His fortress is on the far side of the map, but a couple of regions at either corner would be useful to take out first. For example, on the first you're trying to defeat the Doge. Just trying to create a little tension) takes place on a simple strategy map, with clearly marked objectives. You'd have thought they'd have done one for each of the three races, wouldn't you? Yes, you would, and so they did. To this end, each of the three campaigns (Two Alims and a Vinci. It's a continuing attempt to mix the freeform board-game style of play of something like the Total War games with the traditional story-heavy narrative mission. The Campaign mode is arguably the heart of the single-player experience. Like Piñata, except you beat them with ground-to-air weapons. In terms of all the classical RTS which I've reviewed since starting to write for Eurogamer, this is the one which feels the most solid, the most right.
In fact, generally speaking, its mechanics and design are as solid as you can ask in an RTS. A button press can expand it further, going into the absolute gritty parts of the simulation for those hardcore with calculators for minds. Its use of pop-up controls is utterly exemplary, with anything you care to point your mouse at folding out to a description. In other words, they do try their very hardest to teach you all this. It's worth noting that they don't make it easy for you, while simultaneously making it as easy for you as possible. Rise of Legends is a maximalist real-time strategy game, offering you a lot to wrestle with. Spin that out across all the parts of the three races, and there's a hell of a lot to learn. Completely different mechanisms to get your head around, and, perhaps obviously, the technological trees you climb with these points are completely different from race to race. The Cuotl get research points from similar expanding of their cities, but get research points from any of the districts they stick on. The Alim can expand their cities with Magus districts, which provides points - but it's a choice between a Magus district or other options (Merchant or Military). The Vinci gain theirs through building individual buildings, separate from their central cities, each of which can be upgraded into a unique structure (such as a long-distance spyglass). Rather than Rise of Nations with its basically similar mass of nations, each of Rise of Legends' races has radically different propositions, performing similar tasks in different ways.
Not that Rise of Legends helps its position by its choice of mechanics for each race. But even ideas which step away from the expectations this little are somehow a little outré for mainstream videogames. Or, in more modern terms, the bad guys from Stargate, but Incans instead of Egyptians. The Cuotl are the Incan-Gods-were-actually-aliens of '70s early pop-conspiracy book Chariot of the Gods. The Alim are a middle-eastern-flavoured magical desert race, riffing tightly off the Arabian Nights. The Vinci are a steam-punk retro-technological race, roughly inspired by the doodles of Leonardo Da Vinci. But why on earth are we all so stupid? The three sides in Rise of Legends are the Vinci, the Alim and the Cuotl. Oh, what on earth are we saying? Every bloody review of Rise of Legends has said this. Which of the Alim's dragons does what precisely then? It's a hurdle before you can start to tear apart the mechanisms, which drives you away with the game and. Similarly in Rise of Legends, where rather than the usual Tolkein Assortment we have three sides each with an array of creatures whose purpose may not be immediately recognisable. Choosing to research the Proton-proton proton-blob (Proton) IV? Not a chance in hell. well, if you choose to develop the Wheel, you'll have a rough idea what it does. Civ-in-Space it may have been, but it was immediately a less accessible thing just because. Regularly argued as one of the greatest turn-based games of all time, it got dismissed by people unwilling to wrestle with these enormous science-fiction tech-trees. Of course, Big Huge Games' Brian Reynolds has made this mistake before when he lead the design efforts of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. "Yeah," he notes, "I'm really glad they tried, but I wouldn't recommend this to many people." He thinks that its fiction gets in the way of the mechanics too much. He's just spent the evening playing it and isn't quite convinced. It precipitates while I'm sitting and trying to work a way into the review, when a friend IMs me, asking if I've played it yet. Thinking about Rise of Legends makes me think that maybe we're just doomed.
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