A very detailed, well-paced real-time Civilization-esque game, Rise of Civilizations (ROC) has eaten my time over the past two weeks like few games have in years.
It’s a freemium game like The Simpsons: Tapped Out, but unlike TSTO, there are a LOT of things to do here. You start in a city in a “Kingdom”, a vast area making up the game landscape (and itself just part of other kingdoms), and you have a protection shield around your city so you won’t get attacked too soon.
I don’t want to go too into detail in the OP, but a few pointers if you decide to start playing this:
The red gems are the money piece – hoard them for all they are worth and only spend them on VIP points, at least until you get to VIP level 6.
Though this game allows you to spend money, for those who want to play for free, you can still do very, very well – even on the red gems. I spent $10 on gems, more as a “thank you” to the makers than because I needed them (I still haven’t spent them!), but other than that, I’m doing very well on the cost/benefit side of things.
Join an Alliance straight-away. There are a lot of benefits, but the biggest one is that alliance members help you build buildings, research, etc, which makes building your city faster.
Save your speedups, and more importantly, save your general speedups.
If you’re the sort of player who likes to attack and attack and attack, or if you’re the sort of player who wants to sit back and collect resources, both styles are supported by this game.
Here’s an intro guide to the game:
Would like to hear your experiences, if you have played this, and for those of you who are looking for a new game, a “Civilization” for your phone, this is right up your alley.
(I play on android, I assume it’s available on iphone, and there is a desktop version.)
Wonder why the Firaxis folks never invested in this type of gaming. Civ seems very well suited to it. Similarly, I’m surprised that this game hasn’t been sued to kingdom come for it’s name. It’s absolutely likely to be confused with the original.
This game is well-polished - it has some serious money behind it.
Firaxis has been using “Sid Meier’s Civilization” and, I bet, that’s the brand they have the resources to fight (and win). They may have made the decision, post Call-To-Power, as defending ownership of a word as old and with a broad range of uses as “Civilization” would quickly bankrupt them. So it’s “Sid Meier’s Civilization” which is what they protect, not “Civilization” in and of itself.
You don’t need to protect the word Civilization. You need to at least protect against people creating turn-based video games in which the goal is world domination using the name Civilization in their name. Pretty narrow there.
The only rational explanation I can think of is that this company is paying a royalty to Firaxis or is otherwise is receiving a lot of it’s funding from 2K.
Well, apparently Civ Rev 1 was good but they abandoned support and it won’t work on a modern device. Civ Rev 2 was panned. That’s the one I was going to get but the reviews steered me away.
Some random tips (this will make more sense the more you play).
Join an Alliance. I know I said it before, but it really helps.
For example, you’ll want to speed up your research, buildings, etc, by using the speedup cards. BUT your alliance members have 10 chances to help you, which also takes time off tasks. Therefore, wait until you get all 10 boosts BEFORE using a speedup.
Don’t worry about over-harvesting. You see a farm with 149k of food, take all 149k. More will appear.
Scout, scout, scout.
When you scout, you will find tribes and caves. Be sure to get as many as you can, because these give valuable powerups.
5.a. A LOT of powerups.
5.b You can mark caves for further exploration by tapping on the cave for the info screen to popup, then on the little star at the top-right of the info screen.
5.c When using a Kingdom map, a 10x10 area of fog disappears, revealing the land below. Tribes and caves are NOT reported - you have to find them, by eye. To do this, zoom out so that the buildings become icons, then look for any light-yellow icons - those are tribes and caves.
5.d Scouts [i[will* take a path through fog to get to a targeted location. This allows you to explore a lot of territory w/o you having to control your scout. This is a big help.
(I know I’m going on about scouting, but you get a LOT of powerups through them.)
The most confusing part of the early game is teleporting your city. Do not do so in the early game, not until you join an Alliance. Then teleport your city to the alliance location (you get a free teleportation powerup to do this).
Don’t worry too much if you’re joining a random alliance - the kingdoms are seeded in order, so most of the people you are playing with are newbs too. You can change alliances… and, I think, Kingdoms… if you prefer another group.
Forgot about that, but I think my point stands. Apart from being on mobile, these 2 games are quite a lot different in style. Not sure what to call this modern trend of mobile freemium MMORPGs like this, but Civ Rev was a totally different animal. That was basically a skinny port of the desktop game.