I’m not a codger by any stretch, but then again, I haven’t tried reducing speed or anything like that, so yes, in that sense, I suck. I’m just trying whatever default level there is.
Then again, I do want to play multiplayer and know a few guys that want to set it up… the host has the option of forcing a particular game speed.
— Alan
Lost again on ‘moderate’,but it was again very close,decided by my opponent pulling away a bit in the V-VI ages,and getting nukes well ahead of me.I played this game on the speed notch just below ‘normal’,and it seemed to be a more enjoyable experience.I’d love to know where I’m going wrong,since it seems that every game I fall behind around age V.
It’s odd that I like this game,since I honestly detest RTS games.The main thing that draws me in is that in RoN it really feels like you’re building an empire,and so a sort of emotional link is built with the player.There’s a bit of ‘create your own story’ going on,as in the civ type games,which avoids the sahara-dry gameplay of most of these beasts.
The thing I like least,as others have remarked upon,is the pacing of the ages.It’s hard to get caught up in whatever age you’re in,since you know you’ll be going to the next one in about ten minutes.The battles are graphically remarkable.
I just nuked the Collosseum! :D
Fantastic, amazing, wonderful game. It has the same magic as the first Age of Empires release, except that it’s about 100 times more complex and doesn’t seem to have any of AOE’s initial problems.
Well, this was another Quick Battle on Great Lakes vs one computer player on Moderate, and with the “slow” speed (second setting). This speed setting is just about right, I had time to manage everything but didn’t have to wait for something to do.
That was me as Egyptians vs the English. I noticed that I was swimming in resources up to the point where I needed metal and then oil… getting those was a problem. Two wonders per city are a great bonus, but keeping them once the early age resource bonuses wear off can be a problem. I got lucky because the “Moderate” AI didn’t push its advantage and basically sat there in its border town until I could overpower it. Guess I’ll have to try the next difficulty level…
Funny problem: How do you build an oil platform? There’s no command icon in the game that reads “Oil Platform!” (Shades of the GalCiv interface here…) Eventually I figured that since you don’t need transports for military units, you might not need transports for workers either, and oil platforms are actually built by sending your regular workers to that spot in the lake and letting them build an “oil well”.
Oh, and forget what I said in another thread about how my GeForce 440 MX plays every game well that I want to play. RON gets seriously slow when I’m zoomed out and lots of units crawl across the screen, even at Slow speed. Guess it’s time for a video card upgrade after all…
I have tried the slower speed setting, the second of the four seems best for me. It just seems strange that normal feels so blow the doors off fast. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the animations are definitely geared to run at normal speed, they dont scale well at all. Nitpick maybe, but at least some of why I keep coming back to this chaos is all the neato battle effects.
Anyone know of any places it has hit retail? A guy on the GG boards said he got his today in the mail, from…Dell. I checked a local Walmart because they are notorius for putting stuff out early, no dice. I also hit the Gamestop nearby, and they said in store on May 21.
olaf
Ah ha! Thanks. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure this out. I was expecting an “oil platform” unit that I had to sail out there like a fishing boat, but couldn’t find one anywhere.
Troy
Nukes are great. I was taking on the Brits last night on Medium, and after a dead-heat game for almost an hour and a half, I launched a couple of nukes at Oxford and then sent a column of troops down the middle between his other cities in to capture it. Game over, man.
Seems like you should be required to hold the capitol for a minute or something, rather than the instant win…
Can we quote you on that?
Seems like you should be required to hold the capitol for a minute or something, rather than the instant win…
I’m pretty sure you do have to hold the capital for several minutes before the game ends. However, capturing the capitol (“A building or complex of buildings in which a state legislature meets”) might indeed end the game immediately. I haven’t been able to find that building yet, however, to capture.
p.s. Slim,
There’s a future tech which reads something like, “All victory timers are instantaneous”. Perhaps you’d already researched that before you discovered your love of thermonuclear weapons.
You dare pick on the simple capital/capitol typo on a board where I see the word “rediculous” on a weekly basis? Bah. That one drives me nuts. But do I correct it? No. Because, from the Netiquette guide,
The Spelling Flame
It happens every day. Someone misspells a word in a public message. One or more people absolutely must publicly correct the error. Judging from the number of times this happens, there seem to be millions of high school English teacher wannabes in cyberspace. Ironically, spelling flames nearly always contain spelling errors.
Spelling flames are bad Netiquette. If you feel absolutely compelled to correct someone’s spelling or grammar, do so via private email.
You misspelled “ridiculous”.
I don’t micromanage my battles at all, really. I line my guys up, with heavy infantry in front and light infantry behind, plus a scout, general and supply wagon, and tell them to hold position(very important in medieval and gunpowder, if you’re not micromanaging every unit). That takes care of the cavalry and the close combateers. I have a unit of close combat cavalry standing by to take care of any artillery and missile troops. For sieges, I use the same approach, and just shield my cannon with a line of infantry.
Haven’t tried going online (does the demo allow this? must check), but I can usually beat the AI on tough, and on normal speed. I’ve not messed around with modern a lot, though. I wish I had more time to manage my cities, however.
Does it say anything in the Netiquette guide about where you can order a sense of humor online?
:roll:
Iggy,
Your post was missing any of the requisite smilies, etc. to indicate you were kidding… The level of funniness was just below the threshold of my detection, sorry. 
I was able to play this for about an hour today at E3, and I must admit to being very impressed. I’m sure glad I purchased my copy. I particularly loved the real-time moving boundaries that change depending on your building or capture of a city. Great stuff. Also, Conquer the World mode looks to be the shiznit.
Played around some with the demo and it was fun if a bit frantic. I seem to recall a setting called “Cannon Time” (no doubt a pun about Max Paynes “Bullet Time”) in the scenario setup screen. Tool-tips explains it as a sort of super-slow-speed. Maybe that will make you win those battles after all 8).
Eirik
Dear Journalists,
I’m sorry we weren’t able to get this out sooner, but we wanted to inform you of the varying game speeds available to you in Rise of Nations. They range from ‘very slow,’ ‘slow,’ ‘normal,’ and ‘hot damn you sonuva bitch are you fucking crazy?’ Just kidding. Microsoft would’ve chapped my ass had we named it that, but you should’ve seen what we were calling it in alpha!
Anyways, here’s a simple guide on the speeds for your playing pleasure: ‘Very slow’ is the kind of game speed you would use if you would like to take a nice, relaxed pace, and play at your leisure. An average game played at this speed will last approximately an hour, and plays very muchly along the lines of AoM or AoE.
‘Slow,’ as it’s name indicates, is the less-retarded bastard cousin of ‘very slow.’ He prides himself in not taking as long to play as ‘very slow,’ yet still doesn’t play as fast as some other RTS’s which have insanely short games and blunderingly stupid design decisions which result in assinine tank and light tower rushes (Hi Westwood - We’re looking your way, baby!).
‘Normal’ is the kind of speed you’d play at if you had anything resembling a real gamer mind. I don’t mean to sound elitist, but if you’re a reviewer and can’t fucking figure out that what a speed is labeled and what it actually plays like doesn’t matter, then you should go and start playing DDR and Parappa the Rappa more than you should anything that could be considered an intelligent game.
‘Ludicrously fast’ should only be played by speed freaks and the Japanese.
I hope this short guide helps you to understand how our game speeds will affect your game, and if you have anymore questions, feel free to call Microsoft tech support and wait in their queue so that you really get a sense of perspective as to what slow and fast really are.
Love,
Brian Reynolds
Dear Met_Brian,
Well, I never!
You know the parody was all in good fun. I’ll be the first to admit that while I can handle normal, it’s not easy. I’m much more at home playing on ‘slow,’ and when someone at Shoot Club pointed out that RoN keeps track of mouse clicks, I was avering something like 2-3000 above everyone else who used hotkeys, whereas I used no hotkeys.
I don’t think the ‘normal’ setting is that bad, as bad as say Red Alert 2, but it certainly makes for a more frantic game, you’re right.
Cannon time is neat. It slows the game down, really slow, for 15 or 30 seconds, I forget. Neat feature, but it replaces pause so it’s kind of dangerous.
And the trial fucking rules. :)
I hardly ever use hoy keys in these games,which is one reason I suck at them,but it’s impossible to remember all the hot keys unless you play all the time anyway.
I think ‘normal’ speed is a bit too fast for me to enjoy the game,but ‘slow’ is reasonable.It’s possible to slow down and speed up the game while in progress,right?Very slow would be ridiculous early in the game,but it might be appropriate in the later stages.
