Rise of Nations

Rating:
Summary: Age of Kings meets Civilization 3 -- A Winning Combo!
Review: Rise of Nations is described as a real-time strategy (RTS) game, but in reality it is a hybrid between classic RTS gameplay and certain more sophisticated elements from turn-based strategy (TBS) games -- and the result is a wonderful blend and a highly playable historical strategy game.

Rise of Nations pits you as one of 16 historical civilizations in a quest for domination and power over a grand historical framework running from pre-classical rudimentary society through the information age. The map size and mechanics of the game are taken right from the familiar RTS mechanics, and are easy to pick up -- resources are gathered (different ones become available depending on the age), cities are upgraded, buildings are built that allow for improved resource gathering, technological study and military development over time. In terms of its gameplay mechanics, Rise of Nations will seem similar to Age of Kings, which is fine, in my opinion, because it makes the mechanics of the game easy to pick up for anyone familiar with the RTS genre.

Upon further review, however, the gameplay incorporates many elements from successful TBS games. You aren't building one stronghold, for example, but a network of cities contributing to one national economy. You can (and must to win) trade between your cities and align them for strategic advantage. Your nation has national borders that grow depending on your national strength, placement of cities and forts, and the like, and therefore you have a power projection element to the game. The game has a diplomatic aspect to it as well, and isn't simply a race to get the fastest, strongest military units. Finally, the pause function of the game is very prominent and can be used as often -- or as little -- as you wish. In that sense, Rise of Nations is a highly flexible game -- you can play it more like a fast-paced RTS, and hardly ever use the pause button, or you can pause it often (and easily), issue orders of any kind in pause mode, and then un-pause for a time, simulating a TBS game. Rise of Nations allows you to play either way, and has elements that appeal to either style of play, which is why I would describe it as a hybrid.

The game is graphically appealing, featuring a zoom function that is actually useful to game play. It doesn't feature the graphical doo-dads that Age of Mythology did (no 360 scrolling here) and in that sense feels more like Age of Kings. But the real joy to the game is the great gameplay and blend of elements from the RTS and TBS genres. If you are a fan of strategy games of any type -- and particularly of these kinds of historical/civiliational strategy -- Rise of Nations is a necessary addition to your gaming collection.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely an amazing game
Review: How can I describe Rise of Nations, perhaps Age of Empires on steriods or Civilization brought to real time strategy, better yet a combination of both.

The game has aspects of Civilization where you expand to build cities, build city improvements (to include wonders), capitalize on resources and research tech. Instead of tedious turn by turn sloth approach such as Civilization, its is real time strategy, like ages of empires.

Like age of empires, your building troops but instead of one troop per click you get 3 units making one unit, such as 3 swordsmen is one unit. Larger units such as horses and cannons are still one. Build queues are the same, keeping clicking to produce more. However in this game your workers are smarter and will voluntarily go to buildings where there is still capacity available to work. Your workers keep working without the worry of resource running dry. Resources in the game do not deplete.
The music in the game is outstanding matching the pace of what you are doing. My favorite is the victory music while one peruses all the graphes at the end of a match.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes a quick pace, semi-micromanging, with all the detail of a strategy but yet presented at an abstract level which makes play enjoyable and fun. Once you mastered the maps the come with the game, check the scenario editor and make your own maps and missions.

Keep up the great work Microsoft!!

Rating:
Summary: RON (Rise of Nations) rocks!
Review: At first when I bought this game, I was a little bit worried. I thought it would be boring and the same as all the other "Age of Empires" games. Boy! Was I wrong! This is a very fun game! The graphics are "sooooo" much improved! It feels like, to an extent, you are really in the game. Resource gathering is more realistic and you can now build more buildings! However, the soundtrack is a little bit dissapointing. To me it seems like there are only two songs. One of them, the singer goes "UOHHHHH" the whole time making it an annoying song. The other is good but not the greatest I have ever heard. However, the gameplay is more important than the music so I will not drop the star ranking at all! Anyway, get this game!

Rating:
Summary: If you play casually, don't pick up this habit!
Review: As you probably have read, this game is a "thinking mans RTS". I play w/ a group of co-workers who bragged constantly about how cool this game was, but I was put off by the "bigness" of it. The instruction booklet is massive, and ironically, my biggest complaint about the game is that it's not nearly big enough to even give you a good working understanding of the game!

Now, if you aren't afraid of an extraordinarily complex game, this is, in my opinion, the best RTS out there today. Over 10 different nationalities progress and fight thier way through different ages (starting w/ the Ancient Age, and progressing to the Information Age). Each age allows newer and better production, warwaging units, and capabilities. It's hilarious watching inferior players defending their cities w/ catapults while a highly skilled player rolls over them w/ tanks -- or Archers being gunned down by an opposing player who's discoved Gunpowder. Yum, gaming goodness!!!

Many new concepts have been introduced in this game. My favorite is "National Borders". At a point in the game, each territory has borders that eminate from their civilizations center of power. What a blast it is to see the colored borders creep out and eventually meet other territories (doing damage to enemy buildings and units it envelops).

Difficult to learn, yes, but the payoff is (in my opinion) very well worth the investment.

Hope my input is helpful.

Enjoy...

Rating:
Summary: A MUST-HAVE RTS!!
Review: This game blows Empire Earth, Civilization III, and Age of Empires out of the water. It is just plain fun FUN FUN! I would recommend this game to any people that liked the games mentioned above. This is why i gave it 5 stars:
Single-player: awesome. you start off with one city, and then you keep adding (the maximum is 8 i think). You can invade enemy territoty and try to conquer them. And believe me, you can't just march in there with a huge amount of soldiers and expect to decimate them. Oh no. They have the homefield advantage. Their reinforcements keep coming & coming & coming. One time, I was fighting for a city on my border and the French's border. I fought for that city for almost half of the game. I would get it, then they would. This went on & on, just like real life. This game is very realistic and extremely fun. They also have a conquer the world campigne, but i don't find it amussing.
Another good quality is that the people move very fast, which is a major advancement. This helps a lot when you are under attack and have no troops there. The troops get there quickly, and problem solved.
This game is one of the best RTS games i have ever played.
BUY THIS GAME!!

Rating:
Summary: Needs non-combat
Review: My friend and I have played this game. We say it is great as far as the genre goes. However we are now both bored, and conclude that it places too much emphasis on aggressive game play. If you get into that kind of play all well and good. But having played Star Craft etc., we are now looking for something that is closer to the reality we know. The history of the Nation State runs together with non-nation state forms of organization: The gaming community, and software-producing geeks are examples. We are looking for a simulation game that can show us how both Nation State and Non-Nation State organizations network and support and control each other. Why? Because it would help us understand how things really work rather than the simple fight, bribe, buy and dominate modes of simulation games. Fun, but the genre still needs development.

Rating:
Summary: NOT an AOM or AOE copy - The Best RTS on the market !!
Review: ... Once you've played the full version of Ron and gotten used to playing it everything else fails in comparison. I just played four or five games of Age of Mythology and was blown away by how boring and tedious it was compared to RON. If you want the best Real Time Strategy Game on the market then by Rise of Nations and don't waste your money on other games.

There are elements of other Rts games in Ron but Ron takes them farther and once you've played an RTS with "smart" citizens, gatherers, peons, whatever you want to call them you won't want to play anything else because it will be boring in comparison.

Even the graphics on Age of Empires(the conquerors) looks dated and old and choppy compared to the graphics in Rise of Nations and i'm playing on Windows 98SE and a VooDoo 5 card in 16 bit mode.

There's a new patch, patch 3 and the changes and fixes are looking good and adding even more to the game, there's even a new game type. Big Huge Games has fixed everything wrong with previous RTS titles and improved rts game play for the future.

All future RTS games should look at Rise of Nations for what to do RIGHT....anything else would be uncivilized....the full game is better than the demo. Don't be fooled.

...

Feel good when you buy this, knowing your going to own the Game of The Year.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous to call this strategy.
Review: Okay, so I'm supposed to build buildings and units. Got it. Wait, I'm also supposed to walk around and discover rarities that merchants can harvest. Got it. Wait, I'm also supposed to accumulate wood, food, & gold. Got it. Wait, I'm also supposed to study in the library AND (and this is the part that bugs me most) in every other building. AND. I'm also supposed to build an army/navy and deploy them in a micromanaging way. This game has some great parts - I am not denying that. However, it is a horribly flawed nightmare. I loved to micromanage in turn-based strategies. It is next to impossible to accomplish this in a RTS. I feel torn between wanting to research, build, gather, and explore. I defy anyone finding an enjoyable balance. Rise of Nations would be far supperior if it were turn-based. As it is, I constantly feel as though I'm neglecting one of my four desires. Also, it is ridiculous to be required to research advancements in multiple buildings. It sounds organized at first but it becomes a nightmare when trying to stay on top of technology advances. Developers should make ONE research interface! Second, units should not build buildings! Cities should build buildings! Do not make me responsible for creating a citizen. This makes no sense. Buildings a military unit makes tons of sense, but not normal citizens!!! I am begging the developers to redesign the city interface to encompass these changes! These minor changes would make this game fanastic.

Rating:
Summary: A must have for those who loved Age of Empires
Review: I'm a big fan of the Age series (Age of Empires to Age of Mythology), I fell in love with the game when it first came out and got the new "expansion packs" as soon as they hit the shevles, so when I heard about this new game Rise of Nations, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

I decided to learn by playing the tutorial game and picked it up almost instantly. Much of the game play is like the earlier Age of Empires games, even some of the hotkeys are the same, which is a bonus if you want to get directly into the games. If you've never played an RTS game before, it may take some time to get into this game with all its different prerequisites for advancement. It may take awhile to figure out that you need to research this before you can build or upgrade that, and that you can't do it until you have so much wood, food, oil etc.. There is a lot to learn for the newbie, but once you get the hang of it, I'm pretty sure you'll love the game.

One major difference between this game and the Age series is that you cannot build just anywhere on the map, which could be good or bad depending on what you value. I think it prevents rushing too early since you cannot build close to your enemy as quickly as you could in the Age series and this preserves some of the strategy in the game, which seems to be lacking in most of the zone battles for AOE. Another thing is that workers in this game require less attention than they did in the earlier Age series, which means worrying less about the economy and more thinking about how to conquer the world.

Graphics aren't that bad either; comparable to the Age series. The nuclear explosions are quite cool, as are the stealth bombers and the aircraft carriers etc... Sound effects aren't too bad either.

All in all, I'd recommend this game to anyone who has played a strategy game before, or to someone who values games that require more brainpower than the usual shoot-em up types.

Rating:
Summary: YOU MUST HAVE THIS GAME!!!
Review: I really like rts's. So one day i bought Empire Earth. It was pretty good but it has a lot to be desired. So I bought Empires dawn of the Modern World. It was also very good. But when I bought Rise of Nations, it blew both of them, plus age of Mythology, plus every rts that has ever come out, out of the water. If you are reading these reviews and you cant decide whether it is worth buying or not... IT IS.