Gone Gonzo Posts: 2404 Joined: 20 Aug 2008 | Even if they don't realize it, gamers go back a long way with Brian Reynolds. He was the lead designer on several games bearing Sid Meier's name, beginning with the first Colonization and including Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. He is also a tournament-level Age of Empires II player, so when he left Firaxis to found Big Huge Games and announced he was making an RTS, many wondered just how the experience of being an RTS gamer and turn-based designer would mesh.
The answer is "triumphantly". Rise of Nations may look at first sight like Age of Empires 2½, and indeed the standard RTS gaming conventions are there, but it's what Rise of Nations does with those conventions that makes it stand out. Reynolds seems to have taken the complete list of RTS genre conventions, put them on a whiteboard, and sorted them into "fun" and "not fun", then excised everything in the latter category and left behind everything in the former. Bothered by bases becoming useless because workers have cut down all the trees? Make forests an infinite resource and tie their gather rate to the number of trees on the screen. It's a simple and elegant switch and it's used in one form or another for every resource in the game.
Even with the infinite resources available, there's still the Commerce Limit to consider; you can have 50 foresters, but if you haven't researched the technology to haul back more of the resources, you're only going to gain 70 wood per thirty seconds. The tech tree, a clear nod to Reynolds' turn based roots, means that your nation will grow more powerful by reserving aside some of its resources not for military unit production but for improving the efficiency of each base. Caravans handle gold gathering, and they too are limited in their number by the player's level of Commerce technology. This is not a "zerg rush" build-and-bash; with the game's rock-paper-scissors mentality, the exquisite balance of rush beats boom beats turtle beats rush means that any multiplayer match will quickly turn itself into a battle in which figuring out what your opponent will do is almost as important as deciding what you yourself will do. A competent player won't have to worry about it against the AI, but humans are not computers and the game was clearly designed with tournaments in mind.
The tech tree itself is handled very straightforwardly. You've got four areas of technology; Military, Civic, Commerce, and Science. Military is as its name implies; research these techs and you get stronger units and higher population limits so you can build more of those units. Civic deals with how many cities you can have on the map and how far your national borders stretch. Since enemy units within your borders suffer attrition, the more ground they have to cover to reach your bases, the worse off they're going to be in battle. Commerce deals with how many caravans you can have and how many resources you can produce, and Science, in addition to lowering the cost of research and speeding its completion, also unlocks the research available in your resource buildings. Research enough tech and you can advance in Age, which is a catch-all indicator of the advancement level of your nation and dictates what kind of units you can build and resources you can harvest. Most RTS games would be skittish about making the player juggle six resources and a tech tree, but Rise of Nations handles it so well (and provides plenty of hotkeys) that it will feel very natural after only a few skirmish playthroughs.
To this point I've focused on the game's multiplayer advantages, but that's not to say there's a dearth of singleplayer modes; five years after the game's release there had better be something besides multiplayer to prop a game not named StarCraft up. The Gold Edition of the game now available delivers all the Conquer the World campaigns available in the original game's Thrones and Patriots expansion and allows the player to use the combination of turn-based territory map and real-time battle (think Total War Lite) to re-enact the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War, the conquests of Alexander, the Age of Discovery, and the original game's Entire World in a delightful game of escalating challenge or, in the case of the Entire World, escalating dominance.
Many games with multiple nations run the risk of degenerating into clone-fests, as there is little to differentiate the many factions on the map. Not so with Rise of Nations; every one of the 24 available nations plays differently and has a unique nation power that adds a strategic dimension to the game. That's not to say there aren't some commonalities, only that victory comes in learning how to use each nation's unique units, nation powers, and attendant advantages in a way that amplifies their power. Try to execute a boom as the Japanese and you lose out on their excellent boosts to the rush player. Rush as the Koreans and you'll run into the population limit, but boom and all of those free settlers will get you through the ages much faster allowing you to outclass your enemy with superior but fewer troops. Play as the Inca on a map without a lot of mountains and you'll never get your Turtle towers and forts set up in time. Very often you'll know what you're up against simply by seeing which nation your opponent has picked, which places a premium on executing nation power strategies exceptionally well.
This game is five years old, and it was truly the last hurrah for true isometric 2D. These graphics were fast becoming retro in 2003 and the player could be forgiven for thinking Rise of Nations is a late-nineties release. Function has triumphed decisively over form here and the game is better off for it. This game is perfect on the go; its gentle system requirements (even by 2003 standards) make it perfect to install on your laptop. Music is sparse but well-composed, the technical elements are solid, and the menus to set up a game both in singleplayer and with friends are intuitive and well-thought-out. More developers could learn a very valuable lesson about presentation from casting eyes upon Reynolds' body of work and this game is no exception.
BOTTOM LINE: Rise of Nations is fun. This is real-time strategy boiled down to its best elements and packaged in a $20 retail box that's still widely available on store shelves, something the budget-minded gamer should keep in mind as both gaming and economic relief from the Q4 mania this year.
RECOMMENDATION: Buy it. If you've got even the remotest interest in real-time strategy you're going to love it. |
Anonymous Source Posts: 3 Joined: 12 Nov 2008 | While at one time I counted this among my favorite RTS games, I installed it recently and found that time has not really been kind to this one. The amount of time you spend churning out peons is staggering, the combat isn't particularly deep, and it's still disappointing how little impact stuff like your form of government has. The visuals also just look washed out and bland. The game came out before I was really sold on 3D RTS visuals (it took Dawn of War to convert me, WarCraft III just looked so blocky it turned me off of it for awhile) so I think that's why i remembered it more fondly.
I'm not bashing it: the borders and attrition system are still great, the interface is smooth and elegant, and the music oddly memorable. I just feel that someone coming to it for the first time now would be underwhelmed. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2404 Joined: 20 Aug 2008 | Gul Torgo:
While at one time I counted this among my favorite RTS games, I installed it recently and found that time has not really been kind to this one. The amount of time you spend churning out peons is staggering, the combat isn't particularly deep, and it's still disappointing how little impact stuff like your form of government has. The visuals also just look washed out and bland. The game came out before I was really sold on 3D RTS visuals (it took Dawn of War to convert me, WarCraft III just looked so blocky it turned me off of it for awhile) so I think that's why i remembered it more fondly.
I'm not bashing it: the borders and attrition system are still great, the interface is smooth and elegant, and the music oddly memorable. I just feel that someone coming to it for the first time now would be underwhelmed.
Amen to the peon rushing, but that's what Turbo Resources and "Cheap and Fast" research are for. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1933 Joined: 1 Jan 2008 | It's basically Civ in RTS format. Complicated and overly realistic, but still very fun. |
Even if they don't realize it, gamers go back a long way with Brian Reynolds. He was the lead designer on several games bearing Sid Meier's name, beginning with the first Colonization and including Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. He is also a tournament-level Age of Empires II player, so when he left Firaxis to found Big Huge Games and announced he was making an RTS, many wondered just how the experience of being an RTS gamer and turn-based designer would mesh.
The answer is "triumphantly". Rise of Nations may look at first sight like Age of Empires 2½, and indeed the standard RTS gaming conventions are there, but it's what Rise of Nations does with those conventions that makes it stand out. Reynolds seems to have taken the complete list of RTS genre conventions, put them on a whiteboard, and sorted them into "fun" and "not fun", then excised everything in the latter category and left behind everything in the former. Bothered by bases becoming useless because workers have cut down all the trees? Make forests an infinite resource and tie their gather rate to the number of trees on the screen. It's a simple and elegant switch and it's used in one form or another for every resource in the game.
Even with the infinite resources available, there's still the Commerce Limit to consider; you can have 50 foresters, but if you haven't researched the technology to haul back more of the resources, you're only going to gain 70 wood per thirty seconds. The tech tree, a clear nod to Reynolds' turn based roots, means that your nation will grow more powerful by reserving aside some of its resources not for military unit production but for improving the efficiency of each base. Caravans handle gold gathering, and they too are limited in their number by the player's level of Commerce technology. This is not a "zerg rush" build-and-bash; with the game's rock-paper-scissors mentality, the exquisite balance of rush beats boom beats turtle beats rush means that any multiplayer match will quickly turn itself into a battle in which figuring out what your opponent will do is almost as important as deciding what you yourself will do. A competent player won't have to worry about it against the AI, but humans are not computers and the game was clearly designed with tournaments in mind.
The tech tree itself is handled very straightforwardly. You've got four areas of technology; Military, Civic, Commerce, and Science. Military is as its name implies; research these techs and you get stronger units and higher population limits so you can build more of those units. Civic deals with how many cities you can have on the map and how far your national borders stretch. Since enemy units within your borders suffer attrition, the more ground they have to cover to reach your bases, the worse off they're going to be in battle. Commerce deals with how many caravans you can have and how many resources you can produce, and Science, in addition to lowering the cost of research and speeding its completion, also unlocks the research available in your resource buildings. Research enough tech and you can advance in Age, which is a catch-all indicator of the advancement level of your nation and dictates what kind of units you can build and resources you can harvest. Most RTS games would be skittish about making the player juggle six resources and a tech tree, but Rise of Nations handles it so well (and provides plenty of hotkeys) that it will feel very natural after only a few skirmish playthroughs.
To this point I've focused on the game's multiplayer advantages, but that's not to say there's a dearth of singleplayer modes; five years after the game's release there had better be something besides multiplayer to prop a game not named StarCraft up. The Gold Edition of the game now available delivers all the Conquer the World campaigns available in the original game's Thrones and Patriots expansion and allows the player to use the combination of turn-based territory map and real-time battle (think Total War Lite) to re-enact the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War, the conquests of Alexander, the Age of Discovery, and the original game's Entire World in a delightful game of escalating challenge or, in the case of the Entire World, escalating dominance.
Many games with multiple nations run the risk of degenerating into clone-fests, as there is little to differentiate the many factions on the map. Not so with Rise of Nations; every one of the 24 available nations plays differently and has a unique nation power that adds a strategic dimension to the game. That's not to say there aren't some commonalities, only that victory comes in learning how to use each nation's unique units, nation powers, and attendant advantages in a way that amplifies their power. Try to execute a boom as the Japanese and you lose out on their excellent boosts to the rush player. Rush as the Koreans and you'll run into the population limit, but boom and all of those free settlers will get you through the ages much faster allowing you to outclass your enemy with superior but fewer troops. Play as the Inca on a map without a lot of mountains and you'll never get your Turtle towers and forts set up in time. Very often you'll know what you're up against simply by seeing which nation your opponent has picked, which places a premium on executing nation power strategies exceptionally well.
This game is five years old, and it was truly the last hurrah for true isometric 2D. These graphics were fast becoming retro in 2003 and the player could be forgiven for thinking Rise of Nations is a late-nineties release. Function has triumphed decisively over form here and the game is better off for it. This game is perfect on the go; its gentle system requirements (even by 2003 standards) make it perfect to install on your laptop. Music is sparse but well-composed, the technical elements are solid, and the menus to set up a game both in singleplayer and with friends are intuitive and well-thought-out. More developers could learn a very valuable lesson about presentation from casting eyes upon Reynolds' body of work and this game is no exception.
BOTTOM LINE: Rise of Nations is fun. This is real-time strategy boiled down to its best elements and packaged in a $20 retail box that's still widely available on store shelves, something the budget-minded gamer should keep in mind as both gaming and economic relief from the Q4 mania this year.
RECOMMENDATION: Buy it. If you've got even the remotest interest in real-time strategy you're going to love it.