Old World: Free Content Update (New Maps, Events, Items, and more!)

Hello, everyone!

We’re releasing a free content update for Old World. This update brings new premade maps, a collection of unique events, new items, and significant gameplay refinements. Elements of this update are rooted in the feedback we’ve gathered from the community.

Let's dive into the major changes. We'll have a full patch changelog right below with all the fixes and other details included in the update.

NEW WORLD MAPS

This update introduces two carefully crafted duel maps designed for focused and intense single-player and multiplayer engagements.

Punic Duel

This map recreates the struggle between Carthage and Rome, one of the most iconic struggles in the Old World.

Median Duel

The second map features Greece against Persia.

NEW EVENTS

This update also expands the narrative depth of Old World with over 20 new events. Four of these events require the Behind the Throne expansion, and they introduce new interactions that will challenge your decision-making and shape the development of your empire.

Event List

1. [CHARACTER]’s Travels
2. The Streets of [CITY]
3. Ransom
4. [CITY] Within Reach
5. A Gift
6. A Gift (alt)
7. A Crown from [NATION]
8. Towering Stones
9. Under Attack
10. A Dream in the Forest
11. Taking Root
12. The Ground
13. Stitched Together
14. [CHARACTER]’s Gift
15. From the Dead
16. Unwavering
17. Something to Remember Them By
18. Another Sunrise
19. The New Face of [NATION]
20. To Rule is to Disappoint (Behind the Throne)
21. A Waning Star (Behind the Throne)
22. A Towering Reputation (Behind the Throne)
23. [NATION] Rules [NATION], for Now (Behind the Throne)
24. [NATION] Rules [NATION], for Now (Alt - Behind the Throne)

Taking Root

Stitched Together

New Items

Many new items have been added. These are unique leader & character abilities, mostly accessed by character exploration in events.

Full Item List:

1. Harvest Crown
2. Banner of Loyalty
3. Unyielding Banner
4. Bulwark Armor
5. Planter's Cloak
6. Banner of Unity
7. Silvered Clasp
8. Fickle Band
9. Crown of the Unjust
10. Crown of the Just
11. The Cornerstone

Gameplay Changes

Several gameplay systems have been reworked further to refine Old World’s mechanics:

• Law Rebalancing: Following detailed community feedback, we’ve adjusted the game’s law system to create more meaningful choices and outcomes.
• Tech Tree Adjustments: The tech tree has been reworked to create a more logical progression path, ensuring smoother advancement through the eras while preserving strategic depth. This change addresses pacing issues and creates more compelling decision points.
• Hall of Fame Improvements: The Hall of Fame now better reflects your achievements and the legacies of your leaders, giving you a clearer sense of your long-term impact across multiple playthroughs.
• Campaign Updates: The Rise of Carthage and Heroes of the Aegean campaigns have received fine-tuning, with updated objective displays, improved balance, and smoother progression. These adjustments ensure that each campaign remains challenging and rewarding, especially as players become more familiar with the game’s mechanics.
• Performance Enhancements: General performance improvements have been made across the board, ensuring that even the most significant and most complex battles run smoothly. These optimizations will enhance the overall experience, particularly in late-game scenarios where the map is densely populated with units and cities.

AI Improvements:

• Significantly increased the effect of Ruthless AI on player opinion and war declaration modifier
• Tribal unit movement AI is now somewhat more sophisticated
• AI no longer declares war on tribes to expand when it's already actively fighting other players
• AI is now more likely to build farms around the Jerwan Aqueduct and less likely to build the Cothon in small seas
• Improved AI unit danger estimate

Main Branch 1.0.74111 Patch Notes Release 2024-09-18

Headline Changes

• 24 new events and 11 new items
• Two new premade maps designed for 1v1 duels
• Tech tree and Law rebalancing
• Performance and AI improvements
• Hall of Fame improvements
• Polishing updates to the Rise of Carthage and Heroes of the Aegean campaigns

Design

• Added 19 base game events, 5 Behind the Throne events and 11 new items
• Base game events have a focus on Exploring characters and acquiring items that give unique benefits
• Behind the Throne events relate to Rising Star leaders. The Rising Star trait is no longer automatically removed on becoming leader

Base Game Events

• [CHARACTER]’s Travels
• The Streets of [CITY]
• Ransom
• [CITY] Within Reach
• A Gift
• A Gift (alt)
• A Crown from [NATION]
• Towering Stones
• Under Attack
• A Dream in the Forest
• Taking Root
• The Ground
• Stitched Together
• [CHARACTER]’s Gift
• From the Dead
• Unwavering
• Something to Remember Them By
• Another Sunrise
• The New Face of [NATION]

Behind the Throne events

• To Rule is to Disappoint
• A Waning Star
• A Towering Reputation
• [NATION] Rules [NATION], for Now
• [NATION] Rules [NATION], for Now (alt)

Tech Tree Changes

• Moved Free Akkadian Archer card to Forestry
• Moved Free Battering Ram and Exotic Fur cards to Spoked Wheel
• Free Battering Ram, Akkadian Archer and Hoplite card costs brought in line with other nations free level 1 unique unit cards (200 -> 100)
• Moved Free Scholar tech card from Forestry to Metaphysics
• Moved Architecture and Vaulting back a tier in the tech tree
• Increased the cost of all 7th tier techs to compensate for the reduction in cost of Architecture and Vaulting (1500 -> 1600)
• Architecture requires Drama instead of Portcullis
• Portcullis no longer requires Drama
• Stirrups requires Portcullis instead of Citizenship
• Martial Code now requires Citizenship
• Windlass requires Manor instead of Architecture
• Siege Tower bonus card requires Windlass
• Free Perfume card requires Architecture instead of Portcullis
• Money Boost bonus card increased from 2000 to 4000 money

Law Changes

• Slavery now gives +4 Iron and +4 Stone per city instead of increasing Mine and Quarry output. No longer gives +1 Discontent
• Freedom now gives +1 Happiness and +20% Growth in all cities instead of Money per Specialist
• Tyranny now gives +20% Training in all cities instead of a global Training boost. Money per unit in territory increased from 8 to 10
• Divine Rule now gives +1 Order per Pagan Religion in all cities instead of Happiness per Shrine
• Pilgrimage now gives +25% State Religion spread. Holy City Money per Religion boost increased from +5 to +10. No longer affects Science from Groves
• Grove improvements now always give +2 Science in addition to previous effects

New Maps

• Two new 1v1 premade maps added
• Punic wars: Rome against Carthage
• Median wars: Greece against Persia
• These are accessible using the Premade Map option on the setup screen and from the Scenario menu under World Maps

Other Design Changes

• Most map scripts in multiplayer now place all human players on the same landmass.
• Exceptions are Archipelago, Continents, Player Islands and Disjunction
• This is optional on Mediterranean and Lakes and Gulfs maps using 'Connected Player Starts' as this can significantly affect player starting positions
• In MP games using the Player Development setting, extra cities have to obey the connection requirements of starting locations. If they can't the player will not get them
• Significantly increased the effect of Ruthless AI on player opinion and war declaration modifier
• Laurion Mines now enable a Miner specialist on the tile
• Undo is no longer available in cloud games using the Strict (Teams) turn style. This does not affect cloud games using Strict (Players) which still have undo.
• Slums and Estates are now permanent and cannot be built over or pillaged (Behind the Throne)

Programming

• Performance improvements relating to unit movement and reminders
• Tribal unit movement AI is now somewhat more sophisticated
• AI no longer declares war on tribes to expand when it's already actively fighting other players
• AI is now more likely to build farms around the Jerwan Aqueduct and less likely to build the Cothon in small seas
• Improved player start selection on premade maps that do not dictate specific starting locations
• Added randomization of player start selection on premade maps
• Achievement code cleanup
• Add virtual function for sorting of city site candidates, better for mods
• Improved AI unit danger estimate
• AI now helps their allies count down the capture timer for cities

UI

• Added sorting and filtering dropdowns and a regenerate button to Hall of Fame
• Hall of Fame now has a SP/MP (Singleplayer / Multiplayer) column and this is shown on the game tooltip
• Hall of Fame now shows icons instead of text for Load and Delete
• Added audio option for continuing audio track when switching fullscreen tabs
• Added obsoleting information to unit encyclopedia entries
• Added Religion Opinion tracking to stats screen
• Goals/Ambitions with time limits now show limit in bonus text
• Removed some details of unlocked missions from tech tooltips
• Tiles are now highlighted when hovering over event options that affect specific tiles
• In Rise of Carthage scenario 4 the anchor command will now show an explanatory tooltip if ships can't anchor due to scenario rules
• Added notification for units that you kill during your turn
• City borders now pulse when hovering over the city center
• Pin Character mission removed. Pinning is now performed with a new star icon found under character actions
• Leader icon changed to a crown and non-succession royals to an asterisk to differentiate them from the pin icon
• Notable characters filter now only shows manually pinned characters and is ordered by turn pinned
• Harvested resource tooltip now shows regrow chance as a percentage instead of a die roll
• Family tree toggles now remember their previous state
• Yields are now shown for all agent network cities regardless of agent status when sorting by base yields
• Added support for a more complete set of stats in No Characters mode
• Refactored ignore reminders code. Now supports ignoring reminder types separately for characters with multiple roles
• Smaller tech status icons to reduce overlap on mini tech tree
• All laws and theologies now show yield previews where relevant
• Moved the generic improvement pings to the top of the dropdown list
• Ambitions and goals with multiple requirements now show progress for each requirement on separate lines
• Added yield name and sign in some bonus helptext
• Improved text selection in ping and bug reporting popups
• Heroes of the Aegean scenario 6 now highlights goal cities on the map
• Updated Credits

Bugs Fixed

• Rise of Carthage and Heroes of the Aegean campaign polishing pass, many bugs fixed
• Fixed damaged unit healthbar not always showing
• Fixed resources staying faded when a unit exits a tile
• Fixed fatigue increasing effects (Swift, Zealot leader) not always affecting hired tribal units
• Fixed raiding units not raiding after making peace with their original tribe
• Fixed pinned characters getting removed on leaders death
• Fixed tribe widgets being occluded by terrain in some cases
• Fixed the effect of multiple holy cities in the same city not stacking
• Fixed abdication sometimes leaving permanently exploring leaders
• Fixed mirror maps sometimes not having symmetric vegetation on resource tiles
• Fixed events not popping up on start of turn in hotseat
• Fixed clicks on locked tooltip links not registering actions (e.g. selecting a character)
• Fixed hover effect not showing on tech cards
• Fixed nation/tribe opinion not updating immediately after diplomacy changes
• Fixed city camera state not resetting at start of turn when selecting a city between turns
• Fixed Royal characters sometimes not appearing in family tree
• Fixed Assyrian capital combat preview being blocked by buildings on adjacent tile
• Fixed invalid index exception from rebels spawning from a city without a family
• Fixed raiders disappearing while inside city territory or adjacent to Kemet/Aten units in Pharaohs of the Nile scenario 3
• Fixed Pharaohs of the Nile scenario 4 not completing when playing in Hotseat against the AI
• Fixed errors with portrait interpolation enabled when portraits are not setup for it
• Fixed portraits of characters without a tribe or nation
• Fixed AI hang
• Fixed inheritance preview showing wrong character when there will be no heir
• Fixed AI danger calculation for units that need to be unlimbered
• Fixed AI unit protection bug
• Fixed grammar on Unit Killed notification
• Fixed nested link issue in unit type link with promotions
• Fixed assert from using waypoints to move units
• Fixed critical hit icon sometimes briefly appearing before a unit goes on cooldown
• Fixed undo crash
• Fixed AI building ships where it should not be building any i.e. in small seas
• Fixed Inheritance screen not updating
• Fixed some reminders starting dismissed
• Fixed "No Team Movement" game option
• Fixed autonomous rule cities not repairing
• Fixed units not fully resetting their animation queue when an undo or redo occurs
• Fixed loading of lost games from the Hall of Fame
• Fixed bug preventing the hire of allied tribal units when in a player city
• Fixed loss of existing border expansion preview after selecting an event option
• Fixed credits popup null reference on application close
• Fixed dynastic mechanics of Ptolemy, Ashur-Uballit, Khufu and Mursili in No Events mode (Wonders and Dynasties)
• Text and Event fixes

To the Community

This update is another step forward in the ongoing evolution of Old World. We continue to listen closely to the community and refine the game accordingly.

We appreciate your ongoing involvement and feedback and are eager to hear your thoughts on this latest update in a Steam review.

—The Old World Team