Timeflow

[MrFun]

How do the centuries go by in Ron?

I am the type of player that likes to play in each era for a good amount of time, not eras that go by quickly. I want time to enjoy using each era's technologies and units and feel that I'm playing an in-depth game, not something that will reach the last historical era in a couple of hours.

Since I have not bought RoN yet, what is the timeflow in the game like?

[Signa]

"The whole of history on your lunch break" is one of their advertising points.

It's not like Civ2/3 where you may spend days (litterally 24hours) on games. At Ron you spend around an hour.

The game is divided into ages:

I Ancient
II Classical
III Medieval
IV Gunpowder
V Enlightnentment
VI Industrial
VII Modern
VIII Information

and a quasi-Future age at the end

Each age lasts from five to ten minutes, depending upon how you set up the tech prices and research times.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Signa
"The whole of history on your lunch break" is one of their advertising points.

It's not like Civ2/3 where you may spend days (litterally 24hours) on games. At Ron you spend around an hour.

The game is divided into ages:

I Ancient
II Classical
III Medieval
IV Gunpowder
V Enlightnentment
VI Industrial
VII Modern
VIII Information

and a quasi-Future age at the end

Each age lasts from five to ten minutes, depending upon how you set up the tech prices and research times.

Five to ten minutes!?

Where's the fun in using the different military units if they become obsolete before you can utilize them?
If there are no options to lengthen the time, then Empire Earth might be more to my liking.

Too bad that the RTS in RoN could not be implemented with still longer time periods.

[Rohag]

With reference to standard games (not the Conquer the World campaign), the centuries do fly by on the default settings. The game setup options allow you, however, to adjust
1. game speed
2. costs of technology and aging
3. rate of technology and aging research.

I have not personally tried setting the speeds/rates to slowest and costs to highest, but I have read of one-two single-player games that lasted four-to-seven hours. But those are rare and most of mine have lasted 45 to 90 minutes.

In Conquer the World, the grand single-player campaign, the Ancient Age lasts one turn and each subsequent age lasts four turns (if I remember correctly). In each RTS scenario in each turn you can only advance one age. This setup allows you to spend more time with the units and buildings of each age spread out over the course of several turns. I've played through Conquer the World a number of times, and each full campaign involved nine-to-thirteen hours of RTS gameplay (apart from the turn-based portions).

[Adagio]

I play the game on slowest/most expensive tech, and at the default settings, it'll take around 2 hours to finish a game...


But at present time I'm using a mod "Long saga mod", which makes techs take about 10 times as long to research, and they cost about 10 times as usual...

My last game took about 11 hours to finish...



It's also easy to do it self... There's just one small problem that needs to be solved: The AI isn't that good... at 'Toughest' the AI acts like 'Moderate', though I hope we someday will learn how to edit the AI, so we can make it much tougher (Could use some help here BHG )

[Adagio]

Btw, CtW is great also, you just need to change one number in one of the XML files, so it takes more turns between age shifts

[MrFun]

Sounds like RoN is not as great as I thought it would be.

[Carch]

RoN does what it does very well. It's a great RTS.

And it's configurable and moddable to slow it down.

I'm not sure what your objection is...?

[Azrikam]

Coming from a Civ2/SMAC background, I like time to think about what I'm doing. I play with research "slow and expensive", and play on "slow" speed. (switching to very slow as the game gets hectic) Add in liberal use of the Pause button, and games can last quite a long time.

That's one of the great things about RoN. If you want to spend a whole day playing one game, you can. Conversely, you can also finish a game in an hour.

[Azrikam]

Oh yeah, I also play "Conquest" when I want a longer game, and disable wonder and territory wins.

[Signa]

The only problem with Conquest is it MIGHT stalmate at the end of the game as everyone gets the same tech (therefor same units and hard to conquer) and all the endgamers so they offer no advantage.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Carch
RoN does what it does very well. It's a great RTS.

And it's configurable and moddable to slow it down.

I'm not sure what your objection is...?

Where is the fun in using military units if they become obsolete in five or ten minutes as soon as they're available?

I want time to use strategy and tactics with the different military units that come with new technology. I was expecting RoN to implement RTS with longer eras.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by MrFun
Where is the fun in using military units if they become obsolete in five or ten minutes as soon as they're available?

There is no, that's the reason why we mod the game


And to make ages takes longer only requires little modding in the techrules.XML (Which only needs notepad to be opened)

[Aristos]

TO MR FUN: URGENT

MrFun,

i hope you read this.

IT IS A GREAT GAME. GETTING THE TIME FLOW AS YOU WANT IS JUST A ONE-LINE-ADJUSTMENT, IN one of the game's files. That's right, one single line. It is a line that sets the conversion factor for resources; the original game sets it to 10 times; so, if you want to have techs costs three times the original ones, you set this factor to 30. The very same is valid for tech research time, and for other costs also.

So, in few words, GO BUY THE GAME. As soon as you get it, I WILL HELP YOU MODIFY THE FILES SO YOU CAN GET WHAT I'VE GOT: Looong lasting and very very funny eras.

I will wait for you. Good luck,

The Rebel

[solops]

Re: TO MR FUN: URGENT

Originally posted by ricardojahns
MrFun,

i hope you read this.

IT IS A GREAT GAME. GETTING THE TIME FLOW AS YOU WANT IS JUST A ONE-LINE-ADJUSTMENT, IN one of the game's files. That's right, one single line. It is a line that sets the conversion factor for resources; the original game sets it to 10 times; so, if you want to have techs costs three times the original ones, you set this factor to 30. The very same is valid for tech research time, and for other costs also.

OK, so where exactly is the line and item that needs adjusting? And how about the adjustment to slow down tech as well, so that it matches the longer ages? This is a great game, the best I have ever stopped playing, in fact. I am just not interested in an arcade game. But, if someone can detail, in simple, idiot proof words, how and where the time and tech mods are made, I'll jump back into it. I think that this is an issue that a lot of people, the entire CIV/MOO/TOAW crowd probably, is waiting to see addressed in concise form for non-programmers before they embrace what is a remarkable game. I, too, want a strategy game that takes days or weeks to play, not hours.