From: rgretz@sts.webzone.net (Ronald Gretz) Subject: Age of Empires: Rise of Rome Reviewed This is kind of long but I think it will be worth it to those that are interested. I recently received a complimentary copy of the Age of Empires: Rise of Rome add-on expansion and after having spent the past week with it, was given permission to post some thoughts about it. First and foremost before I continue I will acknowledge up front several things. AoE:RoR automatically upgrades AoE to the version 1.0b engine if that already hasn't been done so. Only the AoE cd is required to play. Once RoR is installed you can put the RoR cd on the shelf. Last but not least, I haven't had a chance to play it multi yet with my playing limited to the single player campaigns. With that said, here are some thoughts on the new additions to the game. Improved AI - I managed to play through the first campaign over the weekend and the while the enemy AI appears to be about the same offensively, it is much more challenging when on defense. I am not sure why offensive AI is such a problem for games of this type but the piecemeal attacking of 1-5 units just doesn't seem to cut it in general for any of the games in this genre. Defensively though, it takes advantage of the improvement in AI where units don't just stand around while their buddy is getting slaughtered. A human player against the computer will definitely have to group units and use the stand ground function (fixed in the original patch) if they don't want pieces chasing the enemy around the map. This brings up the stand ground command. One major complaint about the original AoE was that a stand ground command was needed to prevent willy-nilly cross country chases. Well you asked for it and you got it. So don't complain if you forget to "stand ground" and then your units run off on a bug hunt. "Stand Ground" combined with the improved neighbor defense AI definitely makes it much harder for the AI to attack single units while the peanut gallery watches. Catapults still have the same tendency to fire into enemy groups even if your troops are intermingling. And there is a definate change in the way Priests work (more below on that). 4 New Civs - Carthage, Palmyra, Macedonia and Rome: each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There are also 4 new single player campaigns that are included dealing specifically with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire (side note: don't underestimate the defense structures that Archimedes has in the campaigns. You will definitely be challenged at what you are up against). 5 New Units - · Armored Elephant - an upgrade of the War Elephant. The Armored Elephant has Siegecraft, more attack strength, armor, and piercing armor - (I like them). · Camel Rider - used by civilizations to defend against cavalry attacks. Camel Riders do not receive a cavalry bonus against infantry - (I haven't tried them). · Fire Galley - a short-range vessel used to defend against other ships. Fire Galleys are superior to Trireme in offensive combat but very weak defensively due to their imflammable nature (they take additional damage from Ballista, Helepolises, Stone Throwers, Catapults, Catapult Triremes, and Juggernaughts) - (watching a Trireme torch is neat as it almost happens instantaneously, but against a group of Triremes the Fire Galley dies very quickly) · Scythe Chariot - an upgrade of the Chariot. It has more hit points, more attack strength, and more armor - (visibly it looks and acts just like other chariots with a ginsu blade addition) · Slinger - an infantry unit used to defend against early archer and axemen attacks - (alone they are dead meat. En masse they can be deadly against chariot rushes) Expanded Technologies - · Tower Shield - infantry and Academy defense against missile weaponry · Medicine - Increases Priest's healing rate · Logistics - Barracks units (except Slingers) only count as half units toward your population, so you can essentially exceed the population limit of 50 in single player campaigns without having to manipulate the production queues. This is especially handy if you need those extra swordsmen to defend a town. · Martyrdom - Lets you instantly convert an enemy unit (except other priests) by sacrificing one of your Priests (hit the del key after the target is selected). To offset this, normal conversion speed has been slowed down somewhat. New Maps to Explore - a gigantic map size in addition to new map types: mountainous highlands, a large island, the Mediterranean and a peninsula. Multiplay Modifications (these I haven't tried yet) · Random Civ - One of the new features is the Random civ. In Game settings, when you choose your civ, there are now 17 options. Sixteen are the ordinary 16 civs (the 12 old civs plus 4 new); the 17th is "Random". If you select this as your civ, you will not know what your civ is going to be until the game starts. Furthermore, the other players won't know what your civ is going to be until then. The randomness is total -- all 8 players could turn out to be Yamato (unlikely, but possible). · In multiplayer games, there is now an in-game option to change the population limit using the Game Settings (actually fixed in the original patch). · Like several of the other RTS games on the market, all players must have the RoR add-on for all to take advantage of the benefits in a multi-player game. General Interface Improvements · Unit Pathing - this has definitely been improved. Units rarely succumb to the "break dance" when they can't make it to a destination. Be forewarned though, logic says that if you try to force 40 swordsmen through a narrow avenue, that the trailers might wonder whats going on. For the most part, they just now stand and wait til their path is clear. · Unit type selection as opposed to group selection - in need of some quick archer support but don't want to have to micromanage your hot-keyed groups? Then double-clicking on a unit selects all units of that type on the game screen and subsequently sends all of them where you need. · Production Queues - You asked for it so you got it. Though somewhat limited in nature to a single unit type (you can't mix axemen and slingers in the same order; its one or the other) you can now stack multiples of a given unit so you don't have to jump somewhere everytime a building finishes a single unit. You are limited to the resources you have on hand but now have the ability to order units ahead of time once the population limit has been reached, making for a much faster recovery in terms of reinforcement if a battle isn't going your way. Personally, I don't think there will ever be a good way to do this as setting production for "proposed units that I don't have resources for" results in the major shutting down of unit production if only one of the needed resources runs out. But the simple ability to build more than one unit at any given time is a certain improvement over the original production engine. The player still has to micromanage resources in the early game (but this is generally where the player has time to do so), but is a major stress reliever in the end game where the player is tied up in battles. Summary (for those of you nay-sayers this is my personal opinion dis-claimer). Rise of Rome improves the existing AoE product by addressing several areas that were in need of looking at. While a few weaknesses still exist in the game (piecemeal AI attacks and catapult commanders who fire into melees) the new technologies and units definitely balance out the game play more. Those early archer, axemen and boat rushes are now counterbalanced with the new units. To balance the food gathering, fishing was slowed down a bit so that masses of fishing boats don't just overflow the docks with tuna in the first few minutes of the game. One of the things nice about the RoR add-on that I found is that it is downward compatible with the original AoE. The new techs and new units are fully playable in the original game campaigns, in addition to the improved AI and production queues. In a literal sense, RoR takes AoE to the potential that it has always had. Ultimately, if Msft is smart, they will combine the two products into a single game and this will grab back market share from the people that deferred buying the original due to the original weaknesses. I have no idea what the retail price of RoR will be, but if you are an original AoE fan, this is definitely an add-on you will want to take a look at.