What sucks about Rise of Nations?

[Madine]

Usually with rts AI, you can crank up the difficulty and number of opponents until it is a challenge

Although, other than scenarios, why would you prefer playing AI to playing against other people?

[Rohag]

…why would you prefer playing AI to playing against other people?

Speaking only for myself, sometimes I enjoy playing games (TBS or RTS) as less-competitive solitaire simulations, where I impose arbitrary gameplay limitations on myself in order to engineer a certain kind of quasi-historical situation. Here the recreational goal is not competition or winning, but rather attaining a certain strategic dynamic within the game world. For example, I might deliberately choose not to use my available means for conquest but just to see how long I can keep other powers in the game fighting one another while I play the “balancer.”

This is just another way to enjoy games, though maybe not designer-intended.

[cinch]

I'm a little confused about RON (CTW especially). My initial thought was that you would primarily be looking at a Risk-like world map, with your cities and territories and such. Then, for city management and battles, you would be taken to an RTS-style screen. Basically like Civ, but with real-time battles and production.


I thought that sounded very intriguing, but from what I've been reading lately, I'm not so sure this is the case.

[Bridger]

This game is an RTS first, TBS second. It's not Civ with extras, it's Age of Empires with extras.

You play CTW from a risk like map, and it's only slightly more complicated than risk. There's no economic management involved in this risk map, simply moving armies around, NOTHING else. Then when you go to play a battle you hit the RTS view.