You’d start as Cavemen and need to build up your economy before transitions to the next age. You might be able to get lucky rushing with some Cave-Soldiers but if you were too slow your rock-throwing would get rolled by arrows.
So then the game turned from a military race to an expansion and economy race to move to the best age as quickly as possible. The maps were soooo big, but borders would be defined in early ages, so eventually you’d bump with your neighbor.
Then the negotiating starts. Alliances and resource trades - could be broken at any time but 2 Bronze Age better than 1.
I miss slowburn RTS. I hate the big person on small map look of Age of Empires. I wish Manor Lords woulda been dev’d harder into a solid RTS game, now that’s a big map.
Have you looked into Sins of a Solar Empire II? It’s in space, but it has a slower sense of progression than some RTS games I’ve played. With the setups I use (each player gets their own star system) it often takes me 20 minutes or more before I encounter another player.
Thanks for the recommendation! I haven’t tried Sins yet but I have tried Solaris and wasn’t a super fan of it; there’s a lot going on and a lot of reading -> I assumed it was very similar.
For me personally, I think the sweetspot is Medieval and physics-based. Like, in Starcraft the micro is subtle, but still mostly insta-hit; probably easier to program. In Empire Earth, you could micro the hell out of longbows and Trebuchets because they would shoot to a specific location that you could move away from. As the ages progress though, the guns then lasers are all just insta-hit and that takes away the army micromanagement for me. I’m not a super fan of just build X to kill Y and just throw the armies at each other.
I really will have to give Sins of a Solar Empire a try; it’s not the first time it’s been recommended to me and it has piqued my interested in the past.
I hadn’t heard of Solaris, but looking at it the map system seems similar, except Sins has 3D models for everything and different planet types yield different benefits.
To be honest I’m in the middle of a big Sins kick, so I have it on my brain a lot and that may have been why I recommended it. The original game (and its standalone expansion, Rebellion) had insta-hit weapons, but the sequel has missiles that exist as entities that can be shot down by PD fire. Not a lot of micro though, a lot of decision making is whether to invest the limited resources currently available into your economy, research, or expanding your fleet, deciding how to build up your fleet and upgrade ships, and deploying your fleet strategically. Capital ships do have abilities that are set to autocast, which isn’t always the most efficient thing, so there’s some micro to be had there if you turn it off, but not to the level you’re describing. It’s not so much a build X to kill Y as it is building X will complement Y such that the whole fleet is more capable.
I like it because the three major factions feel and play so distinct from one another, it can be thrilling when I’m attacked while my main fleet is halfway across the map and it’s a race to throw together defenses to fend off the enemy while reinforcements come, and when the particle effects start flying it is really pretty.
This is what I loved about Empire Earth.
You’d start as Cavemen and need to build up your economy before transitions to the next age. You might be able to get lucky rushing with some Cave-Soldiers but if you were too slow your rock-throwing would get rolled by arrows.
So then the game turned from a military race to an expansion and economy race to move to the best age as quickly as possible. The maps were soooo big, but borders would be defined in early ages, so eventually you’d bump with your neighbor.
Then the negotiating starts. Alliances and resource trades - could be broken at any time but 2 Bronze Age better than 1.
I miss slowburn RTS. I hate the big person on small map look of Age of Empires. I wish Manor Lords woulda been dev’d harder into a solid RTS game, now that’s a big map.
Have you looked into Sins of a Solar Empire II? It’s in space, but it has a slower sense of progression than some RTS games I’ve played. With the setups I use (each player gets their own star system) it often takes me 20 minutes or more before I encounter another player.
Thanks for the recommendation! I haven’t tried Sins yet but I have tried Solaris and wasn’t a super fan of it; there’s a lot going on and a lot of reading -> I assumed it was very similar.
For me personally, I think the sweetspot is Medieval and physics-based. Like, in Starcraft the micro is subtle, but still mostly insta-hit; probably easier to program. In Empire Earth, you could micro the hell out of longbows and Trebuchets because they would shoot to a specific location that you could move away from. As the ages progress though, the guns then lasers are all just insta-hit and that takes away the army micromanagement for me. I’m not a super fan of just build X to kill Y and just throw the armies at each other.
I really will have to give Sins of a Solar Empire a try; it’s not the first time it’s been recommended to me and it has piqued my interested in the past.
I hadn’t heard of Solaris, but looking at it the map system seems similar, except Sins has 3D models for everything and different planet types yield different benefits.
To be honest I’m in the middle of a big Sins kick, so I have it on my brain a lot and that may have been why I recommended it. The original game (and its standalone expansion, Rebellion) had insta-hit weapons, but the sequel has missiles that exist as entities that can be shot down by PD fire. Not a lot of micro though, a lot of decision making is whether to invest the limited resources currently available into your economy, research, or expanding your fleet, deciding how to build up your fleet and upgrade ships, and deploying your fleet strategically. Capital ships do have abilities that are set to autocast, which isn’t always the most efficient thing, so there’s some micro to be had there if you turn it off, but not to the level you’re describing. It’s not so much a build X to kill Y as it is building X will complement Y such that the whole fleet is more capable.
I like it because the three major factions feel and play so distinct from one another, it can be thrilling when I’m attacked while my main fleet is halfway across the map and it’s a race to throw together defenses to fend off the enemy while reinforcements come, and when the particle effects start flying it is really pretty.
Why not Manor Lords? That one is pretty slow too.