Rise of Nations

Estimated release: Spring 2003

Civ meets real time

Of all the games shown off at the IGF, Rise of Nations looked to be the furthest from completion. But from what we saw, Brian Reynolds (Civ II, Alpha Centauri) and his crew at Big Huge Games are preparing a game on a massive scale. Much like Empire Earth, Rise of Nations reminds me of Civilization in real time. There’s so much strategic depth to keep in mind, but everything goes on in real time. You have a timeline and tech tree that extends from stone age sling shots to modern stealth bombers and nuclear weapons. There’s a living marketplace where you can make gold off of fluctuations in commodities prices, and a political system where national borders expand and contract based on the size of your cities and the constructs within them.

Naval battle

Flanking with tanks

Like any real time strategy game, you start off with one city or town, where you can build up your economy and an army. But borrowing from turn based games like Civ, you’ll be expanding your borders and “sphere of influence” by establishing cities on your current border. Build a fortress or a cultural/political center in those border cities, and your border bulges out even farther into neighboring territory. Borders are important, because you’re only allowed to build within your sphere of influence. Occupying as much land as possible means you’ll be able to take control of the land’s many natural resources. Aside from the usual gold, food, and wood there are 32 specialized resources like diamonds, uranium, and spice that can be harvested and sold via merchant.

Taking out the siege towers

Neat Japanese town

Research!

The tech tree works much like turn-based Civ games as well – there are four subcategories of specialization: Science, Commerce (enhanced resource gathering), Military, and Civic (ability to extend sphere of influence). The ages span from ancient to classical to the enlightenment on up to the modern age. Despite the seemingly huge scope, the developers claim the real-time nature of Rise of Nations allows players to complete a game in “under an hour.”

Zoomed out view of armies

German knights

While Rise of Nations includes much in the way of non-military goals (for example: commerce and trade is the only way to gain gold…there’s no mining of it, plus there are non military victory conditions as well), a strategy game just isn’t a strategy game without a little conflict. The game engine is sophisticated enough to allow players to use concepts like flanking and maneuvering to their advantage. Units being attacked from the side or the back will take far more damage than if they were facing head on to the attackers. Using terrain and feints to fool your opponents will be key. You’ll use field generals who can enhance your armies by cloaking/camouflaging them, and getting them to go into forced marches, increasing their movement speed.

Musketeers

The final solution

Don’t burn Rome!

What’s also interesting is that the act of sieging cities in Rise of Nations shares more in common with Civ and Alpha Centauri than with real time strategy games. In most RTS games, when you attack a town, you burn it to the ground. In RoN, you can damage the city with artillery to a certain level, and then invade it with infantry, which will allow you to take over that city and all its buildings and resources, intact. There’s no need to crush it into rubble.

Overall, it looks like Reynolds and company have a lot of interesting features in RoN – time will tell if they can pull them all together coherently and make a great game out of it.