Which is better...AOE or RON?

[Finarfin]

Personally, I still like Age of Empires, Age of Kings, and Age of Mythology. I'm not saying that they are better than Rise of Nations because I think RoN has taken the best qualities of them all and made a superb game. However, I still play the others as well; it simply depends on what I'm in the mood for. Sometimes I just want to hear a villager say, "Donna he?"

BTW, does anyone know where I can get a mod to allow different population limits in single player Age of Empires, without having to run it multiplayer (no save).

[Cookie Monster]

RoN - #1 RTS game IMHO!

[Ivellios]

I think it's a bit too early to judge, since I only have the game for a week now, but this has a lot of potential to become my favourite RTS of all time .

The game actually rewards using strategy, and that's almost unique for a RTS... especially these days. It also appears to have a solid single player with a very fun campaign and surprisingly good AI.

All in all, I think Rise of Nations is a great game which I will probably still be playing quite a few months from now on. Good work, BHG. Now give us a TBS in the style of Alpha Centauri

[Poogas]

Originally posted by Carch
This is the sign of an awesome game. I keep seeing people asking for stuff that's already there

Ok, so maybe the documentation could stand to be a little better ...

Sigh... yes, ever since the PC gaming industry switched to those smaller boxes I've been noticing smaller and smaller manuals and (Pre packaged) game strategy information.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Poogas
Sigh... yes, ever since the PC gaming industry switched to those smaller boxes I've been noticing smaller and smaller manuals and (Pre packaged) game strategy information.

I haven't... but that's probably because it's been ages since I last read a manual for a game...

[MattH]

Sigh... yes, ever since the PC gaming industry switched to those smaller boxes I've been noticing smaller and smaller manuals and (Pre packaged) game strategy information.

Bah, it's all just a trick to get you to buy the strat guide... I don't mind the boxes too much, there wasn't much room left in the "hall of games".

I haven't... but that's probably because it's been ages since I last read a manual for a game...

I use them for fun bedtime reading . Otherwise I just use poly for all the strats

[niDe]

I play AOK:TC for about 3 years and I can say that RON eats AOK for breakfast...a big, cooked breakfast.

[Caesar Saladus]

Originally posted by Ivellios It also appears to have a solid single player with a very fun campaign

I wish I could comment on that.

My only real major beef with Rise of Nations is that the game is extremely buggy, and the campain does not work for many people (including myself). It has been almost 3 weeks since I bought the game, and I still have not been able to play the campain, and have been waiting for the patch quite a while now with no progress updates in over 2 weeks. It's a bit of a letdown. I'm sure they're doing everything they can, but that still doesn't change the fact that many people have not been able to play the game while owning it for almost a month.

[Jac de Molay]

AoE is a classic, but should be allowed to die a noble death. RoN is the new standard.

[wilebill]

AoE is a classic, but should be allowed to die a noble death.

I predict that AOE will be a lively corpse!

[Agni420]

My vote goes to RON - I have stopped playing all other games since I have started playing RON

[Laughing Mind]

The real question is: is RoN even in the same league as Kohan: Ahriman's Gift?

[Enriquillo]

AoE/RoR has a few advantages over RoN IMO:

* no garrisonable towncenters
* transports
* hunting adds flavor
* smaller interface

AoK adds a few more:

* truly Unique units
* better minimaps (easier to spot resources)
* huge mp community
* crisper/cleaner graphics (2d instead of 3d)

Now RoN is still relatively new, so the mp community will likely grow and get better.
RoN has a lot of great features, I won't even begin to make a list, you all know what I mean.
Ofcourse it's impossible to compare AoE to RoN because of the 5 (?) years gap between 'em. AoE was brilliant but feels hopelessly outdated now, way too much micro involved, awful pathing and stupid villies. AoK is much better and from a military standpoint even better then RoN. Much more diversity.

[Gomer_Pyle]

IMHO RoN is the deepest RTS I've seen. Aside from the Japnese and Mongol rushes there are no well known strats yet. Even experts have not gotten there hands around the game yet. There is so much to explore in this game.

By the same time in it's life, AoM had all sorts of strats and balance issues (first the Greeks were too strong, then RA FH, then Loki rush, then Set's animals) and ES has done an OK job trying to balance these, but the nature of the game for most people is tilted towards playing the "strat du jour".

Don't get me wrong I loved AoM, but RoN just feels so much closer to perfect to me. Never got into AoE because my friend kicked my @ss too many times. Played AoK/AoC, EE, C&C:RA2/Genrals, WC3, Total War series, even Kohan... RoN is by far my favorite RTS at this point.

[Andrew_Jay]

RoN is definately better. While it seems complicated at first, I've realised that it's no harder than AoE/AoK.
They're both solid games, but you can really tell that Bug Huge Games put in the extra effort (i.e. the civ specific 'look' of units, unlike you're Japanese knights you look just like French knights!)

The editor sounds a lot more robust too, funny thing, I just realised last night that RoN is in fact the game I tried to mod AoK into a year ago ago until I was unable to make AoK's resources infinite!