Rise of Men is an incoming Grand Strategy video game for PC. It is an indie, freeware, with view to become open source, project that aims to bring many innovations and fresh ideas into forgotten genre of Grand Strategies.
Game will be set in realistic planet Earth, from the dawn of human race in Stone Age to the far future. Player will be able to select one of many historical tribes in the Stone Age or choose some other point in history to start his adventure.
Rise of Men is sandbox game with complete freedom. There are no predefined missions or campaigns. Every country is treated equally and have its charm and it’s up to player to decide who to play with. Changing countries is available once the game starts, of course.
Game will have many standard features seen in other Grand Strategies:
- Real-time gameplay with ability to adjust speed and stop time flow when you desire.
- Cartoon-like 2D graphics.
- Variety of tribes/countries to choose from.
- Many government and economic types to choose from that would give player freedom to shape the fate of his people from start to finish.
- Research of new technologies and techniques in all areas of life in order to improve your country’s status.
- Ability to choose the way to solve your problems – by sword or diplomacy.
- Special agents like spies and missionaries to be deployed in order to help pursue your country’s agenda.
- National focuses and objectives to give player and AI guidelines in pursuit for world domination.
- Dynasty tree for monarchies, with royal marriages and many other features.
- Dynamic relations system between countries, cultural identities and religions.
- Numerous events, good and bad, that can dramatically change fate of your people.
- Sliders to adjust your national policies covering many issues throughout the country.
- Rebellions in home provinces if your rule don’t satisfy aspirations of your people.
- View of the world using political, physical, demographic or some other map.
- And many more!
Rise of Men also offers some not-so-common features, and some never seen before:
- Dynamic states system – no state is set in stone. Countries live, change, raise, evolve, divide and collapse in front of your eyes with dynamic system than generates new ones when needed.
- Dynamic demographic model – cultures and religions are also alive and changing. New religions will emerge, current will divide, while cultural identities also change with time, splitting up from parent ones when tensions rise.
- Name generator for country names, identities, religions and character names. Names are generated from rich pool of roots, prefixes and suffixes given in predefined identities.
- Unit designer that will enable you to design your country’s military units in full detail and see result right in front of you with beautiful illustrations! Units can also be imported from other countries with buying country paying royalties.
- Unique flag designer where player can design flag with complete freedom using many of templates and emblems, or import .jpg file of his desire. Flags have waving effect added in-game.
- Stone Age choice between settling your tribe in a province or taking path of a nomad tribe. Experience game from two completely different viewpoints and guide your people to become great cultural and military Empire and dominate known world or become mighty barbarian Horde that makes everyone tremble on bare mention of their name!
- Save Game Creator, used by authors to create default saves, is included with game, so everyone can create world of their preferences and play incredible sandbox campaign there.
- Customizable skin colors for menus and HUD.
Some screenshots that will give you general impression of how will game look like can be found here.
Gameplay video can be found here.
Stone Age Beta version of Rise of Men will probably be ready for going public before end of the year(2011). If you are interested in becoming official beta tester, or have any other question about Rise of Men, post them in comment or contact me via email or twitter.
