Have you been wondering which civilizations can build which wonders in Rise of Nations? Does Egypts extra wonder bonus have you a little confused? Well Big Huge Games has answered some community questions about wonders at Rise of Nations Pantheon.
"Any civilization can build any of the wonders. Along with that, wonders are buildings and can be destroyed or captured. To capture a wonder you just need to capture the city that it is built by, and then the bonus it grants is all yours. Sounds simple enough doesn't it? Cities with wonders are mighty tempting targets." -Graham Sommers
John Donglemans takes a few minutes out of his busy scehdule as Rise of Nations' Product Manager to talk with the guys over at UK Gamer. In the interview he talks about many key aspects of the game including its scope, unique units, and game modes. Check out the full article here
Four more screenshots have been posted at the Ensemble AoM site, taken from fan submitted ideas given to ES. This weeks' batch shows among other things airbone elephants, a 'gorgon's garden' full of units turned to stone, and a night attack by Egyptian forces. Head over and check them out. Airborne elephants...oh my...
The guys over at Apolyton have released this new interviews with Jason Coleman, VP of software at Big Huge Games. In the article, he answers many of the burning questions that are on fan's minds including this one.
Apolyton: How powerful are the scripting abilities in Rise of Nations? Are there many hard-coded variables (example: number of different units) that would limit the possibilities of an external editing utility?
Jason Coleman: The scripting is powerful. If anything, it's probably a little too powerful in that it closely resembles C-programming, and that may throw some people off. As for its abilities, we pretty much follow the same sort of iterative design process that we follow in many the other aspects of the game. If a scenario designer needs some functionality, we add it. This will continue throughout the project and probably even beyond as non-BHG scenario designers request new features.
Looks like things are looking up for all you modders and scenario builders. Check out the full article here
Swim from the ever vigilant EE France sent me some extra information for the international fans. Not sure how long these pages have been at Sierra, but its always good to give a reminder anyway.
Details and dates for all players (outside US/Canada) can be found here. I believe since their regional tournament will be on October 12 (also my SAT day) that European and Australian fans can still register at a local IGames shop. All links, details, and everything related to the championships can be found at Sierra.
Enrique Orduno has put together preview of the AoM scen editor. The article runs through all the basic features of the editor and provides a few screenshots of what the tools look like. If you're interested, head over and check it out.
While not revealing anything overly specific, Triumph's Josh Aow has been around to say a few things about the recent 1.2 patch, his take on the current crop of games, and possible future directions.
Patches are worked on in reaction to users finding issues.
Currently, there are no plans for another patch. If users find issues with v1.2 and the need for another patch arises, there will be one.
Later, in response to remarks that patches were required only because Game Developers were not doing a proper job of QA [Quality Assurance] in the first place, and expansions merely a way to increase profits by fixing what should have been done properly to begin with he added:
Perhaps my standards were lowered by that run of games a year or so ago which liked to delete your entire hard drive, but I was thinking just the opposite.
Alongside AoW2, nearly every game I've played this year has been entirely playable without patches. [...]
Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've been happily surprised at how solid most games have been recently. I do recall a couple years ago, when I basically shelved every new game until a patch came out. That was not fun. I haven't had to do that in a long time... in fact, I've noticed more bugs in my console games recently, which are doubly irritating, since I know they'll never be patched.
Indeed Josh, and the impressive list of changes made in the last two patches, most simply to satisfy the requests of die-hard fans rather then for any actual game-stopping bugs, shows how much the Devs at Triumph do in fact care about making the best product possible.
As to possible future directions, he had this to say about supporting a rotatable3D Terrain engine such as that used in Neverwinter Nights:
As 3D technology continues to improve, I'm sure we'll be looking at taking greater and greater advantage of it in future products. In the immediate future, it would raise the minimum system requirements too high, but that bar gets raised a bit further every day. To properly do realtime 3D terrain, you have to move the entire engine to full 3D, which for a game like AoW2, would require either a magnitude greater hardware power than currently exists, or signicantly reduced graphical quality.
AoW2 would have brought the NWN engine to it's knees.
This week, One_Dead_Angel takes a look at the French. In Rise of Nations, following the examples of the Crusading Knights to Napoleon's use of Cavalry as shock troops. France is portrayed as a nation with superior cavalry from the classical to the gunpowder age. Further inspired by Napoleon's use of the Corps D'Armée concept; generals, scouts, spies, supply wagons for the French are produced faster, cheaper and are more powerful.
Be sure to check out the full article and take a look at previous Nations of the Week on our Nations Page.
In this thread Thunder goes into a bit of detail about the strategic zoom in Rise of Nations.
There are several levels you can choose from by scrolling your mousewheel so you can change your view instantly. The levels range from zoomed in to show the area around a single city so you can manage your construction and resource gathering there if needs be, to zoomed out to show a large part of your territory including several cities and battlefields.
He also goes on to talk about how you can control your units by microing them, or by seeing the big picture. Check it out here.
In the Middle Ages the castle had two functions. From 1125 to 1298 it was the temporary depository of the Imperial crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1125 Emperor Heinrich V had determined that the empire insignia should go to Trifels after his death. The treasury consisted of the Emperor’s crown, Imperial orb, two empire swords, emperor’s coat and other items, together with a piece of the holy cross and a nail with which Jesus was nailed to the cross.
Burg Trifels is another CoTW kindly written by Hanarky.
TechTV's latest episode of Extended Play, showing this coming Monday and Tuesday will be featuring a preview of Age of Mythology. You can find full details here. *Scratches head* A TV channel devoted to PC's...not something we have in Australia.
Gamer's pulse have written a preview of AoM based on their impressions of the press beta. No new info, though they do have two new screens in their gallery. (Scroll to the bottom to see them.)
ign.com have posted a new article on the maps of Age of Mythology, and about the random maps generator. Some familiar concepts return from Age of Kings - Archipelago, King of the Hill and Nomad, for instance - while there are also some new maps covered, such as Alfheim and Valley of the Kings.
Check out the article here to learn about a few of the maps in AoM.
As promised a few days ago, the siegelet Circle of Lorent by Trailstorm-Radeem has now been released. Here's a bit of the story:
"In times past, just beyond the edges of Ehb, a small group of mages and an army of Dwarven settlers established a new home and a haven for all things magical. They called this land, Lorent. The mages, united in their defense of the region, became known as The Circle of Lorent: protectors of the dwarves, guardians of magic, and scholars of the realm. Even as members of the circle passed into the afterlife a spiritual link permitted the mages to remain powerful and in close contact with the living. Great halls of learning were built, attracting the interest of the mighty in Ehb and all neighboring regions. It is this very interest that led to years of epic battles and the inevitable fall of Lorent and the loss of the great halls. Yet even through such hard times and with the loss of the land of Lorent the Circle remained a force to be reckoned with – struggling always to guard over the last portion of the Lorent Valley and the surviving dwarves. That is, until recently."
You can read Trailstorm's announcement here, and download the file (a nice 8 megabytes) from Siege Network.
A new update in the forums from DarthMaulUK from another SWGB fansite.
Galactic Battles will be having a Question & Answer session with Galactic Battlegrounds game director: Garry Gaber about the upcoming release of SWGB: SAGA and maybe other plans about the future of the game.
Forum goers are also being given the chance to put their questions to Garry. Please visit the url below. If you haven't registered, I will do my best to check here for your questions also.
The folks over at MrFixitOnline have written an article about the various Greek God Powers in AoM. It goes over the basic information on each powers, but also includes an in-depth analysis and guide to how to use them. All of this information is based on pre-released material, so some of the information is subject to change when the game goes gold. Next week, expect a Norse God Power Guide, and an Egyptian GP Guide the following week.
"Ceasefire chains are smart to use in team games. For example, your teammates and you can have a strong economy by making villagers and delaying classical age. Most of the time this is a sure death, but with several ceasefires in a row, you are rush-proof. You will have enough time to lay down military buildings and get out enough units to handle your opponent. Because of your delayed classical age, you should have the upper hand economic wise.
Ceasefire is also great to use as a "get out of jail free" ticket when you are caught by surprise. Suppose, in a 2v2 game, both players double your ally. Your ally might have a decent army, but will be crushed by the sheer numbers of both enemy militaries engaging him. You can call ceasefire, and in the time of no attack, you can move your military across the map to aid your ally..."
In looking over one of the recent screenshots, I noticed something very interesting. Seems that the guys at Big Huge Games have shifted the UI for Rise of Nations from the traditional RTS view
to this new interface
The new interfaces appears as if it can expand and collapse much like the menus in Dungeon Siege. I'm not sure which one I prefer at this point, but the new UI, much like Rise of Nations itself, indicates a departure from the traditional way of doing a Real Time Strategy game.
Eddyon over from Eddyons EE was nice enough to send me a note about the Sierra Championships that are starting today. According to Eddyon, the gaming centers will be giving away free EE stuff, but of course might not happen at them all. As far as I know registering for the event ended a few days ago...so not exactly sure if anyone who hasn't registered already can go try out. Go find out more information at IGames or Sierra. If anyone has some additional info. be sure to send it my way.
This gallery will feature screenshots of unique landscapes created using the AOW2 map editor. If you are interested in submitting your screenshots, here's how:
Please restrict sizes to 350 by 350 pixels, file format - jpeg or jpg images only. If the picture is larger than 350 by 350, I may reduced the size of the pic.
Alright, the Scenario Factory is now open. To save time and your reading time, I'll just copy what I wrote in the section main page:
The Scenario Factory is dedicated in helping EE fans with multiplayer scenarios. Multiplayer scenarios are a fun form of playing unique fan-made scenarios with other players. It isn't a supported nor documented feature, but that hasn't stopped the many players in trying it. This section should provide help and links to multiplayer scenarios.
As it is very new, I'm more than welcome for suggestions and comments in my email of course. Enjoy and have fun! Think I gave it a cheezy name? Spent 2-3 hours of playing BF1942 when I came up with the name a minute ago.
It has been a long day, hasn't it? :) Don't want to make you folks wait any longer. We thought this time would be the fairest of all times. Good luck to everyone.
Okay, since you guys wanted it, back to old Empire Earth ! Tomorrow I might or might not make it, since I'm taking my Driver License exam, and I didnt make a appointment (doh!). So I will try to get in line early, and hope there's not too much people there. If there's not many people there, I will make it back in time for the Fourm Party, if there is, probably not. Also, I will be getting AoC tomorrow, so if you guys want to, we can always go and play EE:AoC . So check the Forum Party Thread for all the information!
GameSpot has posted the last and final of the showcases Loki.
"Loki is perhaps the most enigmatic god among the Asgardian deities. He was once an ally of Odin and his brood but later became a nuisance, and he eventually became a full-blown enemy. Greg Street, Age of Mythology codesigner, says, "Loki, the god of fire and trickery, undergoes interesting character development in Norse mythology. He starts out as an ally of the Norse gods, and undertakes quests with Odin and Thor. As time goes on, his mischievous streak turns downright vicious, and he begins to spawn monstrous offspring with the giants. Eventually, Loki sides with the giants for the final battle of Ragnarok, and his monstrous children, including the fenris wolf and the Midgard serpent, end up killing his old friends, Odin and Thor." "
Anyone's fingers getting tired yet? Are you getting sleepy? Nothing to do but sit infront of the compter monitor and constantly hitting refreash? Well, I've got a solution for you while you wait for the sites to go live with the contest.
"Myth units play an interesting role. For the Egyptians and Norse, gaining favor is fairly easy - almost effortless. With the greeks it is a bit more different because your population space is valuable and spending it on villagers to pray at the temple can be costly. None the less, myth unit can make a powerful impact on the battlefield and players must make careful choices on what units to create. "
Stuart Moulder is the general manager at Microsoft for the PC games division. The interview is about MS games over all, but there is a small bit on Dungeon Siege.
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about future Dungeon Siege expansion packs and sequels?
Stuart Moulder - Dungeon Siege continues to be one of Microsoft Game Studios strongest new franchises. In fact, Destineer recently announced that they will be porting Dungeon Siege to the Macintosh. We continue to invest in the Dungeon Siege franchise, but have no product announcements at this time.
Gamespy have posted their fourth AoM designer diary written by Ensemble designer Greg "Deathshrimp" Street. This one focuses on the singleplayer campaign, which in AoM is a far greater focus of ES's work than any of their previous titles if what we are led to believe is true.
It would have been easy to use the same approach in AoM, and just had a Greek, Norse, and Egyptian campaign, but we wanted to try something different this time.
Multiple campaigns must necessarily be limited to only a few scenarios each, or else you sacrifice quality in just trying to cram dozens of scenarios for each campaign. Mythology is about epic events, and we wanted to tell a single, epic story. We wanted room to develop characters and environments without having to rely on endless cinematics to tell the story. In a game you need to let the players play the game, not just listen to a story.
You can find the full article here. Unfortunately no new screens this time. Guess they think they're spoiling us with the press beta... :(
ell, we finally managed to complete one part of our cunning plan for City Building Heaven.
As of today the forums for Pharaoh are part of the City Building Forums. From here you can easily visit the other City Building Foums for Caesar 3, Zeus and, of course, Emperor.
There may be a few loose links around, which we hope to fix in the days to come. Of course, many of the original cross-post links have stopped working.
Note you may also experience some problems with Glyphy.
My good friend DisturbedRoach of AoM Center has taken 7 very pretty new screenshots. (Though to be fair, four are the same screenshot with alternate view angles and lighting settings.) They're very nice looking and have some cool eye candy, so head over and check em out.
The fantastic fruity fellas over at the FOPT clan website are redesigning their site, but need a new banner. That's where you all come in. They have started a contest where contestants create such a banner for their site, and the best one is publicly voted. The winner wins either a 20 dollar Amazon.com coupon and 2 AoK:TC training lessons from expert Halen, or a 40 dollar Amazon.com coupon. Sounds like some substantial rewards for making an awesome banner for the site.
"FOPT announces an exclusive Interview with HALEN, one of the best players in the world and top-favorite for the coming World Cyber Games. You can find the interview on our homepage http://www.fopt-clan.de.
But FOPT also needs you help! Currently we are working on a new homepage and this also requires a new banner (logo). We have started a little banner-contest with prizes and hope that many of you will join it. For details check http://www.fopt-clan.de please.
Thank you in advance and good luck to all contestants!"
With mod packs becoming a new rave at Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Heaven, The Vampire Slayer, a forummer here, has given a tutorial on how to successfully and correctly review mods that are released into our downloads.
TVS - This review system contains 2 categories for Modification Packs. I have determined that the following categories cover all the areas that a truly excellent modpack should excel in: Usefulness and Quality. Both categories are scored on a range from 1 to 5 with 5 being the best score and 1 being the worst. The total score is achieved by averaging both categories...
Triumph Studios programmer Josh Farley has been very active in the Tech Help forum, so if you're encountering any difficulties with the game or with the new v1.2 patch, post your problem (along with your computer's specs!) and you can be sure to get some help.
Here's some advice Josh offered about installing the new patch while in the middle of the campaign:
Some changes may not take effect on save games in the middle of a map. For a campaign game, that would mean until that scenario is completed. If things still aren't right when you start the next map, I'd suspect that your system failed to overwrite the files properly, perhaps because of a system setting related to read-only files, or more likely because of interference from background tasks (especially virus checkers and compression utilities). You might try rebooting, shutting down all background tasks manually, and installing the patch again.
And here are some useful tips for people encountering graphic errors when running the Scenario Editor:
That sounds like either a driver or memory issue. The editor runs in windowed mode, while most games do not, so comparing them is even less pertinent than with the game itself. I'd suggest rebooting and shutting down all background tasks before running the editor. You might also make sure that your desktop is set to 16-bit color, and disable Direct3D (Ctrl-R within the editor). Also, different driver versions will likely behave differently. For Nvidia's Detonator drivers, I've found v29.41 to be by far the most stable in all the games I run, including AoW2.
ESCmag has posted their "review" if you could call it that of AoW2, giving it a 5/10. Its more of an editorial than a review though, criticizing the linear AoW2 campaign, as opposed to the multi-branch campaign in the original AoW, and barely scratches the gameplay features. You can read it here; try not to laugh when you read the last sentence...
Just a friendly reminder that the AoM Sneak Preview contest is tomorrow. At an undisclosed time, each of the particpating sites will have a link to the sign up form.
With every gaming site seemingly havin their hands on the beta, Gamer's Pulse didn't want to be left out and has 9 new screenshots. I notice the interesting 'shiny' water effects we've been seeing in a few recent screenshots feature here. In any case, go give 'em a look.
Once again Thunder from Big Huge Games has graced our questions thread with his presence! Once again he has given some very useful new information. Here are some of his answers.
How about naval warfare?
"At the moment, there are plenty of ships, and lots of work to do balancing and tweaking that part of the game. I honestly haven't got the hang of playing on water maps yet. I'm still getting used to the fact that there are no transport ships to train."
There be such kind of rank system that could be aplicable to experienced units?
"Such as a unit that survives a long time or kills several units getting a bonus of some kind? Things like that encourage microing units. We don't want players to have to worry so much about individual units in the game, which is something that a system like this would bring up. We want players to be able to control armies, instead of clicking around on each of their units."
Will there be a random civ and random team option? What about a namad type map?
"Random civ option, yes! Random team option, yes! Namad...you mean NOmad correct? Quite possibly! (I'd be heartbroken if we didn't have it)"
Is there a building limit on barracks?
"There is no building limit on any military buildings, and you can build them anywhere in your territory."
He talked about many aspects of Rise of Nations, and even asked if there are any taunts we would like to see in the game. So hurry up and rush to the forums to see if your favorite taunt can get in the game! View the rest of Thunder's answers in the the thread here
GameFeeder had a look at AoM while the MS press tour was passing through Australia and produced a preview based on their impressions. No new info, and I actually noticed a few factual errors - but if you're interested, you can find it here.
Gamespot have gotten their hands on a four and a half minute long movie of the Loki civilization in action. It shows a few battles and god powers in action, but nothing new. You do unfortunately have to be a paid member of Gamespot to view the movie, which you can find here. Phew...all this movie downloading is going to kill my download limit very soon...
Here's something scenario designers ought to be interested in, Enrique Orduno and Yehoshua Yisra'el have put together a list of the conditions and effects that can be used with triggers in AoM. You can check it out here, and comment in this thread in the forums.
Rounding off our little tech trees feature is the civilization of the Norse god Thor. Of the three cultures in Age of Mythology, the Norse have the smallest and perhaps most interesting tech tree...so head over and check it out.
Perogrullada, one of our forummers, brought up a very good point in a topic in the forum. Why aren't mines in Rise of Nations? This sparked a very interesting debate as to whether they should be included because it would be histoically accurate, or if they should be omitted because of the substantial amount of micromanagement they would require. Many good arguments were made in the thread, and the topic is still being actively debated.
Feel free to make your own argument for or against mines!
"Already I have tried out a variety of god powers. They're not all death and destruction. I used one that caused extra healthy crops, for example, so I had extra food. Another made the harvesting of the local wild life much easier. When you start worshipping gods like Ares, god of war, well, Ares doesn't much care about a well-toiled farm, and that's when you start to get things that turn the enemy into scorch marks."
Past journals:
September 24: - The gods are pleased, so is the player.
Forumer InsaneCow has alerted us to an article at PC Gameworld which mentions that Eagle Games are planning to develop a board game based on AoM.
PC GAMEWORLD: So what’s next for Eagle? Another computer game by any chance?
GLENN DROVER: Our next game will be [based on] Age of Mythology by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft - which will ship in the Spring of 2003. [The boardgame, not AoM.] I’m just starting the preliminary design work now. I’m very excited to blend boardgaming with real-time strategy. I think that the potential for a new style is very interesting. I also can’t wait to see the cool miniature mythological creatures!
A novel concept, to say the least. In any case, there isn't much more detail than that, but if you want to check out the full interview, you can find it here. You can also head over to InsaneCow's thread in the forums to give your thoughts.
Brian Reynolds, founder of Big Huge Games, has dropped by the forums to give us all a little insight into how resources work in Rise of Nations.
Brian Reynolds: Just because you have a mountain getting mined for metal doesn't mean (as in a traditional RTS) you can "just throw 50 guys on it" and increase your collection rate by approximately 50x. Rather, depending on the size of the mountain it will allow a certain # of miners in your mine. If you want more metal (and you WILL, oh how you WILL!) you're going to have to find another mountain or take one from somebody.
He goes on to tell us how BHG is taking steps to deal with many of the issues that have plagued resource management in previous RTS games. Read the full article here.
Triumph's Josh Aow has let a revealed a few more little known details. In reply to long-time Ager Edi on a question about maximum damage from the Geyser Spell & Physical Protection he points out that:
Geyser is an auto-hit spell, it works differently. Half of the damage is automatic, and ignores weakness/protection. The other half is affected, so 6 would be a correct max DAM in that situation.
He goes on to list "Suffocate, Deep Fissure, and Geyser..." as "auto-hit" spells which work this way.
To Magog's question about randomly populated exploration sites which sometimes say "Weak" in-game instead of "Average" as indicated by the Editor he replied that
AFAIK the editor is listing a setting, where the game is listing the actual strength of the actual units that have been randomly generated. There is some variance in what units get generated.
To which otime adds the helpful observation that
Some vault may turn from average to weak. This happens when they were unsuccessfully attacked, but some vault unit gets killed. Thus, the game reports the actual strength.
Earlier, he noted when asked about what if any files needed to be manually saved ala Warcraft III when de-installing and reinstalling that
AoW2's Uninstaller will also leave your savegames behind. They are all you need to backup to save your progress...
For those who are unaware, this means for example, that registry entries or player profiles are not used to keep track of campaign records. All information needed information is included in the save or autosave file as you progress, and only the most recent save file is ever needed to continue on to the finale, or return to the "special phase" maps if you previously passed over them.
When I woke up this morning, I heard a giggle and then another giggle. As I looked up I noticed this small bit of Heaven had experienced a significant population increase.
Please welcome to our hallowed ranks:
Sulis, who will be helping out GillB with the History section and will generally be active in doing reviews and helping out on the Crusader Game Help.
Ztolk, who will be helping out on Game Help, Scenario Design, and the odd-bit of Number Crunching.
Both are already working hard on getting content together for Stronghold: Crusader.
I planned on promoting these two stalwarts when the site went life, but with Wraith being entangled in nappies and most of the rest of the staff working overtime to get Emperor Heaven up and running, I didn't want you, our visitors, to feel lonely in the forums, so please be nice to our youngest cherubs.
Here's the thread on the Community forum to celebrate their promotion.
Gamezone.com have gotten their hands on the AoM beta and produced a short preview on it. No new info - it's just a broad overview of how the game plays, but head over and check it out if you're curious.
Well if it isn't anotherinterview with Bruce Shelley - this time from Gameplanet NZ. The interview covers chiefly questions about why ES made the big direction changes they did with Age of Mythology.
With his first web site created in 1997, Will firmly implanted himself in a career of web design. He opened "Will's Age of Empires" in 1998, which took off to a slow start, so he decided to try again a year later. In July of 1999, "Will's Age of Kings" was opened. Hitting 1000 visitors in the first month (hosted on Tripod, mind you), this was the first ray of light in Will's path to stardom.
Our own Enrique Orduno was lucky enough to get his hands on the press beta - and as I'm sure a lot of curious Agers will, gravitated to the scenario editor first. He's taken the time to write up some of his impressions in the forums.
Head over to the forums and check it out and give your opinion on his comments.
Well, I was looking through the forums during a boring period, when I noticed some interesting art done by one of the forumers.
Got to especially like the first one. Reminds me of playing BF1942, and a plane getting shot down by AA guns. Great job to SuperHarry11, you can go give him praise here. Maybe we'll have to convert to Game Art instead of toons
Also, I'm looking for some help from you, the fans and forumers. I'm trying to compile a list of multiplayer scenarios for a future new section, but need your help to make it complete. Full details here.
Everyone is getting into the spirit of giving early this year. AoM Battlefield is hosting The Wrath of the Gods Contest. Here's what you have to do in order to win one of the many prizes.
"Age of Mythology Battlefield is proud to present The Wrath of the Gods Contest. This contest is special, because anything goes. Any user may send in a submission containing material related to Age of Mythology. If we like it, you win! Also, in the subject title you will need to put Age of Mythology Battlefield contest or your submission may be lost. Armageddon and Kingkerry will judge submissions. The deadline for the contest is October 24, 2002 at 12:00 P.M CST. The contest page can be found here. http://members.lycos.co.uk/aombattle/contest.php "
"The single player campaign gives you more options progressively, as most RTS games do. The multiplayer and skirmish modes work a little differently. In these modes, each of the three civilizations (Norse, Greek, Egyptian) has three gods to choose from. For example, when you play as the Greeks you choose to be the Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades faction. Under each god you still get a choice of different lesser gods as you advance through the ages, which again will give your civilization different strengths, so even two Poseidon factions on the same map may differ."
Ogre's network has done an interview with Big Huge Games' Community Relations Manager, Graham Sommers. Many of you know him in the forums as Thunder, whose posts always give us an interesting glimpse into the game. He gives some pretty good insights into what he does at BHG, and how he managed to get himself there.
Graham Somers: Probably the one thing that helped the most in my case was knowing a few folks in the industry. Being dedicated enough to work on fan sites on a daily basis for years meant that I was interacting with some of the same people often enough that they got to know me a little. When it came time to call up my references, I was in good hands.
I'm going to have to agree with Theta - there seems to explosion of AoM news at the moment. :) This time it's in the form of an interview RadiativeNZ scored with Bruce Shelley. Among the questions answered are a recent answer on the system specs - still holding to what ES said several months ago, though the necessary hard disk space has been bumped to 1.5 gigabytes. (!)
Q. What are the expected System Specs for AoM?
Bruce Shelley: PII 450, 128 Meg of Ram; 16 Meg 3D accelerator card ( we also support the same 8 Meg video cards that Warcraft III does), about 1.5 Gig of hard drive space.
Yesterday in our newly launched Tech Tree knowledge base, we profiled the Zeus civilization's units, structures and technologies. Today we take a look at the Egyptian culture and the civilization of Isis - so head over and check out the Isis tech tree.
You do need Flash 6 installed to view the tech tree pages - so if you are prompted to install it on viewing those pages, go ahead and install it! It's not some evil spyware or anything as a few concerned people enquired - Flash is used for displaying interactive page content on the web.
Soon we'll be taking a look at the Norse culture and the Thor faction - keep your eyes out for that in the near future.
The third part of a detailed interview with Brian Reynolds, President of Big Huge Games about his company`s upcoming debut title, Rise of Nations is now available on Apolyton. This portion focuses primarily on warfare, but includes tidbits of such as city management, resources and science.
Not only is this third installment of this preview a three-page write-up along with an exclusive screenshot from intermediate gameplay, but also available live on-demand is the complete, uncut audio from which the article itself is based in RealAudio format. You can find the full article here.
Today has been an insane day as far as AoM news goes. This marks the 6th new post today and who knows if there will be more tonight.
This latest news bit is from Electric PlayGround. Jason MacIsaac staff writer of EP has started an AoM journal. Each day he'll write-up about his experiences with AoM. It could possibly mean playing through single play campaign, playing single player versus the computer AI and/or fiddling with the Scenario Editor.
"The tutorial is spread out over a few missions, and starts right from the bare basics, including movement and unit selection. It won't be so exciting for experienced gamers, but it makes a nice appetizer for the game's new visuals. The game has gone 3D as I'm sure you've heard, and it looks verrrrry nice. The water effects, such as the shoreline with waves, and ponds with vegetation on the surface are particularly lovely. I'm running the game at one of its lowest resolutions too (I'd love to run it higher, but the higher resolutions won't run reliably on my system yet). "
In a way this is AoM related, Ogre's Network conducted an interview with Graham "Thunder" Somers (ex_Angel and AoMH Site Director). Thunder discuss issues such as how he was hired and some recommendations on how to get a job in the industry as well as Big Huge Game's next game Rise of Nations.
Ogre: Finally, there are many fans out there who dream of getting a job at a game development company, what things do you recommend that these fans do to possibly realize that dream?
Graham Somers: That’s really a tough question to answer, since I lucked out in a big way. Brian Reynolds actually wrote up a great list of industry job tips that you can find on the BHG website. They are definitely worth reading, especially coming from a veteran. They cover more career types than just the one I am involved in too.
Probably the one thing that helped the most in my case was knowing a few folks in the industry. Being dedicated enough to work on fan sites on a daily basis for years meant that I was interacting with some of the same people often enough that they got to know me a little. When it came time to call up my references, I was in good hands. (thanks references!)
Yes it is official, Helicopters are in Rise of Nations! Many forummers here at Rise of Nations Heaven were anxious to find out if they would be featured in the game. Today verification came from Thunder in the form of this reply in our forums.
"No screenshot for you, but yes there are helicopters in the game. They can be a very nasty unit to deal with if you are unprepared for them."
Rise of Nations only gets more interesting as the days go by. Thanks Thunder!
"The November 2002 issue of PC Gamer features an article entitled "How to Get a Job in the Games Business". In the article, PC Gamer interviews Steve Thompson, art director at Gas Powered Games. Steve shares what he looks for when reviewing candidates for the GPG art department."
This lovely package popped into Zen's mailbox this morning, and since then I have not seen or heard anything from him till now. He was hiding away in his little hole playing the single-player campaign! He did stay long enough to pass this image over. Let's hope Zen pops back online soon to tell us more of the single-player campaign. In the next few days you can be sure to expect some content and page updates on AoMH.
AoM fans are in for a real treat. MS has announced a contest where you the fan can win a sneak preview of AoM. Starting Friday September the 27th, if you're one of the first ten fans to sign-up at any of the sites'listed below, you'll win a copy. A special sign-up page will appear on the the day the contest begins. Another 50 winners will be randomly selected from the pool of all entries, for a grand total of 200 copies.
The Sneak Preview will consist of:
LAN/IP multiplayer
The first 15 scenarios
Random maps and computer AI
Scenario Editor
What it won't have is the online match making ability of ESO and the second half of the single-player campaign.
Australian magazine; PC PowerPlay, will be featuring AoM in their November Issue. If you're in Australia, pick-up a copy. TSD is in Australia, you can be sure he'll be buying a copy to tell all those outside of Australia what is in the magazine.
Over the months and years of the Empire Earth Community, I think its safe to say that strategy-gaming.com has supported more EE sites than any other host. It just seems that their fansite would always leave or break away or something. And once again I found a new fansite called Eddyons Empire Earth. Seems they're in the process of moving though their forums are working. Great to see a new fansite pop up.
Here it is, officially! Josh AoW posted today that the patch is now out on the official Take2 site with a direct link here.
His thread goes on to report the major changes, plus a few additions. The list is too long to reproduce in full here, but includes among other things the following New Features
-In the Realm display, double-clicking a City in the list now selects the City. -In the Realm display, double-clicking a Hero in the list now selects the Hero. -Sacred Woods, Poison Plants, and Evil Woods now list their ATT and DAM when holding the mouse over them. -Arrow buttons on the Selected object banner will now select previous/next Cities as well as Parties. -Arrow buttons have been added to the Hero window to allow selecting the Previous/Next Hero.
There is also an extensive list of fixes and balance changes. He further notes that
The patch works on all languages, releases and versions of AoW2.
Sierra has released a new EE Expansion trailer (2 megs) with some amazing camera angles. Overall showcases the new campaigns and the space age with clips of the normal intro. movie in EE. Looks very nice especially the planes, you can see it here.
This week’s requested screens are mainly of the Scenario Editor, six in total showing the many different day and night cycles in the game. A water battle scene and one of the Powerful SCN Camera Track Editor.
Archangel also sent word that the game looks amazing and their weekend playtesting session went VERY well and everything is on track.
Thunder of Big Huge Games has recently been visiting out forums to answer some of the questions that have been raised in the community. Here are some of his answers to various questions:
"Missing Civ: Brits are in, and they rock. They get some very impressive unique units.
Real Time Strategy & Turn Based Play: essentially we're bringing that focus on the big picture you find in TBS games to an RTS. You will be managing several cities but you won't have to worry so much about individual citizens. Smart citizens and resources that never deplete leave you time to deal with the larger game issues like building improvements to your cities, expanding your borders, and maneuvering your armies.
Diplomacy: there's actually a game type called "Diplomacy". Players can demand resources from others, propose alliances, peace, etc. It’s like a FFA with some structure. You can play other game types where it doesn't really come into play. So it can be as much apart of your game as you want it to be.
Markets & Generating Gold: to generate gold you build a market and train a caravan. Caravans will automatically start traveling a trade route and generate gold for you. The more cities you have, the more caravans you can have traveling between them, the more gold you'll generate. It's pretty easy.
Military & Civilian Units: you don't have to pay any sort of upkeep on units. You pay a one time cost for them and that's it.
View all of Thunder's responses and ask some of your own questions in the thread here
We now have an Official Screenshots section here at Rise of Nations Heaven! It currently features 33 Official Screenshots. The gallery also features 15 screenshots from the MS E3 2002 Press Kit, as well as 26 pictures from Heavengames coverage of E3!
Please welcome the newest staff member to our team at Rise of Nations Heaven, One_Dead_Angel. Many of you know him by his former name One_Dead_Villy. He has been a consistent and excellent contributor to the community and we are glad to have him with us.
One_Dead_Angel will be producing content for our newest feature, the RoNH Nation of the week. This will be a series of articles that will not only go into how each nation is portrayed in Rise of Nations, it will also showcase the Nation's historical significance and accomplishments.
In his first installment, One_Dead_Angel takes a look at the Chinese in Rise of Nations. With the ability to produce citizens, scholars, merchants, caravans, and Unique Units faster and cheaper than the other Nations, they are sure to become a rushing player's Nation of choice.
It's time to introduce a new section at AoMH - the tech tree knowledge base! Over the long period of AoM's development, we've accumulated a lot of info about AoM's units, technologies and buildings - so we've decided it was time to create a tech trees section.
At the moment, only one civilization's tech tree is showcased - that of the mighty Zeus but in the near future, keep your eyes out for those of his divine compatriots Isis and Thor - giving us a look at the tech trees of all three cultures.
Note that to view the tech trees section, you do need Flash 6 installed. If you don't have it installed, you'll be prompted to do so when trying to view those pages. And a big thanks to Angel Zen who produced the flash template the tech trees are built on!
No battlefield briefing this week, I'll just round up the poll change quickly.
Last week's poll asked What do you think of the new forums? Undergoing both a facelift and an expansion, we're eager to hear your thoughts. 35% of people went for the 'Awesome' option, and more than two thirds overall were happy with the new forums. Most of the rest of you liked the old forums better...I guess it's hard to lose the attachment to the forums that we've been posting in for well over a year now. You can check out the full results of last week's poll here.
This week's poll asks Are you excited about the scenario editor? Comments from the developers tell us that AoM's scenario editor may take a bit more learning, but should be easier to navigate, and more powerful overall.
Finally, while we're on the topic of polls, if you have an idea you'd like to see in the weekly poll, drop us a line!
The german site Ghome posted 5 screens from the press beta recently. Well, they've got five more! These ones show off the interface for making god choices when advancing, and two shots of different light settings - one in a reddish sunset and another in a dark night environment. Head over and check 'em out.
Bryant Freitag, the 3d Programmer, for Rise of Nations has been interviewed by Rise of Nations Pantheon. Freitag talks about his plans for trade routes, and coastlines. He also talks quite a bit about balance in Rise of Nations.
GillB was kind enough to take the pictures my Dad took on his last trip to Northumberland and look up the history belonging to the castle.
Aydon Castle stands amongst woods on the edge of a ravine down to the Cor Burn near Corbridge, Northumberland and is one of the finest examples of an English 13th century manor house.
A wooden house was built on the site by Hugh de Reymes, a Suffolk merchant who had bought some land in Northumberland, in the mid 13th Century. His son, Robert, converted it into an undefended stone manor house in 1296. There had been a long period of peace but unfortunately almost as soon as the house was completed, the peace was broken in 1305 and the border raids and Scots invasions started again. He applied for permission from Edward I to fortify his house which was readily given.
samourai iv has informed us that ign.com have posted a short article written by AoM programmer Bellal Khan, focusing on some of the issues they encountered in implementing god powers in AoM, particularly from a technical standpoint, but also from the design and balancing view. Along with the article are six brand new screenshots showing off the god powers and some great eye candy.
Head over to ign and check it out. Also be sure not to miss the screen of the elephants being hurled through the air by meteor...
Talon-Thorn, with assistance from Josborne, has written up an excellent guide on all the Events available for use in the Editor. This Events guide contains detailed descriptions on the events and the various setting associated with them.
Josborne has also submitted a descriptive list of AOW2 movie files associated with the PlayMovie event. You can use this list as a quick and easy reference to select for which movie file to use in your events.You can view this list of AOW2 movies here or at Josborne's homepage.
Thanks to Talon-Thorn and Josborne for their excellent work!
In the Middle Ages the castle had two functions. From 1125 to 1298 it was the temporary depository of the Imperial crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1125 Emperor Heinrich V had determined that the empire insignia should go to Trifels after his death. The treasury consisted of the Emperor’s crown, Imperial orb, two empire swords, emperor’s coat and other items, together with a piece of the holy cross and a nail with which Jesus was nailed to the cross.
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ell, we finally managed to complete one part of our cunning plan for City Building Heaven.
