whats the philisophical concept behind this.

[lord of the mark]

Ok i havent followed RON too closely lately, though as some will remember i discussed avidly long before we knew it was RON

AS some will recall i predicted it would be a history flavored RTS with philisophical depth. But i will admit to being surprised at the full historical march through the ages length - i expected a focus on a narrower historical period, not a head on assault on the Civ franchise - (though given what has happened with Civ3 this seems like a wise business decision) At first what i heard made RON sound like Empire earth with some more civish features -but the CTW campaign sounds more like what i would have wanted RON to be - so im optimistic.

What i have not yet heard about is the philisophical deth i associate with a Brian Reynolds design. Civ2 was (as i have explained elsewhere) a "hegelian" game, meant to illustrate the notion of historical forces playing themselves out through various dialectics, resulting in late capitalist democracy as the "end of history" SMAC, by contrast, illustrated Ecological theories and concepts. Both could be fun without focus on the philosophy - yet the phil added something for some of us. They also approached the phil differently - in Smac it was obvious, to the point where there is some controversy about it, and some dont like it (whether they like the game anyway or not) by contrast in civ 2 the philosophy is NOT obvious, and it takes some digging to reveal it (in fact i suppose some of you will still not accept what i have said about it ).

So, from what we know so far, is there an underlying phil at work in RON???

[tniem]

Other than war? :;

In all seriousness, I don't think we will be able to know until we have played it. From what you read about Civ II or SMAC before release would you have guessed at which governments worked best? I don't think I could have.

That said, I think it will be more difficult with RoN. There is not governments. And even in CTW you are not playing a full worldwide map. But I think you may have a solid point but not one that can be seen until we have throughly played the game.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by tniem

That said, I think it will be more difficult with RoN. There is not governments.

No governments?? You mean we wont be able to choose govts like in civ but they will evolve on their own, or no govt types at all? I dont see how you can model the "rise of nations" without modeling internal politics, at least to some degree.

Im concerned again that we have an AOK with a few civish features, not a serious history game.

[Rohag]

I regret missing your early discussions. I imagine all (or almost all) games have features revealing underlying perspectives. Here are a few observations from the Preview Betas that may help get at RoN’s philosophy…

*There are four broad research areas – Military, Civics, Commerce, Science – and eight ages. “Aging up” requires researching two options from any of these categories per age. Theoretically a player could choose to invest in only one or two of these tracks for the whole game, or choose to age up after researching only two per age. Practically I don’t see how a player attempting that could prosper or even survive long. The game just about requires spreading around the research and going beyond the two-per-age minimum.

*Specific government types do not exist in the game (though there have been a few hints at that possibility in the future), but the “Civics” line of research, which has various effects including enhancing the border-pushing effect of cities, might be thought a kind of abstraction of government.

*Brian Reynolds and Tim Train have commented (IIRC) that the ramping costs feature (each subsequent unit of the same type costs a bit more than the previous, and this applies even to civilians), beyond intending to make it harder to stay ahead and easier to catch up, represents the “bureaucratic effect” of larger and larger organizations.

*The more different kinds of buildings you add to a city (not just the number of buildings) increase the hit points of the center and make it harder to capture.

*You must pay resources to declare war; that price seems to increase with the ages. You cannot immediately turn on a nation with which you’ve been allied; you must first downgrade relations to “peace,” hold at that stage for a while, and then you may declare war (I think this is the way it works).

*In single-player games where I’ve made alliances with AI nations, I find my wealth income (generated by trade caravans) suddenly rising. I think the game automatically readjusts the trade routes to include the ally’s cities. Since trade routes/caravans generate wealth according to the length of the route and size of the cities, alliances can be (nearly?) as effective as conquests at increasing your resources (you can use wealth to purchase the other resources – except knowledge).

*RoN’s designers have made the differences between nations significant enough to drive strategy. Some basic gameplay approaches may be generally useful, but players considering the nature of their nation’s strengths and weaknesses will probably do better.

*You have to research the first Science level before you can build a temple, and temples seem to significantly add to the border-pushing effect of cities. (Specific religions are not represented but temples and abstract religious “advancement” do play a part.)

Opinion: RoN is a game with some thoughtful, elegant mechanics; it’s not a geopolitical simulator or “Sim History.” It may easily disappoint those who are looking for that kind of publication. The basic system seems very extensible and it may be possible to modify RoN in various ways to make it more closely approach historical simulation or to mold it in the image of various social, political, economic, and/or religious philosophies.