Thoughts on the strategic stagnation

[Solver]

Jaybe, RoN and Civ 3 are still different genres . Civ is supposed to provide as much depth as possible, while RoN is supposed to provide a middle-point between Civ depth and RTS speed.

[Out4Blood]

That was the point of the post in the first place. Game design limits strategic innovation. Because of the lack of strategic innovation, people have quickly gotten bored of the game. Thus they left.

[Madine]

The most efficient economy wins, which is the way it is now - for the most part.

The way I would define efficient is gather rate per citizen. It's good to have an efficient econ, but I don't think it's a game breaker.

I would agree that having the best-managed economy usually wins, but that is true in many other rts also. In addtion, a big part of rushing successfully is managing your economy to produce your rush force.

Typically in RTS you have three main ways to spend your resources: Improving your economy, building a military, and technology (of some sort or another).

In RON technology is king. It controls how big your population can be as well as how efficient and large your economy can be. The economies in RON exist largely to feed the library. Now that I think about it, the constant need to feed the library might be a big part of the problem.

Regarding the online community, one thing that Microslave posted a while ago on MFO is that BHG doesn't have the name recognition and fan base that an established company like ES or Blizzard has. However the big killer of online gaming is probably the poor matchmaking interface and the connectivity/stability problems.

[Solver]

True, BHG doesn't have a name yet, but that's their first game... and so far, I'm looking for it to have Best Strategy of the Year. MP problems, though... yes, they are really an issue. Using GameSpy is a terrible decision.

So... would you guys consider that RoN is kinda dead?

[Madine]

I wouldn't say it's dead, but it's looking rather sickly.

I think the big questions for RON are:

Will patch 3 resolve the multiplayer problems?

Will there be an expansion, and will that expansion attract people to multiplayer?

[Solver]

I currently am very afraid that RoN might go the way of Empire Earth. Everyone very excited in the first weeks, but then the community shrinking rapidly. Come on, the game's just a few months old!

[HalfLotus]

I think RON's best days are ahead of us.

[Out4Blood]

Originally posted by HalfLotus
I think RON's best days are ahead of us.

No way.

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Madine
Regarding the online community, one thing that Microslave posted a while ago on MFO is that BHG doesn't have the name recognition and fan base that an established company like ES or Blizzard has

RON was published by MICROSOFT. You don't get much bigger than that. Gamespy just doesn't work that well (problem #1) and the game itself is tiresome because of the lack of strategic diversity (problem #2).

Some people call RON a very "deep" game, as in strategic depth. They're just confusing DEPTH with COMPLEXITY. RON is a very complex game. There are a LOT of things you have to manage. But if you want to win against good players, you pretty much have to manage them in the same way everytime. So it's complex, but strategically very limiting. The game structure itself limts what is strategically viable. Chess, on the other hand, is a very SIMPLE game, but one that has very deep strategy. On top of that, the increasing complexity reduces the time available for strategy. The range of viable strategies is further reduced by the high level of micromanagement required for certain actions. What could be a good strategy under ideal conditions might be impossible to execute tactically at normal speed in competitive play conditions, and thus is discarded as a viable alternative.

This is why most recorded games look the same. There are a lot of differences in micro technique, but there are few differences in chosen strategy.

[Terser]

I just bouht RoN a few days ago, having previously played the demo for the first time last week(even though I've had the PCGamer demo CD for months now).

Even having only played a half-dozen games or so I can bear witness to the late game stagnation that haunts this title. Eventually, it just seems like all I do is cycle through barracks, factorys, and airbases, setting production queues and dropping the destination flag in enemy territory. Then, I sit back and watch my armies advance into the maelstrom...

It's truly awesome to look at, and it feels and especially sounds similar to what I imagine a chaotic modern battle must be like. But is there any "strategy" there? I'm afraid that even more than in most RTS games(which are pretty light on strategy to begin with) the answer is a definitive "no".

The problem, I think, is that the modern battles just move too fast and furious for a human player to really lay any kind of long term strategic plan. The fact that strategic resources never run out and that any resource-collecting building that is destroyed can quickly be rebuilt means that there are hardly any lulls in the fighting(such as I remember from my Age of Empires 2 days. This just makes the fighting in the modern eras a slugging match and a war of attrition. More often than not, I give up out of sheer exhaustion or boredom.

Still a great game. Love the variety of special units, and the fact that even generic units look different for the various nations. That's something other games(especially the Civ series) would do well to look at and emulate.

As it stands now, it's not a classic. Patching and an X-pack might change that assessment.

[Buckets]

I read this thread this morning and i've been thinking about it all day. Very insightful, indeed.

It reminds me of this article .

The gist of it is that rock-paper-scissors is a very boring and vacuous game because it is TOO balanced. If all three options are equally viable, there is actually no strategy. So then at least one option must be somehow superior, to start the domino effect of counters.

I think RoN does suffer from overbalancing on both the unit level and the economic level. On the unit level, most nations' special units are really not that special, and no one unit stands out the strongest (except for the hoplite in that one very short age). So, i think for that reason, moreso than ramping, is why armies all look the same. But also for economic resons.

The economy in RoN is overbalanced in two ways: one is the commerce cap. It applies to all resources and is kinda easy to cap out on once you get the hang of it. Which means that you can't focus on one resource and hoard it, you collect everything relatively equally. The other problem is that costs of units and technologies are pretty evenly divided among all the resources meaning that no one resource is more important than the others. For these reasons also, if you do try to focus on building one type of unit, you'll end up with a surplus to spend on other units hence the varied army.

Don't get me wrong here, i think this is a great game. and i think there IS strategy here. But, i also see alot of truth in the original post. There's far too many reasons to blame for the lack of community and far too many fingers to point with, but i think there is something here that could be balanced.

Two things, imho, that could bring some strategy where it lacks:
1. Make the economy more fragile
2. Unbalance the units

Unbalancing the units could be either making the UU's more powerful or choosing one unit (such as HI) and beefing it up some. Or HI, then HC, then tanks by era.

By making the economy more fragile i mean to make raiding a more viable option. Give a bonus to all nations' CA vs attrition. Get rid of 'indestructible' economy like taxation, or the +10 food from cities. Tie taxation to the number of caravans or the number of citizens. Make economic buildings more fragile. Allow scholars to be killed inside universities. Something like that.

Just my 2W.

[Out4Blood]

You make some great points on the economy. I like your ideas. I think you're right. It's very hard to really hurt someone's economy. Even if you capture a city and force all the villagers away, they are still likely to be at cap for more everything aprart from knowledge, of course.

However, I think you're off on the units. The units are WAY unbalanced. Archers can't touch slingers. Slingers get mowed by cav, cav get owned by hoplites. Hoplites get totally fuxored by archers. Even if you come with huge numbers, I can fight you off very cheaply. This is why I think there should be a huge (and I mean very large) cost for the first unit with declining costs from there. This forces real choices in army composition. It also makes rushing a lot more viable, because you can no longer be assured of having sufficient resources stockpiled to make troops. So now you have some immediate strategic choices: make early mil and rush, stockpile resources for potential defense, or pump all into econ.

[Solver]

Out4Blood,

I'd mention another game that you played, which is AoK. Why does AoK, being now 4 years of age, have an online community even bigger than that of RoN? Before Age of Mythology release, it was even bigger.

I could, as a civ player say, that AoK also had little strategic diversity. The two dominating strategies were Feudal rushes with no-gold units and resource towering, or going fast castle and killing the opponent then. The really original strategies, such as KLEW or SMUSH (does that ring a bell ) could only be executed by experts.

In the last year or more, everyone plays Huns, and everyone rushes the same way... does that kill the game? It doesn't. While RoN is, after all the incredibly positive reviews, nearly dead just 4 months after its release.

Although I can't disagree with some of the above points. Units are in such a way that attacks are actually the same.

[Balrok]

I see good points beeing posted here. Yes, I do agree that the Rock/paper/scissors bonuses are too big. and the unique units too. I miss some units that ain't got bonuses and disadvantages, but are overall good and expensive. I feel that when you cavalry should be overall better against footsoldiers. I do not agree in the lack of strategy in the game. what about sending bombers and take out universities and fighters right behind to take out the scholars? or ambush a large, and show a few, then when he to early sends an army to defend his first thought would be "damn, maybe I should have waited, now I have to build a new army". Things like that. It millions of options to avoid the straight forward game. ahh.. stupid thread, but anyway...

[Madine]

What does Microsoft have to do with the online community? Yes they are a well-known publisher. RON's problem is not due to number of copies sold; it sold very well iirc.

Perhaps it would be more correct to say that certain franchises had an established fan base, ie Age series and Warcraft/Starcraft.

I agree that RON is a very complex game. Specifically it's economy is very complex. My general opinion is that 3-4 resource types is about right for a rts, and RON has 6. I thought the RON economy was well designed, and it was refreshing to see something different, but ultimately I think it is too complicated for an RTS game, and takes focus away from the military aspect.

Solver has a good point; there isn't much strategic depth in most rts. I would say there seems to be 3 general strategies to winning rts games: strong early attack (rush), map control, or overwhelming. Of course they are not mutually exclusive.

As far as army composition goes, I think that game mechanics will either encourage a 1-2 unit army, or encourage a diverse army. Which one you would rather see is a matter of personal preference, but you will tend to get one or the other.

I think there are unbalanced units now. Heavy calvary for example tends to do well against everything except it's counter, and it's relatively fast.

I think the comment about the commerce cap forcing economic diversity was right on the money though. I think that is a driving force behind diverse armies. Often what units I build depends largely on what resources I have. Maybe the commerce cap needs to be revised to be global instead of per-unit.

I am not a fan of the fragile economy. I like fights between 2 armies, not fights of 3-4 cavalry units attacking villies.

[HalfLotus]

Originally posted by Out4Blood
No way.

Why do you think this? Basically the only people playing MP right now are the die hard fans who wouldnt leave if someone put a gun to thier head. How can the online community get any smaller? Patch 3 makes MAJOR improvements on gamespy, which should bring back a few folks. The expansion is sure to draw many new players. As soon as Gamespy is fixed right (patch 3) the online community will only grow.