I played some AoE3 online last night, the french are awesome! awesome are french! Why do the redcoats not have redcoats! WTF PATCH THIS.
I am torn between which game to play online. On one hand I have Rise of Legends. Giant farkin robots, dragons, OMG GRAPHIX, and lots of huge battles and cool heroes.
Then there’s AoE3, which I love for its slower pace. I can keep troops alive and use tactics and formations. AWesome. Graphics are good too.
HOWEVER, as a mortal man I have only time for one of these. Both are great games but I cant decide which is better. It keeps me up at night. I pound bottles of advil as I balance on the edge of my balcony wondering what its all for.
I think Rise of Legends is a better game. Better designed, more interesting things to see on screen and it plays much more quickly. You have fewer factions, but a lot of differences between them.
But AoE 3 will be a better fit for some people. It has the pull of the familiar (almost too familiar for me) and there is less time pressure on you.
Both have pretty feeble AI on the default settings, and both are much better in the midgame than the endgame.
I think Rise of Legends AI is really good. I mean there hasn’t ever been AI that has been similar to that of humans in an RTS. They just start cheating.
Then you come up against the Man vs Machine thing where the computer can wage war on five fronts for an our with no loss in efficiency.
That is the ultimate flaw in RTS AI, so ill take what I can get. Wasn’t RoL AI made by that famous dude who makes good AI?
… to play online? That’s easy then. Age of Empires 3.
For all the love about Rise of Legends, it has only a small number of players online at any one time - 100-200. Age of Empires 3 generally seems to pull in 1500-2000 or more. I think the multiplayer lobby interface for RoL is cleaner but AoE3’s is almost as functional.
I also think Age of Empires 3 is just about as fun online as Rise of Legends, but that’s just me. Rise of Legends has potential but it can also be somewhat limiting on certain maps and vs. certain races - it’s not the infinite uber-rts.
Both RTS games have map weaknesses - i tend however to like the maps in Age of Empires just slightly more because they’re archetypes of maps that have a long tradition in RTS play. Age of Empires has very poorly thought out creep balance, whereas Rise of Legends’ NPC creeps are far better balanced to the pace and flow of gameplay.
I do admit I favor AoE3 a little because of the time I am given to plan attacks and form fronts and actually pull off some decent cavalry flanking maneuvers.
Also and ordered retreat is POSSIBLE. However I think the ‘insta healing’ in friendly territory feature in RoL makes up for the inability to retreat in anything other than a rout.
I picked up AOE3 gold today since it’s $20 on sale and it’s quite a throwback of a game, lacking many UI creature comforts and RTS conventions in SC2. I have no idea why it’s able to command $60 on Canadian retail shelves. Well, not that it counts for much since PC gaming on retail shelves is relegated to a shitty area of the store nowadays.
Rise of Legends, but I’m biased against traditional micro-heavy RTS games. And against cameras that can’t zoom out further than two inches from the ground.
Is was tempted by the AoE3 complete edition, since I don’t have the expansions. But its still full price € 40+ everywhere I look. Far to much to rebuy the original en some (many years) old expansions. Ah well luckily Microsoft is looking out for us to revitalize gaming on the PC :D
It’s currently on sale on Games for Window Live store. $20 for all three parts in a Complete edition bundle. It’s 13.5 pounds in the UK, not sure about the Eurozone.
At this price definitely worth picking up. This deal seems to only be valid for today.
I had forgotten how much of a challenge the AI could provide in Rise of Legends. I dropped my current mission down to the middle difficutly (I’m trying to capture a 7 strength province). I captured 4 cities with 2 left, and I was pushing at what I thought was the capital city (it wasn’t, but never mind). I took it, even got past the capture timer, and then a force arrived from the other city and took it back, and hit back so hard I suddenly found myself unable to repel it (it took out my assault force and the reinforcements I had milling about near by). I have resources but can’t get things produced fast enough. I wonder if I can get that Vicini border fort erected. . .
I am finding the game pretty challenging. I probably made a stupid mistake in trying to save up for the Juggernauts, I should have upgraded my riflement and clockwork men. Rise of Legends is awesome in single player, quirks aside.
Richard, Rise of Legends features the best strategic campaign in any RTS, ever. If that sort of thing doesn’t interest you, then I can’t imagine there is anything to “get”. It has a lot of interesting features; it was a huge improvement on the Rise of Nations strategic Campaign (which was itself interesting).
Warning, the following contains RoL single player campaign spoilers. (I wish I’d had these spoilers before playing the damn thing.)
Gah! Really? I picked up Rise of Legends at release. Played the Vinci part of the campaign and quite enjoyed it, I expected it to open up a little and have me fighting the other factions more. But no, it does some weird narrative thingum and puts me on another strategy map entirely playing a completely different faction. So I took this in my stride, and played through it. But then the game completely jumps the shark with some utterly bizarre attempt to explain why Giacomo is now leading the space tiger faction and put me on yet another map, at this point I stopped playing the campaign. In fact at this point I stopped playing RTS single player campaigns entirely until Dawn of War 2 proved that they didn’t have to completely suck.
End spoilers!
When I say I don’t ‘get’ RoL, I mean I don’t understand the game design, specifically the interplay of the different units and factions. I played a few skirmish and multiplayer games, and they always seem to come down to spamming as many units as possible and who ever has the biggest army wins. So left the game on my shelf for years. Recently though, comments by people like Tom and Troy have made me suspect I was missing a really great game…
I didn’t care much for either, although I’m a pretty big RTS fan. I suppose that means I’m broken.
AOE3 felt a bit too samey for me, and RoL I could just not get into. It had some interesting mechanics and design, but after playing a few games on the day I purchased it, I never had the urge to load it back up. I was skirmishing against the AI, though, so that may have been the problem. I also didn’t like the presentation much, I loved the idea of the game, but the look of it was an eyesore to me. It’s not a dealbreaker (I play Dwarf Fortress after all), but when I’m already not enjoying a game, it doesn’t help.
