Old World News

While Manor Lords goes medieval and Terra Invicta takes things to space, Old World is the strategy game in Hooded Horse's excellent lineup that Civilization fans will really gravitate to. One of the first projects to be published by the label, Old World is still going strong, and it's just dropped a new DLC that is full of disasters. Don't fret, I'm not talking about game-breaking bugs or questionable mechanics, I'm talking about the ones cooked up by Mother Nature - or the gods, in this case. So, get ready for your hexes to be battered by tsunamis, wildfires, sandstorms, and more in the Wrath of Gods DLC, which also adds a new faction, dozens of new events, and much more.

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Historical 4X game Old World demands you appease the gods in new DLC

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Historical 4X game Old World makes ambition victories easier in new update

• Calamities Shape the World – Nine disasters, including wildfires, plagues, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, reshape terrain, impact the strategic map, and create military opportunities for those who adapt.
  
• 200+ New Events – Experience the fallout of disasters through dynamic events, offering choices that test your leadership, compassion, and opportunism.
  
• New Projects & Traits – 26 projects, 8 traits, and new missions let you manage disaster recovery, aid the afflicted, and fortify your kingdom against future hardships.
  
• Evolving Map Scripts – Two new world-generation options introduce terrain that changes over time, from receding coastlines to mountain ranges that become passable.
  
• Aksum Joins the Fight – Play as one of the four great powers of the era, led by historical figures like Kaleb, Ezana, and Makeda. Unique units, events, and structures, including Aksum’s iconic steles, offer fresh ways to build an empire.
  
• The Wrath of Gods Scenario – Set in a remembered past, this scenario tells the story of a nation’s founding under the watchful eyes of four pagan gods. Appease them for blessings or risk their wrath as you navigate divine expectations and shifting allegiances. This is a self-contained story and does not introduce supernatural elements into the base game.

• Premade map updates including major expansion of The Old World map
  
• New game setup options, UI and accessibility features
  
• AI improvements and performance optimizations
  

• Major expansion of The Old World premade map to accommodate Aksum (upcoming DLC nation)
  
• Minor adjustments to The Middle East premade map, Aksum starting position added
  
• Updated resources on The Imperium Romanum premade map, all luxury resources are now present
  
• Added tribes to The Mediterranean premade map
  
• New game option added 'Allow Negative Cognomens'. Disabled by default
  
• High Event Level now allows more events to occur per turn
  
• Repeatable technologies increase by 50% of the original cost each time they are researched (+1000, up from +500)
  
• All religious buildings (Temples, Monasteries, Cathedrals) are now permanent
  
• Crossbowmen bonus against melee now only applies to attack instead of strength
  
• New advanced setup option 'Balanced starting resources' for single player (previously MP only)
  
• If the AI reaches a victory condition on its turn and the player also does at the start of their next turn, the player will now be given the victory instead of the AI
  
• Reduced the effect of Grand Vizier and AI leader traits on the number of units they tend to build
  
• Reduced cost of Burning improvements to 50 Training (down from 100)
  
• Purging a religion from a city now prevents it spreading to the city again without use of a Disciple
  
• Can no longer gift Family Seats
  
• Ambition victory now disabled in multiplayer by default (will remain on for ongoing games where it is enabled)
  
• Better matchmaking for auto-marrying characters. More likely for characters that are attracted to each other to get married and less likely for characters that hate each other
  
• Ambition-picking events will try to avoid giving a second crowning ambition, a lower tier fallback will be offered if possible
  
• Seizing the throne no longer adds bypassed relationships to former leader's succession
  
• A non-fatal attack that triggers an event that immediately kills the unit is now treated as a unit kill (for kill unit ambitions, routing etc)
  
• Competitive Mode no longer disables Grand Viziers but does now disable some Rising Star events related to seizing the throne
  
• Laurion Mines now cost 10 wood to repair (previously had no cost)
  
• New tutorial event added when Warriors can be upgraded to Spearmen (previously only occurred for Axemen upgrades)
  
• In Heroes of the Aegean scenario 2, Themistocles now retires after the battle of Salamis
  
• Tweaks to invasions in Pharaohs of the Nile scenario 5
  
• Heroes of the Aegean scenario 5 tweaks - easier difficulties are now easier and initial landing goal made clearer
  
• In Rise of Carthage scenario 4, tribal allies will automatically declare war on Rome
  
• When using the Caesar Dynasty, Princess Julia will now take up family Julius if picked (Wonders and Dynasties)
  
• Rising Stars now demand the throne less and to be Grand Viziers more (Behind the Throne)
  

• Optimization and performance improvements
  
• Tactical AI improvements
  
• Improved AI use of anchoring
  
• Improved AI Scout movement under Exploration law
  
• Improved AI unit movement
  
• Improved AI family selection when founding a city
  
• Moved default improvement repair cost to XML
  
• Better scenario difficulty mode support
  
• Added command line argument -loadgame
  
• Refactored opinion levels to be independent of XML order
  

• Parameter strings can be used in the setup screen to restart the same game from the beginning
  
• The SP setup screen now has a third tab (Simple/Advanced/Parameter String), where players enter the parameter string
  
• Parameter Strings can be found on the in game menu
  

• Added Accessibility option for one-click map centering
  
• A preview of potential water control is now shown when holding CTRL with ship selected
  
• Notification display order reversed, now shows oldest notifications at the top
  
• Character tooltips now show trait effects that are relevant to the current position (leader, general, governor) of the character
  
• In MP the turn timer warning sound now plays with 15 seconds remaining (up from 5) and increases the size of the timer text. Paused text is now shown when the timer is paused.
  
• In Observer mode, decision popups no longer get removed by clicking on an option
  
• Character selection for job assignment popups now defaults to an idle character
  
• Tweaks to job assignment highlighting behavior, selection clearing on the city screen
  
• Opening the reminders list closes the job assignment menu
  
• Unit filter for Infantry changed to Melee Infantry
  
• Rearranged city queue display to avoid overlap. Queue can now display 9 items (up from 4)
  
• Known visibility button now shows visibility for all rivals if no unit or player is selected
  
• Buy Orders shortcut key now defaults to SHIFT+O (instead of O)
  
• Added Leader Archetype dropdown to Basic Setup options for Barbarian Horde scenario
  
• Added icons for strength and weakness to character tooltips
  
• MP player UI (team research and gifting options) is now shown in SP when player has AI teammates
  
• Stats for all players are now shown to observers in MP games
  
• Removed the 'Edit in Wizard' button from existing events in the Event Browser
  
• Fixed confusing color of unit fatigue pips when already force marched and there is no movement limit. Force marched units now display flashing "marched" text
  
• MP scenario tooltips now show scenario subtitle
  
• Renamed Units Killed stat on stats screen to Military Units Killed
  
• Removed Raiders and Rebels from game history
  
• Improved "Slow AI" tooltip
  
• Bonus tech cards now indicate that they are bonus cards
  
• Added cause of death field to the character tooltip. Traits with a probability of death are removed after death
  
• Riders icon now shown on city widget instead of Connected icon for Riders cities
  
• Rising Star trait no longer removed upon death
  
• Simplified and cleaned up some Family help issues
  
• Removed some yield clutter from specialist tooltips
  
• Encyclopedia and tutorial corrections and improvements
  
• Standalone scenarios are now shown on the top level of the scenario screen instead of under their own category
  

• Fixed memory leaks
  
• Fixed improvements being buildable in territory of non-allied foreign nations
  
• Fixed AI sometimes being unable to declare war on a nation while at peace
  
• Fixed queued unit moves not happening when destination blocked
  
• Fixed automated units sometimes not moving
  
• Fixed ships sometimes being built on the city center instead of the intended water area
  
• Fixed event syntax bug
  
• Fixed nested link in generated diplomacy links
  
• Fixed hover issue on team research display
  
• Fixed UI issue with Create Game button being disabled after unloading a server game
  
• Fixed some AI confusion about who benefits when performing a mission on a character of a different nation
  
• Fix for initial city naming - only relevant in mods
  
• Fixed tribe link in city widget not selecting tribe
  
• Fixed some UI issues with tile highlighting
  
• Fixed AI exception with tribal cities
  
• Fixed missing seat founding bonus in the family class Encyclopedia entries
  
• Fixed add urban recommendation not showing border preview on hover
  
• Fixed regenerating Hall of Fame entries leading to points wins becoming defeats after opulence VP changes
  
• Fixed player placement bug for 2-team MP games that also have independent AI nations
  
• Fixed portrait interpolation errors for portraits that do not have interpolation settings when interpolation is disabled
  
• Fixed boat projectiles causing rendering artifacts on macs
  
• Fixed breaking peace with a tribe in no characters mode
  
• Fixed name display issue in some languages for royal characters with jobs
  
• Fixed goals not completing when new units created
  
• Fixed marauder prefabs being slightly offset
  
• Fixed portraits not updating when age interpolation is enabled for the first time in-game
  
• Fixed portrait editor breaking when interpolation is disabled in graphics options
  
• Fixed portrait editor portraits not updating correctly when a source portrait
  
• Fixed portrait editor opinion tab displays
  
• Fixed incorrect tile highlighting for event options that affect tiles
  
• Fixed ambitions that should only come from specific events (i.e. Destroy the Rival Nation) appearing randomly
  
• Fixed AI complaining about the same stolen city site repeatedly
  
• Fixed Stun preview text incorrectly showing for units in splash radius
  
• Fixed years reigned text issue that could occur with regency
  
• Fixed empty series warning for opinion graphs
  
• Fixed some cases of dropdowns getting cut off
  
• Fixed units with no family sometimes showing incorrect family icon
  
• Fixed attack preview issues
  
• Fixed river movement in captured territory
  
• Fixed religion icons sometimes showing on tribal camps when city site did not have religion
  
• Fixed implicit subject conversion issue
  
• Fixed save game version not being updated
  
• Fixed game editor unit placement in water
  
• Fixed city production yield costs sometimes disappearing
  
• Fixed some succession issues related to usurpers
  
• Fixed non-active city site on Middle East map
  
• Fixed unit effect formatting issues
  
• Fixed bug that allowed the player to choose invalid nations on premade maps
  
• Fixed some Map Editor errors
  
• Fixed Pharaohs of the Nile scenario 5 unit AI
  
• Fixed Learn to Play 2 choose tech goal not completing immediately
  
• Fixed potential issues with retake islands events in Rise of Carthage scenario 4
  
• Fixed bugs with rebellion event triggering twice and Aristotle event not triggering in Heroes of the Aegean scenario 4
  
• Fixed some broken links in Rise of Carthage campaign
  
• Text and event fixes
  

 If you'd like to keep up to date with the latest Old World news and announcements:
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• Commander leaders now always grant +10XP per turn to all units (previously units had to be idle)
  
• Updates to The Old World premade map, mainly around Kush and Aksum start positions
  
• New tutorial event added when Warriors can be upgraded to Spearmen (previously only occured for Axemen upgrades)
  
• In Rise of Carthage scenario 4, tribal allies will automatically declare war on Rome
  
• When using the Caesar Dynasty, Princess Julia will now take up family Julius if picked (Wonders and Dynasties)
  
• Rising Stars now demand the throne less and to be Grand Viziers more (Behind the Throne)
  

• Optimization and performance improvements
  

• Standalone scenarios are now shown on the top level of the scenario screen instead of under their own category
  

• Fixed memory leak
  
• Fixed issues with paramater strings
  
• Text and event fixes