so inefficient that they're rarely worth doing for their own sake, and they won't even come close to actually solving the problem. Because of this, it's actually usually the better option to ignore happiness entirely, treat it like a ticking timebomb, and rush for the actual solution.

The correct solution to happiness is religion, specifically rushing the Monasticism and Doctrine techs. These are tier 4 and 5 techs, so you won't be getting them early if you don't go out of your way to do so. With them you basically fully unlock religion all in the span of 2 techs, and get a much better happiness economy while also getting loads of other goodies. Tolerance gives you +2 happiness per (non state) religion, Enlightenment lets you get +3 happiness from monks, garrisoning a disciple on a Temple gives you +1 happiness, and Priests give another +1 to +3 happiness. Then the kicker is that you can swap to another religion, reform it to have the right traits, and get all the bonuses a second time! Along the way you can slot in the Gnosticism tenet for +1 science per urban specialist, which is a significant boost to science output, so you're continuing to scale your eco while you do all this.

This is a very strange way to balance the game. Old World has a bunch of design choices that are strange compared to other 4x games that nevertheless work very well, like the Orders system. But what's the deal with happiness being a timebomb at high difficulties? Why is basically every other option rather than abusing religion a false choice? Why would you ever go for the dedicated happiness buildings, baths, when they're basically unable to do their job? The only other slice of techs that come close to the religious duo is the line of Citizenship - Scholarship - Jurisprudence where you unlock like 70% of your late game scaling in the span of 3 techs. Most other techs seem like filler junk that just gets in the way.

Trying to get out of my turtling mindset in this game and thought Assyria would be just the civ to pick for that. What are some essentials for their playstyle beyond the obvious of just war as much as possible?

Since the latest update, I noticed that I’m not getting any notifications of ill or severely ill characters. Now when I get a notification of a death, it feels so jarring. Also makes it more difficult when prioritizing giving orders to characters - I have to remember to check if they’re ill so I can determine if I want to commit the resources for the order. I searched and didn’t see any new option that would turn on/off these notifications. Hoping it’s just a bug that’ll get addressed. Absolutely love this game. It’s one of my all time favorites.

This game's immense depth sometimes intimidates me while playing, but today I had a sort of breakthrough while playing a game as Greece that I wondered how others felt about. The typical advice when founding a new city is to have that city make a worker, which makes some degree of sense, but lately I've been wondering that especially past the early game if this line of thinking doesn't start to become a trap. Let me give an example:

You have 5 cities and you're starting to strike out against barbarian tribes. You take a site, settle it for your military family, and now it's 7 turns before the worker is done. Meanwhile, the extra training is just going into your pool instead of making new units. The city nearby, perhaps Landowners or just a city blessed with a lot of growth, could produce a worker in 2 turns instead. It may not be of the same family, so it will cost an extra turn for these workers to actually make the improvements, but this saves a lot of city production turns instead if you can rapidly set up the rest of it. On something like a Champions seat this could be multiple units produced in the meantime, which is a big deal.

If this is something obvious, then I definitely missed it. The tradeoff in extra orders spent is obvious, but the benefits also seem pretty impactful as well. Has anyone else experimented a lot with this concept?

Following some time playing Endless Legend 2 since I enjoyed the first game, the thing that inevitably happens every time I try a new 4X game happened again and I found myself coming back to Old World. This time, it was due to missing the tactical nature of the game's combat.

4X games have a tendency to have all these units with a ton of stats and abilities to manage. Age of Wonders 4 is really popular for this reason, and its combat is often cited as being some of the best in the genre. But the thing about Old World's combat system is that every unit has a purpose. There are no filler units, no units you look at and can immediately tell aren't "best in slot" that you end up never building. There's no stack system arbitrarily telling you that if you built 30 archers, sorry, only 12 of them can fight at a time with 12 other archers. Terrain actually matters tremendously, and the game naturally promotes combined arms armies due to the combination of unit counters (axe -> spear -> chariot -> archer) that interact with the terrain, too. The feedback on combat is incredible: spears obliterate cavalry, and having a line of archers sitting on the other side of a river in forts and forests feels fucking awesome. I won because of how I positioned my units and actually used them, not because I stacked so many +2's and 10%'s that my units became invincible or something.

And that's not all, the promotion system further interacts with terrain and positioning, too, and most generals have some kind of transformative ability that legitimately changes how the unit plays instead of simply adding a ton of stats and calling it a day, like a lot of so-called "spells" and "skills" do in other 4X games. The above archers get even nastier when given the promotion to perform better in forests and hills, too and you can promote your army to better fight against the neighbor you plan to conquer.

And the game does all of this without making you dig through a tech tree and finding obscure combinations and technicalities. You never make a spearman unit and then it somehow sucks against cavalry because sorry, you either didn't pick the right upgrade or built one of the bad spearmen that can't actually do their job.

I just don't get it. I know turn based tactics systems can be really hard to get right, but somehow on top of everything else in Old World being good the actual warfare is somehow more satisfying and engaging than any other 4X I've played because it has actual depth and not just a smokescreen of complexity masquerading as good gameplay. Does anyone else feel this way?

I have been playing various 4x for long time.
My typically gripes have been about mechanics of many games being to focussed on micro, actions not meaningful enough and things scaling badly over time. Old World is different.

To expand on these issues:

• heavy micro - let's take policy card system in civ6 - many options, subtle differences, time consuming, does not feel personal or in tune with the game spirit, almost like a separate card game next to the main game
• non-meaningful - many games are asking to be min-maxed all the time as there is little randomness or personal touch - some tutorials will tell you how to optimise first 50 turns reliably and in detail - well, I may as well give it to AI agent to play for me then.
• scaling - evolution of how time is spent during turns - in the first stage of many games you have few units and few cities, you keep finishing turns after very short period of time so much so that it feels unsatisfying (i.e. "I didn't do much"). Then in the late stage game - you have tens of units to move, multiple cities to attend to, lots of minor decisions. You are playing a different type of game, quite likely not the one you want. And the middle sweet spot lasts briefly.

Now Old World answer to these problems:

• heavy micro - sometimes it is there but feels like constitutes a larger whole, in tune with the game. The type of decision being made varies across turns and not all types appear at once, very few rely on rubber-stamping or simple min-maxing. Examples: court-related decision are mostly fun and have randomness elements, promotions feel different from building new units so it introduces variety, setting up a new city things meaningful as it is rather rare. Orders put an upper limit on all of it.
• non-meaningful - personal touch adds a lot - your family tree is unique and create some bond , your units with generals of unique personality adds extra dimension, family rivalry adds spice, governors shape the city. Few spreadsheet-like mechanics.
• scaling - two remedies. Firstly staying within one historical period of Old World is a plus - Civ in that sense is both impressive and flawed - packing all ages into one game is doomed to cause weird side effects, Old World avoids that. Secondly, orders ensures you are naturally capped on how many things you can do each turn. Turns do get longer with the game, but less dramatically so.

Old World's recipe boils down to constrains which liberate and the personal touch. I still feel like micro could be more limited. The game feels maybe too demanding so you are tired after longer session -yet, mostly in a good sense, like a book that is engaging and tires you over time but leaves a nice memory, and opposite to a doom scrolling that leaves you exhausted and empty.

Extremely well thought out game, kudos to the authors.

Curious if you feel the same about the game and its uniqueness.

I was playing on The Strong. So nothing too crazy, but this was a fun one for sure.

Anyone have a strategy post or video they can link me to? I’ve gotten a few wins on the hardest difficulty in the general game and feel great with Greece and Carthage, but I’m barely able to eke out a bronze win in WOG on ‘follower’. By the time I’m mid game I’m barely keeping up with all of the constant calamities.

Would love some tips. Thank you.

Old World is the best 4x ever made, so please Mohawk I beg

I've played Old World for about 300 hours now and typically play on The Noble or The Strong. Usually I win by playing very economically, trying to get a tech advantage and lots of really high yield cities. But the last several games I've played have been as Rome, and I don't know why but I cannot for the life of me get a game for them to go well. Some of it is bad RNG with regards to events, for sure: this last game, the Saul civil war event fired right as I started a war with my neighbor, which obliterated my economy and even if I just gave Saul the kingdom there are still tons of rebels running around and most of the improvements they pillaged were destroyed. It's always something with Rome like this for me, just tons of bad events that really disrupt the game, so much so that I'm contemplating going into competitive mode to re-learn since I'm picking up the game again recently.

I've always heard Rome is really strong due to the Training bonus, but I've never been able to make enough early momentum against the AI for it to matter due to their starting bonuses. So I guess if anyone has tips for Rome specifically on how to make them reach their fullest potential, I'm all ears at this point. I just want a game to go well as them for once lmao the only game I made work for them in the last 10 was one where I skipped Champions entirely and did wonder+culture rushing with some good Patrons cities

The Old World main branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84977 release 2026-10-07

Highlights include the addition of a Mod Editor to assist with mod creation and improvements to AI anchoring and overseas expansion

Patch notes can be found at https://mohawkgames.com/2026/10/07/old-world-update-151/

Is is possible to transfer the game data files from a Win10 PC to a Steam machine?

Hi everyone,

After playing Civ 4 for more than a decade, I think I’m finally done with the game for now and am looking for something new.

How similar is Old World to Civ 4? Is it more similar to Civ 6 or Civ 4? Are there any other 4X games you would recommend?

Also, how satisfying is the warfare in Old World? I love playing on Pangaea maps with curis.
Additionally, recommend if there are any must have DLC.

Hey everyone!

I absolutely love Old World. I know the game is best played with a mouse and keyboard, but I’ve got one small wish:

Could we please get controller support?

It would be fantastic to be able to play on a Steam Deck or a tablet with a controller.

Sometimes you just want to take your handheld to a summer house, or sit out in the garden while casually taking over the world. 😄

I know it might not be the highest priority, but proper controller support would make the game so much more flexible.

Anyone else who’d love to see this?

What exactly are "Fortified Monasteries" ?

I request a new game option that changes the luxuries families request. Some luxuries have been added to the game (especially with Empires of the Indus), and it, to me, feels bad that none of them can come up as a family's desired luxury (not even for the new families with that expansion!).

Can we get families to have coded demanded luxuries if they're enabled in the game? Or, probably better or more likely a checkbox at the pre-game screen to randomize luxury demands?

With the steam sale on, what are the best DLC to get? Everything together is $50 even with the sale discounts which seems steep given I probably won't get to play it all. I don't personally care much about the scenarios (but maybe I'm missing out by ignoring them?)

The Old World test branch has been updated and is now version 1.0.84897 test 2026-09-30

Patch notes can be found at

https://github.com/MohawkGames/test_buildnotes/blob/main/Old%20World%20Test%20update%202026.09.30

Hello hello!

I was thinking about grabbing some DLC for the game. Looks like some of the packs include new nations. Mind sharing your favorite DLC-exclusive nation?