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Out4Blood
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I posted earlier wondering why we don’t see more prolific strategy posting on this game. On the surface, this game appears to have marvelous depth, with a variety of civilizations, a multitude of ages, numerous technologies, great RPS interplay of units, and many different victory conditions. On the surface.
But after the playing the game quite a bit, it’s become apparent, to me at least, that much of that depth is superficial. There seems to be pretty much one basic strategy for this game. Economy wins. Three main factors for this are:
Defense is very strong
Ages are short
Armies are always the same
Early defense is very strong. Attrition makes attacks before the advent of supply carts a risky venture. Once your opponent gets attrition, a failed attack means the loss of your entire army with no gain other than minor economic disruption. So any attack you make must be enough to completely take out a town. But because of attrition garrisoning troops your opponent only needs a handful of defenders to resist pretty much any early attack. Raiding (except for the Mongols) seems a limited option. A wildly successful raid at best kills an equivalent portion of villagers to compensate for the loss of troops. Even after supply carts are available, it is still easier to defend with smaller numbers of troops who attack and draw out the siege defenders and then garrison back to safety when the enemy responds. So making a small early force of defensive units becomes the dominant strategy.
Ages are short. Because there are so many ages, the time spent in a particular age is usually very short. Players are faced with the choice of upgrading troops NOW for the attack, or to just wait until the next age. At that point, unlike (AOE and AOK) they can upgrade their troops to the new ones without going through all the previous upgrades. Meaning it becomes better to dash through to the ages as efficiently as possible to an age where attacking become more effective. Attacking becomes a lot easier in the gunpowder and industrial ages. So why not wait?
Armies are always the same. Two factors collide to make army composition relatively mindless. First of all, the cost escalation for each additional unit of the same type encourages players to make armies with lots of different units. Secondly, the overwhelming counter abilities of units against certain other units make having a one- or two-unit army rather stupid. This ensures that the best army is one that contains a smattering of all unit types, which oddly enough looks JUST like the army the OTHER guy has. Who wins, largely depends on army size, which goes back to the best economy. (IMO, having cost escalation is a poor way to encourage army composition. In reality, building additional units should be CHEAPER, not more expensive, as a civilization realizes benefits of scale and learning curve. Then you’d see players forced to make strategic choices, specializing in particular units, and encourage better cooperation in team games.)
So despite the huge variety and massive scale, the strategic depth seems to be LESS than that of other RTS games, like Kohan, for example, where with only 4 factions, you have completely different army types and philosophies of playstyle. This may be one reason why there is so little being written about strategy. Just not much there to think about, I guess.
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Drachen
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quote:
Originally posted by Out4Blood
Raiding (except for the Mongols) seems a limited option. A wildly successful raid at best kills an equivalent portion of villagers to compensate for the loss of troops. Even after supply carts are available, it is still easier to defend with smaller numbers of troops who attack and draw out the siege defenders and then garrison back to safety when the enemy responds. So making a small early force of defensive units becomes the dominant strategy. |
Hey O4B;
Another good post. It doesn't get said enough but the work you and all the other pioneers did in the "Beating Toughest" thread helped a lot of us get up to speed. Thanks.
When you point out that "it is still easier to defend with smaller numbers of troops who attack and draw out the siege defenders and then garrison back to safety when the enemy responds" it makes me think that this post is largely directed towards single player. Do you feel that the remarks you've made hold for multi as well? I have no feel for that since I haven't done any multi at all.
I think you make some valid points about raiding and early defense/boom for single player toughest but I also wonder if the strategies you outline might not be a consequence of the resource advantages the AI enjoys on Toughest rather than a lack of strategic possibilities. In essence, we counter the AI advantage by building our economies while the AI builds armies it will usually lose on our defenses and this allows us to keep up in tech until it's time to attack. So for me, working on strategy means trying to break out of the mold you described and win earlier.
The Wonder Crunch strat I described in "The Quick and the Dead" gets me a win at about 26 minutes but that is just a variation of the strategy you described in that it is defensive and boom based. So, I've moved on and have been trying to work on some different ways to successfully attack/win earlier but without success as of yet. A strategy which I intend to try out sometime will be to build a multi component raiding force with stable units, supply wagons, and generals. I hope that forced march and ambush will allow the raiders to attack and retreat with minimal loses. I'm also beginning to think that the Russians might provide a better means to attack earlier. If you build enough spies (that survive because they remain invisible) then it may be possible to take over the AI armies rather than destroy them and then we could use the stolen army to attack without disrupting our boom and getting behind in tech. The spies could be used as an advance line and create flanking or rear forces from enemy armies. Have you tried anything like this?
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WRangler Rhymer
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Well you post can be true if you play with the easiest settings, try hard settings. The lack of strategy you speak of is your lack of attempts it seems to either try to find a way of a new one, or you simple have not try the WHOLE game, that includes all the nations not just two, and hardest settings.
For one you can attack earlier it is called the Aztecs warriors, they do alot of damage very early in the game, and the Russians have a bonus with calvary of 20% more damage then normal calvary. I have a many times charged way early in the game with calvary, and as soon as I could get Generals, I rushed them over with more cav and with the all ready attacking cav. The attrition you speak of is not that strong for all the nations only russia have a very strong attrition because that is a special qualities it has. I have rush two comps before with all my citizen armed for battle and a massive regular inf army with generals and have won by conquering the comp.
It seems to me you play as the same nations and try strategies that are against their strengths. If you play as the Germans and rush way you early you can lose because they are good later in the game. The Aztecs if you do not attack early then you lose a big chance to win easy early in the game. I have played as the brits and have just buildt their gunpowered men with archers and have taken down three comps two allied, one that stayed by himself.
So try to by the whole game, dont back yourself in the corner and play as one nation doing the same thing. I suggest you buy the strategy guide, you might be surprised on how many things you can do.
IF you realy want to attack early you need to mustar everything you got with some generals, that means citizens changed to battle ready,to all the fast move calvary you can get, and when you can build archers. WIth the generals make them call all the stops like force march, decoy, everything the more the marrier, I have had so many generals early and had decoys called so many times that it made the army look super hugh.
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solo
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Lowell, MA USA
Jan 2001
time: 05:30
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Wrangler,
I suspect you have not checked out the "Beating the toughest AI" thread.
Out4Blood,
With standard settings I must agree that there is a lack of depth, especially in SP games against the toughest AI. Unit ramping costs are one reason, but I think rapid age advancement is the main cuplrit. The game plays a lot better with the maximum research cost option. There is more time to implement a bigger variety of strategic choices.
With standard research times, the game suffers from that design decision to make games last only about 1 hour.
Unlike turn-based predecessors like Civ II, in which new and subtle discoveries are still being made, I'm afraid RoN has just confused depth with variety. Even so, it has held my attention much better than other RTS games I have tried.
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azalae
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WRangler Rhymer, I'll second Solo.
I'm not a good player but even I can see that you really should read the other threads.
Out4Blood, Grond and many others have posted good discussions.
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:30
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quote:
In reality, building additional units should be CHEAPER, not more expensive, as a civilization realizes benefits of scale and learning curve. |
Looks like a good idea. Making combined arms 'effective armies) would then be expensive.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaybe
If ages are short, then you are using too short of tech advancement. I suggest more expensive/slower tech, even for MP games (which I haven't played). |
I may try the slow and expensive approach on research for SP. However, getting it in in MP is rather difficult. Very few people are willing to play anything other than default settings.quote:
I presume you also visit RoN Heaven (more RoN activity there). |
I've visited there, but didn't see much of interest. Perhaps it's changed; I will revisit.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by Drachen
It doesn't get said enough but the work you and all the other pioneers did in the "Beating Toughest" thread helped a lot of us get up to speed. Thanks. |
No problem, I just like to help and to provoke discussion.quote:
...it makes me think that this post is largely directed towards single player. Do you feel that the remarks you've made hold for multi as well?[QUOTE]My remarks were made primarily for 1on1 games, both vs humans and vs. AI. Certain things work against the AI however that do not work vs humans.[QUOTE]...I also wonder if the strategies you outline might not be a consequence of the resource advantages the AI enjoys on Toughest rather than a lack of strategic possibilities. |
I don't think. This should be immaterial to opponent really. I suppose if your opponent was no good, then a bad strategy might still win, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good strategy. A strategy is "good" if it holds up against "best play" by your opponent. Actual execution (tactics) is a separate issue.quote:
The spies could be used as an advance line and create flanking or rear forces from enemy armies. Have you tried anything like this? |
I don't make much use of spies. I probably should, but I spend more time on the macro aspects rather than the micro. Spies take way too much micro, IMO.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by WRangler Rhymer
Well you post can be true if you play with the easiest settings, try hard settings. The lack of strategy you speak of is your lack of attempts it seems to either try to find a way of a new one, or you simple have not try the WHOLE game, that includes all the nations not just two, and hardest settings. |
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you 1) are unfamiliar with my name and/or 2) have not read any of my other posts. First of all, I ONLY play on the TOUGHEST setting. Secondly, I do PLAY the whole game. Unfortunately, the range of settings that most multi-players are willing to play is rather limited.quote:
I have rush two comps before with all my citizen armed for battle and a massive regular inf army with generals and have won by conquering the comp. |
You must be playing FFA and not teams.quote:
It seems to me you play as the same nations and try strategies that are against their strengths. |
Now why would you think that unless you are just trolling for a flamewar?quote:
I have played as the brits and have just buildt their gunpowered men with archers and have taken down three comps two allied, one that stayed by himself. |
Like I said, you'r playing FFA against comps. That's pretty easy.quote:
So try to by the whole game, dont back yourself in the corner and play as one nation doing the same thing. |
Uh, I think you need to read up a bit more.quote:
I suggest you buy the strategy guide, you might be surprised on how many things you can do. |
As an actual strategy guide author, I can honestly say I would never be surprised about anything I read in a book strategy guide - particularly one from microsoft.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by solo
The game plays a lot better with the maximum research cost option. There is more time to implement a bigger variety of strategic choices. With standard research times, the game suffers from that design decision to make games last only about 1 hour. |
I may try that option.quote:
Even so, it has held my attention much better than other RTS games I have tried. |
You should try Kohan. Many TBS players have come over because of it. It is unlike most other RTS games and is extremely deep. New strategies are still being evolved TWO years later.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by WRangler Rhymer
Well you post can be true if you play with the easiest settings, try hard settings. |
ROFL. Like you do with MODERATE? You're frickin' hilarious.
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WRangler Rhymer
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quote:
Originally posted by solo
Wrangler,
I suspect you have not checked out the "Beating the toughest AI" thread.
Out4Blood,
With standard settings I must agree that there is a lack of depth, especially in SP games against the toughest AI. Unit ramping costs are one reason, but I think rapid age advancement is the main cuplrit. The game plays a lot better with the maximum research cost option. There is more time to implement a bigger variety of strategic choices.
With standard research times, the game suffers from that design decision to make games last only about 1 hour.
Unlike turn-based predecessors like Civ II, in which new and subtle discoveries are still being made, I'm afraid RoN has just confused depth with variety. Even so, it has held my attention much better than other RTS games I have tried. |
I have read "Beating the toughest AI" thread, along with all the others in the Ron strategy forum. I think you have just misunderstood all that I have posted. Look this is the basic idea I wanted to get across is dont focus on building a bunch of cities go for millitary first. Build a couple of cities, put them in high resource areas, max out their potential first, then build military. Build more cities as need later. If you think that I was trying to say that tech does not go fast in the game you are wrong, I agree is does go extremely fast. 
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azalae
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WRangler Rhymer, I'm rather slow.
Could you post one of your replay? Preferably your best game. So that we can understand your strategy better.
Thanks.
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WRangler Rhymer
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Sure, I can. As to you previous quote I am not downing anyones suggestions. I was just making suggestions of my own to the comments of Out4bloods, because it seemed like he was upset. I should be able to post a game during the night if not, then i will post a game as soon as I can. No problem, thanks.
Last edited by WRangler Rhymer on 17-08-2003 at 14:46
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by WRangler Rhymer Look this is strategy talk, all I am doing is remarking about the comments you made, they were not said as an insult. |
If you don't want to insult people then you should refrain from writing insulting posts. Here are a few examples of things that one could have found insulting:
- "The lack of strategy you speak of is your lack of attempts..."
- "...you simple have not try the WHOLE game"
- "It seems to me you play as the same nations and try strategies that are against their strengths."
- "...dont back yourself in the corner and play as one nation doing the same thing/"
- "I suggest you buy the strategy guide"
quote:
By the way I played top settings, not moderate, plus you dont know what your talking about you have never seen me play. |
I'm just going by your own "strategy" post: A good strategy against MOderate and up comp.
quote:
You got problems buddy, but I will ignore all the crap you just said to me. |
I got lots of problems, but at least I don't respond to reasonable strategy posts with a bunch of insults - and then claim to NOT be insulting.
quote:
I was just making suggestions of my own to the comments of Out4bloods, because it seemed like he was upset. |
LOL. I'm not upset. Like I said: You're frickin' hilarious.
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WRangler Rhymer
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I do not find anything I said to be an insult, the comments you made it seem like you have played part of the game and hated it. All I suggested was to try the whole game. There is no need to continue with the insult, I have already said that I did not mean to insult you. You have misunderstood what I have said. Come on, can we please stop with this and continue to converse. Look lets just drop this, I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, can we please just continue conversing on strategy.
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Out4Blood
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Sure - just do NOT post stupid assumptions about ME.
If you want to talk about what OTHER strategies are viable, then do so. Just keep personal comments out of it.
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Bridger
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I think the reason we don't see so many strategy posts is because the game is so in depth. You can't simply documnet a procedure like in other games, because there are too many variables to consider that change every game. Only the early rushes can really be documented.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by Bridger
I think the reason we don't see so many strategy posts is because the game is so in depth. You can't simply documnet a procedure like in other games, because there are too many variables to consider that change every game. Only the early rushes can really be documented. |
I think you're talking about specific builds, not STRATEGY. Without getting into the whole strategy vs tactics debate, I consider strategy to be the plan of action, and tactics to be the action. So a build pattern would be tactics that would support a specific strategy.
What I am talking about is variation in strategy itself. IMO, there is little variation in viable strategy (i.e., rushing vs. booming, attacking in classical vs. gunpowder, land vs. sea., etc.
However, regarding your comment, even build patterns seem pretty limited. On the Heaven's Forum (which does have more activity than here BTW) there is a whole thread chastising Carch for suggesting doing something OTHER than a SCI1 start. The overwhelming opinion was that SCI1, CIV1, COM1 was the way to go. That's pretty limiting IMO. Also, it may not be very wise, because you can hit someone's capital at 3:00 with a MIL1 rush.
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Bridger
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Ok, fair enough, but i think the strategies are already well documented. Border push, boom, rush, hammer and needle, etc. Just check out the BHG website or the Sybex strategy guide.
In regaurd to the sci1,civ1, issue, i don't think there will ever be a way to balance those 4 techs to creat a truely unique game every time. There will *always* be a "best" build order for the first age, but after that it always verys widly. Hell, even the first age can change by the 3rd tech if your planning on booming or defending a rush. And it can change by the first tech if your greeks or are planning a rush.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Ok, fair enough, but i think the strategies are already well documented. Border push, boom, rush, hammer and needle, etc. Just check out the BHG website or the Sybex strategy guide |
AHA! So you AGREE with me. Notice I said strategic stagnation. I'm not that there is NO strategy, just no new strategy DEVELOPMENT. And you said it yourself: "strategies are already well documented." And for a published book: Sybex strategy guide (written months before the game even goes gold; I know, I've written some) to be the tome for strategy means there is no hope!
When you consider strategy development and evolution in AOE and AOK. And in games like Kohan. Compared to them, RON pretty weak.
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Bridger
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I don't see the problem, this game is no different than others in that there are very few choices to win.
1) Kill the enemies economy
2) Beat the enemies economy
Economy fuels war, every single strategy in RTS games revolved around besting your economy or destroying the enemies economy. Of course your skill in battle is also important, but these 2 things can only be combined in so many ways.
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Out4Blood
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quote:
Originally posted by Bridger
I don't see the problem, this game is no different than others in that there are very few choices to win.
1) Kill the enemies economy
2) Beat the enemies economy |
Well, it's not quite that simple. On the other hand you could say it's even simpler: Beat the other guy. But that's not a strategy, it's a goal. In fact, you could argue your "two choices" are just goals as well. The strategy should be, "How do I go about accomplishing that goal?"
Take a step back here for a moment:
GOAL - WIN GAME
---WIN BY TERRITORY
---WIN BY WONDER
---WIN BY CONQUEST
---WIN BY CAPITAL
Each of these different goals implies there are multiple strategies that will achieve them. Note that a capital victory doesn't necessarily require besting/beating their entire economy. You could say the same thing about a wonder victory, if your opponent was sleeping.
Each of those strategies will have underlying choices and tactics that will affect their success. Most other games are not so simplistic, and you'd expect in a game with as much breadth as RON to have more to it than just economy wins. What I HAVEN'T seen and DON'T see is a dicsussion of those strategic choices. You used to see stuff like that for other games. You don't here. And it's probably because of this...
quote:
Economy fuels war, every single strategy in RTS games revolved around besting your economy or destroying the enemies economy. Of course your skill in battle is also important, but these 2 things can only be combined in so many ways. |
I'd disagree with this statement about other other RTS games. There are many RTS games where economy is not so dominant. And trust me, I'm a classic, old school boomer (AOE, AOK). "Economy wins" is my motto. But even then, there was ROOM for other other strategies. And they could win. The FLUSH was a strategy developed relatively late in the evolution of AOK strategy development. The problem I see here is that economy is so much MORE dominant in RON than in any other game I've seen, that it totally eliminates any other strategy.
This overwhelming importance of economy is what makes RON so monolithic. Just about every game I have seen/played seems to play the same way. Econ up, push on borders, armies clash, someone loses.
Probably the thing that bothers me most, and the thing that is most noticeable to anyone who plays Kohan, is that army composition is RARELY discussed or even mentioned. Why? Because you gotta make a buncha different stuff: light, heavy, archers, cav, siege, supply, general, scout. Because the game FORCES you to make different troops, EVERYONE has the same army, just in different sizes. So the "strategy" about which troop types to specialize in, build your economy around, and develop with upgrades doesn't exist in RON. Every unit takes 2 resources and a balanced army requires everything, so you gotta make everything. There are no choices, so there are no trade-offs.
When I compare that to Kohan: troop composition is everything. What goes with what? What counters that best? What complements ally forces? What Kohans go on what troop types? This leads to interesting strategy discussion even two years later.
Selection of strategy discussions for Kohan:
http://www.timegate.com/forum/showt...=&threadid=6777
http://www.timegate.com/forum/showt...=&threadid=6659
http://www.timegate.com/forum/showt...=&threadid=6856
Are we going to be talking about RON two years from now? I doubt it.
Just my opinion, of course I could be wrong.
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Out4Blood
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I also offer this compelling quote by Heavens_Myst:
quote:
I'm not gonna say RON is dead, but the fun level isn't even up there... I've talked to many people about it who have stopped playing and they've resorted to TFT (Swinger, CP, cont.). I've resorted to Raven Shield and I'm thinking about Counterstrike.... then I'll give a shot at EE2? or whatever it is. |
from MFO
I am sure, much of the reason stems from the lack of strategic diversity.
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Badtz Maru
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Just tune WR out, it's not right to pick on people like him. If he would actually read the threads he'd see that there is a lot in common with what he is trying to share about his Moderate strategies and what O4B does in Toughest (i.e. building military first). He's just a little too 'special' to get that.
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Grond
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I've posted on this a few times myself, I'm not sure if it was here or RoN Heaven but I definitely agree the game lacks depth. I came to same conclusion about the causes also.
1. Rock/paper/scissors bonuses are too big
2. Ramping
3. Age advancement is to fast.
I've played mainly with slow and expensive research and even switched to very expensive later and this did help a little in that it was no longer practical to not upgrade your troops every age but the first 2 have a much bigger impact. I'd like to see an option to turn off ramping but I got shouted down unanimously at that suggestion. I have a feeling the majority of the problem though is the huge rock/paper/scissors bonuses and that everybody has the same units, even the Uniques are basically the same except for some nice graphics. I think this game may turn out to be a textbook example of why not to get too obsessed with the rock/paper/scissors model in a RTS game. I don't regret buying it, I had a lot of fun playing it for a while but once I figured it out there were no extra levels of depth to discover. I can't help but wonder if the designers would have come to the same conclusion if they had had a little longer to work on it. I did find the perfect solution however, I picked up the special edition of Combat Mission 1. Try using your Bazookas on my Tigers now!
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Out4Blood
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Nice point about unique units - sure they are better than their counterparts, but they die just as horribly to the usual counter - so uniques don't play much of a role. Although, there are a couple of exceptions where the unique actually has fewer counters, it's just not enough to change the game that much.
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15-08-2003 01:36
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