Developer Interview

Executive producer Tim Train discusses some of the new features in Rise of Legends.

• Watch
• Download

Famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once noted that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And in Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, the next big real-time-strategy game from Microsoft and developer Big Huge Games, that's certainly going to be the case. Ever since Rise of Legends was announced last year, we've known that it would feature an epic struggle between at least two nations, one based on technology and the other based on magic. However, Big Huge has kept the game's third and final nation under wraps--at least, until now. We were able to visit Big Huge Games' Maryland office this week to learn about the third race, as well as play the game and get our best look yet at what's quite possibly going to be one of the best strategy games of the year.

If you're familiar with the original Rise of Nations, then Rise of Legends may surprise you a bit. This game isn't a sequel or an expansion pack to GameSpot's 2003 PC Game of the Year. Instead, it's a brand-new game that goes in a completely different direction than the original. Whereas Rise of Nations featured more than a dozen historical nations--such as the United States, England, Germany, and Japan--Rise of Legends features a mere three fantasy races. And this isn't your typical, fantasy-based game. Having felt like gamers had seen far too much of elves, dwarves, orcs, and their assorted ilk in dozens of other games, Big Huge Games created an original fantasy universe with three unique nations, two of which--Alin and Vinci--have been publicly known for months. Alin is a magical nation heavily inspired by the mythology surrounding the Arabian Nights universe, so you'll play with genies, dragons, half-man, half-scorpion units, and more. Alin cities are dreamy, elegant structures, full of tall, slender towers topped by golden domes. (And, yes, it was previously "Alim," but Microsoft and Big Huge Games changed the name due to a translation issue.) Meanwhile, Vinci could be considered Alin's opposite. This technology-based nation is inspired by the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, and they rely more on steam-powered war machines, corkscrew-bladed flying units, and giant, clockwork men.

Meet the Cuotl, the newly revealed third nation in Rise of Legends.

With magic and technology battling in the form of Alin and Vinci, it's appropriate that the recently revealed nation, Cuotl, is home to an alien race with technology so advanced that it looks like magic. In a surprise plot development, Big Huge Games revealed that the game takes place on a world where a Cuotl spaceship crashed to the surface ages ago. Only a handful of Cuotl survived the crash, and they set themselves up as gods, subjugating small tribes on a remote continent. Pieces of the starship landed all over the surface of the world, which inadvertently ignited the war between magic and technology that has lasted generations. In Rise of Legends' three-campaign story arc, you'll take control of the hero Giacomo as you see the conflict through to its bitter end.

Cuotl's design is heavily influenced by Mayan architecture, which is fitting since they also inhabit a lush, jungle continent. From the perspective of the other nations, Cuotl possess amazing abilities. Cuotl buildings "materialize" out of thin air, and they're protected by energy shields. Meanwhile, Cuotl weaponry is energy based, and they possess some spectacular special weapons, such as the star bolt--a devastating beam fired from an orbital platform. With all of these advantages, you'd think that Cuotl would be unstoppable, but that's not the case in Rise of Legends. First of all, while the individual surviving Cuotl have godlike powers, there are only a handful of them. So they must rely upon subjugated races--such as humans--to fill out their armies, and that puts them on relatively even terms with Alin and Vinci. And while Cuotl units can be very powerful, they're also very expensive to build compared to Alin and Vinci units, so the balance between the nations hinges upon having a few high-quality units versus having a higher quantity of weaker units. Playing as Cuotl will be something of a challenge, as well, since they differ from Alin and Vinci in many subtle ways. For example, many Cuotl powers use up resources that would otherwise be used for construction, so you must balance your building needs with combat, or else a Cuotl unit may run out of power in the middle of a big battle. "I would consider them the most advanced race for the most advanced player," explained producer Tim Train.

We had the chance to play as all three nations in several games, and it's apparent to us that Rise of Legends is an intricately balanced game. It's also an incredibly fast-paced one, especially for a real-time-strategy game. Train explained that one of the problems of most real-time-strategy games is that there's nothing interesting going on in the first 5 or 10 minutes of play. You're usually gathering resources to construct buildings and then gathering more resources to construct units. It's such a dull, repetitive task that there's very little thinking required. "What is the first point where the first meaningful decision is made?" he asked. In Rise of Legends, he explained, you'll make your first key decisions within 45 seconds.

Your first task in a game of Rise of Legends will be to begin expanding your city by selecting one of four different types of districts to attach to it. Your district choice will have an immediate impact on what you can do--for example, a military district will raise your population cap so you can start churning out units, and a merchant district will let you create a caravan to generate gold and begin "converting" neutral cities to your cause (in the case of Alin and Vinci). While those districts are under construction, you can assign a few miners to your nearest timonium mine, construct barracks (which are independent of cities), and begin seeking out and taking over neutral cities and outposts, either through force or through bribery. All of this action is within the first few minutes of a game. Within 10 minutes, we had taken over a sizable portion of the map and fought numerous border skirmishes with hostile neighbors. At this point, it's a race to seize cities and territories in order to support larger armies, research new unit technologies, and bring powerful superunits to the fray--such as heroes, dragons, and siege weapons. The pace is so fast that we played a few games that were over within 20 minutes.

Cuotl have technology so advanced, it's almost magical. They also have a cool, Mayan theme.

It's hard to describe just how well thought out the gameplay is. Everything is tied together and balanced so as to not upset the game. In one match, for instance, we took control of several barbarian tribes in the middle of the map. By doing so, we not only extended our nation's borders but also gained the ability to generate an unlimited horde of barbarian units, which were useful in swamping the enemy with numbers. The problem we encountered, though, was that having a ton of barbarians ate up most of our unit cap, which prevented us from building more powerful superunits. This, in turn, forced us to build military districts at our capital to raise the cap, but when we ran out of space, we had to expand to other cities. These outlying cities are naturally weaker, and before we realized it, we were hard pressed on two different fronts, with armies racing to lift the siege from one city after another. The advantage of having unlimited barbarians quickly became a liability because we hadn't planned carefully enough. And that, in a nutshell, is why this seems like such a promising strategy game. The decisions that you make have the potential of paying off spectacularly or haunting you further down the road.