[Android 4x strategy] Rising Empires released on Google Play!

WIP games, tools & toy projects Archived Projects
#1

Hi,

My name is Peter Norberg. My brother Johan and I would like to introduce you to our current game project, Rising Empires, that we have been working on for a bit more than one and a half year. Rising Empires is a civilisation building game with a focus on conflict:

[i][b]“Rising Empires is a massive multiplayer turn-based strategy game in a fantasy setting intended for Android phones. The goal of Rising Empires is to expand and strengthen your empire by developing your cities and research new technologies.

Six races with unique abilities struggle to survive on the Surface and deep in the caves of the Netherworld. There is a constant conflict for territory between empires as well as in between their demanding gods! A rich technology tree allows each player to mould his empire and troops to suit his playing style. All empires play in the same world and interact with each other.”[/b][/i]

The game has been designed for Android smart phones and we intend to release it on Google Play near the end of this year. Nina Olsson at Morgis Art & Design has helped us with all in-game graphics and Robin Chyo (Senior Concept Artist at Funzio) has created all race images:

If you’re interested in Rising Empires and its development please support us by visiting our website or our Google+ page and +1 us. We write regular updates for Rising Empires and there is also a gallery with screenshots from the very beginning of the development.

Cheers!

#2

+1’d. (I’m Jimmt H on google+)
Interesting how humans are what you get by mixing dwarves and elves :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

Thank you!

#4

Interesting! What kind of payment scheme are you planning on? [Pay to play, Pay for certain races, free to play + ads and pay to play without] As a note, the one kind of payment scheme I’m a sucker for is pay for bonus races!

#5

The first 20 days of play will be free but to move your empire from the safe start world to the big multiplayer world you need to pay a subscription fee.

#6

Huh. As far as I’m concerned, subscription fees really aren’t popular. Ask Nyhm (another JGO member, search Island Forge). Why not have a set price for multiplayer, and then have a shop to sell extras? You can make a lot of money through microtransactions.

#7

Thanks for the feedback. You’ve an interesting point there.

#8

Hi everybody!

I’ve been a bit silent the last weeks. This has nothing to do with lack of progress on Rising Empires as we’re moving forward with good speed, especially the AI for the single-player game is getting a lot of love… Johan is also working hard to improve the app and he is doing some great improvements compared to the old layouts. As soon as he completes the first layouts I’ll post some screenshots.

What are the status with the Rising Empires AI?

We’ve completed the first version of the scout AI. This is the AI that handle all exploration and patrolling in the empire. The exploration bit is completed and functions well but we’ve not started with patrolling of already scouted territory. This is important though as the AI need updated information on what’s going on around its borders.

We’ve also done a lot of work on the settlement AI. The settlement AI can now handle and take care of the food situation in a town or city. It improves terrain, construct food buildings when more food is needed quickly and it also send requests to the main AI for better food technology when needed. The settlement AI also construct new buildings according the wishes of the governor (yeah, each settlement AI has a governor that decides how it will act). We’re very satisfied with the algorithm that control what buildings that are constructed.

What we’re doing now is creating the objective AI (the first objective will be to move population from one settlement to another) and implementing the first version of our strategic AI. When this is done the strategic AI will be able to choose between building scouts and sending population to settlements that need/want a larger population. It’s not much but with the architecture in place it will be simpler to add more objectives.

If you want to follow the development of the AI in more detail please visit our blog, the ‘Words from the Netherlords’.

Cheers!

#9

Join the beta test of Rising Empires and help us make and shape an excellent strategy game. The game is now an early beta build but we believe we’ve come far enough to ask for your help: Does it work on all phones? Where are all the bugs? We also appreciate general thoughts about the game: Is it interesting to play? Is it too slow or too fast? Is the learning curve just too hard?

We’ve now uploaded the first beta build of Rising Empires on Google Play.

Read more about the beta test on Google Play or on our website.

#10

Hi,

It seems that the Rising Empires GUI is a little tough to get into. We should, of course, has anticipated this but better late than not at all. I’ve written a short tutorial over the buttons and things a player need to do in the first turn of playing Rising Empires. It can be found on our blog:
http://www.risingempires.com/netherlords/?p=605

Later this evening we’ll upload a new version of Rising Empires to Google Play. This is purely bug fixes to remove some of the most common bugs that has been detected.

I would also like say thank you to all of you who’ve tested Rising Empires.

#11

The game has now been updated to build 62. Among the new things that we’ve added is an improved AI and that towns/cities can improve the terrain around their settlements. A history section where important events is shown has also been added.

I have been asked by some players about the loyalty system. There were Ende empires which had problems keeping their Greenskin slaves happy… I’ve written a short guide called ‘Loyalty, or how to keep your population happy’.

Cheers!

#12

We’re continuing our series of tutorials for Rising Empires. This week we cover the food resource and how it influence the population growth in your empire: ‘Food, or how you keep your population from starving’.

Cheers!

#13

We’ve now published the 6th tutorial, this one dig deep into the combat system of Rising Empires. Conflict is an important aspect of Rising Empires and with the feature that all empires can develop and design their own unique combat troops it’s good to understand how combat works.

Here comes a list of all Rising Empires tutorials that have been written:
Tutorial I - Playing the first turn in Rising Empires
Tutorial II - Research and technologies
Tutorial III - Loyalty, or how to keep your population happy
Tutorial IV - Food, or how you keep your population from starving
Tutorial V – Troop statistics, or how to design the ‘super soldier’
Tutorial VI – War! Rules of engagement in Rising Empires

Cheers!

#14

We’ve now published the 6th tutorial, this one dig deep into the combat system of Rising Empires. Conflict is an important aspect of Rising Empires and with the feature that all empires can develop and design their own unique combat troops it’s good to understand how combat works.

Here comes a list of all Rising Empires tutorials that have been written:
Tutorial I - Playing the first turn in Rising Empires
Tutorial II - Research and technologies
Tutorial III - Loyalty, or how to keep your population happy
Tutorial IV - Food, or how you keep your population from starving
Tutorial V – Troop statistics, or how to design the ‘super soldier’
Tutorial VI – War! Rules of engagement in Rising Empires

Cheers!

#15

Hi,

My name is Peter Norberg and I’m one half of the indie studio Hellhound Interactive. We’ve been working on a 4x strategy game for Android for quite some time and now we’re happy to announce that it’s been released on Google Play. The game comes in two versions; Rising Empires which is free and ad-supported and Rising Empires Premium with additional content. The premium features two additional playable races, the fast breeding Krant and the versatile Dwarves.

Rising Empires Premium is a new strategy game in a fantasy setting with six playable races, all with unique abilities, which compete for control of all the land on the Surface and in the Netherworld. A unique troop creation system allows each empire to design its own troop types to employ in the struggle for dominance. Four neutral factions also struggle to survive among the larger empires.

http://www.risingempires.com/images/image - ghouls.jpg

The game has been in an open beta stage during the last few months and has been well received by the players. At the time of writing the beta version is installed on 5,060 devices and has been downloaded 1,716 times. Many reviewers compare the game to classics like Civilization and Total War. One player writes: “Exactly the type of game I’ve been hoping for.” The average rating is 3.9.

On our blog, Words from the Netherlords there are a number of tutorials that gives a more detailed explanation of the game mechanics. We really hope you’ll enjoy Rising Empires!

#16

Hi,

My name is Peter Norberg and I’m one half of the indie studio Hellhound Interactive. We’ve been working on a 4x strategy game for Android for quite some time and now we’re happy to announce that it’s been released on Google Play. The game comes in two versions; Rising Empires which is free and ad-supported and Rising Empires Premium with additional content. The premium features two additional playable races, the fast breeding Krant and the versatile Dwarves.

Rising Empires Premium is a new strategy game in a fantasy setting with six playable races, all with unique abilities, which compete for control of all the land on the Surface and in the Netherworld. A unique troop creation system allows each empire to design its own troop types to employ in the struggle for dominance. Four neutral factions also struggle to survive among the larger empires.

http://www.risingempires.com/images/image - ghouls.jpg

The game has been in an open beta stage during the last few months and has been well received by the players. At the time of writing the beta version is installed on 5,060 devices and has been downloaded 1,716 times. Many reviewers compare the game to classics like Civilization and Total War. One player writes: “Exactly the type of game I’ve been hoping for.” The average rating is 3.9.

On our blog, Words from the Netherlords there are a number of tutorials that gives a more detailed explanation of the game mechanics. We really hope you’ll enjoy Rising Empires!

#17

Topics merged.
You should only have one post per game. Update the original post with the new information if you wish.

#18

Seemed to have quite a lot of depth to it, but the ui & graphics were a little dry* for my taste.

I’d suggest less menus & text; more context sensitive actions, iconography & sound.

Also moving from top down (a la civ1) to isometric (a la civ2) would make it more approachable too.

#19

Topics merged.
You should only have one post per game. Update the original post with the new information if you wish.

#20

Seemed to have quite a lot of depth to it, but the ui & graphics were a little dry* for my taste.

I’d suggest less menus & text; more context sensitive actions, iconography & sound.

Also moving from top down (a la civ1) to isometric (a la civ2) would make it more approachable too.