One thing is certain. The developers took all of the criticism to heart. They're intent on fixing things up for the second round and are hoping that the game does well enough to warrant a bigger budget from the publishers for a fully 3D and totally new version in the future.
The timeline of the game follows the first where the ILA had been all but crushed. Unfortunately, all but crushed is not crushed and they're back. They've been building up weapons supplies and allies in secret and will soon be back in full force to terrorize the world. All of this is set up in on of the best FMV sequences I can remember seeing. Half of it looked absolutely real and was more than a little astonishing. While it doesn't have anything to do with the actual gameplay improvements, it sure was a treat to look at.
Of course, as everybody who played the first game will know, the AI was of the highest priority. It was really, really bad in the first game making me go through several monitors and keyboards in fits of frenzy brought on by units bumping into each other and generally acting like idiots. I'm happy to say that after watching Rogue States and playing it for a bit as well, the AI is definitely better than the first time around. Units don't have their thumbs up their asses anymore and don't consider rolling in mud laughing and squealing as viable tactics at this point. It's refreshing to actually see units hear what you're telling them. They attack the right units in a timely fashion, they actually can move across the map without getting completely lost, or stuck in a bottleneck. There are still some little hiccups and tweaks that need to be taken care of, but generally a big improvement. The addition of hardware support will help things move and look a bit cleaner than they used to as well.
Going along with the AI theme, new order systems have been implemented to keep your troops organized on defense and on attack. First off, when building units, you can now tell units to move any number of places, using waypoints, before they are done being built. You can even include attack orders in that so that your units will come out of the womb swinging. If you like to organized, formations that actually work are in place along with a new set of standing order options to keep your units from wandering off into the sunset. These are all orders that you would normally expect from an RTS, so they'll be happy additions. Hold ground, patrol, free attack, etc... So now you can tell your air units to fly around behind enemy lines to where supply lines come in to patrol the area and shoot down supplies. This not only adds convenience to you but also means protecting supply lines is a much more tactically important thing to do.
Once you go on the offensive you'll also be able to give units orders to attack certain things first. So if you have a plan in mind to destroy his production, then order units to attack production. Want to get rid of power, tell your units to go for that first. If this actually ends up working as well as you might hope, it could be a really cool feature that will help automate attacks while you worry about other things.
While there were several reasons that Rogue States has moved from expansion to stand-alone, one of the large ones was the addition of several new units to both the US and ILA factions. Among these additions are the much-wanted stationary defensive units such as fixed anti-air. Originally they were left out of the plan because the US really prefers to use mobile units such as these. Quick deployment of defense and offense is always key in American military action. Along with these, you'll get machine gun emplacements and bunkers and the like. Some will need infantry to man them however, so it'll take a little extra coordination. Other units are a little more far fetched such as the ILA's new rail cannons and their remote turrets that shoot everything they see in a certain area.
One thing the dev team was surprised to find out was that people care about personality and graphics in their games. A lot of folks were upset that the buildings weren't livelier. They just kinda sat there without so much as a twitch. So the team went back and changed around some of the buildings so that they have animations. Supply depots now have conveyer belts with boxes and other things moving along them and more little things like that. They've spent a little more time detailing terrain and environment as well to add more life to the maps. You'll also be able to zoom in and out from the action smoothly with the middle mouse button zoom feature. It's a pretty nice feature that's handy to have around.
Rogue States will also feature a much-improved multiplayer and skirmish segment with 20 new maps to enjoy over all kinds of terrain. For example, now there are pre-set rules for maps so that players don't accidentally screw themselves by limiting their troops to navy in a landlocked map. Of course, you'll be able to change the rules around if you like, but having pre-sets there for each map is a good idea. New modes such as capture the flag and a king of the hill type of supply center control will keep things fresh as well. Add this to the ability to set starting supply levels and the like and you've got room for a lot of replayability. Each team will also be able to pick their cammo patterns from a much larger list including some wackier ones.
One of the big additions to actual multiplayer gameplay is the easier interface and ability to make requests and approve them. When playing on the same team, each player will be able to ask the other to produce certain types of units for them to control. An easy question and answer box will pop up with the option to consent to or deny the request for units.
Now it's just up to the dev team to polish it up before it ships to stores and give us what they wanted to the first time around. Hopefully the final will deliver on promises and we'll have something worth playing and talking about on our hands.
