First Impression: Rise of Nations: Extended Edition (PC) ~ Apes With Tanks

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Since my childhood I have been playing a lot of RTS games. From Rise & Fall Civilizations At War to Age Of Empires, I have played a lot of them. And I have to admit, I’m not great at them. Whenever I would play online against other players, I get easily defeated. Yet, I enjoyed my time with these games quite a lot. I love to play skirmishes or various matches against the computer. Now, one of the favorite RTS games is Rise of Nations. And that’s the game we are going to take a look at today. A game where you take your civilization from give or take the stone age to the modern times of today. So, let’s not wait longer and let’s dive right into my first impressions of this game. The reason the first impression is simply because I never finished the campaigns, so yeah. I haven’t seen all the content of the game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.

Apes with tanks

Rise of Nations has been developed by Big Game Studios, the studio that also worked on the second expansion of Age of Empires III. While this game has a “Conquer the world” campaign mode where you play as for example Napoleon conquering Europe, I haven’t played a lot of that mode. And that has a simple explanation, I already talked about in the introduction of this article. Now, for this article I have played parts of the first campaign of Alexander The Great.

Now, for this article I have played the extended edition of the game that is on Steam at the moment. The core gameplay of this game is extremely similar to games like Age of Mythology and Age Of Empires. If you have played a RTS game in the past, you will feel right at home in this game.

Some mechanics do work differently in this game. First of all, the way to claim land. When you start the game, a certain part of the map is colored in your color. You can expand this area by building more cities or defensive buildings. You are unable to build any other buildings outside of that area. It’s quite important that you plan out your city structure well, since it’s a factor in how much wealth you will earn from your trade route or the ability to build even better wood cutting or mining camps.

To increase the population limit or the efficiency of certain buildings, you will need to upgrade at the library. There are 4 trees you can update. The military level which allows you to create even better military units, the science level to have even better buffs to your economic output and military, the economics level to have your resource gathering be even more efficient and stockpile better and the civic level which allows you to build even more units and cities. On top of that, you have to worry about advancing through the ages. You go from the early stone age to the middle ages to finish in the modern ages.

The way you gather resources in this game is also quite different. In this game you don’t have to worry about re-seeding farms or finding now ore veins for your villagers. All the resources are infinite. Now, there are certain restrictions. You can only build up to 5 farms per city. The placement of the building is also quite important. For example, if you place a woodcutter camp in the middle of a forest, more villagers will be able to cut wood for you. If you place it at the edge, less villagers will be able to cut wood for you.

Now, with all of this, you need to keep in mind that if you enter enemy territory, your units automatically get attrition. So, if one of your camps or buildings falls into enemy territory, you will loose slots or loose that building entirely.

Another mechanic in this game are the merchants. Spread over the whole map are certain bonus items. Sometimes they can be presents like the relics you can find in Age of Empires III but without the guardians. And sometimes they can be rare resources that can give certain buffs. On this Wiki page, you have a list of all the different buffs you can get.

One of the mechanics I really love and miss in a lot of other RTS games is the automatic exploring. Seriously, I can let any unit automatically explore the map without me having to worry about it or me always giving it a path. The times I forgot to explore the map in other RTS games… Man, I’m unable to count that anymore.

As you can see, there are many layers on top of the gameplay. The game is very complex and expansive. And I haven’t talked about how you can conquer and take over cities, set the unit production to loop, the fact you can take out your enemies in many different ways, the ability to rename your cities, the unique wonders and their bonuses… The features that set this game apart from other RTS games are just amazing and make for a very unique experience.

Visual fluff

This game can be very challenging. Depending on the difficulty of the AI, this game can be quite easy or quite difficult. While I’m able to beat the computer on Normal, I always have trouble when the computer is on hard mode. Yet, the issue I have with this game is that the normal mode provides just a bit too little challenge for me and the hard mode provides a bit too much challenge for me. Whoops.

Something I really like about this game is the fact that the visuals change when you change through the ages. You see the building style change when you advance through the ages. And not only that, the sound design changes as well. For example, when you get to the industrial ages, you start to hear chainsaws in the lumber camps instead of saws.

Up close, the visuals can look a bit dated. But, that’s completely normal. Since near the end of the game, there are so many units on the screen, I’m glad that they aren’t too detailed. The ending of a game can be so extremely hectic, I can barely keep track of what’s going on. I remember a multiplayer session with my best friend. In the end of that session we neglected our economy and idle villagers because the warfare required most of our attention. At the end of a match, you are able to make 4 big upgrades. One of them is instant creation of units. With this upgrade, the warfare gets so crazy, you have to focus on it.

Some elements of the UI in this game can be expanded and collapsed. For example, when you expand the resource menu, you have quick access to the market where you can trade resources. You don’t need to click on a market to do that. You can also see if there are open spots for mining, farming, wood cutting… And when these get in your way, one simple button click and they are hidden.

Not only the visual presentation and sound design changes through the ages, the animation does as well. When you reach the industrial ages, the miners you jackhammers instead of pickaxes to mine.

The sound design is amazing, it really captures the enjoyable chaos that happens on screen perfectly well. On top of that, the sound effects for male and female units are different. Yes, when a female unit dies, you hear a woman scream. And guess what, you hear a male scream when a male unit dies. This attention to detail is just amazing.

Couple this sound design and amazing visual design with an amazing orchestral soundtrack and you have an amazing visual presentation. In the original version, I had issues with the soundtrack. It never played during gameplay. While playing the Extended Edition, I haven’t encountered that issue once.

Perfection?

Now, is this game perfect? No, there are some things I would change in this game. One complaint I have is that there aren’t too many differences between the nations you can choose to play as.

Due to the various amounts of game mechanics, this game can be extremely overwhelming. If you aren’t into RTS games, just don’t play this game as your first RTS game. This game isn’t easy to get into because the various amount of layers upon layers of complexity in this game.

Due to the length of some rounds, I honestly got a bit bored at the end. This game is a lot of fun to play but near the end, I found that the game became a bit too repetitive to my liking.

Also, compared the to original game and the extended edition, there hasn’t been a lot of additions. Thankfully, the community picks up the slack from the developers in the Steam Workshop.

Some achievements are rather grindy in nature. I have close to 60 hours of playtime in this game and I’m not even halfway to the achievement of killing 50K units. Yes, I have killed 8K units during my 60 hour playthrough.

And to be honest, that are all the negatives I can talk about. Maybe I discover a few more negatives when I’m trying out the campaign mode again soon, but I highly doubt that. This game is quite a lot of fun if you are into RTS games. Once this game has a hook on you, it barely lets go. This game is one of my favorite RTS games and I’m so glad that it’s available on Steam. And after writing this review (well, first impression) I can’t wait to boot the game back up again and start up a new round.

With that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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Publishing: The world of Dfusing Mechanical Keyboards

As the years have progressed, technology has come a long way. It has brought a change in lifestyle and we cannot possibly think of living without technology right now. Computers are a great example of this changing technology. The bulky desktops have given way for more sleeker versions and feature-packed laptops. One of the most used input devices on a computer is the keyboard. It has also changed along with the computers. While laptops have their own integrated keyboards, some people prefer using an external keyboard.

NekoJonez’s personal note: This article is written by DFusing and minor edits by me. I want to thank DFusing for writing this extremely interesting article and the amazing communication. I’m actually in the market myself for a new keyboard and after reading this article, I’m considering a mechanical keyboard.

The tactile satisfaction of the mechanical keyboards is often missing in membrane keyboards. It mimics the feel of writing on an old school typewriter, like in the past. Now, this doesn’t mean that the modern mechanical keyboards are missing features. They are packed with the things that the customer needs for everyday use and even in most cases for gaming as well.

The gaming community is very passionate about the technology that they use. They often customize their computers, and this includes a gaming keyboard that gives them ultimate satisfaction and comfort while playing games. Because of the different types of keys used in mechanical keyboards, they have better sensitivity. Writers buy mechanical keyboards as well because they need their keyboard to type a lot. So, let us take a closer look at one of the companies that creates these mechanical keyboards.

What is Dfusing?

Dfusing is a company that specializes in developing mechanical keyboards especially those that are meant for gaming. They are motivated towards solving the usual struggles that a gamer generally has while using normal keyboards.

Customer service and satisfaction are two things that are quite important for DFusing. Together with the best minds, DFusing has included the best technology in their keyboards that gamers will find interesting and quite useful. They have great options for the budget lovers and for high-end products in their technology.

Why does DFusing make mechanical keyboards?

In most cases, people don’t check which type of keyboard we purchase. They most likely get a normal keyboard, even while they could be interested in buying a mechanical keyboard. Here are a few reasons why a company could start making mechanical keyboards.

• Mechanical keyboards use specialized keys that aid in doing the job that they want to do. The keys like the Cherry MX Black, Blue, Brown, etc. More information can be found in our latest blog post on our website. All will help you, in some way or the other. There are types of gaming and writing. There are mainly three different models of key types: linear, tactile and clicky. It’s highly advised that a customer should try out the different types and armed with that research buys the keyboard with the keys that suit them best.

• Mechanical keyboards are far more durable than another type of keyboards. Gamers can use these keyboards for several hours a day and writers can write on them quite easily. The materials that are used in mechanical keyboards are designed to easily withstand years and years of heavy use. Most mechanical keyboards do specify their lifespan when you buy them.

• Mechanical keyboards, especially those made for the gamers, will often have specific features. For example: anti-slip so they don’t move on your desk. In most cases, they will be heavier so that it stays put while you work on it. Dfusing keyboards do maintain their quality. Other features are backlights for gaming, writing in the dark, special keys which are programmable for the gamers, etc. Customers will often look for these features whenever they are buying a keyboard.

• The feedback given by the mechanical keyboard is one of the reasons for gamers vouching for them. The click made by the key actually helps the person to type or press the next key without having to wait for it responds. This also increases the precision and speed provided by the keyboard.

These are the main reasons why DFusing makes mechanical keyboards. Along with the above-mentioned reasons, DFusing makes sure that these features are present in the keyboards they are launching in the market.

Mechanical Keyboards by Dfusing

We have already talked about the company and its market for mechanical keyboards. We think that this is the time to talk about the products that they have in the current market. So, here are some the keyboards that you can get from Dfusing:

1. Backtech is one of the most loved products. Your attention is immediately caught by the great design of the keyboard. Your hands won’t get easily tired due to the ergonomic rest, even when you use the keyboard for a long time. The keyboard keys have a lifespan of 60 million keys which is quite durable. Along with that, the reaction of the keys is super-fast and are comfortable to touch.

Another focal point of this Backtech must be its high-quality LED backlight. The bright light will never go dim on you. There are 15 different settings for the backlight. It is a USB wired keyboard that you can attach to your desktop or laptop for easy usage. The Backtech has an affordable price of just $49.99 (€44,25) which is just a steal.

2. Enterprise is the dream come true for every lover of mechanical keyboards. The best part is the 16.8 million possible settings for the LED backlights and they look astonishingly beautiful. A lot of things can be created with the backlights, anything from a rainbow to a disco. The Enterprise is durable because its upper cover is completely made from metal and not cheap plastic. Like the Backtech, the Enterprise also has a great ergonomic design.

DFusing has made sure that not only the Enterprise has the highest comfort possible but that it also is extremely useful. The keyboard has the necessary multimedia keys. So, the writers can also use this keyboard to get their job done. The keyboard will cost you $79.99 (€70,81) and it is totally worth it for the quality that you are getting out of it.

3. Solardream – If you are a person who is into high-end gaming keyboards, then this one is perfect for you. The design is quite unique with the RGB strips on either side of the SolarDream. The backlight has different light modes that let you customize your time with this keyboard. It also has 5 programmable keys which are a must-have for gamers. The programmable keys are on the left side of the board. A lot of people also find a lot of use out of the 12 media and function keys present in this model.

The keyboard sports Outemu keys which are known for their quality. They are tactile and comfortable to use. This keyboard got a lot of praise from professionals. A lot of gamers use this keyboard to play their games thanks to the amazing RGB features. The SolarDream is sold for $109,99 (€97,37).

4. Frostflux – Dfusing really knows the right way to be creative with their keyboards. Frostflux is an example of this due to its unique and comfortable design. It boasts clear design which lets you have a look underneath the keycaps. The blue frosty color of the keyboard along with the RGB backlights looks amazing. With the help of a laser, the optic switches have very fast responses. Because this keyboard doesn’t have a lot of flex, the keyboard is quite sturdy and will last for a long time so the chances of it breaking on you are slim.

The backlights are something that everyone should appreciate and they are customizable! If you are in the market for a good looking and great performing keyboard, the FrostFlux is for you! The FrostFlux can be yours for $89.99 (€79,66).

Competitive companies

An industry wouldn’t be complete without the competition! There are some great and strong brands out there besides DFusing.

Razer

Their slogan says it all. “For Gamers, By Gamers.” They’ve proven that the gaming industry can be a great and heart-warming community. They bring a lot of gamers together to enjoy their products and content!

Corsair

At first sight, people would associate Corsair more with power supplies and computer cases. But Corsair has a pretty strong line of keyboards (and mice) as well. One of their most famous products is the K70 series which makes them a big competitor in the keyboard market.

Logitech

Logitech might not always be the brand that gamers think about first but Logitech does make some very good products for a very reasonable price. Logitech isn’t completely focused on gamers alone. They’re what you would call: in between. Offering products for both the gaming scene and for the office/casual scene.

All of these brands have a very respectable reputation. There are different brands in the keyboard market, but the three we mentioned above are the biggest competitors.

Why would you buy from Dfusing?

From the start, DFusing had a clear goal and vision in mind. Everybody at DFusing is a hardcore gamer and with this passion, it was clear what the company wanted to develop and create. So, why would a consumer buy from Dfusing?

While it is not that odd that mechanical keyboards are a tad more expensive than membrane keyboards, a lot of brands have extremely high prices. We mean no critique on them, but we have our own strategy.

We want to give the customer the utmost value for their buck. That’s why we ensure to complete analyses for every product that we put on the market and discuss a fair and honest price for said product. We don’t go overboard, we want to be the go-to place for every type of gamer.

• Great customer service means a lot to us! When a company grows larger and larger, it becomes quite challenging and sometimes even impossible to provide great customer service to every single customer. We absolutely do not want to be that kind of company. We believe in treating the customer with the utmost respect and support. This translates into a healthy relationship with the industry and our consumers. Basically, we value our customers, and naturally, the customer values us back. And let me tell you, that is worth all the trouble (of keeping the support level at the best quality while the company grows)!
• The journey does not end when the product arrives at your doorstep. We want to build a community to come back to, and discuss your adventures online! That’s why we’d love to keep interacting with you on any of our social media, blogs and our future forum. Links can be found at the bottom of this article. Basically, we want to show customers that they mean more than just someone who buys from us, we want to greet them into our family. The heart of gaming lies in its community.
• DFusing values the feedback of the community quite a lot. There is quite a lot that can be learned for the experiences of the customers. Sadly enough, there are a lot of companies that choose to ignore the feedback. But DFusing wants to do actually do something with it. We believe in quality and the people.

In conclusion, we can say that Dfusing is a reliable company when it comes to mechanical gaming keyboards. We have a lot of experience in developing and creating mechanical keyboards. So, thank you for reading our pitch and we hope that you have derived with some helpful information for your next keyboard purchase. We are hope to the world of mechanical keyboards as the demands are rising day by day.

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