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If you've looked at the screenshots, the first question you might have asked yourself is: "How is this any different from other RTSs, particularly Age of Kings?" Let's clear the air -- it isn't ... at least not in a way that immediately hits you over the head with a big stick. But it's precisely the ways (some of them subtly important) that RON pushes the RTS genre forward that deserves your attention.
If you've been a long-time Brian Reynolds fan, you'll recall that he had pivotal roles in the Civ., Gettysburg!, and Alpa Centauri lines. What you might not know is that Brian Reynolds himself was a member (somewhat honorary but still active and surprisingly good) of a leading RTS clan (Darq) back when Age of Kings was popular.
I recall watching one of the save games in which he played a 3 X 3 against another clan. I was particularly interested to see how this gaming guru would approach an RTS when most of what his company had done was TBS (keep in mind, of course, that Gettysburg! was an RTS -- an important point later in the discussion).
Brian did two things in that game that stand out in my mind to this day: He collected all the relics, which give your civ more money throughout the game, and he crafted a 'healing zone' back at home such that he'd run out with an army of seemingly carefully chosen units, do his bit of killing, and run them back to the safe confines of his base where a number of priests stood waiting to heal the wounds. Then out he'd go again.
The result?
Brian had collected the most gold while losing the fewest units. If that sounds like strategy ... it was! As in most on-line games, not much teamwork is guaranteed as 2x2s become 2 separate 1v1s, etc. This 3x3 wasn't much different as each player took on his on opponent separately for the most part. So as Brian's partners on the flanks took on the corner opponents, he employed his strategy in the middle, effectively driving the other guy crazy as Brian not once did the standard "send a random blob on units to the enemy camp and hope you win" thing. He was patient. Crafty. Aware of the often-ignored relics' impact on the overall gold collection. He also became the Bank of Reynolds in the late-game and was the source of money gifts to his partners that greatly aided their victory.
As I watched this, I thought to myself: Wow, I wonder what would happen if Brian made an RTS like this? Clearly he enjoyed the genre, Age of Kings in particular, because here was one of the industry's top developers joining an RTS clan and doing some uniquely strategic things on-line! Well, with Rise of Nations, now we know what he would do if he made an RTS game!!!
I believe that Brian's style of play showed more subtlety and deliberate thinking than most RTSs encourage, so with RON we see a fully realized version of an RTS that encourages (but doesn't demand) more nuanced thinking, planning and execution. We also see the integration of some of the best elements of Civ. (less so), Alpha Centauri (significantly) and Gettysburg! (significantly).
So what are these elements that make RON a 'must-buy' game even if you are tired of RTS or hate RTSs entirely? Glad you asked:
BORDERS
Taken straight from Alpha Centauri, the implementation of borders in RON stylishly represents, in my opinion, RON's single greatest addition to the RTS genre. As you might guess, borders signify the edge of an empire's territory, and in this case you simply can't build anything if it isn't your land you're building on!
If you are new to RTS, this might seem a trivial matter. But believe me, RTSs have been plagued by players 'pushing' buildings right on top of you. In Age of Kings, the Town Center Push brought great calamity to the community. Nothing stopped a person from building a Town Center *right next* to your own Town Center or other resource-gathering units. You'd then garrison peons in the TC *presto* arrows start killing you ... in the first few minutes of the game!
Many games have tried to tackle this problem with things like not being able to build something beyond a certain distance of another of your buildings, but players would simply build an insignificant building as far forward as possible and leap frog.
RON's borders completely and elegantly solves this problem! And that's just the military implications. Borders have even deeper significance as well.
Since you can't build anything outside your borders, this includes resource-gathering buildings. So if you want that lumber, that metal, that oil, etc...guess what? It needs to be inside your borders. Here again the strategic implications are profoundly important for this genre: it is no longer a matter of scouting the map, finding a resource, and flocking a stream of peons over there to immediately get at them. The entire map is *not* your playground in RON. If you want those resources, you've got to expand your borders.
Expanding, too, is not a simple matter of plunking down a building and moving on. New cities cannot be placed too closely to existing ones, for example, which means you can't simply turtle up and churn out culture points. You've got to stick your neck out, ever closer to the enemy, and constantly maintain map awareness as that shiny new city on the frontier is now open to effective enemy raids. So, expansion is no longer taken for granted ... it's earned and, quite frankly, demanding in interesting strategic ways. The first of many themes...
ATTRITION/SUPPLY LINE
Adding to a border’s significance in a clever and 'realistic' way is the introduction of attrition, which only affects your units on enemy land. This affect is lessened if you have a supply line unit along; this unit is only available with the proper techs, of course.
This nifty addition pounds home the message in case you missed it: unless you expand your borders, don't expect to win by the age-old 'mass and mop up' strategies.
RESOURCE GATHERING
In order to expand those borders, you need to be pressing your opponent and building up the tools of progress. To do that, you need resources. Some of these are what you'd expect: lumber from trees, metal from mountains, etc. Some are novel and taken straight from Civ: spices (more gold), oil (required for some units),--oil doesn't reveal itself on the map until you have the right techs *sound familiar?* etc.
With most RTSs, you'd locate a resource anywhere on the map (no borders) and simply flood that resource with as many peons as you could pump out. The only limitation in those games to resource gathering rates (beyond the huge pop limit, of course) was the actual physical limitations presented by dozens upon dozens of tiny peons bumping into each other. But even here the answer on cheaper resources such as wood was to build another wood camp a partial screen over and repeat. This model of resource gathering encouraged and rewarded players who could pump out the most peons the fastest.
In RON, however, your ability to gather resources is much more limited and, therefore, strategically important. With wood, for example, a wood camp highlights a section of forest that can be harvested, and the size of that section determines absolutely how many workers can be assigned. Past that number and any peon assigned there is wasted. The implication? You've got to command more real-estate, which means you've got to always worry about those borders. The theme here is becoming clear ...
Of course, if a given resource is rarer than wood, the borders + assignment limits model creates more incentive to plan ahead and guard strategic map locations as if your life depends on it (in game terms, it does!). Consider metal, for example. While not a rare element, it can only be harvested from mountains. Mountains, as you might guess, don't grow on trees! Therefore, the few mountains in your initial plot of land are important strategically, particularly considering that they are often a bit more remotely located and prone to enemy raids if you don't establish some minimal defense systems.
Imagine then the importance of something like oil, which only appears with the requisite techs and is the only way you'll get certain units off and moving. If you haven't done your expanding and don't have any oil in your borders, party's almost over! Oh, and don't forget that vital resource that makes its debut in RON: Knowledge! Yes, gone are the days when brutes alone rule the landscape. If you aren't stocking your universities with scholars, might as well quit! Knowledge points are your key to advancing in any number of technologies, and while these are gathered automatically at schools at a rate dependent on the number of limited scholar slots you fill, it adds to the sense that thinking is somehow just as important as fighting.
Again, in most RTSs, you've only got wood, gold, and stone (or something similarly basic) to gather, and these can be gathered anywhere on the map with almost any number of peons you can throw at it. I think you can see that RONs system brilliantly answers those problems, the result of which being that every square of the map and every placement of your workers has profoundly more strategic significance with significantly less clicking. Remember, after all, that in many RTSs you are encouraged to slop workers this way and that, exponentially adding to the clutter and time needed to manage it all. RON's system is much, much cleaner, less time-demanding, and strategically more important all at the same time. Another theme is developing...
FORMATIONS/FLANKS/GENERALS
On the military side, and in tribute to the beautiful Gettysburg! game, RON makes formations, flanks and generals a decisive element of victory for the savvy player. Most every RTS boasts formations, of course, but they don't really matter. Most battle in those games denigrate to a confusing mob of units ... all things being equal, the best stats in numerical superiority wins. Heck, with enough units of most any sort, you could fare well by just massing at the enemy.
While RON might seem the same in this regard, that's likely only because many RTS players didn't play Gettysburg! and are, therefore, unfamiliar still with the potential here. In RON, turning your flank to the enemy really penalizes you, but the interface (just as with Gettysburg!) beautifully allows not only the formations but also facings to be set with little or no hassle.
Now add in your army general and things become very interesting. Like a 'hero' in other RTSs, the general gives nearby units unique abilities, such as entrenchment and forced march. For the first time in an RTS (besides Gettysburg!), a strategic thinker can setup ambushes, dig in on key locations, etc., and really make a nightmare scenario on the enemy player who is used to simply massing units and throwing them at you. In RON, even if you are behind in some stats and overall unit numbers, your better generalship of units can and will make the difference against the typical click-fest opponent. Brains, while not more important than brawn, finally has an important (if easy to overlook at first) home in an RTS! Call this 'Theme 3' in the Yin preview...
TRADE/CROSSING WATER
You might wonder why I put these two together, but they share a common (and much needed) simplicity: Your caravans will *automatically* find an open trade route and use them! And, really, the "s" on the end of caravans is misleading. In most RTSs that have trade, you can (as with workers) simply pump out tons of them, setting them with waypoints, to given locations. This again rewards the click-fester and the 'fill all pixels of the map with something' mentality plaguing many games of this sort. In RON, a single caravan is allowed for a route between two cities ... and once he's produced, you can forget about him unless, of course, he gets killed. Oh, and he certainly will be a conspicuous target since trade is a vital source of income, all pinned on this single unit (or limited number of units as you add cities). Recall, also, the caravans in Civ.! God, what a mess with tons of those things on the map. Micro-management nightmare solved!
Similarly for crossing water with units. In a typical RTS, you've got to go through many steps to do this: make a boat, load units on boat, move boat to other side, click said units off boat, etc. In RON, if you've got the right tech, your units simply cross the water on their own! Well, while on water they are replaced with a boat icon that simply goes to the other side and units become units again on land.
The strategic implications here are clear: in Age of Kings, for example, you have a lot more time to prepare for an enemy crossing when you see him getting boats ready, etc. But just as important is the simplicity of this model: Got the tech? Good. Now you don't have to click a dozen times needlessly to perform something simple. A final and important RON theme...
SUMMARY
While I could go on here, I'd sum up RON like this: Far more strategic possibility with far less *physical* work. You do not need to be a speed demon to play well in RON (yes, speed still helps), but pure speed with little or no strategic consideration to the items above will mean that even a slower but more actively *thinking* player can beat you. Rejoice!
The major themes above, again, play this out:
1. Expansion isn't some automatic benefit of swamping the map with as many units as you can squeeze on the map. Not only are you limited by how many workers can be on any given work spot at a time, but the population limit (200) itself insures that between workers, scholars, caravans, merchants and soldiers that you'll find yourself in a delicate balancing act between pushing for expansion and being able to defend what you've just expanded.
2. But 'mass and mop' up strategies are no longer as powerful as they used to be. Attrition ensures that your forays into enemy territory had better be part of a larger plan unless, of course, you don't mind your units taking constant damage for simply being on foreign soil...
3. Resource gathering now plays with much greater intelligence with much less trouble. More thinking and planning, less clicking and map clutter.
4. Formations, flanks and generals all mean that careful deployment and unit order can make a difference. You can even ambush if you plan things well...
5. A number of heretofore time-intensive tasks (trade, crossing water) have all been made automatic. If you have the tech, simply produce the units and forget about the other details. Even farms, which had to be individually reseeded in Age of Kings or queued up in the granary, are automatically tended to here. As long as the enemy doesn’t kill that farmer, that farm will produce for the entire game with no more thought from you.
CONCLUSION
All that is to say that RON is a tried and true RTS that has seen to it that you're given more time (that is, less trivial work) to tend to the added strategic depth such things as borders, generals and so forth provide.
But could you play RON essentially as you have played other RTSs? Sure. Nobody is requiring you to use general effectively, for example. But would a player with a much finer sense of subtlety, planning and executive hand your head back to you on a platter if you ignore all these new elements? Absolutely! And as players learn these fine points, I think we'll begin to see the true genius at Big Huge Games that is bringing something tremendously important to the RTS genre: Strategy! Yes, the "S" in RTS is often called "speed" instead, but RON --even if it doesn't eliminate the importance of speed-- brings the "s"trategy in more focus than any other RTS I have played.
I suppose the real questions are these: Are you burned out on the genre already? If so, are you willing to take advantage of these new elements and discover a fuller (though not radically different) RTS experience? If you are willing, RON will renew your faith in the genre. If not, the things RON has to offer are the things you will ignore.
Are you a hard-core TBSer who, for any number of reasons (kids, yelling wife, busy work, etc.) can't afford the time to sit at a game for an hour at a time --forget on-line!-- and deal with a stream of game demands (even if comparatively lessened) in real-time? Then RON will not be for you. It is *not* a TBS by any stretch of the imagination.
All this said, I think it was ballsy of BHG to dare enter into a tired and over-done RTS market with the guts to think they could make a difference. On paper, there's no doubt they have. Future games will steal from RON in many, many ways, I assure you. But only time will tell if enough of the jaded RTSers and enough of the guarded TBSers will give the game the chance it richly deserves.
-=YIN=-
P.S. As for the graphics, I think they are wonderfully animated. The entire scene has a truly organic feel to it. Sure, these are not the best graphics on the market from a whiz-bang perspective, but they are fast graphics (zoom in and out is instantaneous, etc.) that are full of wonderful details in their own right. Another nod in the TBS direction that doesn't try to force you to spend $300 on computer upgrades just to play!
If you've been a long-time Brian Reynolds fan, you'll recall that he had pivotal roles in the Civ., Gettysburg!, and Alpa Centauri lines. What you might not know is that Brian Reynolds himself was a member (somewhat honorary but still active and surprisingly good) of a leading RTS clan (Darq) back when Age of Kings was popular.
I recall watching one of the save games in which he played a 3 X 3 against another clan. I was particularly interested to see how this gaming guru would approach an RTS when most of what his company had done was TBS (keep in mind, of course, that Gettysburg! was an RTS -- an important point later in the discussion).
Brian did two things in that game that stand out in my mind to this day: He collected all the relics, which give your civ more money throughout the game, and he crafted a 'healing zone' back at home such that he'd run out with an army of seemingly carefully chosen units, do his bit of killing, and run them back to the safe confines of his base where a number of priests stood waiting to heal the wounds. Then out he'd go again.
The result?
Brian had collected the most gold while losing the fewest units. If that sounds like strategy ... it was! As in most on-line games, not much teamwork is guaranteed as 2x2s become 2 separate 1v1s, etc. This 3x3 wasn't much different as each player took on his on opponent separately for the most part. So as Brian's partners on the flanks took on the corner opponents, he employed his strategy in the middle, effectively driving the other guy crazy as Brian not once did the standard "send a random blob on units to the enemy camp and hope you win" thing. He was patient. Crafty. Aware of the often-ignored relics' impact on the overall gold collection. He also became the Bank of Reynolds in the late-game and was the source of money gifts to his partners that greatly aided their victory.
As I watched this, I thought to myself: Wow, I wonder what would happen if Brian made an RTS like this? Clearly he enjoyed the genre, Age of Kings in particular, because here was one of the industry's top developers joining an RTS clan and doing some uniquely strategic things on-line! Well, with Rise of Nations, now we know what he would do if he made an RTS game!!!
I believe that Brian's style of play showed more subtlety and deliberate thinking than most RTSs encourage, so with RON we see a fully realized version of an RTS that encourages (but doesn't demand) more nuanced thinking, planning and execution. We also see the integration of some of the best elements of Civ. (less so), Alpha Centauri (significantly) and Gettysburg! (significantly).
So what are these elements that make RON a 'must-buy' game even if you are tired of RTS or hate RTSs entirely? Glad you asked:
BORDERS
Taken straight from Alpha Centauri, the implementation of borders in RON stylishly represents, in my opinion, RON's single greatest addition to the RTS genre. As you might guess, borders signify the edge of an empire's territory, and in this case you simply can't build anything if it isn't your land you're building on!
If you are new to RTS, this might seem a trivial matter. But believe me, RTSs have been plagued by players 'pushing' buildings right on top of you. In Age of Kings, the Town Center Push brought great calamity to the community. Nothing stopped a person from building a Town Center *right next* to your own Town Center or other resource-gathering units. You'd then garrison peons in the TC *presto* arrows start killing you ... in the first few minutes of the game!
Many games have tried to tackle this problem with things like not being able to build something beyond a certain distance of another of your buildings, but players would simply build an insignificant building as far forward as possible and leap frog.
RON's borders completely and elegantly solves this problem! And that's just the military implications. Borders have even deeper significance as well.
Since you can't build anything outside your borders, this includes resource-gathering buildings. So if you want that lumber, that metal, that oil, etc...guess what? It needs to be inside your borders. Here again the strategic implications are profoundly important for this genre: it is no longer a matter of scouting the map, finding a resource, and flocking a stream of peons over there to immediately get at them. The entire map is *not* your playground in RON. If you want those resources, you've got to expand your borders.
Expanding, too, is not a simple matter of plunking down a building and moving on. New cities cannot be placed too closely to existing ones, for example, which means you can't simply turtle up and churn out culture points. You've got to stick your neck out, ever closer to the enemy, and constantly maintain map awareness as that shiny new city on the frontier is now open to effective enemy raids. So, expansion is no longer taken for granted ... it's earned and, quite frankly, demanding in interesting strategic ways. The first of many themes...
ATTRITION/SUPPLY LINE
Adding to a border’s significance in a clever and 'realistic' way is the introduction of attrition, which only affects your units on enemy land. This affect is lessened if you have a supply line unit along; this unit is only available with the proper techs, of course.
This nifty addition pounds home the message in case you missed it: unless you expand your borders, don't expect to win by the age-old 'mass and mop up' strategies.
RESOURCE GATHERING
In order to expand those borders, you need to be pressing your opponent and building up the tools of progress. To do that, you need resources. Some of these are what you'd expect: lumber from trees, metal from mountains, etc. Some are novel and taken straight from Civ: spices (more gold), oil (required for some units),--oil doesn't reveal itself on the map until you have the right techs *sound familiar?* etc.
With most RTSs, you'd locate a resource anywhere on the map (no borders) and simply flood that resource with as many peons as you could pump out. The only limitation in those games to resource gathering rates (beyond the huge pop limit, of course) was the actual physical limitations presented by dozens upon dozens of tiny peons bumping into each other. But even here the answer on cheaper resources such as wood was to build another wood camp a partial screen over and repeat. This model of resource gathering encouraged and rewarded players who could pump out the most peons the fastest.
In RON, however, your ability to gather resources is much more limited and, therefore, strategically important. With wood, for example, a wood camp highlights a section of forest that can be harvested, and the size of that section determines absolutely how many workers can be assigned. Past that number and any peon assigned there is wasted. The implication? You've got to command more real-estate, which means you've got to always worry about those borders. The theme here is becoming clear ...
Of course, if a given resource is rarer than wood, the borders + assignment limits model creates more incentive to plan ahead and guard strategic map locations as if your life depends on it (in game terms, it does!). Consider metal, for example. While not a rare element, it can only be harvested from mountains. Mountains, as you might guess, don't grow on trees! Therefore, the few mountains in your initial plot of land are important strategically, particularly considering that they are often a bit more remotely located and prone to enemy raids if you don't establish some minimal defense systems.
Imagine then the importance of something like oil, which only appears with the requisite techs and is the only way you'll get certain units off and moving. If you haven't done your expanding and don't have any oil in your borders, party's almost over! Oh, and don't forget that vital resource that makes its debut in RON: Knowledge! Yes, gone are the days when brutes alone rule the landscape. If you aren't stocking your universities with scholars, might as well quit! Knowledge points are your key to advancing in any number of technologies, and while these are gathered automatically at schools at a rate dependent on the number of limited scholar slots you fill, it adds to the sense that thinking is somehow just as important as fighting.
Again, in most RTSs, you've only got wood, gold, and stone (or something similarly basic) to gather, and these can be gathered anywhere on the map with almost any number of peons you can throw at it. I think you can see that RONs system brilliantly answers those problems, the result of which being that every square of the map and every placement of your workers has profoundly more strategic significance with significantly less clicking. Remember, after all, that in many RTSs you are encouraged to slop workers this way and that, exponentially adding to the clutter and time needed to manage it all. RON's system is much, much cleaner, less time-demanding, and strategically more important all at the same time. Another theme is developing...
FORMATIONS/FLANKS/GENERALS
On the military side, and in tribute to the beautiful Gettysburg! game, RON makes formations, flanks and generals a decisive element of victory for the savvy player. Most every RTS boasts formations, of course, but they don't really matter. Most battle in those games denigrate to a confusing mob of units ... all things being equal, the best stats in numerical superiority wins. Heck, with enough units of most any sort, you could fare well by just massing at the enemy.
While RON might seem the same in this regard, that's likely only because many RTS players didn't play Gettysburg! and are, therefore, unfamiliar still with the potential here. In RON, turning your flank to the enemy really penalizes you, but the interface (just as with Gettysburg!) beautifully allows not only the formations but also facings to be set with little or no hassle.
Now add in your army general and things become very interesting. Like a 'hero' in other RTSs, the general gives nearby units unique abilities, such as entrenchment and forced march. For the first time in an RTS (besides Gettysburg!), a strategic thinker can setup ambushes, dig in on key locations, etc., and really make a nightmare scenario on the enemy player who is used to simply massing units and throwing them at you. In RON, even if you are behind in some stats and overall unit numbers, your better generalship of units can and will make the difference against the typical click-fest opponent. Brains, while not more important than brawn, finally has an important (if easy to overlook at first) home in an RTS! Call this 'Theme 3' in the Yin preview...
TRADE/CROSSING WATER
You might wonder why I put these two together, but they share a common (and much needed) simplicity: Your caravans will *automatically* find an open trade route and use them! And, really, the "s" on the end of caravans is misleading. In most RTSs that have trade, you can (as with workers) simply pump out tons of them, setting them with waypoints, to given locations. This again rewards the click-fester and the 'fill all pixels of the map with something' mentality plaguing many games of this sort. In RON, a single caravan is allowed for a route between two cities ... and once he's produced, you can forget about him unless, of course, he gets killed. Oh, and he certainly will be a conspicuous target since trade is a vital source of income, all pinned on this single unit (or limited number of units as you add cities). Recall, also, the caravans in Civ.! God, what a mess with tons of those things on the map. Micro-management nightmare solved!
Similarly for crossing water with units. In a typical RTS, you've got to go through many steps to do this: make a boat, load units on boat, move boat to other side, click said units off boat, etc. In RON, if you've got the right tech, your units simply cross the water on their own! Well, while on water they are replaced with a boat icon that simply goes to the other side and units become units again on land.
The strategic implications here are clear: in Age of Kings, for example, you have a lot more time to prepare for an enemy crossing when you see him getting boats ready, etc. But just as important is the simplicity of this model: Got the tech? Good. Now you don't have to click a dozen times needlessly to perform something simple. A final and important RON theme...
SUMMARY
While I could go on here, I'd sum up RON like this: Far more strategic possibility with far less *physical* work. You do not need to be a speed demon to play well in RON (yes, speed still helps), but pure speed with little or no strategic consideration to the items above will mean that even a slower but more actively *thinking* player can beat you. Rejoice!
The major themes above, again, play this out:
1. Expansion isn't some automatic benefit of swamping the map with as many units as you can squeeze on the map. Not only are you limited by how many workers can be on any given work spot at a time, but the population limit (200) itself insures that between workers, scholars, caravans, merchants and soldiers that you'll find yourself in a delicate balancing act between pushing for expansion and being able to defend what you've just expanded.
2. But 'mass and mop' up strategies are no longer as powerful as they used to be. Attrition ensures that your forays into enemy territory had better be part of a larger plan unless, of course, you don't mind your units taking constant damage for simply being on foreign soil...
3. Resource gathering now plays with much greater intelligence with much less trouble. More thinking and planning, less clicking and map clutter.
4. Formations, flanks and generals all mean that careful deployment and unit order can make a difference. You can even ambush if you plan things well...
5. A number of heretofore time-intensive tasks (trade, crossing water) have all been made automatic. If you have the tech, simply produce the units and forget about the other details. Even farms, which had to be individually reseeded in Age of Kings or queued up in the granary, are automatically tended to here. As long as the enemy doesn’t kill that farmer, that farm will produce for the entire game with no more thought from you.
CONCLUSION
All that is to say that RON is a tried and true RTS that has seen to it that you're given more time (that is, less trivial work) to tend to the added strategic depth such things as borders, generals and so forth provide.
But could you play RON essentially as you have played other RTSs? Sure. Nobody is requiring you to use general effectively, for example. But would a player with a much finer sense of subtlety, planning and executive hand your head back to you on a platter if you ignore all these new elements? Absolutely! And as players learn these fine points, I think we'll begin to see the true genius at Big Huge Games that is bringing something tremendously important to the RTS genre: Strategy! Yes, the "S" in RTS is often called "speed" instead, but RON --even if it doesn't eliminate the importance of speed-- brings the "s"trategy in more focus than any other RTS I have played.
I suppose the real questions are these: Are you burned out on the genre already? If so, are you willing to take advantage of these new elements and discover a fuller (though not radically different) RTS experience? If you are willing, RON will renew your faith in the genre. If not, the things RON has to offer are the things you will ignore.
Are you a hard-core TBSer who, for any number of reasons (kids, yelling wife, busy work, etc.) can't afford the time to sit at a game for an hour at a time --forget on-line!-- and deal with a stream of game demands (even if comparatively lessened) in real-time? Then RON will not be for you. It is *not* a TBS by any stretch of the imagination.
All this said, I think it was ballsy of BHG to dare enter into a tired and over-done RTS market with the guts to think they could make a difference. On paper, there's no doubt they have. Future games will steal from RON in many, many ways, I assure you. But only time will tell if enough of the jaded RTSers and enough of the guarded TBSers will give the game the chance it richly deserves.
-=YIN=-
P.S. As for the graphics, I think they are wonderfully animated. The entire scene has a truly organic feel to it. Sure, these are not the best graphics on the market from a whiz-bang perspective, but they are fast graphics (zoom in and out is instantaneous, etc.) that are full of wonderful details in their own right. Another nod in the TBS direction that doesn't try to force you to spend $300 on computer upgrades just to play!
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