Clash of Clans has been one of the biggest releases in mobile base building gaming titles, and it made a lot of money for their developers, Supercell. Since then, base building games have been a mainstay in mobile gaming, whether it is iOS or Android. The success of CoC has spawned many similar games, and none of them stands out as uniquely as Rise of Civilizations.
The Home Base
Rise of Civilizations is a fairly new game that is just over a year old, and yet it has established a highly dedicated fan base, owing to the extra fun elements that is not usually found in any other games. RoC is arguably in a genre of its own. I found it incredibly fun to play with high replay value.
The first thing that greets me when I open the game is my neatly arranged home city. Sure, there are ‘better’ city layouts, but mine is a completely original design, so I love it. If you install the game for the first time, you will be asked to choose between one of the 11 civilizations. Each civilization has its own perks and unique architectural style. My city is the ‘Ottoman’ civilization. You can change your civilization later, but it will cost you gems to do so.
Then you are pushed into a quick tutorial of how the game works and the basic stuff about building armies and upgrading buildings. In this game, you have to explore the fog to uncover new areas, villages and caves. You can also fight random barbarian armies scattered around the kingdom. There is no wall building needed as you are provided with a pre-built wall, however you need to upgrade your walls and the gate. Every building upgrade, army training, commander upgrade and research will grant you a power points, which indicate your overall development. In the screenshot above, my power is shown on the top left corner, which is roughly 2.7 Million.
Commanders
Now RoC has a commander system unlike most other base building games. A commander is needed to lead your armies to fight or to protect the city from other attackers. Every commander belongs to one of 4 types: Elite (green), Advanced (blue), Epic (purple) and Legendary (orange). The elites are least powerful but easy to upgrade, whereas legendary ones are the most powerful but hard to upgrade. Each commander needs XP to level up and statues and star sculptures to upgrade their unique skills.
Every commander has their own special abilities, such as garrison, archer, defence, skill, attack, support and so on. This information for each commander is labelled directly below their name in the ‘commanders’ menu. For example, in the photo above, my epic commander, Sun Tzu, has specialty in infantry, garrison and skill damage. The troop capacity determines how many troops this particular commander can lead.
Treasure Chests
RoC offers two kinds of chests; one is the silver chest and other is the golden chest, both of which can be opened via the tavern building. Silver chests drop elite and advanced commander statues and stars, whereas golden ones drop the statues and stars needed for epic and legendary commanders. You can open both the chests with their respective keys (golden key and silver key).
Alliance
Alliance is one part where RoC truly differentiates itself from other similar games. They are like clans in CoC, but work very differently. Each alliance has a territory, and the total power points of an alliance is the sum of the power points of its individual members. The higher the power points an alliance has, the more powerful it is. Territory is also an important asset for an alliance. When you first start out, you’ll have a plain kingdom, but as time passes by, the kingdom will develop into the state as shown in the photo above, with each colored blocks representing the territory of a particular alliance.
With an alliance, you can join rallies, take down PvE elements such as barbarians and forts, share resources and help your mates in case they are attacked.
Main Reasons Why I Like The Game
- Extremely good graphics
- Easy to learn, hard to master
- Great choice of civilizations
- Lots of commanders to work upon
- Multiple army queues
- Ability to gather resources on the map, including gems!
- Quite favorable towards free-to-play players
- Fun activities with alliance members
- Solid chat system, both with alliance members and world chat
- Inter-kingdom wars
- Ton of regular events with rich rewards.
Main Complaints With The Game
- Heavily favors pay-to-win players
- Fear of getting destroyed by extremely powerful players if you are in a weak alliance or no alliance
- In-game politics in some kingdoms, with powerful players banding together to form strong alliances to crush opposition
- No proper tutorial on how to properly upgrade the commanders for maximum effect
The Final Word
In spite of my complaints, it is very well-drilled experience for most new players, provided they join a good alliance that grows fast with time. The main fun of this game lies with the type of alliance you are in. I am in a great alliance, and this is the main reason why I continue to play the game everyday, and enjoy the time time I invest in this game. I have reached this far without spending a penny on the game (okay I spent 5 bucks, but that’s it), and certainly does’t need real money, provided you play smart and invest time and effort on the game.
This game is the true CoC beater, and arguably the most polished base building game in the app store.
Roger Reviews 