This or AoE?

[Harmacist]

The fight is between Rise of Nations or any of the 3 Age of Empires.

Not going to ask which one is better, but which one suits my gameplay style:

- I prefer economics and building/wonders management, not warfare
- I hate rushes, prefer turtling to victory
- Graphics are not important
- Customization and variety is very important
- Single player campaign important
- Dislike massive armies, prefer small, well-upgraded and managed batallions
- Multiplayer kinda important, but not essential

Any ideas?

[Zombiecat]

Rise of Nations is more suited for you, although I feel AOE has the better campaigns.

[Raydell]

I'd say it's a more mixed picture based on your preferences but numerically speaking, AoE3 seems to tick the most of your "likes", though some of your desires also point towards RoN so it ultimately comes down to how those points measure up against eachother in their importance to you.

Either way, it's been many years since I last played AoE2, but from what I remember and from my more recent experience with AoE3 and RoN:

• RoN puts a lot more emphasis on economic/wonder management than the AoEs. It also spans the widest period of history from ancient times to the modern age as opposed to AoE2's medieval or AoE3's gunpowder age focus.
  
  
• Turtling works well in RoN singleplayer, can't comment on multi. AoE3 AI likes to rush but you can still turtle there if you're quick enough with building defenses. Can't really remember how AoE2 was in this regard.
  
  
• Graphics are fine in all three. AoE3 looks the best by modern standards.
  
  
• AoE3 offers the most unique customization options with its homecity system (each battle earns you experience that you can spend on custom reinforcements, special tech upgrades or economic aid which you may call upon from your homecity during battles) but aside from that they all have many nations to choose from. On the other hand, RoN offers the most diverse unit palette simply due to the vast scope of historical eras you can advance through featuring units from ancient hoplites to supersonic stealth bombers and anything in-between.
  
  
• RoN has the largest armies and the least amount of upgrades for individual units if you disregard age advancement (though it has more macro and economic upgrades). AoE2 and 3 both have a lot more unit upgrades with generally smaller armies, more managed battalions. However in skirmish, all three let you change the max unit numbers so you can scale down on army sizes if you want.
  
  
• This point depends on what kind of campaigns you prefer as they are fundamentally different. If you want traditional, highly scripted, on-rails, mission-sequence type campaigns then AoE does that well. However if you want dynamic campaigns that play more like a grand strategy game, RoN is your only choice from the three as it's one of the very few RTS games which do that.
  This also makes RoN's campaigns highly replayable unlike those of the AoEs, though the AoE campaigns have great stories. Personally I strongly prefer RoN's campaigns because of that but I also like 4X grand strategy so I'm biased. :)
  
  
• AoE2 has the most active multiplayer, AoE3 looks to be second and RoN is probably third judging by player count. Average daily player count (which includes single+multi) for AoE 2 is around 3000 vs around 800-1000 for AoE3 and 300-400 for RoN.

All in all, the AoE games are your traditional cookie cutter RTS games and they execute that formula very, very well. RoN is more of a mix between a Civilisation-type history-spanning grand strategy and RTS but that too has proven to be a very entertaining combination.

[Harmacist]

Thank you so much for your extensive review. Will buy AoE2 and 3 ASAP (already got RoN due to the sale)

[Raydell]

You're most welcome, hope you'll have fun with them! They're all classic, great games in their own right so you can't really go wrong getting any of them.

[aflashman]

Originally posted by Pristine Insanity:

The fight is between Rise of Nations or any of the 3 Age of Empires.

Not going to ask which one is better, but which one suits my gameplay style:

- I prefer economics and building/wonders management, not warfare
- I hate rushes, prefer turtling to victory
- Graphics are not important
- Customization and variety is very important
- Single player campaign important
- Dislike massive armies, prefer small, well-upgraded and managed batallions
- Multiplayer kinda important, but not essential

Any ideas?

In my opinion Age of Empires and Rise of Nations are on a par most of those points. Both games have a strong economic emphasis, as well as military (of course).

As far as turtling goes, Age of Empires allows you to build walls, and if you play the Arena map you get a walled citadel from the outset. Also popular amongst noobs of AoE2 is the black forest map which is a turtler's dream. At the start of the game you wall the choke points and from their it is a race to build the biggest economy before eventually smashing down the walls and fighting it out. There is really is no equivalent in Rise of Nations.

But Rise of Nations has national territories meaning your opponent can only build in their territory and thus can't "back door" you by deviously building a barracks near your main TC.

I never bother with campaigns myself, but I have a few friends who play both games and one of them in particular loves the Rise of Nations campaigns (actually they both prefer Rise of Nations because it requires less villager management).

Regarding which Age of Empires to play... the classic of the series is Age of Empires 2. Most old time AoE players were quite disappointed by Age of Empires 3 (although it does have its fans admittedly). Age of Empires 2 has by far the largest still-active multiplayer community out of the AoE series. Age of Empires 2 also has a much bigger online community than Rise of Nations. There are also far more strategy guides, youtube tutorials, and commented games between pros. But this also means the standard of play is very high in the AoE2 community. If you want to get really good you have to study, memorizing and practicing complex build orders. But of course there is nothing stopping more casual players just having fun.

Rise of Nations is a faster game the AoE2. It is less micro intensive and the general perspective is more zoomed out and bigger more macro game (although AoE2 HD has larger population limit these days). There is less of an emphasis on build order, which generally go out the window in about three minutes. In Age of Empires 2 you can find yourself following a specific build order strategy for up to 20 minutes (the pros are faster and build orders might only last 10 mintues. Pros are also better at mixing things up - they tend to rush, which causes build orders to go out the window at an earlier stage of the game.)

In both games you build large armies. If you want to micro-manage "small battalions" then Company of Heroes could me more your scene. In that game you only build around a maximum of 50 units, and you try to keep them alive for long as possible (in company of heroes you "retreat" units when things get to hairy and your units quickly run back to the base. It is a much more micro oriented game than either RoN or AoE. But there is almost no economic emphasis (no worker units), and you generally don't turtle.

Which is better RoN or AoE2? I honestly can't choose between them. Fanboi's of each game will tell you that their favourite game is better, more strategic, more sophisticated, deeper etc. But that is because they have played one more than the other and they appreicate their favourite game's nuanaces more. They are both brilliant games.

[Harmacist]

Thank you so much on your detailed response. What did you think of Age of Empires Online?

[aflashman]

Originally posted by Pristine Insanity:

Thank you so much on your detailed response. What did you think of Age of Empires Online?

I never played it. It got terrible reviews, that is all I know.

[MyDrunkSeaman]

RON