Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is a science fantasy real-time strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, made by Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft. It is a spin-off of the popular Rise of Nations, released in May 2006. However, rather than being a historical game, it is based in a fantasy world, where technology and magic co-exist. It was released on May 9, 2006 in North America and on various dates around May 26, 2006 in the rest of the world.
Gameplay
Rise of Legends retains most of the features from Rise of Nations, like city building, borders, attrition, assimilations, non-depletable resources and the Conquer The World campaigns. However, Rise of Legends also introduces new features of its own, such as city districts, heroes, dominances, a more simplified economy and neutral, siegeable units and buildings. The reality-based resource wood has been replaced by Timonium. Unlike its predecessor, which offered the player 18 civilizations to choose from, Rise of Legends has only three races. These are the technological Vinci, the magical Alin, and the alien-like Cuotl, who replace the Wealth resource with Energy, offering a new gather strategy. Each race is completely distinct from the others, allowing for different gameplay depending on the player's choice. It also makes use of the AGEIA PhysX physics engine.Rise of Legends has a number of unique features that set it apart from its predecessor.
City districts and buildings
Unlike most RTS-type games, in which a player starts with a city center and expands from there, Rise of Legends gives the player a city center, but adds a second, distinct building class: Districts. There are five districts in the game; they vary between the three races, but mostly serve the same purpose of increasing the size of the city, as well as offering benefits that will be elaborated upon later. The other buildings include the standard unit factories and defensive structures, as well as unique buildings for each race. The following is a list of the five different districts:| District | Description |
| Military: | Increases the population capacity of the player, as well as adding to the defensive force of the host city. Each Military District also gives the player free Infantry units, as well as one retroactively given per Palace upgrade. |
| Merchant: | Used to increase the player's caravan limit, the player's resource collection capacity and trade income capacity for the city. It is only available to the Alin and Vinci. The Cuotl utilize a Reactor district to gather their Energy resource, which negates the need for a caravan unit by directly adding to the player's coffer, according to the total number of reactor districts and the number of neutral sites owned. |
| Palace: | Used to expand the city in size, which affects the overall effectiveness of all the other city districts. It is also the most expensive of the four districts, with a base price of 250 Timonium as opposed to the previous district costing 75. A Palace District can only be built if at least three non-Palace districts per Palace upgrade level exist for that city. A Palace District turns a City with at least three districts into a Large City, and a Large City with at least six districts into a Great City. As well as increasing the aforementioned effectiveness, upgrading to a large or great city unlocks more powerful unit types and research abilities. |
| Magus: | Only available to the Alin, this district is used for researching new technologies. |
| Industrial: | Only available to the Vinci, this district unlocks special upgrades and increases construction speeds. |
Master units
Master Units are enormous units when compared to standard units, and are therefore extremely powerful. A player may only have one Master Unit at a time. Each unit has its own set of powerful abilities, and is equally effective against infantry, large units, or buildings. Master units can only be accessed after creating a Great City; they also require huge amounts of resources.The Vinci control the Land Leviathan, also upgradable to the King Leviathan. The Alin have the Glass Dragon, also upgradable to the Elder Glass Dragon. The Cuotl hold the City of Vengeance, upgradable to Great City of Vengeance. Three other master units, the Elder Glass Golem, the Moon Gorilla, and the Scavenger Boss can be created by the neutral sites the Glass Lair, the Moon Core, and the Scrapyard respectively. The Elder Glass Golem is a massive beast that resembles the Alins' Glass Golem but is much larger, has no ranged attack, and has a mana counter just like an Alin hero's. It also splits into 2 Adult Glass Golems when killed. The Moon Gorilla is a giant relative of the Cuotl Sun Idol with a powerful attack and siege attack ability, supplemented with a strong air attack and devastating trample. The Scavenger Boss acts like a Land Leviathan. Yet another unit that can be acquired in another map, created in the Moon Temple, is Ix the Moon God, the fourth Cuotl deity.
Hero units
Each race has its own set of Hero Units. Hero units are generally stronger, faster and more powerful than normal units, as well as having their own unique skill tree, which gives the hero powers, or upgrades existing powers. For the most part, powers act like spells, and are cast during the game, though there are some passive powers too. Heroes also level up, with each level increasing their stats. Heroes have to be summoned into the game, which costs a certain number of resources, and multiple heroes can be summoned at the same time. As well, if a hero dies, he can be resummoned. There are three heroes per civilization, and these heroes have larger roles in the single-player campaigns .Single-player gameplay
The single player game is divided into three campaigns, one for each race in the game. Each campaign presents the player with a large map of a region of Aio, divided into multiple city sections. The campaigns are divided into two segments: managing the Strategic Map and playing individual scenarios.Strategic map
The strategic map is an overview of the current region that the campaign being played covers. It is divided into a number of smaller sections, each of which representing a scenario to be played. Each of these sections are colour-coded as well, representing which race, or the army controls it. As well, the strategic map contains a representation of the player's army, as well as any enemy armies that are on the map, represented by an avatar of each of their heroes.Each section of the region contains a capital city. Similar to cities in scenarios, capital cities can be upgraded with four different districts. The capital cities allow for management of four critical resources - Research, Military, Wealth and Hero:
- Research points allow the player to upgrade their unit's abilities. A city will generate one research point the turn after adding a research/magic district. The Vinci use research points to upgrade units to more powerful versions; the Alin use research points to upgrade various statistics across their army or across a unit type.
- Military points are used to expand the army that is provided at the start of a level. Military districts generate one military point per turn, starting the turn after being created, and provide defense from enemy armies. As well, cities with Military districts send free reinforcements when playing in an adjacent territory.
- Wealth points allow the player to add further districts to their cities on the strategic map. Each city upgrade costs progressively more wealth points. Merchant districts can be added to cities, and generate one wealth point per turn, starting the turn after being built. As well, cities with Merchant districts send free caravans to the player's city when playing an adjacent territory.
- Hero points allow the player to upgrade their heroes' powers and abilities. Hero points cannot be generated by cities, but instead are rewarded for completing levels.
The player is given access to the strategic map in between playing scenarios. After each turn, new resources are allotted and enemy armies may move or capture sections. The player then can choose which section to move their army into next ; often, there is more than one path that can be taken. The player may also move their army into an adjacent friendly territory before launching a scenario. However, if the player makes two moves without starting a scenario, enemy armies will all receive a turn, while the player's resources will not increase.
In order to defeat enemy armies, the player has to either conquer a territory the army is located within, or defeat the army's capital city territory. In any case, entering a scenario in a territory occupied by an enemy army will cause that army to be present in the scenario. Enemy armies can also attack the player's territories. Each turn that an enemy army attacks a territory destroys one of its Military districts, if any exist. When no Military districts exist, the attacking enemy army takes control of the district.
To complete a campaign, all territories do not need to be under the player's control; rather, all territories marked as main quest goals need to be completed.
Scenarios
The single-player campaign is divided into a number of different scenarios, each of which being its own level, which are accessible by moving the player's army into a territory on the strategic map. The levels generally are of one of two types:- Plot driving levels, which advance the plot by having a series of main goals to accomplish, as well as often having bonus quests which often provide the player with extra resources to make use of. These levels often have more than one other faction present, either as allies or enemies. Additional hero units can also occasionally be automatically given—instead of having to be summoned via these levels. The majority of the scenarios are of this type.
- Territory capture levels where the player is pitted against just one hostile faction. There is only one main quest in these levels: drive the enemy out of the territory by capturing all of their cities. There are generally just two or three maps per campaign for this kind of level, even though they take place in different territories on the strategic map. Recovering a captured territory on the strategic map whose scenario was already completed always spawns this type of level.