Rise of Nations
Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy computer game, developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft on May 20, 2003. It was an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary step in the genre, keeping a similar structure to existing RTSs (like Age of Empires) while introducing many novel and innovative concepts to the genre. Many of these ideas are taken from turn-based strategy games, including territory, attrition and a much improved economic system. Rise of Nations allows a player to lead any one of 18 civilizations through a roughly historical time frame from Ancient Age to the Information Age. The game is also called RoN or RON for short. The leading designer at Big Huge Games for Rise of Nations was the veteran Brian Reynolds of Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. An expansion pack, Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots, was released on April 28, 2004 and made small improvements to the original game by increasing the number of playable nations to 24, adding 4 new campaigns, and adding governments. In late 2004, a Gold edition was released that included both the original and the expansion. Big Huge Games has released the spiritual successor, Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends on May 9, 2006.
Overview
Rise of Nations was innovative among other related real-time strategy games in that one could only build within one's territory, resource gather rates were capped at various stages pending further research, and the costs of units and buildings ramp up with each successive unit or building. Unlike other previous RTS games before it, the citizens in RoN don't remain idle after creation until they are given orders. All idle citizens, after a brief pause, look for any nearby construction sites, unoccupied resource gathering sites, or damaged buildings and automatically move to build, gather or repair there. This option can be disabled if a player desires. A nation's borders can be expanded by (among other things) the construction of cities, so that ones power becomes based in that of large economic cities of great importance to one's victory or defeat.
Each of the 18 civilizations in Rise of Nations has its own set of unique units (the Japanese have the superior Samurai as their heavy infantry unit for example) throughout the ages as well as an unique graphics set within their respective culture groups. Nuclear weapons in the game produce a realistic and devastating mushroom cloud animation and dogfights in the sky between fighter aircraft are well animated. Rise of Nations uses a hybrid 2D/3D engine to render buildings, but a 3D engine to render units, terrain, and special effects.
The end conditions are also made to be historically neutral in that one can win the game by a capital capture, territorial superiority, researching four dominating technologies, or the usual wonder and score victories.
A single player campaign, Conquer the World, is included in the game. It is comparable to the game Risk, except that attacks on enemy territories take place during in-game battles that can last as long as 2 hours, depending upon the scenario. The control map is about the same as Risk's, but luck isn't as crucial. Also, you will need to increase territorial strength on your territories and engage in diplomacy with other nations. The expansion added four historically themed campaigns - Alexander the Great, the Colonizing of the Americas, Napoleon and the Cold War.
Resources
Resources also undergo a significant departure from the RTS norm in this game, being shown as constant flows of resources rather than as expendable irreplaceable resources, as in Warcraft II, Empire Earth and Age of Empires. This simplifies the resource gathering aspects of the game, allowing the player to concentrate more on combat. Resource production is capped by commerce caps, determined by the level of commerce research you have achieved in game.
In another interesting twist, units and buildings 'ramp up' in cost, increasing their price as their numbers in the game increase. This causes the player to employ more balanced armies, instead of armies heavily composed of any particular unit. This is used to avoid the sort of problem encountered in games where certain units are so underpowered as to make them unusable, and other units are so overpowered as to make them unstoppable.
There are three initial resources of going concern in Rise of Nations - food, wood, and wealth. The first two are gathered via farms, fishing, and wood-camps. The third by establishing trade routes, various temple upgrades, and rare resources. Upon the onset of the second age, two more resources become available - knowledge and metal. They are both equally important for different reasons. Knowledge is collected by scholars in universities that must be purchased with wealth. Metal is mined in mines built on impassable mountains that are present in the landscape and is paramount for a successful military until it is eclipsed by oil in the Industrial Age, although it is still necessary for units that use oil, like tanks or ships.
Research
Rise of Nations has 8 unique ages to be researched via the library, each with its own crop of units and batch of building art. Ages divide up military, civic, commerce and science developments, and each age is suited to a different style of play, even though many things stay true throughout. To age up to the next, at least two of the subordinate developments must be researched and the required amount of resources must be spent. Certain ages play more to certain strategies. For example, the Medieval Age is typically more defensive. Ages include the Ancient Age, Classical Age, Gunpowder Age, Enlightenment Age, Industrial Age, Modern Age, and the Information Age. There are also four end-game technologies which are accesible after all library technologies are completed. These include Missile Shield, World Government, Global Prosperity, and Artificial Intelligence. Each one of these technologies allows the player who obtains it certain abilities reflective of the technology itself. They each provide a unique and very strong benefit to the nation that researches them. There are four library technology groups: military, civics, commerce, and science. These categories include the most notable works or achievements in human history such as The Art of War for military or Assembly Line for commerce. There are also "non-library" technologies for religion, taxation, strategy, fortification, militia, attrition, and crops. These technologies allow for advancements in production and growth depending on their specific attributes.
Gameplay
Gameplay focuses heavily on creating a balance between a heavily agressive and militaristic attack and developing a strong economy and center of production. Players who develop a balance tend to better than players who focus specifically on one or the other.
Because every unit in the game has its counter unit (pikemen kill knights for example) and terrain and military tactics matter - a keen sense of generalship is required to make the best use of one's army. Indeed, with sufficient skill in creating proper unit distributions in an army and fielding that army, it is very possible to defeat a numerically superior enemy in Rise of Nations.
In a manner similar to chess, slight strategic mistakes early in the game can turn into major tactical woes later on. For example, a poor and hasty placement of a city in an empty piece of land when some more reconnaissance would have shown a superior wood placement site can lead to severe wood gathering problems later on since building a lumbermill (built to increase gather rates for the city-isolated wood-camp) would cost too much in the short term.
Units
There are at least 200 different types of units in Rise of Nations, ranging from the Ancient Age Hoplite to the Information Age AH-64 Apache Choppers. Most military units are created from either the barracks, stable, siege factory, docks, airfield or fortress. Unit types such as Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry and Ranged Cavalry are upgraded as the player advances through the ages. These upgrades usually represent revolutionary changes in their particular field. For example, the Arquebusier of the Gunpowder Age becomes the Musketeer of the Enlightenment Age, representing the great advantage of flintlock muskets over the earlier matchlock muskets, shown by increased attack power and reload speed. Also, each nation gets its own set of unique units. For example, the Greeks get the Companion cavalry, the Russians get the Cossack, the Germans get the Tiger and Leopard tanks..
Because of the wide variety of units in the game, players have the opportunity to create an army customized to their tastes. Most units have a cost that is roughly equal to that of their peers. Additionally, most units use only two resource types, making creating diverse armies easier and almost required. Terraced costs further contribute to the incentive for a diverse army, as each additional unit a player creates of a single type will cost more.
Buildings
Cities begin as small towns and eventually work their way up to becoming larger with construction and research. For example, civilian buildings, such as markets or libraries, can increase commerce and research in a city respectively. Additionally, there are also military structures that allow the construction of more military units as well as those of more highly advanced technology. The buildings available in the Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots expansion pack are as follows:
- City (Small, Large and Metropolis)
- Farm: Produces food.
- Woodcutter's camp: Produces Lumber.
- Barracks: Trains ground infantry.
- Dock/Shipyard: Constructs civilian/military ships.
- Library: Where main research is conducted.
- Market: Produces caravans/wealth, place for trading resources.
- Temple: Produces wealth, taxation research.
- Tower/Bunker: Defenses.
- Lookout: Defenses.
- Mine: Produces steel/ore.
- University: Produces knowledge.
- Oil Well: Produces oil.
- Oil Platform: Produces oil.
- Granary: Food gathering research.
- Lumber Mill: Lumber/construction research.
- Smelter: Steel/supply research.
- Refinery: Increases Oil production.
- Auto Plant: Constructs vehicles.
- Factory: Constructs support vehicles. (Artillery, Supply wagons, etc.)
- Fort/Castle/Redoubt: Garrisonable fortress.
- Airbase: Produces aircraft.
- Missile Silo: Produces Missiles.
- SAM Installation: Anti-Aircraft defense.
- Senate: Government research.
Wonders
In Rise of Nations, players can also construct "Wonders", such as the Egyptian Pyramids or the Taj Mahal. These wonders give the player who constructs them bonuses, such as increased gold production or faster popular expansion. As in other strategy games, the type of building constructed provides effects similar to those of the culture that originally built it.
Expansions
There has been one expansion for Rise of Nations called Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots. The additions include 6 new civilizations, four new single player campaigns, and a new government feature. By constructing the new Senate building, a player can research various government technologies that would afford the player various military and economic bonuses, as well as providing the player with a special general unit.
Tournaments and Rankings
Rise of Nations uses an ELO rating system to rank players - in brief, this system is based on a mathematical formula that determines how often players win against other players to give a rough estimate of skill. In 2004, there was a world-wide online seeded single-elimination tournament named "Expanded Hostilities" hosted by MrFixitOnline wherein participants could only use a single civilization throughout the tournament. The tournament's victor was TWC_Mulfar. There have been many other tournaments hosted by AoI both as biweekly regular tournaments and as special larger tournaments.
Playable Nations
Playable nations include the Aztecs, Bantu, British, Chinese, Egyptian, French, Germans, Greek, Inca, Japanese, Koreans, Maya, Mongol, Nubians, Roman, Russians, Spanish, and the Turks. Each nation receives a bonus according to how that particularly culture and its leader are often perceived. The expansion includes the American, Dutch, Indians, Iroquois, Lakota, and the Persians.
Reviews
- PC Gamer (UK) - 88%
- PC Gamer (US) - 95% (Editor's Choice)
- PC Format - 93%.
- Gamesmaster UK - 89%
- GameSpot - 9.3/10 (Editor's Choice)
- IGN - 8.2/10
- GameSpy - 90/100
- Eurogamer - 9/10.
Awards
- Maximum PC Kick-Ass Award
- PC Gamer Editor's Choice Award
- Best Strategy Game of the Year by ELiTeD
- GameSpot Best PC Strategy Game of 2003
- GameSpy 2003 Game of the Year - PC RTS
- GameSpy Top 10 RTS Games of All Time - Rise of Nations #8, which is arguably the best award that Rise of Nations won.