Changes Overview

Shrine Rebalancing: Adjustments to shrine effects.
City Damage: Now affected by critical hits.
Modded MP Games: Easier to start thanks to relaxed version checking.
UI Improvements: Various interface updates.

Design

Shrines of Water: (Melqart, Poseidon, Anahita) now give 2 money per water tile in the city, in addition to previous effects.
Shrines of Healing: (Eshmun, Isis) now give a free Healer promotion to units built in the city instead of the previous healing ability.
City Damage: Now affected by critical hits.
Improvement Build Times: Now take 1 extra turn to build per 5 points of Worker damage (+1 turn at 15-19 HP to +4 turns at 1-4 HP).
Undo Functionality: Re-enabled for strict(teams) turnstyle cloud games. After starting to play a turn, it must be completed before other players on the team can take their turn.
Law Switch Costs: First switch costs 200 Civics, with each subsequent change costing 100 extra.
Power Comparison: Now solely calculated on military unit strength, with ships counting for less based on the amount of water on the map.
Unit Upgrade Restrictions: Can no longer upgrade a unit if the upgraded unit is not allowed to be in that tile.
Fort Building: Can no longer build forts on non-urban tribe settlement ruins (affects non-default City Site Number options).
Rally Defense: Now only activates on killing promotable military units (i.e., not Militia).
Unit Spawning from Improvements: Improvements that spawn units (Colosseum, Cothon, Holy Sites, etc.) now try to spawn them on the tile of the improvement.
Punic Duel Balance Pass: Adjustments made to the premade map.
Drunk Trait: Now gives -20 opinion to religious and family heads, down from -40.
Event Options Delay: Added turn delay to most event options with random traits or relationships.
Mission Costs: Slander, High Synod, and Trade missions now cost Money instead of Civics.
Competitive Mode (Behind the Throne): Grand Vizier position disabled.
Beja Archers: No longer have the Pierce effect (Pharaohs of the Nile).
Scheme Against a Rival Mission: Reduced chance of an event from this mission (Behind the Throne).

Programming

Relaxed Version Checking: Modded MP games now show a warning popup when versions do not match but allow the game to proceed.
Version Mismatch Warning: MP players without identical mods will see a “Version Mismatch” warning in their tooltip.
Simultaneous MP AI Turns: AI now waits for all human players to end their turn, or for the turn timer to nearly expire, before taking its turn.
Event Processing Optimization: Performance improvements.
Raider AI Improvements: AI now prioritizes building roads, connecting cities, and exploring more.
AI Code Cleanup: General improvements and optimization.
Ctrl-Shift-X Functionality: No effect when it’s not your turn in cloud games.
Modio Errors Suppressed: Suppressed “Invalid Token” errors on game start.
Mac Terrain Rebuild: Removed unneeded terrain rebuild on application focus for Macs.
Mod Support Updates: Added support for new diplomacy types and dynamic improvement names.
Yield Price Calculation: Now moddable via XML.
Map Editor: Max map size increased to 180×180 (modifiable via XML).
XML Changes: Updates to units and event links (see Notes for Modders section).
New Event Triggers: Added EVENTTRIGGER_PLAYER_ALLIANCE_OFFER and EVENTTRIGGER_PLAYER_ALLY_DECLARED_WAR.
New Statistics: Added STAT_CHILDREN_COUNT.
City Luxuries Info: Added InfoGoal.miCityLuxuries.
Script Support: Old World no longer supports runtime compiled scripts; standalone compiler removed.

UI

Mission Target List Sorting: Characters now sorted by importance in mission target lists.
Shift-Click Improvements: Shift-clicking on recommended improvements now adds them to the worker’s queue.
Shrine Pings: Shrine improvement pings can now be placed even if the shrine already exists.
Improvement Pings: Improved accuracy of yields for out-of-territory improvements.
Luxury Management Menu: Now scrollable for easier management.
Unit Tooltips: Now scrollable, with unit effects ordered alphabetically.
Cloud Game Tooltips: Now show the elapsed time since the last upload.
Yield Icons: Recently added yield name and sign removed from help text (now shows yield icon only, as previously).
Legitimacy Graph: Added to the Records screen.
Family Unit Banners: Family unit banner shape now shown on the family tab panel.
Specialists on Pillaged Tiles: Existing specialists now shown on pillaged tiles.
Replay for Team Games: Improved functionality.
Resource Removal Warning: Added for Add Urban action.
Project Help Text: Now includes information about other projects that add the same project (e.g., Inquiry shows different levels).
Opinion Yield Rate Help Text: Moved from potential to main effects.
Contact Event Truce Flags: Made more consistent in event options.
Religion Icon on Unit Production: Now shown on unit production buttons when applicable.
Religion Tooltips: Simplified for clarity.
Character Pinning: Any non-leader character can now be pinned (e.g., foreign leaders), and pins are no longer cleared on character death.
Trait Display Order: Reordered for clarity.
Scenario Screen Arrows: Category toggle arrows no longer select scenario class.
EffectPlayer and EffectCity Help Text: Total yields display removed from most entries to simplify tooltips.
Foreign City Widget: Clicking on the nation name now selects the nation.
Game Log Graphics: Re-aligned for improved presentation.
Mod Folder Display: Mod folders that begin with “.” are no longer displayed.

Bugs Fixed

Fixed religious improvements being affected by other religions’ theologies.
Fixed workers stopping rout of African and Turreted Elephants.
Fixed double religion indicators on tribe widgets.
Fixed raycasting issues on tribe widget and character list religion icons.
Fixed former regents affecting succession in some cases.
Fixed yield rates not updating when units move to/from improvements.
Fixed minimized decision UI not working for diplomacy decisions.
Fixed effectCity improvement yield help text.
Fixed unit yield consumption estimate for effectPlayer to show yields saved instead of new yields consumed.
Fixed yield preview overlays getting stuck.
Fixed ally declared war event trigger.
Fixed monitor option setting.
Timeline screen map now only shows city borders that the player currently has visibility of (fixes bug showing unrevealed borders).
Fixed missing damage preview for civilian units/ships if they are the only unit in a city.
Fixed Passive AI attacking cities when it shouldn’t.
Fixed EffectCity terrain yields being counted twice.
Fixed fog reveal animation not clearing tiles it has already animated.
Fixed unit animations freezing.
Fixed bad player start placement asserts.
Fixed hidden units not getting bounced when hostile borders expand to include their location.
Fixed unexpected click behavior on city screen.
Fixed multiplayer replay for games where multiple players can take their turns simultaneously.
Fixed mission results not appearing in target player’s turn summary (e.g., city damage from treachery).
Fixed tribute bug which sometimes allowed tribute while at war.
Fixed issues starting multiplayer games from the mods screen.
Fixed unloading mods when toggling off “Use Mods” in the MP setup screen.
Fixed null check for notification help text.
Fixed exception when right-clicking the empty head of a not-yet-founded religion.
Fixed AI unit protection calculation and possible divide-by-zero errors when attackers can’t do any damage (affects mods).
Fixed missing trait in Hanno II’s dynasty tooltip (Wonders and Dynasties).
Text and Event fixes.

Notes for modders

Units in unit.xml:
Add a bRegular flag (after bGeneral in the order) to denote a “regular military” unit. The flag makes the unit count as “regular military” in the stats, and the AI assumes that non-regular units are worth less.

Event Links in eventLink.xml:
aeSubjectClasses is no longer needed. The link will save all subjects in the triggering event and figure out the classes by itself.
If you only want some subjects saved, put iNumSubjects on the link (in eventLink.xml) to save that many subjects.
Use iNumSubjects = 0 if you don’t care about any subjects and are only using the link as a shortcut to trigger something else.
For immediate event links, tag the link with bImmediate = 1 in eventLink.xml. Use EventLinkAdd in eventOption.xml. EventLinkStart will be removed in the future.

Old World is available on Steam, GOG, Epic and Stove

About Old World

Set in classic antiquity, Old World is a historical 4X strategy game created by Soren Johnson (Lead Designer, Civilization IV). Players select a historical leader and use the innovative Orders system to dominate the competition. Leaders are mortal; once they die, the nation’s future depends on their heirs.