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4186_Ch01 4/30/03 10:16 AM Page 1 RULES OF THE GAME 1 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 4186_Ch01 4/30/03 10:16 AM Page 2 Rise of Nations has the two most important characteristics of a great game: it’s very easy to learn how to play, but it isn’t easy to win. The purpose of this book is to maximize your enjoyment of Rise of Nations. For the vast majority of players, this means winning. And winning is possible only once you understand the game, which is a step beyond knowing the mechanics of how to play. This chapter will help you understand how Rise of Nations works. In addition, this chapter compares RoN to other real-time strategy games, highlighting its unique features. General gameplay, technical, and other miscellaneous issues are also discussed here. First, a piece of good advice: read the game’s readme document (you’ll find it in the RoN folder). It contains late-breaking information that’s neither in the game manual nor in this book! HOW IT ALL WORKS The game’s premise is simple: you gather and use resources to build new structures and units, and to conduct research that will let your chosen nation advance through the ages. Your priorities will be determined by the victory conditions and other pre-game options (all of which are discussed in Chapter 2). Simple, isn’t it? So, what’s the problem? The problem is that your opponent(s) will be doing all that, too. To win, you’ll have to excel in the following areas: Efficient gathering of resources. In Rise of Nations, this is a task that requires quite a lot of foresight. Your nation’s economy will undergo many changes as it advances through the ages, and it will also be affected by game events such as someone’s declaration of war on your peace-loving nation. You just have to gather stuff as fast or faster than everybody else. Rise of Nations offers many options and approaches in this area. You’ll find all this discussed in detail in Chapters 3, 4, and 8. Efficient use of resources. The way you spend resources is just as important as their accumulation. Being ultra-efficient at gathering won’t do you any good if you don’t set the right spending priori- ties. You cannot hope to use resources effectively without doing quite a bit of planning. Chapters 3, 4, and 8 discuss the subject; also, Chapters 6 and 7 offer pointers on military spending. Good unit management. This refers primarily to creating and managing military units and unit for- mations in a war—a task of great importance in the vast majority of RoN games. However, it also includes civilian units, especially since citizens can be used in a military role right from the start of the game (see Chapter 9). You’ll find plenty of advice on unit management in Chapters 6 through 8. Decisiveness. You have to think fast—fast, d’ya hear? A not-so-good move executed quickly can be better than a brilliant move put into motion after a lengthy deliberation. This applies to everything: gathering resources, building, moving units, you name it. 2 CHAPTER 1 RULES OF THE GAME 4186_Ch01 4/30/03 10:16 AM Page 3 The Real Meaning of Time Time is a dimension, not a resource. Yet in importance it can outdo all the game resources put together. This is because Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy game. All the players play simultaneously, without taking turns, so naturally the player who moves fastest often moves best. There are significant differences in the way time works in solo and multiplayer games. The sections below sum them up. Time in Solo Games In solo games, you’re up against the com- puter, and the computer doesn’t have to click the mouse, scroll the screen, and so on. You do, so theoretically you’ve lost the battle for speed even before it’s begun. However, in practice your swiftness mat- ters little: You can pause the game and issue unit/building commands during the pause after giving them the appropri- ate amount of thought. You can take as much time as you want while your computer opponents are literally frozen (see Figure 1.1). This automati- cally hands you the initiative. If FIGURE 1.1: Caught on the wrong foot during a solo game? Hit Pause to sort things you’re a new gamer, you’d be wise to out in peace. use this feature very often; before long you’ll see that it enables you to play the computer oppo- nents as if they were puppets—they cannot act, they can only react to what you do. It’s definitely possible to win a Survival of the Fittest game (constant war) against seven computer opponents on the Toughest difficulty setting using the Pause Tip feature. You can play at Very Slow or Slow speed, thus minimizing When playing against the computer, you the computer’s no-hands advantage. Very Slow is the recom- can slow down the game to the point where mended speed once your nation has grown to include several your speed hardly matters. You don’t have cities and over a hundred units. This gives you enough time to make fast decisions as much as you to admire the view on the screen and still micromanage your have to make the right decisions. Time nation as necessary. Rise of Nations is a very good-looking is on your side. game, and there are no ideal empires—timely little tweaks here and there can, in fact, hand you the winning edge. HOW IT ALL WORKS 3 4186_Ch01 4/30/03 10:16 AM Page 4 Multiplayer Time In multiplayer games, you’ll be playing against other mouse-clicking, screen-scrolling humans. Good news, no? Well, not really: You cannot pause the game. Instead, each player is allotted a pre-set amount of “cannon time”: peri- ods of super-slow motion. These are very precious and are best saved for emergencies. New players should note that multiplayer games are very rich in emergencies. Everyone plays at the same game speed, so your own personal speed truly matters. What’s more, being faster can give you an important psychological edge. Multiplayer gaming is discussed in more detail in Chapters 11 and 12; for now, let’s just say that new gamers Warning are strongly advised to, er, get up to speed playing against Multiplayer games require you to be much the computer before venturing into multiplay. There are swifter than solo games. Time is not on your hundreds of quick-on-the-draw gamers out there. side, and a faster player can defeat a better Hundreds? Thousands. Playing online against them before but slower player. you’re ready can be very frustrating. Getting Up to Speed The quick way to get fast is very simple: you play with both hands, not one. One hand operates the mouse while the other plays the keyboard hotkeys. Yes, you’ll have to forget about drinks and snacks while playing if you want to be fast. The Options and Profiles button opens a menu that lets you customize game features to your liking. I won’t discuss all this here—it’s described in loving detail in the game manual. Instead, I’ll focus on just two tabs on the Options and Profiles menu panel. This panel opens by default on the Game tab. Here are selected Game tab recommendations for new (and maybe also not-so-new) gamers: Autocitizen. After a couple of introductory games, set this to Idle for a while to see if you can man- age your workforce better than the computer after a few games. When the game gets too busy for you to oversee all the details, change this setting back to the default Gather. Building Stances. Initially, choose Defensive. All the soldiers featured in RoN are very eager to get into a brawl, and this will make sure they won’t stray far from their assigned positions. You’ll be using other Building Stances too, setting them within the appropriate military building; this is dis- cussed in Chapter 9. Game Speed. Set it to Slow or Very Slow, and regulate the speed from within the game (the minus and equals default hotkeys slow it down and speed it up, respectively). Difficulty. New players should choose Easiest. Almost everyone else should set the Difficulty slider at Moderate, and adjust it up or down after playing a single Quick Battle game on a Small map against a single opponent. Veterans should set the slider to Tough at the very least—come on, guys. You wanna win right away? Once you know the game well enough to absorb more info, set Help Message Detail to High, and Message Duration to Long. The texts displayed whenever you move your cursor over something are 4 CHAPTER 1 RULES OF THE GAME 4186_Ch01 4/30/03 10:16 AM Page 5 best read with the game paused (see Figure 1.2). Make a point of reading them carefully and you’ll be able to switch them off entirely fairly quickly. Recommended checkbox options: there are two groups of checkboxes—one at the top of the Quick Battle panel and one in the lower right corner of that panel. New gamers should select Start Game Paused in the top group. Once you’re somewhat familiar with the game, go to the top group on the Quick Battle panel and select Show Advanced Options.

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