Rise of Nations v. Civ 3

[gaerdraug]

I'm a fan of Civ 3 and play as often as I can (though I'm not all that good and have real trouble at the monarch level, which is the only level I play). I also was a big fan of Civ 1 and 2.

I've never played Rise of Nations and would like to know from Civ 3 players who've also played RoN what they think about RoN.

Let me know. Thanks.

[Epistax]

I just recently (few days ago) started playing. It's really a super extended age of empires-- not that that's a bad thing. It's fairly fun as an RTS. Then again so is Command and Conquer. To me, to compare Civ to RoN is like comparing Civ to C&C. RoN is just much more intelligent than C&C.

[asleepathewheel]

I didn't care for RoN


at all

but I did play it more than MoO3 and GalCiv, for a point of reference. Its fun as a clickfest, but it didn't like my hardware (though I was quite above specs)

[chumly]

It's a superb game for a Civ lover if you drop the speed to slow or very slow. Some friends of mine did a modified rule set that slows down technology and resource accumulation. The end result is a slow paced game that allows for slow growth of your empire and then intense competition.

To my surprise, I've found two rts games recently that had entertaining coop fights vs the ai (I generally look on that with scorn, as I'm a hardcore multi player by and large). RoN was one of the two. It's possible to play entertaining games against the AI (3v4 or so).

[Kuciwalker]

This belongs in Other Games.

[Last Conformist]

It's an entirely different genre.

In my personal opinion, TBS > RTS, but that's entirely a question of taste.

[Harovan]

I salute BHG for releasing a demo version. Saved me from buying yet another game box, collecting dust on my shelf.

And no, it does not belong in Other Games.

[Switch]

Personally not a big fan. I actually prefer the (less intelligent) C&C and AOE. RoN was too much of a civ/rts hybrid, and managed, in my very humble opinion, to manage neither with anything worth spending my money on. But for any who like that style, I would say they did a fantastic job. Personally, I'm just gonna stick with the extremes of that game (ie, Civ or RTS)

[Anguille2]

It's a good game....but as said it's a RTS and if you play it on normal speed, it's very fast. You can easely finish a normal game within one hour.

[alva]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I salute BHG for releasing a demo version. Saved me from buying yet another game box, collecting dust on my shelf.

Yup, me too. Had some fun with it for a couple of hours though, it's not a bad game and I can see others enjoying it very much.

[SystemError]

Personally i was big huge'ly disapointed by it. I thought the campaign mode would actually be any good. I was very mistaken. Battling the computer is quite good but the tech does just advance too fast. However if you have an hour(or so) to waste its good fun.

However the Global Campaign thing is crap. Its like an EXTREMELY poor version of Medieval Total War. The tech you research does not persist outside the battles you fight. France, UK, Spain and most of the European nations are made up of just one region. For people who lave Eu like me this is absurd. Also the fact that GB can go get Norway, Greenland then North America is ridiculous. Central Asia is one region! From china to russia!

If you ask me they did a half-arsed job on this. What certainly could have been a great game is merely an ok game. Im just glad i didnt pay full price for it...

[Beta]

Originally posted by chumly
It's a superb game for a Civ lover if you drop the speed to slow or very slow. Some friends of mine did a modified rule set that slows down technology and resource accumulation. The end result is a slow paced game that allows for slow growth of your empire and then intense competition.

Hmm - that might be an improvement.

I'm with the others here - it struck me as a well done 'click fest', as others have mentioned. And moved waaaay to fast to do any of the eras any good, or to make any of the unique units anything of significance. It just seemed like an odd marriage of the game style with the subject.

For this kind of set-up - I think the Total War genre makes good sense. A turn-based strategy side and a RTS tactical/battle side. That is probably closer to real life experience even then civ3, where the battles are carefully orchestrated 'which unit do I attack with next' events.

I had an intersting one-on-one RoN game with a friend who was over. We had previously played civ3 which he is not a fan of - moves to slow for him. He clobbered me at the RoN game, but I had a good sense why. He is an avid RTS, FPS, and action thingy game player - and at the end - where you can compare mouse clicks or actions - he was close to double what I had done.

That being said - the slower game style, where key board skills and mouse speed are not the critical factors - could be interesting.

[Wittlich]

Beta has hit the nail squarely on the head concerning my dislike for RoN. RoN is definately a "click-fest" type of game. He who can click the fastest wins.

If you have to go to the bathroom, be prepared to loose X number of turns to your opponents.

So in my mind, there really isn't any comparison between Civ3 and RoN.

[bobbo008]

The World Conquest is actually a Risk ripoff. and, it you take over a nation's "capital" aka its starting territory, you take over every territory they own. It's a joke.

That being said, the only real cool thing is that you actually take over cities, I like that feature as well as set territory and the resource gathering "style". Foot units coming in sets of 3 is awesome, too. Although selecting a worker among a group of combat units is hard, and the workers/foot units are so small, too!

I own Civ3, Empire Earth, and Rise of Nations. After playing all a whole lot, Empire Earth is simply better in Rise of Nations which is basically sprite-based, where EE objects are made up of polygons, and the use of the scroll to zoom in and out is great.

Perhaps the biggest factor is in EE, the maximum number of units is divided up among existing civs, for example, you can set the number of units to 1600, which means if there are 4 civs, you can have 400 units. In RoN, you can be on a huge map and have 1/2 the territory, but still only have 200 units (excluding your civ, bonus resource and wonder), which makes a really empty map...

EE takes the cake over RoN. but you can't compare real-time strategy to turn-based. That being said, Civ3 is my favorite

[dojoboy]

You'll have fun w/ RoN, but it will not IMHO provide you the feeling one gets when empire building. I still play it.