Limited results for RoN’s random nation RNG in 1v1s
A few years ago I heard that RoN’s random RNG was bad, and that each nation only had a handful of possible matchups in a 1v1. I wasn’t able to find any documented testing on this, and nobody I talked to was able to say what the matchups were or confirm the details with certainty. So, of course, I sat down and ran 165 1v1 matchups and recorded the results.
Back then that was enough to complete the primary objective: to see whether the nation RNG only allowed for certain matchups in 1v1 (true), and I lacked the skills to parse the data to find out what each of those matchups actually was in a time-efficient way. Now I don’t, so here are the results of a not-quite-large-enough sample.
Wait, why did you leave the RoN Discord?
I’ve been personally urged to clarify this by one of the server’s admins.
Continue reading “Wait, why did you leave the RoN Discord?”Using the Red Fort to enable multi-stage attacks
Traditionally the Red Fort is used in a defensive role, or occasionally for comical rapid battlefield support if playing as Americans. These are perfectly viable uses, but the Red Fort can also be used much more offensively by making use of its rapid healing.
Manually selecting targets increases the DPS of Machine Guns
While wasting my life testing a unit that nobody builds in a game that nobody plays, I noticed the title occurring in some of my testing.
The MG42 is a scam
It turns out a +30% damage bonus generally doesn’t translate into actually killing units faster.
A couple more reasons why RoN’s late-game combat sucks
I realised long ago that late-game combat in RoN is less than stellar, but it turns out it’s even worse than I had already thought. 🫠
Continue reading “A couple more reasons why RoN’s late-game combat sucks”The Curious Case of Mongol UUs
The Mongols have four unique Ranged Cavalry units: the Nomad (II), Steppe Nomad (III), Horde (IV), and Golden Horde (V). Their listed benefit is that “they’re particularly effective against enemy Light Infantry” and “effective against enemy Musket Infantry”. The game confers these advantages by giving all four units a +60% damage bonus against Light Infantry and a +45% damage bonus against Gunpowder Infantry.
In reality this ends up being a really weird bonus to have. Not only do they still normally lose in fights against those units, but those same units are supposed to be counters to Ranged Cavalry, making these bonuses unintuitive for both the attacker and the defender.
A New Paradigm for Age V Combat
I previously posted about fight control in Rise of Nations, and briefly mentioned how the conventional wisdom regarding Age V combat (which I had also subscribed to until briefly before writing that article) was misguided. Age V combat is not “Age IV combat but with more guns” — it’s actually fundamentally different.
Giving Up: Challenger Balance Patch
The Community Balance/Bugfix Patch has failed every evaluation category.
Also this starts off quite salty, because I think that there’s no honest explanation of why I’ve done this that doesn’t involve some level of disdain and disappointment.