'Rise of Nations' Beta 2 Review (Page 2)
By Solver | Apolyton CS Staff

RoN, while it keeps the real-time nature, is indeed about making the right decisions. The battle system is dramatically different from that in other RTS games, at least because units have front, rear and flank aspects, flanking actually gives you a bonus, etc. While in the other games I've seen formations were rarely used, mostly being there just for the fun of it, RoN does encourage use of various formations and tactical movements – simply put, that can win battles for you. One thing I love is entrenching of infantry units – it's a thing that can provide some serious advantage to you if done at the right time. Against an enemy who uses lots of artillery guns for defense of his city, entrenched infantry can cause much frustration. All you need to do is to play the game for half an hour to understand how crucial thinking in it is.

Each nation has borders and cities, that's something very different from other RTS games we've seen today. You just can't run all over the map with your troops, throwing up barracks here and there, and going even further then. If you enter enemy territory without some sort of supply convoys, you will take attrition damage that is heavy enough to kill your soldiers if they decide to just stay in enemy land, while not doing anything useful to you. Likewise, you know that a single enemy trooper in your land isn't going to do much damage, he'll die because of attrition anyway. So, you have to plan your attack carefully. You want to know where are you attacking, to catch the enemy troops unprepared, wipe them out, and quickly march through the enemy lands to take control of whatever you want to control. Wonders are great fun in this regard, as the battles fought solely for taking some Wonder down are interesting. While you still can attempt an attack without thinking about it carefully, that just isn't going to do you any good.

Research, which has been broken down into several areas, also is a very strategic part of the game, for your knowledge points must never be wasted, and you've got to decide yourself as to what are you going to research. By the way, no unit ever becomes obsolete, you can upgrade your ancient age guys all the way to assault infantry of the modern times. Another thing I loved were the special resources, which sort of add an element of luck for the game, while not making it way too random. Definitely a nice boon to some civ[ilization]s. Lately, it's pretty much a habit in the gaming community to go on and whine about same game, how unbalanced some strategy is, and so on. It might be that my definition of “unbalanced” isn't as strong as for some people, but I believe RoN is balanced very well. Aztecs are the one civ[ilization] that have a bonus very powerful (they gain stuff from killing enemy units), but I'm not sure if it's overpowered. Well, a little decrease of the bonus might be in place.