My Guide to the Alin

I've been playing the Rise of Legends demo since it came out, and I've been enjoying the Alin very much. I have tried the Vinci a number of times, but the Alin have a lot more play. In my last game I started taking screenshots, and cutting out bits and pieces to set this blog entry up. This should work in both IE and Firefox, I've made quite a few of the build menu images as image maps. Hover the cursor over the different powers boxes and you'll see.

EDIT: Well, so far, Internet Explorer is a no go. Mozilla, Firefox and Opera seem to render it properly. I'm working on it. Also, a shoutout to those of you reading this from Legio Romanus.

The Build Menu

And so here it is, my guide to the Alin. I'll start off first with showing the buildings, units, research and upgrades for the race. On the right is the build menu. Note how the different buildings are all hotkeyed to the Q, W, E and R keys. All of the different buildings' and units' powers can be accessed with these keys, with SHIFT-(key) and CTRL-(key) used to access the second and third lines respectively.

Here's what you will see in the upper right hand corner. The dominances and the racial power. The racial power for the Alin is the ability to summon an army out of thin air. The four dominances offer special abilities to whomever is first to a particular goal. Tactical dominance, for instance, offers you the ability to call a ceasefire for about 30 seconds or so. Could be more, but I cannot recall. Very handy ability, allows you some time to breath, regroup, fortify, etc.

The upper left hand corner has information on heroes, control groups and your resource supplies and income. Also seen are your population and resource caps. As with Rise of Nations, you can increase both cap limits through research. When the hero icons are small, it means they are available for summoning. The icon will get larger once the hero is in the game, and you'll be able to use the icon like the control group icons.

The Research Menu

The Research districts of your city provide you with research points. Opening the research menu and you'll see something reminiscent of Rise of Nations, namely the library. As mentioned in previous blog posts, there isn't any aging required, just research tracks that get more expensive as you move from left to right.

Stone Spire

The Stone Spire should be the first building you should put down. It provides ground defense, as well as providing four upgrades for sand units. The Stone Spire also provides three global upgrades, the most important one being Mystic Mines, which boosts the health of Alin non-combat units AND boosts the health, output and attack power of Alin mines. Among the Sand unit upgrades available, one that will be popular against the rushers amongst you is the Lush Circle of Sand. Since the three circles of the Alin can be created in neutral AND enemy territory (for a higher build price), the ability for the Circle of Sand to act as supply sources is a powerful one. Sneak a few of these into the enemy's rear areas, and you can cause much havoc.

Eternal Flame

The Eternal Flame is another research building that also doubles as air defense. These are good to put down to fend off the flying scouts, or if you can spy an enemy caravan route, sticking one of these nearby will solve that pesky problem right quick. As with the Stone Spire, the Eternal Flame provides upgrades to its related units, those of fire. It also provides two global upgrades, Call the Fire and Blow From Above. The first increases unit production speed, while the latter provides increased range attacks. In the fire units range, I like the Flame Spells upgrade, which gives some additional firepower (pun intended) to the Afreets, and gives your Fire Scouts a weak, ranged attack. Armor of Flame adds a bonus to fire unit speed, line of site and health. Combine this with the Earth Guide from the Stone Spire, and you'll have some very fast, tough units that can see quite a distance. And for those of you liking the Salamanders, the Adult Salamander upgrade is for you!

This guide is still evolving... I'm writing one or two chunks at a time. Not that the writing is difficult, but making the images work... that's a pain in the behind.