First Impressions of RON, NO PUNCHES pulled...

[Fudgebar]

FOlks I was very excited anticipating the arrival of this game but to be perfectly honest I hadnt followed it's history in depth like alot of people here have. So my expectations might be a bit different from alot of you.

What I was basically expecting was perhaps a RTS version of my all time favorite Civilization. However I think this game plays more like a blend of AOE and Total War....which is not a bad thing by any means but just different then what I had anticipated. Honestly I am a bit let down by the game.....I just dont like the idea of the game broken down into 2 distinctly different engines and modes of play.....One is a map Risk-like conquer sections screen and the other is your standard RTS terrain maps and gameplay. The reason I dont really like it is because the seperation of these 2 distict games within the overall campaign make the game feel somewhat less fluid and less of a continuation of your great empire building. It's like each time you plan to either conquer or defend a sector, there is really no carry over of what you built and accomplished in the prior scenarios...even when you have to fight in the same sector again, everything that you built and conquered seems to be reset


I would have much rather have seen a huge RTS World sized map with all the nations building from the early start of time up working their way thru the ages very similar to Civilization and even Empire Earth to a certain extent.....I would have loved to have seen more focus on building your cities and civilization and less emphasis focused directly on war. What made Civ such a great and addicting game was the the fact that going WAR actually was something you desperately wanted to avoid because it had such an impeding effect on your civ's ability to advance....War was something you really tried to avoid. Plus the diplomacy aspect of the game was more rich with more options and doors of choice to really give a player a sense of bargaining with the AI


Now Im not all down on RON...its a good RTS game that is enjoyable and I love the idea of borders and the impact they pose on your strategic maneuvers.

Also I love the almost hand painted graphics in the game bu I just cant get into the animations....they almost feel as tho they are missing some key transistion frames in the movements, explosions, ect. It gives the game a very choppy like feel to it ...even when my framerate meter displays 70FPS....they should have motion captured the movements better like in AOW.

The animation engine reminds me alot like the Cossacks game


Im not sure how I really feel about this game yet...Ill have to play it more.

[Mahdimael]

Definitely play it. There's a ton of neat things that come into focus as you play

[Fudgebar]

I actually played the QUICK BATTLE mode and was able to set it to play on a HUGE map with 7 CPU opponents and I set the game to standard mode with DIPLOMACY instead of teams or FFA and it actually played closer to what I feel I was looking for in this game ( a Real Time Civilization)

I am glad that Quick Battle is there because this mode of play actually feels more continuous and fluid in terms of building your cities and empire from the beginning of time from nothing deep into the future ......However with this said, I still wished there was more diplomacy options and a better graphics and even more importantly, sound effects engine.

The sounds are fine independantly but when you have groups of different things attacking, they dont all play or sound very dynamic

[Bridger]

Yeah, i can imaging games on Big Huge with 6 players on diplomacy would be your online version of Civ basically. There were a lot of players that liked to play AoK that way, called shimo i think, where you would forge aliances and break them over the game. I think the diplomacy model in RoN would make for thos games to work even better online than shimo did for AoK.

[Fudgebar]

Actually...after some more playtime with RON in QUICK BATTLE mode , 7 CPU players/1 human with DIPLOMACY enabled, I was pleasantly surprised to see the 'first glance' simplistic diplomacy actually to be quite a bit deeper than it appears!

I actually spent half of the game simply testing it's limitations and the AI's saavy to figure out my motives. What I found is a pretty intersting AI that seems to take into consideration quite a few variables when deciding to either goto WAR, PEACE or ALLY with a civ. The only thing that really appears to be shallow or limited is the actual interaction and possible choices of diplomacy....its really just Peace, war, or Full Ally. I would have like to see a bit more options of negogiating and deception choices,,,,,,,, but for what is actually there, I have to give credit to RON, because the AI seems to play with these few diplomatic choices very intelligently and how you would EXCPECT a civ to react in certain situations

Im pretty pleased even in its simplicity.....perhaps a future patch could offer more wealing and dealing with the CPU and Human players. a wide range of Diplomacy is really crucial to enhancing the fun factor of a game like this.

its growing on me......but the animations and very shallow multi channel sound effects of weaponary is still buggin me. Just watching missiles flying thru the air with such choppiness after being so used to the fluid and explosive awe of carnage in C&C Generals really puts a damper on visually enjoying anything else....even if its not the main scope of this game. It could have still been smoothed out a bit better. Seeing huge Battleships and Cruisers completing full 180 degree turns in the water in 3 frames just gives me the heebie Jeebies! I mean even Total Annihilation had ship momentum, turn radius, ect down brilliantly several years ago....it should be so hard to pull off.

[One_Dead_Villy]

maybe its your graphics card or computer or setting...its smooth to me...

but i also have a top of the line comp and graphics card so.,....

[Fudgebar]

actually I think its just a lack of transistion animations in the unit movements that leads to a rather rough look

[Fudgebar]

This game is growing on me....the more I play it the more I find it just like a Real Time version of Civ....One of the most exciting and enjoyable addictions in Civ was having your explorer hunt for hidden treasures and bonus land resources to build your city on and RON captures that same excitement wonderfully......Altho one thing has me a bit concerned is the fact that I THINK you can still have merchants extract resources outside of your cities boundaries really taking away from the city boundaries limitations a bit

The game is a SOLID 85-88% and would have easily been in the MID to HIGH 90's if the design team spent a bit more time on making some smoother more engaging unit animations and explosives visuals as well as adding a more layered sound effects track that let you literally hear all the carnage when multiple units are bombarding. Alot of times I will see silent streaks of missiles or Ariel bombings on the screen and it just takes away a bit from the smooth video game feel that this game deserves.

Finally, I would have loved to seen just a few more options for diplomacy and haggling with other nations to really allow for some interesting exchanges and interaction with the AI nations

But this game is very engaging

[One_Dead_Villy]

try turning down the music volume ....

of course i usualy play with music off anyways

[Timeline]

Are you playing on slow speed?

I think the animitions were designed be viewed at normal speed, and they are not as choppy as they are on the slower speeds.

Happy gaming

[dearmad]

That doesn't explain why my FPS drops to 17 sometimes on an AMD 1800+ gf4 4400, 512MB. Just because there's two or three huge armies on screen, this game should NOT slow down with a rig like this. I actually have had to drop details in graphics to get it to a decent 24fps+.


Anyone else noticing the frame rates sucking in this game? Play with FPS on and see. Also it just moves like a chunky brick.

[Timeline]

I had the same problem-

I updated my video card driver and it helped a ton, give it a shot.

[One_Dead_Villy]

there is also a panel where u can specify high or low details on various things vary specifically might want to mess about with that and see what happens

[dearmad]

I think the point is an 1800+ (with a GF4 4400) is 3x their recommendations. FULL details should work for crying out loud. (Which I am).

I'm using Nv'slatest drivers too. I've got it where it'll drop to 20fps on large battles now, but I'm frightened what a really large map would do to the game... I cna't believe it's poor performance.

[Mahdimael]

There must be something wrong with your computer...I have a slightly slower (athlon 1400, gf4 4200) computer and it runs silky smooth. I also have about a gig of ram, which may be a difference maker