I lost my first game of Old World today. Persia spawned right on Carthage's border and overran them early, so I basically had to deal with a double-empire constantly outpacing me in cities. What probably guaranteed my defeat was that I suckered myself into fighting two fruitless wars with Egypt. They shared this steppe-like open area across a small sea from me, so I went after them once thinking it was a rotten house that would collapse and then again thinking that it was my last ditch effort to grab cities, scrape together points to try and eke out a victory. It didn't work. I think it definitely cost me the game in that if I hadn't done that I could have continued all my efforts against barbarians. There was a cluster of islands in the sea that I was rolling over fast. When the war with Egypt broke out it became a black hole of resources and ultimately cost me my fleet and tied my army up in a fruitless war to defend one city I founded. I wind up taking a single shitty city (not even the main target) off of Egypt, and I think they were slowly winning the attrition war. I'd slaughter wave after wave of them but feel ground down by their spam.
I like how the game portrays pluralist society with religions. Way more detailed than even a Paradox game, that you can actually have multiple religions coexisting even if they're not all the state religion (as is accurate). My Rome was more or less a free society and I cruised as Zoroastrianism until I invented Christianity and then switched to it, but it was polytheistic, tolerant Christianity with me propagating every religion as much as I could.
The way ships work - as a bridge - is odd.
Edit: What are the historical doctrines for each faith?
I'd say:
Zoroastrianism = ?, Dualism, Redemption
Judaism = Legalism, Revelation, no third tier
Christianity = Veneration, Revelation, Redemption
Manichaeism = Veneration, Gnosticism, Enlightenment (more guess work)
Double edit: I interpret Mythology as referring to a very rich body of lore, demonology and angels, saints, etc. Orthodoxy has that, but I’m not convinced it has it right from the get go. Buddhism would be a Mythology - Revelation - Enlightenment religion.
Do you all think that the tree logo of Old World is meant to also be suggestive of the Burning Bush?
