Rise of Legends: conquering a world of fantasy

Rise of Nations was one of my favorite games to be released in 2003. Taking familiar aspects of the Civilization series and creating a highly playable real-time version was a true accomplishment. It also helped make the overall strategic map more accessible to RTS gamers, a feature that may have been intimidating when presented with the depth and relative complexity of the Total War series. When I heard that Big Huge Games was using a completely new fictional setting for Rise of Legends, I have to admit I was apprehensive. I expected them to capitilize on Rise of Nations' success by fine tuning it and selling it as a sequel, a tactic not uncommon in the industry (see Empire Earth). After playing the demo, I am relieved that Big Huge Games have not lost sight of what made their first game so universally appealing. Though I am also a little disappointed, because the demo is a good indicator of what the final product will be like, exposing the limited extent of their vision for the franchise.

I must warn that the overall experience was tainted by technical problems. The original demo, despite its diminuative size next to the monstrous 2 GB of the Battle for Middle Earth II demo, was clearly unoptomized for performance. Slow loading times and sub-par graphics were prevalent, even though my hardware went above and beyond the minimum recommended specs. While I was patient enough to get to the actual gameplay, many gamers weren't as forgiving. I've even seen an apology from the game's executive producer floating around, citing their reasons were to get the demo out to the fans "as fast as possible". A new demo was released just over a week ago that adddresses these technical issues. Problem is, the fucking thing wouldn't install until I had downloaded it five times from the official site. I wasn't the only one, either - apparently the setup archive, once decompressed, corrupts itself no matter where you've downloaded it from. I'd say that if it didn't work after the fifth time I would have stopped, but that would be a lie.

Rise of Legends doesn't veer too far off the beaten path of real time strategy. The number of footsoldier units produced by each build is more than the original game, something I really liked about Battle for Middle Earth II. The basic principles of gameplay from Rise of Nations are preserved - the idea is to take over the map, not necessarily destroy your enemy. Nation borders assist in this process, as enemy troops without adequate supplies will take attrition damage when inside your borders. Furthermore, instead of destroying neighboring neutral villages or outlying enemy structures, you can sacrifice a number of units to take over the core city in a process called "Storming". This tactic becomes essential in extending your nation's borders, without having to spend the resources to rebuild.

Base building has become a little more involved in Rise of Legends. Seeing some of the first screenshots, I wondered how these elaborate designs could be built while remaining usable. Adding Districts to your city creates the "shape", as well as adds bonuses such as an increased population to train (Military District) or the ability to create trade routes (Merchant District), with the actual production structures freely placable around the city. There are a number of upgrade prerequisites, however, making Districts less of an option and more of a standard part of establishing each of your bases. Similar to Rise of Nations, after your city has reached a certain point through upgrades it becomes a "Large City" and you gain access to additional unit types. Though even with the updated demo, the visuals definitely do not meet the same detail standards as Battle for Middle Earth II and Age of Empires III.

There's only one resource (Timonium) and no gathering maintenance is required. Mines are built near the resource, with workers purchased directly at the mine that automatically harvest the resource without any instruction. Buildings can be created anywhere as long as you have the resource to pay for them, without the need for additional workers. The cost of units increases the more you have of them, covering everything from workers to siege vehicles. While this may decrease spending in the short term, once you have a few Timonium mines and trade routes going the handicap just feels artificial. In fact, I can see the frenzied upgrading of buildings and faction powers consuming the first part of every battle, as it was in Rise of Nations. Something Age of Empires III did well was the balancing of units through the ages, such that as long as your adversary didn't get to the end of the technology tree, you were still able launch a successful assault with "older" units.

The most obvious addition to the gameplay are the Dominance powers. This is a great addition because it allows players to take advantage of their current position instead of cranking out units to form some makeshift defense in a last stand. For example, you can gain Tactical Dominance by being the first to attack, but if you are overwhelmed by their defenses you can order a cease fire to safely fall back. Having the strongest economy yields Resource Dominance, allowing you to instantly heal a group of units. The requirements for achieving the Dominances increases after each one is used. The use of this feature gives rewards before even defeating your enemy, effectively strengthening your current position. But this also means that the tide of war can change very quickly, as these bonuses can be held by anyone during the match depending on who is ahead at the time.

At first glace, the Vinci and Alin seem quite different (the third faction, the Cuotl, was not available in the demo). The Vinci follow a more predictable technology tree, with associated production structures. The Alin abstract the foot soldier, flying and siege units as "sand", "fire" and "glass". Given the Alin's propensity for the magical and their domain in the desert, it surely fits with the faction's theme. However, having filled my gaming diet with only real time strategy these past few months, it doesn't take much to supplant the Alin's Fire Circle with the Vinci's Control Tower for air units. After playing each side in skirmish mode, it was easy to find the strengths of each Faction, but as with Rise of Nations' insistence in accelerating through the ages getting to these units involves a lot of upgrading.

It was important that Big Huge Games chose a fantasy setting for this game, because it allowed them to play around with new units, magical powers and overly ornate structures - things that would be obviously out of place in a historically based environment. Big Huge Games have done a fantastic job in designing this new world and the races that inhabit it, as they all look unique and evoke the feeling of civilizations that never were, but could have been. There is a lot of imagination at play in this regard, it's just unfortunate this creativity doesn't carry over into the structure of the game itself. Nevertheless, I'll be playing the full version to confirm these suspicions.