In early August, I had the opportunity and pleasure to sit down with Brian Reynolds, President of Big Huge Games, to talk about his company's upcoming real-time strategy game, Rise of Nations, in his summer home situated in the beautiful 1000 Islands region of southeastern Ontario. This is the fifth part of the preview based on that conversation. This edition hones in on the aspect's of customizing your in-game world, numerous victory conditions to strive for, and some odds and ends including just who in the world is "Hot Sauce Boy".
CUSTOMIZE YOUR WORLD
The first four parts of this feature were heavily concentrated in matters of what you do in Rise of Nations once a game has begun. Before you ever get to that stage, however, you are subjected to a number of decision making calls that will shape the very world that you play on. Of course, this is not a new concept for almost any strategy gamer… perhaps the 'almost' part comes into play with those who simply overlook it by choice or ignorance. The latter is not apt to constitute bliss here, although it may KISP (keep it simple, people). And no, the fact that this acronym is a near cliché does not make this any less true.
In a custom game, you may select the size and number of towns that you start with, whether you want more, less or even infinite resources, and even how costly or not technological advances will be. For those who want to be surprised, the randomize feature is there to keep your company. Naturally, the balance between all of this is the 'standard' game. In addition, you can experiment with three settings when it comes to terrain maps: know the terrain from the outset but no other data, both terrain and civilization-specific aspects can be observed from the start or utilize the classical “fog of war” setting where any and every square must be explored save map trades.
Want a population limit? Set the maximum number of units to what you desire within the game's specifications. Want to take a reign check on belligerency? Prevent rushing, or attacking really early in the game, from taking place with 'rush rules' where players must stay at peace with each other until a particular age, e.g. Gunpowder. You can take this concept to the extreme by preventing warfare altogether, banking on economic glory instead (yeah, pun intended). Reynolds compares this setting to a SimCity-style mode of play and justifiably so. Even in such a scenario, remember, you are able to cause your borders to swell through non-violent means via political spheres as discussed before (see Part 1), i.e. taking control of resources, fortifying troops and the like. The goal here then becomes who can reach the Information Age first and, of course, land is by and large acquired on a 'first come, first serve – 'forever' basis'.
Cannon-time was given some press earlier in Part 1 of this extended preview, but it bears worth mentioning again here. How many times a player can pause the game and slow it down are additional options for players to consider. In RoN you can even strictly enforce the length of a game by indicating what age one wants to be able to play to. It also seems noteworthy to mention that yes, like its forbearers you will be able to play on indefinitely should you choose when you achieve a winning condition. That is, at least, until you pass out from sleep deprivation…
Rise of Nations encompasses various text files that govern amongst others unit, building and technology rules that gamers and even non-gamers alike can go into and edit at will for people who, as Reynolds puts it, "want to get in and rip into this stuff".
It is hard to believe, and perhaps even harder to conceive that the following would be anything but, but indeed the first city you construct in Rise of Nations is automatically assigned as your nation's capital. Here is where things can get interesting. In a normal game of RoN, you only have a certain period of time to re-capture it before you're out of the game completely – whether you have other cities in your empire or not.
Rise Up: Reynolds On RoN 
