OT: RoN demo?

Just downloaded it. All 190+ Meg of it. (God bless cable modems)

Looks like the perfect blend of TB and RTS, at least in the single player game. You can pause and execute orders then unpause and watch for a while.

Looks better then EE and is more complex yet easier to control.

Looking forward to the full release myself.


Elrikk

~SDC~

yeah....the pace of the game so far is really good....it is the first rts that I have been able to keep up with in gameplay....

I'm going to go download it after I've tried the Planetside beta.

RoN looks to be a good game... I just hope the easiest AI is a bit better balanced towards being 'fun' than Empire Earth's was. 4+ hour games against the easiest AI on the smallest map is not my idea of fun! :notsure:

~SDC~

Hopefully RON is more than the standard clickfest (he who builds the biggest and the mostest the fastest kills all. Most often, his name is Kewl Doode or somesuch teen nonsense. No offense to the less than 20 somethings out there.) I got burned on on that after the first C and C, many years and thousands of RTS games ago. I have my fingers crossed for this one.

I played the demo last two days:

It's very nice, definitely better than EE: more thinking involved, good unit AI, less micromanagement, less clickfest.

However, battles are still a bit messy, you evolve through technologies a bit to fast to make good use of them and diplomacy is messed up (weird AI war declarations and offer rejections).

Looking foward to the Conquer the World Campaign wich lets you play the game Risk-like (TBS and RTS mixed up)

I'm looking forward to Rome:TW. I've heard big things are planned for the strategic UI, with it all being continuous. That'll be interesting...

Weird Ai war declarations??? That cannot be! Why, I have never heard of such a thing in a PC game!Are you sure you understand the game mechanics? Maybe the declarations are not really weird. You must dig deeper to uncover the reasons.

i think in the release full version...you will be able to set the cost of techs higher....which will slow down the pace of the tech race....at least that is what i have heard...

All in all, I do like this one....been playing on moderate level, and i (and my ally) can hold out till about mid game, then we get swallowed up....i must be doing something wrong...perhaps not building strong, balanced armies....

"Weird Ai war declarations??? That cannot be! Why, I have never heard of such a thing in a PC game!"
Yep, I know, I must have been spoiled lately because of the robust diplomacy AI of galciv.

"been playing on moderate level, and i (and my ally) can hold out till about mid game, then we get swallowed up"
I noticed that I can win the game on moderate by playing on the defensive and building more cities than the AI. If you can survive the midgame AI attacks, you'll eventually get ahead economic and technology wise and mop him up.

Rise of Nations is a pretty good game. Been playing the full release for 2 days. Graphics are a little bad but the game play is fun. Attacking people with tanks while they only have horseman is funny. LOL

Can you really make allies in the single player game? Every RTS that had diplomacy in it that I ever tried only had it in MP. You only found that out AFTER you bought and opened the game.

this i think is going to be the game that puts me into mp....

Played the demo earlier. Won via a wonder victory, accidentally, in a little over an hour.
Seemed to be an awful lot of researching to be done in the library and elsewhere, and the only challenge seemed to be in clicking to upgrade to the next tech up the tree? :notsure:
Maybe I just had it on too easy a level, but all I did to keep the AI at bay was use a General unit to make my crossbowmen/musketeers/whatever-they-evolve-into entrench themselves in the path of the AI and slaughter their exploratory raids.

I did like that the Wonders actually provide you with a list of useful enhancements when you build them. Especially liked the Terracotta Soldiers wonder that gives you free foot soldiers.

Much more of a rapid-clickfest than Civilization (or GalCiv) but a bit less micro-managey than Age of Empires, with more variety than AoE but less than the Civ type games.. and so on.

Good game.. Need to play it some more before deciding whether to buy though...

~SDC~

Of course it would be more of a clickfest than Civ or Gal, its RTS. There is no such thing as a clickfest in turn based games, unless the player WANTS to rush thru everything and hit the end tun button quickly. Not quite sure what that statement meant.
What I'd like to know is: is it DIFFERENT enough from the 10,000 other RTS games out there? I got all excited about Age of Myth and after I got over the nice visuals, it was basically the same as every other RTS. Oh yeah. God powers. Wooo hooo. Not enough to make it different for me. Whats RON got thats DIFFERENT? Is the conquer the world portion good fun? I REALLY want to believe this is not just another "build the mostest the fastest and rush the other guy" type of game.
Whats the skinny, folks?

#14: Follow the http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/trialdownload.asp and download the trial version. Unless you are on a 56k connection, you should be able to download it in the background within 20-30 minutes. At that point, you can determine if it is different or not.

Even though the RTS market is saturated mostly by "click-fests", there are a few gems that can be found when you dig deep enough. Very few appear in the mainstream market, meaning that you will have to try to look elsewhere.

The best method of determining the worth of a specific game (without purchasing or downloading it) is to look at two factors - the past history of the company in question, and more importantly, the customer reviews that appear within 2-4 months of the product being released. While you won't be on the leading edge of the game itself, you will at least be able to make an informed decision on whether the game is worth purchasing.

When checking the customer reviews, be sure to look up on the tactics and how wide spread they are - including rushes (and how they are countered), porcupines (and how to break them), game balance issues (such as a game securing tactic for one faction) as well as other important information.

wampyre....

I personally think it is different....I can actually win in this game....i lose and totally suck at every other rts that i have ever played (Starcraft, C&C series, AoE series, including AoK/AoC...well, I could do ok at Warlords Battlecry 2, but still not very good...and a bunch of others...).

Some of the things that I like about this title:

1. Cities. Cities adds something, even more than the cities in AoM...cities don't disappear once they are defeated...instead, you "take" control of the city (IF you have more infantry nearby than the enemy does). Then assimilation begins...which takes around 2 minutes or more. During that time, it is easy for the enemy to re-take the city...

2. Attrition. Without supply wagons with your army, your troops will suffer auto loss of health due to attrition. Plus, at the tower, higher levels of attrition causing techs can be researched.

3. Supply Wagons. Without these, DO NOT go attacking....

4. Wonders. The wonders actually add benefits...like higher levels of production capacity, or more possible cities you can build.

5. Generals. Generals can play a good part in this game. They can set up ambushes (your units will disappear for a few minutes, then take the enemy by surprise), they can entrench your troops, giving them better defensive abilities...they can use decoy forces (a "force" will attack the enemy, but cannot cause any damage, keeping the enemy busy, while you strike where it hurts).

6. Economy. I don't know, i just like how it is handled in this game...similar to other rts games, but i can keep up with what i need.

7. Conquer the World Campaign. I have the release version now, and the CtW campaign reminds me of Warlords Battlecry 2's campaign...It is A WHOLE LOT like Risk...but whenever you move into a province, you go rts style...really cool....

8. the flow and pace of the game. The pace/flow just feels natural to me. You can see how important it was/is for nations to keep up with the "tech race"...tanks vs. horses, machine guns vs. muskets...not a pretty picture if you are the one with the horses and muskets...the techs flow good I think...the game runs along at a good pace (you can slow down the tech discovery and make them more expensive if you want...something that I am going to try out soon)...My game i won last nite (victory on moderate diff.) lasted just over 47 minutes...had a blast the entire time...

I really think this is going to be the "new breed" of RTS...I can for sure see the relationships with tbs...it is definetly there (Cities, national borders, attrition, the techs)...but it has that fly by the seat of your pants feeling of rts (just check out the action once you get to Gunpowder Age )

All in all, I really like it. Like I said, the pace can be made to fly, or you can slow it down considerably...the Armegeddon countdown once nukes is used is interesting....can cause a won game to be lost...

Download the demo and check it out...you can play as either the Brits, Germans, Bantu, or the Egyptians...you can play from Ancient Age to Information Age (spanning the entire skirmish mode)...you can use all the units and buildings that pertains to those civs...

I myself liked AoM, but that game did eventually just become like every other rts....mass 'n move....with RoN, there is mass 'n move, but you have to really think....This is what Empire Earth was supposed to be....And I think this will be what every rts will be measured by in the upcoming few years...

Wampyre,

Seems to me (just have the demo) that it is much more complicated (more things to keep track of more ways to approach the game) then most of the others. What makes it playable and fun for me is the "pause" key. For example I am currently in a game with 7 opponents that have been playing for about 4-6 hours real time but only 28 mins game time. (I would be dead in a multiplayer game but am leading in this one)

To answer one of your earlier questions there is no mid battle save in the demo but the Alt-Tab function works flawlessley as the game I have running has been running for a couple of days. (it's still running right now.) I'm hoping for that type of save in the full edition but it won't be necessary for me.

It is not in the demo but as far as I know the Conquer the World portion is a series of scripted quick battles that play out as one long campaign that uses the map of the world to keep track of one's progress and to decide who you want to fight next.

Unlike other RTS games you can't go right up to an opponents city and build a barracks (or anything else) right there. You can only do so in you own territory. Your first city has a clearly defined border (in your colour). when you build another city (ie. just inside the current border) the border expands to include both your cities. The concept of attrition comes into play here. Most units you have outside your borders (except scouts etc.) suffer attrition damage unless they are within range of a supply wagon unit. Other things can expand the influence (borders) of your nation like techs, wonders, rare resources (a la Civ 3) etc.

The game has more configuration options then any game I have seen; not just things like hot keys (which are all configurable and to numerous to mention) but game rules themselves. For axample there is a "no rush" option etc. etc. etc. Every thing on the screen has detailed info (configurable with 3 levels of detail) when your cursor hovers over it. Any time you try to do something, but can't, the game tells you exactly why. ie. what you need to do to be able to do it.

Not a radical deviation from the usual RTS but enought for me.

Anyway, I am getting it but it won't be available here until the late next week sometime. If you are still interested I can write more then.


Elrikk

~SDC~

MythicalMino's description is much better then mine. Go with it

Elrikk


~SDC~

the Conquer the World Campaign reminds me more of Warlords Battlecry 2's sigle player campaign, more so than any other game. I have played both Medieval: Total War, and Shogun: Total War....and although there are some similarities (basic similarities though, you cannot build armies on the main strategic map like in the Total War series, or build buildings, ect.)...

As far as the map goes, think Risk....the board game Risk. the map nearly looks identical to that....I have only fooled around in the CtW mode, but there are different bonuses in different provinces. EX: In one province, you may have a supply depot, which gives you armies (which you move to protect and defend a territory, or move to conquer a territory). There are bonus cards (like, for example, you can play a card that gives you a metal bonus for an rts province battle), there are provinces that gives you tribute, which you can use to up the defense in a province, or you can save and use to buy territory from other nations. There is even diplomacy, where you can make alliances with computer players on the strategic world map...I also assume there is backstabbing and "politics" (not as in EU series though...)...

Like I said, It seems as though they got the idea of the CtW mode from Warlords Battlecry 2 single player campaign...only expanded it....

Oh, one more thing...each "turn" time ticks by on the World clock. After the first turn, you enter into the Classical Age, then 3 turns later, Medieval Age...and so on and so forth...Until you reach the Information Age...Wonders I think when they are built...they are built for good on the World map too (although, I could be wrong about wonder building....I do know that the Egyptians either built a wonder, or played a card that gave them a wonder when i was messing around with the CtW mode)...

Mythical and Elrikk: Mucho thanko alotto.
Now THATS what I call helpful responses. I asked and I got two earsful! Great info. Really appreciate it. I'm diggin the puse button! I like the no rush button! Sounds to me like there is enough innovation to give this a try....

Sigma, I will have to try again because the first time I tried to download the little box said something like 30 hours or so. Nuts. I'll take your word that it should be 30 minutes and try again. As for the other disguishable RTS games out there, other than Kohan which I have, I am not aware of any. I'm not quite sure where "elsewhere" is, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

Thanks folks. Bobo thanks you as well. He wanted to send you some of his prized collection of "things he found while grooming" which he keeps in a big jar by the cellar steps, but I thought better of it.

Wampyre,

I wouldn't have let Bobo send us those "gifts" either.

He is much to young to appreciate its true value and the time and effort that has gone into its aquisition.

At least it has taken a long time to aquire mine.

Elrikk


~SDC~