Monocause
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2008
- Messages
- 3,656
ToC:
Welcome to RoN:RoL! Rise of Legends is a sequel to the outstanding AoE reminiscent RTS "Rise of Nations". However, while the first RoN kept to the standard historical formula, the sequel was different altogether. Developers took a number of risky gambits with this one, and as a result we got what in my opinion was an overlooked gem on one hand and on overly ambitious flop on the other. It is difficult to say what made the game fail so much as it is definitely more interesting than the majority of RTS games released to date; I think I'd blame the lack of proper advertising and technical issues (like people unable to patch the game due to some issues with the autopatcher and, thus, unable to use multiplayer).
I'll start with a brief background of the three races present in the game, but first there's the painful process of getting the game patched (and you really want to patch it). The patching servers are completely dead and there's a limited supply of patch files floating on the net; luckily for you I went through all that pain so that you don't have to.
1. Get a copy of the game, legit or yarr'd.
2. For the Pollacks who bought/yarr'd the Polish version - just go to http://www.gram.pl/pomoc_problem.asp?g=446&p=3200 and download the patches. Problem solved. I don't like Polish localisation much however so let's continue with our tutorial.
3. You need to torrent the game not once, but twice :D There's two copies of the game on TPB and you need to download them both. One contains the precious patch file but has broken installation - so you need to install the game from one distro and patch it via the file from the other. If you have a legit version just get the torrent ending with ".7z".
Alternately, if you tell me where can I upload a 500 mb file I can do it so you don't have to get the 7z torrent. All you need from it is the patch.
4. Think this is over? Fuck you, this is FAR from over! The patcher doesn't recognise the vanilla app. What you need to do is go to gamecopyworld and download a fixed exe "Rise of Nations 2 v1.0 [ENGLISH] Fixed EXE". Copy that to your game dir and patch.
5. Voila!
Now, let's go over the races.
The Vinci are your steampunk humans. How awesome is that? They've got musketeers, clockwork machinery, pollution-heavy industry and a fucking huge boring machine that works as a special power, creating a borehole at the point you choose, dealing massive damage to whatever's in the radius. They also steamroll everything late-game while being crap early-game. The main protagonist of the game's campaign, Giacomo, is a Vinci guy, and likes to invent shit to throw it in the face of the opponents. RoL features summonable heroes as super-units (you get to upgrade them over the course of the campaign or your MP game, a la WC 3 but less balanced and more interesting) and Giacomo is one of the best. One problem of Giacomo is that his VA is absolutely fucking annoying and sounds like a total douche.
You can see some Vinci gameplay (mercifully without any live commentary) HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkpLkReGiys&feature=relmfu . You can also read more about the Vinci and their different units here: http://riseoflegends.com/worlds/vinci_nation.htm
The Alin are a desert magic-loving race. They've got crystal soldiers, dragons, fireballs, huge scorpions, flying stuff, wacky stuff, whatever. Fun to play, powerful heroes. Haven't played much MP but from what I gathered they're strongest early-mid game. Their special power summons units at a designated place, and that's the name of the game for the Alin - they're rather unpredictable. While the Vinci and the Cuotl get stronger in a predictable way over the course of a game, the Alin can seem extremely weak and get really powerful in a matter of a minute because of a hero summon/national power.
Read more here: http://riseoflegends.com/worlds/Alin_Nation.htm
The Cuotl are the weirdest of the bunch. The backstory behind them is that there once was a mezoamerican-like bunch of tribals living in a jungle. One day a spaceship crashed straight into their boring tribal reality; three creatures equipped with extremely high-tech emerged from the crash and installed themselves as gods; the Cuotl are thus (due to the combination of a tribal identity and alien high tech) the Protoss of the RoL game. Read more here: http://riseoflegends.com/worlds/Cuotl_nation.htm
An important point is that all the three races are much more unique than what you see in standard fare RTS games. Each of them requires a seriously different playstyle, with the Cuotl being the most extreme of the bunch. I read that during the time RoL was still alive there were very few Cuotl players but when they did play them, they rocked.
RoL really was an ambitious game and, most importantly, it's really fun and I wholeheartedly recommend it. I'll start with the LP in a matter of a week or so, perhaps earlier, if a couple of people respond with interest. The campaign is entertaining to play, has some decision making Codexers can participate in and is divided into three parts during which you play different races.
Absolutely awesome, too bad it was forgotten.
, haven't even tried Vinci & Alin
