In Old World, players will have complete control over every aspect of their faction including assigning their cities to powerful families that will support the player’s cause. There’s a wide range of families across the seven initial civilizations and understanding how they factor into the strengths of each faction can go a long way in optimizing city and character management.
Here are all the major family types in Old World:
– Artisans
– Champions
– Clerics
– Hunters
– Landowners
– Patrons
– Riders
– Sages
– Statesmen
– Traders
Every civilization will have four families available. However, during any given match players will only be able to choose three out of four to act as their power base. It’s wise to read the terrain carefully and plan out which families will be most useful for resource gain and attaining victory.
Here’s everything you need to know about families in Old World.
Artisans
The Artisan family type specializes in city development, industry, and culture. They increase the strength of naval units upon recruitment and mines and lumber mills have increased resource generation, making them ideal for recruiting troops and building improvements quickly. Upon founding the family seat or the first city linked to a family, Artisans will give the player a free worker, which only feeds into their strength of speedy city development.
The immediate culture production also means Artisan-associated cities will develop culturally more rapidly compared to other families and unlock new improvements for further city development. Babylonia, Carthage, and Greece all have access to the Artisan family type.
Champions
Champion families are masters of training, city defense, and expansion. Cities linked to such a family gain additional training resources per turn and are more resilient in sieges when under attack. Establishing a family seat will also give the city a free Garrison improvement, which acts as a defence-buffing tile improvement and allows the player to assign a governor to the city.
Furthermore, units recruited in Champion family cities gain a permanent bonus in fighting against tribes, minor factions that occupy empty city sites, meaning early conquest of tribal lands is certainly an option for quick expansion. Assyria, Greece, and Rome each get a Champion family.
Clerics
The Cleric type family is best used for the establishment and propagation of religion. Monastery and temple improvements, which are vital to any play utilizing a non-Pagan religion, have increased outputs and will directly aid in the spread of the faction’s religion. Feeding into the family’s religious focus, on founding of the family seat, the player will automatically found one of the major religions and the city becomes a holy center.
Due to the religious fervour and zeal of the Clerical family cities gain discontent at a slower rate and are able to build urban improvements on sand, generally a harsh and worthless terrain type. Cleric families can be found in the factions of Assyria, Egypt, and Persia.
Hunters
Hunter families are terrain-centric and resource focused, especially in regard to livestock, with some improvements to troops. Hunting camps and fishing nets get massive resource yield bonuses, while ranged troops gain a strength bonus when fighting in their own territory.
Additionally, Hunters provide a minor training resource gain and upon founding the family seat will give the player a one time resource injection of iron, stone, and wood, as well as unlocking a unique food producing Hunt city project. Hunter families find a home with Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians.
Landowners
Landowners are the growth, farmer, and worker family that’s highly terrain-dependent. Cities related to this family gain an increased amount of growth, speeding recruitment of civilian units, as well as a reduction in the production cost of converting civilians into specialists. The biggest potential benefit of Landowner cities is that farms and groves that harvest bonus crop resources give the city increased culture production, which can lead to upgraded improvements.
The family seat immediately provides free civilians and the player can also purchase additional tiles with units. Egypt and Rome are the factions with a Landowner family.
Patrons
Patron families are the masters of culture. Nearly every bonus is directed towards improving city production of culture and the civic resource. Not only does the family give a flat bonus to civics, but also each specialist provides additional culture. Patron families also allow the speeding up of city projects with money, which is normally impossible.
The Patron family seat gives the player a free character and any cultural event will further reduce discontent. This family type can be found in Assyria, Greece, and Rome.
Riders
Where Champions and Hunters are families of city defence and the ranged troop respectively, Riders specialize in mounted units. This family provides a bonus to training production, as well as making mounted units more resilient when attacked in close quarters combat. Upon founding the family seat players will get a free scout unit to use to explore the map and find new city sites to claim.
Perhaps the most interesting benefit of the family seat is that the city where the seat is located can produce units that require horses, camels, and elephants without having direct access to them. Carthage, Egypt, and Persia all have a Riders family.
Sages
The Sage family is the family of scientists and urban life. Aside from the basic flat increase in civics production and science point output, Sage cities also reduce the cost of converting civilians into urban improvement specialists. This means cities of this family can become dense urban powerhouses, especially in terms of research.
The family seat automatically gives the players a single random technology, as well as unlocks a special project, which further boosts science output upon completion. Sages are available to Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece.
Statesmen
The Statesmen family is all about improving governance, family happiness, and money requisition. This family gives an increase in the number of orders gained per turn, as well as an increase in civics production based on the family’s opinion level to the player’s leader. In essence, it pays dividends to keep Statesmen happy and they will provide cities with unique city projects that bring additional funds. They really don’t care where they settle.
The family seat automatically gives a lump sum of civics to enact laws and most importantly a unique city project that generates a large number of orders. The Statesmen family can be found in Carthage, Persia, and Rome.
Traders
Traders dedicate almost everything to improving the money situation of their parent faction. All their bonuses are geared to earning more money in some way, such as family associated workers being able to build roads multiple times per turn, precious resources providing additional gold, and money producing hamlet improvements that auto-upgrade more quickly and in turn give more money. They really are the greediest family.
Upon the founding of the family seat Trader families will give access to caravan units as well as a free court merchant character. Only Babylonia and Carthage get access to Trader families.
Distributing cities to the right families can mean being successful in war, becoming incredibly rich, culturally diverse or technologically advanced. This tutorial provided only a basic overview of what families can do. It’s now up to the player to synergize the families of their chosen faction to create a civilization for the ages.
Old World is available on PC.
READ MORE: Old World Archetypes Guide: Commanders, Zealots & More
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