HeavenGames Preview: More on Cities

[tniem]

Preview located at: http://www.heavengames.com/ads/e3-20...preview1.shtml

It of course has a lot of talk about combat. Explaining the impressive battles and how flanking works, just like all the previews. But it goes further on cities than I have seen before.

It goes on for three pages about all that cities do in the game. They expand the borders, provide where you can get resources, allow buildings to be built within the city radius, expand your unit limit, and research new technologies. The article indicated that each city would have a limit to how many and what type of buildings could be built within its radius. So there will be a limit on building 5 barracks so that you can produce five of the same unit type at the same time at lease in the early game.

Heaven games says that,

Cities are hugely important and most major battles revolve around the capturing or defending of cities. Because national borders, resource collection buildings and the population limit are all tied to cities, if you lose a city to an invading army, you lose quite a bit of power. Attacks that focus on eliminating resource collection buildings can hurt somewhat but attacks that capture a city can spell doom for the losing player.

Apparently to take a city you give it damage like any other building but that it can't be destroyed. Once the hit point value of the city is to 0, whoever has more units in the city radius gets control of the city. If you are the invader you have to control the city for 2 to 4 minutes (depending on game settings) to begin to use it for your own plans.

The final tidbit that I found interesting was that to win a conquest game you will have to take the capital (the first city in an empire) and hold it for 3 to 5 minutes (again depending on game settings).

They close with:

Although at first glance, RoN looks similar to other rts games, it is actually, a very innovative and unique game with many features that cannot be found in any other rts game on the market. RoN already looked very polished at E3, almost a year before its scheduled release date. We had a great time playing RoN at E3 and I predict that many others will find RoN as much fun as we did.

One of the best previews I have read. Take a look at share your thoughts and favorite passages.

[playshogi]

Well, they say that in order to build another city you have to research civics. Since there are 8 ages you can at most build 8 cities. (You can capture more, of course). However, I also read (somewhere) that in order to advance an age you must research 2 techs. So, presumably if in the first age you research military and science, you won't be able to build a 2nd city in the 2nd age. It may be that they are getting away from a tech tree like the Civ series with named techs, in favor of generic military 1 up to military 8 and so on. Also, means hard choices early on with lots of strategies available especially if traded tech isn't possible.

[One_Dead_Villy]

would be possible to actually destopry a city if u really really wanted to? :-)

[playshogi]

The review said clearly that cities cannot be destroyed. Why would you want to anyway since they are the source of all power in the game.

[Rohag]

Angel Spineman’s article is interesting and enlightening. I’m generally encouraged by his impressions. RoN seems to be shaping up to be far more the game I had hoped Empire Earth would be.

Nevertheless, I have a few potential concerns (I say “potential” because RoN is still in development, and the Angel’s great article is based on a relative handful of games at E3).

…attacks that capture a city can spell doom for the losing player.

Concern: Are cities so important that losing even one functionally decides the game?

Thunder took a different approach to his games. Since he played the second day, he noticed that when a player reached the gunpowder age first, there was a significant advantage to be had while you had Arquebusiers and Bombards while the defender had no gunpowder units. So Thunder concentrated all efforts on reaching the gunpowder age first and during the early ages, he built the units that would eventually upgrade to Arquebusiers so when he finally reached the gunpowder age, one simple upgrade turned his units into a strong offensive force which he used to quickly invade and defeat his opponents.

Concern: Will “history according to RoN” pivot on this one discovery – gunpowder? Is that consistent with BHG’s vision of a game winnable by many different paths?

In the end, Thunder was able to beat Brian to the gunpowder age and because of his superior economy, was able to stream a constant supply of troops into Brian's territory… Thunder was ultimately able to capture Brian's capital city while almost completely wiping Brian off the map by continually adding fresh troops to his advancing army.

Concern: RoN features elements that are supposed to enhance the tactical sophistication of combat, such as unit flanks, but “constant stream of troops” sounds like most other RTS games.

RoN should appeal to as wide a range of gamers as possible to ensure its success. Reading these accounts of the E3 games, I’ve no doubt the keen, every-second-counts types will be happy. That’s great; I admire their skill and wouldn’t deny them their fun. It would be nice, however, to see accounts of other RoN setups* allowing for more deliberation-friendly games for the reflex-challenged.

* For example, in GameSpy’s March 2002 preview they mentioned it would be possible to adjust the attrition rates, allowing them to be set high enough to doom all but the most well-prepared invasions.

[tniem]

Rohag,

Lots of good points. I think most of your concerns have to be shared by most of us in how we view the developement of RoN and come up with some solutions. Just a couple quick points on your concerns.

Originally posted by Rohag
Concern: Are cities so important that losing even one functionally decides the game?

I see this both ways. Yes, you should be able to recover from losing one city - especially if the game lasts the span of time. There is no way one city is it. However, on a smaller scale with time going much faster than real history, than losing a city is like losing an eighth of your country for a century. That is devasting. You probably shouldn't be able to recover on a small map with those odds.

Concern: Will “history according to RoN” pivot on this one discovery – gunpowder? Is that consistent with BHG’s vision of a game winnable by many different paths?

Again, I think this has to do with scale. Most new weapon technologies led to large scale conquests (iron, chariots, warships, tank warfare to name a few) and so having a new technology should allow a huge advantage on the war field. But if the game is long enough on a big enough map, that advantage should be overcome and the conquests should be repealed like they were over time in Mesopatamia, Europe, and Asia.

Concern: RoN features elements that are supposed to enhance the tactical sophistication of combat, such as unit flanks, but “constant stream of troops” sounds like most other RTS games.

Agreed. Maybe the AI automatically does some manuvering of troops for you automatically if you don't. Otherwise this does worry me.


But like I said, many of your concerns need to be examined by BHG as to the strategic elements in them.

[Rohag]

Tniem, thanks for reminding me about issues of scale and time compression; I don’t think I considered them in my initial reading of the article.

Of course, I wouldn’t expect a game of history-spanning scope to use anything but a flexible time scale – unless 1) I were confident I could handle the 20th century in a few seconds, or 2) were able to bequeath my in-progress saved game to my children and grandchildren!

One of my favorite passages on wargaming comes from H.G. Wells’ classic Little Wars (1913):

How much better is this amiable miniature than the Real Thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster—and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies…

Accumulating victory or disaster – that’s the focus of my fun and concern. It’s fun to exercise hindsight in thinking about a played game’s turning point(s). If, however, game mechanics were such that the player always knew in advance what the critical point would be, I feel it would tend to limit strategies and hasten boredom.

RoN seems to be very promising in that regard, and I realize my concerns turn on very little evidence. Oh, to have a beta in my hands…

[One_Dead_Villy]

>2) bequeath my in-progress saved game to my children and grandchildren!


LOL too funny!

Yes I agree with you but there can be too fine a line between a bad situation that is recoverable and one that isnt also. So that it becomes too predictable or on the reverse not predictable at all (if you know what I mean).

Like in AOK or most of the other RTS's when you are playing conquest victory. There is still hope if you have strong allies, that if you get yourself taken out, but you run your villagers off you can recover, and at least contribute to your allies sucess. If you can not build outside of your borders or in an allies border this would be impossible, and not very fun in some cases. Cause I have seen some great reramping and recoveries in my time. There should be some allowances for that, so that maybe you can at least build on neutral territory or an allies area under certain conditions. Regardless SOME way to recover from an almost total lost.