RoN video impressions

[ColdFever]

http://games.tiscali.cz/clanek/patche.asp?id=3468

[MarkG]

apolyton mirror

<a href=http://apolyton.net/ron/media/rise_of_nations-e3_video.zip>e3 ron video, 4.3mb, wmv</a>

[The diplomat]

Nice. War seems to really come alive in Rise of Nations. I could feel the adrenaline pumping just watching the troops line up and fight it out.

I can imagine that, actually playing the game, and seeing your troops prepare for battle, will be quite a sight!

[DanS]

Yes, this is nice. Reminds me a lot of the old Ancient Art of War. It does look like a click-fest, though.

[MarBaS]

so what is wrong with it being click fest. You have to click alot in any RTS, plain and simple no way to get around it. If you dont like to click RTS arent for you.

[tniem]

Looks fun. Just hope some of it is automated by smart AI because that is going to be a lot of clicking in battle with that many guys,

[FrustratedPoet]

Before I saw it running I thought it would be lame because it uses the AoK engine ... but I really like the way that they have jazzed it up. The unit animations look very sweet and that atomic bomb thingy at the end was nice.

I'm not a fan of RTS games in general, but I think this one is worth a closer inspection. :b:

[Sarxis]

Looks spectacular.

Brian Brian, he's our man; if he can't do it, Sid surely can't! ;)

[child of Thor]

ummm......command and conquer for grown-ups? Still ,looks like RoN will do very well - the graphics are very nice.

[Capt Dizle]

Maybe its just me. I just cant't see anything in RTS. Gettyburg was okay cause you could slow it down and pause it and that would allow you to get some enjoyment out of it. EU was like that too.

[Alex]

jt: who said that RoN will not be like that?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by DanS
Yes, this is nice. Reminds me a lot of the old Ancient Art of War. It does look like a click-fest, though.

If I were you, I'd check out the brand new E3 video. RoN looks nothing like a click-fest! The game looks amazing. There is a fantastic portion of the video where we see 2 armies facing each other across the borders. They are at peace so the 2 armies just "stare down each other". When the player hits the declare war button, his army automatically attacks. it is very impressive, as we see the artillery and the tank columns suddenly open fire. We also see a squadron of bombers fly over and drop their load of bombs of the enemy troops and city.

We see ressource gathering and the smart peasant system in action. The player builds a new woodcutting building, and we see an idle peasant automatically move toward the forest and start gathering wood.

The game gives a very TBS feel to it. it did not seem click-fest to me. I think I will probably buy the game.

[Captain_Dave]

That's by far the prettiest nuking I've ever seen:b: :b: :b: :cool:

[tniem]

Wow!

That is about all I can say with the new video. It is truly impressive and makes me excited that there is going to be an RTS on the horizon that truly can have a lot of strategy. I have a couple points that I would like to say about the game.

1. It seems that the AI is pretty smart. As diplomat pointed out, as soon as peace was undeclared and war was declared in diplomacy the two sides started firing. He did not have to start clicking on multiple things to get that to happen, it just did. Now, he did have to click to launch planes and move troops but I am not sure how much I want the AI controlling that anyway. Same way with peasants. You simply build them and they go to the camp that is in the most need of workers to either mine, farm, or harvest lumber. Just a smart idea.

2. It seems that cities are going to be important and building them up is even more important. Not like most RTS where buildings are simply for building units and if one building gets destroyed you can simply build another. We will see later to the full extent that cities and borders will become important.

3. Finally, and maybe most importantly, we are still eight to nine months from release and yet we get to see a video highlighting multiple aspects to the game. Now I am sure there is a bunch that needs to be done but I have to believe they are doing well in production of this game. Anyone remember a Civ video that much before the game?

No, because they didnt't have anything like that. 12/00 Firaxis release three units on Apolyton. By 10/01 the game was released. We are talking about a ten month time period that they went from releasing unit pictures to a full release. Here BHG is showing us a full video of what there game can do and they still have a good eight months till Q1 2003! I think this game is going to be quite solid.


All for all, a good video and a good way to make me want to get this game.

[Switch]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
Before I saw it running I thought it would be lame because it uses the AoK engine ... but I really like the way that they have jazzed it up. The unit animations look very sweet and that atomic bomb thingy at the end was nice.

I'm not a fan of RTS games in general, but I think this one is worth a closer inspection. :b:

THAT is the AOK engine? :confused: I'm very impressed!:b:

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
Brian Brian, he's our man; if he can't do it, Sid surely can't! ;)

Being serious, Sid made a golf fun for many people who really didn't give a care about it. He also made what many consider the best single player conversion of a card game (Magic: The Gathering).

Brian is great, but don't downplay Sid.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
Being serious, Sid made a golf fun for many people who really didn't give a care about it. He also made what many consider the best single player conversion of a card game (Magic: The Gathering).

Brian is great, but don't downplay Sid.

Not to mention Sid didn't design Civ III. If he had and if he had maybe wanted to be more apart of its design then maybe it would have turned out better. But he doesn't like doing sequels - can't blame him but it did lead to a shotty product without him.

[Inverse Icarus]

the battles seems really frikken cool. and the nuke was superb.

i'm a little confused, were <b>ALL</b> of the civilizations controlled by one human player presenting it? because i swear they go from German units to Russian units, and make them attack eachother.

and the german units didnt attack, they just stood there and took the beating for a while.

looks great. can't wait to support the genius behind civ. too bad he didnt work on 3 :(

[tniem]

Originally posted by UberKruX
i'm a little confused, were <b>ALL</b> of the civilizations controlled by one human player presenting it? because i swear they go from German units to Russian units, and make them attack eachother.


I think that is how they set it up. It appeared to be a presentation piece and not actually the game. Because, yes it did seem as if he was controlling multiple civs and multiple time periods simultaneously.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by tniem


I think that is how they set it up. It appeared to be a presentation piece and not actually the game. Because, yes it did seem as if he was controlling multiple civs and multiple time periods simultaneously.

ok, as long as im not insane.

[Brian Reynolds]

Hi guys! A couple clarifications--

* No, Rise of Nations does NOT use the Age engine. It is a 3D engine developed in-house by Big Huge Games. Some people have commented on some similarities of interface, which mostly occurred from a point of view of "Age is an MS RTS game, we're an MS RTS game, shouldn't we have a similar interface?" But at least on the visual side we'll probably move a little further from that paradigm before we're done.

* Yes, the "E3 Demo Scenario" you saw is a presentation piece where the strategic AI isn't active for any of the players (just the lower level AI for things like flying around in an airplane, deciding what to fire at, and so forth). So the demo-er can just click on any race and take control of it. Interestingly, though, for solo play we do feature some "sandbox" options where you are allowed to control more than one of the nations (one, some, all, anywhere in between) and be able to switch back and forth.

Brian

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Brian Reynolds
Hi guys! A couple clarifications--

* No, Rise of Nations does NOT use the Age engine. It is a 3D engine developed in-house by Big Huge Games. Some people have commented on some similarities of interface, which mostly occurred from a point of view of "Age is an MS RTS game, we're an MS RTS game, shouldn't we have a similar interface?" But at least on the visual side we'll probably move a little further from that paradigm before we're done.

* Yes, the "E3 Demo Scenario" you saw is a presentation piece where the strategic AI isn't active for any of the players (just the lower level AI for things like flying around in an airplane, deciding what to fire at, and so forth). So the demo-er can just click on any race and take control of it. Interestingly, though, for solo play we do feature some "sandbox" options where you are allowed to control more than one of the nations (one, some, all, anywhere in between) and be able to switch back and forth.

Brian

you know you want to leak out an "Uber KruX Demo Scenario" :rolleyes:

[Nostromo]

Yeah, it looks really nice, and fun too. And it will have much more tactical depth than Age of Kings. (IMO AoK rewards the Henri Fords out there, not the Erwin Rommels.) I'm not sure it's gonna have more tactical depth than Starcraft though. Too bad those fancy graphics won't run on my Toshiba laptop. :(

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Maybe its just me. I just cant't see anything in RTS. Gettyburg was okay cause you could slow it down and pause it and that would allow you to get some enjoyment out of it. EU was like that too.

I tried AoE and AoK. I don't like them much, but it's not because there's no pause button. There's a pause button in AoK. Starcraft, on the other hand, is more fun IMO, it has more tactical depth than AoK. And I tried it in MP. It makes a huge difference. There's no pause button in Starcraft, but you can change the game speed.

[ChaotikVisions]

I've never much liked RTS, besides for Starcraft. Starcraft lacked some things others did, but it provided fast, fun, and balanced gameplay. The problem with RTS in my opinion is you can't actually get a whole lot of stategy in, it is usually just about controlling the most, and getting the biggest army to overwhelm your enemy. Its simply too fast paced to try and get balanced forces or try out interesting strategys. So that most "strategys" just revovle around getting something the fastest, rather then the long drawn out ones of turn based games.

Still, among other strategy games RON looks pretty good, i'll give it a go once it comes out and see how it is. The way combat is done looks interesting, hopefully it'll be easy to control.

[Rohag]

Originally posted by Brian Reynolds
Interestingly, though, for solo play we do feature some "sandbox" options where you are allowed to control more than one of the nations (one, some, all, anywhere in between) and be able to switch back and forth.

I’m surprised and glad BHG is planning a sandbox feature for RoN. Before the advent of computer games I would often play historical boardgames solitaire, pitting strategy against strategy, plan against plan just to see what would develop with no deep allegiance attached to any side. This sandbox setting may allow me to enjoy that type of experience once again.

Also, not being so quick-reflexed or competitive as many others, part of my fun in games derives from just building stuff and creating a spectacle. Playing multiple sides may allow one to engineer various international situations in ways more immediately rewarding than using an editor. With so many options for game set-up, we can play RoN as “Apocalypse of Nations,” “Toying with History,” or anything in between. Thank-you, BHG. :)