Day 2: Information Galore

9:00 AM Breakfast at BHG

We began day 2 with a nice breakfast of assorted fruits and breakfast pastries. Developer and webmaster alike got to sit around the bar area of the Big Huge Games offices enjoying our morning bagels and coffee. We would be introduced to John Kimmich Product Planner for Microsoft games. From him, we would learn that we were in for a special treat later that day when they would be doing the world premier of the introductory movie for Rise of Nations.


10:00 AM Intro and Demo of Rise of Nations with Tim Train

So here is where the article starts to get really interesting. The group of us were placed into a conference room where we would be walked through a demo of the game and more importantly be able to ask Operation and Development VP Tim Train all sorts of questions.

Options



Since we had all snuck into the offices the night before for a few multiplayer games a bit ahead of schedule, we decided to dive into the options and features that really make Rise of Nations stand out from the other titles. The design team at Big Huge Games believes in making the game highly customizable so that each player can tweak the game to fit their own style.

We started with the Game option screen. Here we could configure many of the default behaviors of the game starting with the “smart" citizen system. One thing that makes Rise of Nations stand out from other RTS titles is the inclusion of “smart" citizens; these citizens will automatically seek out tasks to perform rather than simply standing idle. You can configure them to build incomplete buildings, gather resources, or build and gather depending on the closest task. You can also configure the delay time before the computer AI takes over and assigns the citizen a task. It can be set all the way from almost instantly to several minutes. I've seen some grumblings from people who have heard about this feature and not liked it. The reason is that they don't want to relinquish control of these decisions to the computer AI. I can see their argument, but I personally think this feature is a godsend. There have been countless times in other games where I have had workers standing idle somewhere because I forgot to give them a task or got distracted by an attack. With this feature I have one less thing to worry about and can focus on a more important aspect of the game. Blowing stuff up!


In continuing their improvement of the way in which citizens operate, they have added an “Auto All Clear" option. Like Age of Kings, Rise of Nations features city centers that can be garrisoned and fire at invaders. The “Auto All Clear" feature will make it so that garrisoned citizens will automatically go back to work if the city is no longer under attack. You needn't worry about manually getting them back to work. The computer will take care of all that for you.

The last thing of note on this screen is the ability to set the default unit stance as they are produced. Units can be set to be aggressive, defensive, stand ground, raid, raze, or hold fire. What this effectively means is that you don't need to worry about your troops running off after a stray scout that wanders into your town like in other games where the default stance is aggressive. You also don't need to worry about having some units at on stance while others at another. It really stinks when your siege equipment is set to “aggressive" and charges ahead to get massacred while your supporting infantry stand there and watch because they are set to “stand ground".

After going through some exhaustive details on those features, I will go through the rest of the options screens pretty quickly. The game has customizable hotkeys. If you tend to play in games that go from the Industrial to Information age you might want to change that hotkey for the Auto Plant to “A" rather than “S" or whatever else makes sense to you. The mouse can be configured so that all things work off of the left mouse button much like the Command & Conquer series of games. You can also configure it to prefer military units when you drag select a group of units on the screen. In other words, when you go to select a big group of units in your town, you needn't worry about accidentally picking up a stray citizen or two and marching them to the front with your troops.

Multiplayer Setup >>