Rise of Nations

"Some of the most FUN I've had in a RTS for a while."

When I first began to play Rise of Nations I felt like this was a bit too familiar. It seemed a bit too much like Age of Empires or some other RTS, but after a few minutes I realized I was wrong.

RoN is much more than other RTS games! Not only does it improve upon the old of other RTS games but introduces some new concepts along the way. In the end, it all melds together into one hell of a game.

Gameplay - 9

Rise of Nations has several modes of play. The first one I want to get into is Conquer the World in which you attempt to, you guessed it, conquer the world. CtW is much like Risk. In it you begin with one territory and capture more territory by sending your army token to enemy territory. When you send an army token to an enemy territory it enters the RTS mode. If you win the battle there you have captured the territory. Along with owning the territory you can other rewards such as bonus cards, which give you certain bonuses (enhanced resource production, bonus research) for a single conquest battle and tribute, which can be used to purchase territory upgrades, bonus cards, and ally with your neighbors. I found the CtW mode quite entertaining.

Another mode is Quick Battle. You have tons of options to tinker with suck as how many allies and enemies you have, who controls what civilization, the size of the map, starting age, speed and cost of research, etc.

The gameplay itself consists of gathering resources(wealth, food, timber, metal, oil and knowledge). Wealth is gained mainly from sending caravans between cities you own or are allied with, food mainly from farming and fishing, timber from chopping down trees, metal from mining mountains, oil from oil wells and knowledge is gained from creating universities and filling them with scholars. In most RTS's you’re able to build unlimited farms, lumber camps, and mines, but RoN makes it more balanced. You can only build five farms and one university in one city, one lumber camp per forest, and one mine per mountain. These makes it so you have to create more cities.

After gathering enough resources you can research technology which mainly costs knowledge. You research military, economy, civic, science technologies which allow new buildings and units. After you have enough techs you can go into a new age.

All this may seem like a lot to do, (gather 6 different resources, build multiple cities, and research many techs) but it all flows nice and easy. All this was stream-lined and therefore made easier. Your peasants always find some place to work so all you have to do is create some at your city and they can do almost all the rest.

Something that RoN introduces to the RTS genre is boundaries that show how much power you have. When units are within enemy boundaries they receive attrition damage.
Attrition is put in the game fairly well and adds a little strategy to the game as you have to counter it.

Audio/Video - 8

RoN is done quite well graphically for an RTS games. Also, there four different zoom levels. The trees and other resources look great, and everything has an nice level of detail. Units can be seen inside of buildings and you can see them move as well. Also, each civs units look noticeably different. The spearman from the Aztecs look much different than those of the French. The audio is fairly well done, with some very good music. The units don't have any voices though. It's not like Starcraft or Warcraft where you get funny responses if you click them a lot.

Overall - 9

If you like RTS games, even a little bit, then go out and get Rise of Nations. If you haven't really been interested in them and haven't really played any then here's your chance. Get RoN and you won't be disappointed!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/17/03, Updated 06/17/03