Glory - The Third Resource


By: Chonaman

A number of forummers have made comments about the relatively simple economy in RnF, particularly after playing the demo, and many of them indicated a misunderstanding of what Glory is and how it can be, and needs to be gathered quickly and efficiently. To be a successful player in RnF, you must realize that Glory is in fact a resource that you can and must collect much as you do gold and wood. These are the ways a player collects Glory:

  1. Building a new structure (a small, one-time Glory bonus)
  2. Exploring the map (uncovering black tiles gives a small, one-time Glory bonus)
    3. Winning battles (each enemy killed or building destroyed provides a fixed amount of Glory)
  3. Building Glory Statues (each Glory statue produces a significant amount of Glory, but at a fixed rate over a limited time)
  4. By hiring Advisors who increase the amount of Glory gained in creating buildings or in battle

Why is Glory an Important Resource?


It's going to be very important to create your hero fairly early in most competitive games, and it will be extremely important to get to level II very quickly so your hero can start storing stamina for 3rd person combat. Good players will find that they are leveling up their hero within the first 5 or 6 minutes in some games, but a little later on some map types. To level up the first time, a player needs to “gather” 500 Glory points. So how do we gather that many points in the first few minutes of a game? Ah, Grasshopper, the answer to this question is multi-faceted.

Obviously, a good player is going to do smart things at the start of a game, such as building a Settlement near (both) gold & wood. You get some Glory points from building a Settlement; not many, but it’s a start. And you have to be careful about the placement of your settlement, as you want your workers to be able to walk a direct line from your TC to the resources without having any obstacles to walk around. A bad placement of the first settlement can cost you a game in two ways:

  1. By being too snug to a gold mine or trees, (no space to get there directly, and you’re making them walk around the long way.)
  2. By being too far away from one of the resources (several tiles between one or both of the resources). Remember, villie/worker seconds are important in RnF just as they were in AoE, AoK and any other resource gathering aspect of an RTS game.

Once you have your first settlement, you can build a Barracks or Dock if you want to, which is important on small, open maps and water maps if you’re worried about being rushed by your opponent. Again, you get a small number of Glory points (18 or so). On many land maps, rushing is going to be very difficult because of the Outposts in RnF, which are a serious obstacle in the early part of any game. In Level I play, even a lightly garrisoned Outpost can stop a rush very easily if a player stumbles into the Outpost Player’s garrison. So some players, instead of building a barracks (for rushing or defense) will build an Altar or its equivalent (depending on the civ) very early instead, which has some very positive effects:

  1. Your workers gain morale, and work faster and more efficiently
  2. You can build one or more Glory statues, which will allow you to Level your hero quickly or to improve some other aspect of your civilization through the Advisor system

However, building a barracks early can give you the option to create infantry units to explore the map, which can also give you Glory points! Given the fact that Outposts in RnF appear on the mini-map, a good player can micro a few infantry (probably sword units) around the Outposts pretty well, and get a lot of map intelligence as well as “free” Glory points by using an early Barracks for this purpose.

These are two important, early options:

  1. The morale (or economy) start – Settlement, then Altar (or equivalent)
  2. The military start – Settlement, then Barracks or Dock

Either can work well in terms of leveling up quickly, if used properly. However, in land map games where economy is especially important (larger map types) it will probably be best to use a morale start since it is simpler for fast leveling and leads to improved productivity from the very start of the game with virtually no risk. By contrast, on maps where water connects the players, it will always be very important to control the Outposts and the seas between you and your opponent very quickly. With the capability to raise an army from your ships in RnF, early supremacy on the seas will be a devastating advantage for the player who possesses it. Such an advantage gives the good player a “proxy rush” from their ships, and this has always been a very powerful tactic in the hands of a good RTS player.

Tips

  1. With good micro in a high resource game (as in the demo) you can get your Altar (or equivalent structure) and first Glory statue completed within the first 60 seconds of the game. (I would only recommend this strategy on larger maps, and maps that do not have significant amounts of water.)
  2. On small maps with significant chokepoints (such as the demo map, Corridor of Blood) all land passages to your base are protected by Outposts, and rushing by land is going to be very difficult. The sea provides the fastest and best opportunity to rush, and that ocean Outpost is quite valuable since it is “free” for the first person who gets there, unlike every other Outpost on the map. Your ship will gather Glory as it uncovers map tiles, and if you mount a successful attack quickly (preferably) with your Hero aboard, you will gain Glory points in battle as well. Once you’ve gained the upper hand in your ship-based rush, it’s time to build a couple of Glory statues, another ship and a barracks, and to get the economy booming back at the home base and quickly level up your hero. You should be in the driver’s seat within 10 mins. F11 if you carry this off.

Glory Statues

There is one major misconception (at the current time) about Glory statues, which needs to be cleared up. They do not produce an infinite amount of Glory. Once completed, Glory statues actually produce 20 Glory points every 22 seconds. They only produce Glory for 7 minutes F11 time, about 380 Glory points in total (possibly 400; this can be verified but is time-consuming to test).

There is a visual that shows when a statue is producing Glory; it is a small +20 marker above the statue that appears briefly every 22 seconds.


When the statue has stopped producing, the only cue is that the +20 marker stops appearing. It is therefore difficult to see, at a glance, if a statue is producing or not.

One unfortunate aspect of the need for many Glory statues is that maps will be, by the end of most games, littered with Glory statues. Like a successful athlete with a room full of trophies, the winning player will have a lot of statues to look at. I like to turn statues around (press \) so they don’t all fact the same direction, just for some variety (see below).


So don’t overlook Glory if you want to be a good player. It is vitally important to your economy (through advisor upgrades) and to your military (to upgrade units and your hero). Learn to gather it efficiently and quickly, and you’ll be a worthy competitor.

HeavenGames