RISING LANDS

CONTROL THE NEW WORLD ORDER

Through the spectrum of time... a horrifying alternative future... most life on Earth has been annihilated by the impact of a massive meteorite. Those fortunate enough to escape are forced to live under a medieval reign of terror. Each day is a desperate struggle to survive. But out of despair springs a new hope...

 

The survivors forge alliances, Clans, each striving to command the New World Order. Raising Lands - a new Earth is born...

YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

As leader of the Settlers and Men at Arms, you must establish a prosperous colony: your stepping stone to world domination. And with dominion comes the coveted title of Ruler of the New World. Live the fantasy... Battle your way through dozens of hair-raising missions and pursue your true destiny...

Ingenious Scenarios

• You'll love the sophisticated gameplay: sudden attacks, bloody massacres, malevolent treason... you never know what to expect.
• Choose your strategy: Wargame with non-stop fighting action, or simulation , where anticipation is the key to victory.
• Build a thriving colony by bartering everything from military units, to weapons, resources and technology.

Realistic, Original Plots

• Build your civilization around one of four different systems (Agriculture/Ecology, Military, Civil Service, Magic/Religion).
• Negotiate strategic alliances with three other clans.
• Manage your economy and nurture diplomatic relations.
• Manoeuvre characters who gain experience as the story unfolds.
• Master original military units (Killers, Stompers, Speeders, Balloons, etc.).

Stunning Graphics

• Eye-popping graphics
• SVGA 800x600 resolution
• Dozens of dazzling cinematic sequences

Super Multi-player Options, Flexibility...

• More than 40 units and buildings for each nomadic clan
• Over 70 inventions
• Five different adversaries
• 30 missions with five multi-player screens
• Network gameplay for up to four players
• Intuitive interface design

~ from the back of the box

 
It takes a lot for me to boot up a strategy game. It's not that I don't like the genre, but they take either a long time to understand or a long time to play. Most often both. Coming from Parisian developers Microïds, their 1997 RTS Rising Lands is a bit of both, but I still found myself losing hours to it.

At its core, the game features the tried and true resource management that Westwood Studios' Dune II popularised half a decade earlier. Collect food and materials to construct buildings so you train settlers in different jobs which will bring about control of the land. Here, the food is what looks like wild potatoes gathered by farmers while the construction material is stone mined from nearby caverns by builders. Your community is also a resource too, with each of them coming with a high cost to feed, reproduce and train.

Select a Builder to erect a new structure. It'll cost a lot of food and stone though (left). Farmers harvest food in a

wild crop field (left), while builders chip away in mines for stone. Scrap metal is randomly strewn about the level.

Beyond the expansion of your settlement, you'll also come face-to-face with other factions. You can choose to either defeat them with whatever army you've mustered or negotiate peace - a far easier route if you ask me. That being said, you'd still have to build and man buildings for each, such as a Barracks to train armies, a Market from which to send messengers or a place of Culture to increase your population. Even with these built, it will cost more food to run making the whole endeavour rather expensive.

This means that most of the game is spent watching your worker ants traipse across the landscape gathering resources. Even in the early levels, it won't be unusual to keep the clock running for over 30 minutes until the level complete screen pops up. You do have 4 in-game speeds (assigned to the first four F-keys) but even the fastest is a bit of a slog with the added bonus of surprise attacks being over as soon as you realise they've begun - and often not in your favour. 

Swordsmen, Archers, Scorchers and other infantry will attack automatically, though a hospital is

required to heal them (left). Send a messenger inside enemy lines to bargain for a peace treaty (right).

The game comes with even more quirks that would stump players too lazy to read the manual. It took me a while to realise the correct sequence with which to transport food to the storage unit. First of all, the building needs to be manned - grab a free generic settler from the Sanctuary or Culture building and plop him in there. Then select a farmer, hold control as you click on a crop field to begin harvesting (a green up arrow will appear). Keep it held down as you choose the drop off point - in this case the Storehouse - and the cursor will change to a down red arrow just to be sure. And kind of collection is done in this way, though I'd recommend to keep fighting (which uses the Alt key) automatic. Enemies skip around so much that you can accidentally click on an ally instead.

As the game progresses, new buildings and vehicles are discovered while engineers and magicians discover new forms of attack. It gets more and more interesting as it progresses but it just takes too long to do any of it. In my opinion, prices need to be halved or goods collected doubled or tripled with each trip to make much of an effect. That being said, if you have the patience, Rising Lands is well worth the time. It won't topple the strategic output that Westwood Studios or Bullfrog were putting out at the same time, but it has enough new to warrant a place on the shelf along side them. Recommended.

To download the PC game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses IMG Drive Portable and Carlos Cortez's game patch to run on modern systems. Manual included. Installation of IMG Drive drivers (included) required. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 396 Mb.  Install Size: 620 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


Rising Lands is © Microïds
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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